One of my favorite character arcs is Wesley (Played amazingly by Alexis Denisof) from the shows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and "Angel." While all of the characters developed through the series and showed all sorts of change, he is the one that changed the most dramatically to my eyes. Even more importantly his changes made sense.
If you were to take a look at him in the beginning, he was a naive and even silly character. He hid his inexperience under false bravado and made mistakes due to the fact he was so green. I always felt that one of the tragedies of his arc in Buffy, is that had the group included him as he wanted he might not have made some of the bad choices.
One of the only moments he loses his inherit goofyness in Buffy (season 3) is when he calls the watchers onto Faith instead of letting Angel try and help her. I always felt this decision was made on his part out of anger for not being included in the plans to help the rogue slayer, and being kept out as an outsider, and not just because he felt it was the proper thing to do.
When he returns in Angel however, he is all jokes and awkwardness again. Wesley once again can not be taken seriously or counted as competent as he becomes the foil to the competence of Angel. Of course as things progress he becomes more competent and you see him grow as a character. And then it happens. The story arc with Angel's son Conner.
If you can point out any part that changes his character this would be it. Wesley makes some bad choices (that from his point of view are right, and you can argue that they are) and ends up helping Angel's son get stuck in an alternate dimension and gets his throat cut. To top that off, Angel who can be argued to be the closest friend he has attacks him in the hospital and threatens his life.
From that point on in the series Wesley is a darker more serious character. Even after he makes amends with Angel and the crew he never becomes the funny, optimistic character he was. Instead he is brooding and serious to a point that makes Angel look happy and bouncy. There are rare flashes of the man that was before this event, but at the point his character was changed for good.
The important thing looking at this arc, is that it was O.K. for the events to change his character for good.
If Wesley had gone back to the happy, optimistic character of the first three seasons, it would have cheapened the actions he took and the events they led too. Instead we see a tortured character who is paying daily for his failings, even to the point that in season five when he is supposed to have forgotten everything to do with Angel's son, he still is dark and pessimistic. However, because you spent the whole ride with him, you still shed a tear when he dies at the end of the series. (Seriously, the scene where he dies in Illyria's arms is completely one of the most heart wrenching things I've watched on T.V.)
The lesson here is that you shouldn't be afraid to change your characters. The more dirt, grime and blood you run them through the more dirty they should be. No one is unchanged by large events in their life, and if there are no large events in your fiction then what are you writing about? Trust your characters and let them change in believable ways and you will have more connection with your readers. I know this is something I struggle with and one of the things I'm looking at more and more as I edit my book.
So what is your favorite story arc, and what have you learned from it?
