Two Protagonists treated by the story like a single character

I've been writing a screenplay about a pair of super villains. The two have personalities that are distinct from each other and allows them to interact in interesting ways and have some cool dialogue, but they also have a lot of the same faults and motivations.

Sam is a Mad Scientist and Circe is a Witch, and the two of them are best friends.

Circe is a bit slow witted and literal minded, but her slowness provokes her to ask more questions that will typically result in her coming up with some sort of genius solution to whatever problem they have.

Sam on the other hand is book smart and theatrically minded. She comes up with good ideas and evil plans on a somewhat regular basis, but is mentally blocked by any form of stress. When everything is on the line, her brain goes into lockdown and her genius seems to fade.

The issue comes from the fact that the two are always in a close proximity to the other one. They share the same missions, goals, and mistakes with each other like heterosexual life partners. I really don't want any animosity to occur between these characters except for some minor affectionate bickering, but because of the positions I've put them in, the two of them also seem to have a very similar character arc.

My question is whether this can be good or bad for the story. I like the relationship between these two, but I wonder if their similarities would make the story seem a bit redundant.

If they're goals and motivations are the same, then that means you'll need to focus on their personalities in order to make them separate characters. If you don't, then your audience will probably be left thinking "well, why aren't they just one character if they're exactly the same?". And you don't want that, because THEN it becomes redundant.

What I'd do is explore their backgrounds (they can't possibly have had the same experiences growing up) and emphasize the different ways they approach the same situation.

Here's an exercise: Write a scene in which the characters are trapped in a room with a bomb. How do they react? Why? If their responses are the same, then there's no point pretending that they're unique individuals worthy of your audience's interest. How does the mad scientist approach the problem? How does the witch? How do they work together?

Yes. Like : You need to make sure their personalities are distinct.

Piggybacking off that, check out some Buddy Cop shows. Usually those characters have the same goal ("catch the criminal"), but different motivations, contrasting personalities, and conflicting standards for how they manage to reach that goal.

You don't have to give your characters different motivations but I think that, once you develop their personalities, their motivations will start to get clearer and they'll probably be different.

Actually, now that I think about it, you could also get some mileage out of the Hero Antagonist by making them have a similar dynamic as well. In case you were wondering about plot stuff, too.

edited 23rd Mar '15 8:42:43 AM by AwSamWeston

That is a good idea. Half the story will always be in the antagonist's hands, after all, so it's important to know who THEY are too.

Isn't that what the whole Deuteragonists trope is about?

No, it isn't. In the words of the person who'd created this thread, "the two are always in a close proximity to the other one". Because of this and because of lack of conflict between the two characters, they are essentially one character in two bodies with two different sets of personality quirks, and that's really it.

A deuteragonist, on the other hand, is someone who is close to the protagonist as far as their plot relevance goes, but who has their own place in the story rather than simply follow the protagonist. When you have a group of characters who are always acting together and one of them is the protagonist, then none of them can be a deuteragonist because their plot importance can be summed up with "those people who are with the protagonist"; they simply aren't essential enough.

An example here, to potentially make it somewhat easier to understand.

In Les Misérables, despite the fact that she is important, Cosette isn't the deuteragonist because she is tied to the protagonist (Valjean) and always close to him except for the time when she is trying to put distance to him, but even then she is doing so specifically because of something tied to Valjean. Or, simply put, because her importance to the story is caused by what she means to the protagonist and what the protagonist means to her.

Instead, Javert is the deuteragonist, as in spite of him being tied to Valjean he is not dependent on him in any way nor are their goals at all aligned, and his quest is tied to Valjean not because of who Valjean is but rather because of Javert's ideals and preconceptions. Though he often crosses paths with the protagonist of the story, he does his own things that are important to the plot, and those things would still have been important even if they were directed at characters who aren't the protagonist.

Of course, in the end it doesn't really matter whether the character or characters this thread is about are being called deuteragonists, tritagonists, [insert whatever]gonists, or anything else. What matters is whether or not the existence of two characters as the core of the story as opposed to one character will work.

Normally I'd suggest merging the two characters, but that seems like it would ruin the point of what you're going for. I think it would be a good idea to give them some sort of interpersonal conflict, something they don't agree on, that would make them feel like their own characters.

That would come up naturally if the characters are at least given different personalities. Maybe the witch is more impulsive because magic is faster than science. Returning to my trapped-in-a-room-with-a-bomb scenario, the witch's first instinct might be to blow the bomb up but the mad scientist will stop her and think about how to disable it, which will take more time but is a safer route. There's conflict right there, but it came about organically because of their personalities. That's what needs to be emphasized; if the creator is dead-set on doing it this way, then the characters' personalities must become the focus of differentiating them.