You Might Be Powerful, You Rogue

I joined a theater troupe recently. We’re putting on a show, called Panoply, that stars lots of characters who all come from different backgrounds, each trying to survive some sort of international ordeal. In the end, all their stories tie together. So there’s a lot going on.

The writer/director, Brian Tuttle, did some exercises with the actors last week to try and unify our understanding of the world in which the play takes place. One of those exercises was to rank the “power” of each character, based on their actions in the story, from “most powerful” to “least powerful” on a sheet of paper.

When each character in a story has a totally unique objective from all the others, it becomes difficult to define what “power” means. Is power success in completing a personal objective? Is power a derivative of wealth? Does it depend on your job title? Is it how powerful each character perceives themselves? Can you be powerful even if you’ve died in the story?

As our group debated the order of the list, I realized we were defining “power” as “most able to manipulate the world of the story to achieve an end.” At the top of the list were characters whose deliberate actions drove the story forward and characters who fully achieved their personal goals.

By doing this exercise with the group, I learned a lot about everybody’s character and the world they live in. Now I’m going to try this exercise with The Winter’s Tale. Let’s stick to talking about these characters (appearing here in the play’s given order):

LEONTES, somewhat bipolar and mistrustful King of Sicilia
MAMILLIUS, disturbingly delicate Prince of Sicilia, who dies of a broken heart
CAMILLO, a lord of Sicilia
ANTIGONUS, a lord of Sicilia who gets EATEN BY A BEAR
POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
FLORIZEL, Prince of Bohemia
AUTOLYCUS, a rogue (with +3d6 sneak attack)
HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes and smartest kid in Hogwarts
PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione
PAULINA, unforgiving woman in desperate need of a chill pill, wife to Antigonus, and friend to Hermione

Let’s start with the obvious candidates for “most powerful:” the kings and queens of the story, Leontes, Polixenes, and Hermione. Let’s ask ourselves, which of them makes a play and gets what they want? Or deliberately steers the events of the story?

• Leontes grows suspicious of his wife and Polixenes and asks Camillo to kill Polixenes. If Camillo had done this, it would have demonstrated great power on the part of Leontes for commanding such loyalty from the other characters. But… no. Camillo does more or less the opposite and warns Polixenes. What else? He does imprison Hermione and then banish her (and his) child from Sicily, though he immediately regrets doing all of this after Hermione and Mamillius die of heart attacks. I would feel pretty rotten, too. In my book, Leontes gets maybe 1 power point. Pretty lame for a king.
• Polixenes is so weak-willed that he can’t even make himself go back to his own nation after nine months of being absent. He doesn’t find out about the plot to murder him but rather is told by Camillo, who also comes up with the escape plan for leaving Sicily. Sixteen years later, Polixenes can’t stop his own son from marrying a shepherd girl and fleeing the nation with her.
• Hermione gets scorned and imprisoned before she faints and makes Leontes think she’s dead–but not by design. Then Hermione may or may not have come up with the plan to hide herself in Paulina’s house for sixteen years, waiting for the off-chance that her banished daughter will reappear in Sicily. But I’m pretty sure that was Paulina’s idea, since she was the one who was so spiteful toward Leontes. And if I had been Hermione, I would have spent those sixteen years LOOKING FOR MY DAUGHTER.

Strange, isn’t it, to think that the characters with the most apparent power in the world of The Winter’s Tale have almost no control over what happens in the story?

Here’s my personal power list, ordered from most to least powerful:

1. Camillo. He makes the decision to flee with Polixenes, then makes the decision to help Florizel and Perdita elope. He’s making decisions left and right–plus, he always seems to end up in everyone’s good graces. Without Camillo, this story would not happen.
2. Autolycus. While more or less inconsequential to the overall story, Autolycus always seems to get what he wants: he steals money from a shepherd, lies his way out of getting in trouble, then aids Florizel and Perdita with Camillo. Autolycus has a lot of personal power; he thrives in his element.
3. Paulina. She acts as the conscience of Leontes both before and after his repentance for apparently killing his family. She spends SIXTEEN YEARS HOUNDING HIM ABOUT THE ONE TIME HE GOT JEALOUS. She keeps Hermione safe, hidden in her house. She’s a very potent presence in the play, even if her functional role is minimal.
4. Antigonus. He persuades Leontes not to kill the baby Perdita but rather to banish her instead. Then he successfully delivers her to safety in Bohemia. If it hadn’t been for that bear, he might have kept on doing stuff. But alas.
5. Leontes. At least he banished somebody.
6. Polixenes.
7. Perdita. She makes for a pretty good shepherd, plus it’s her reappearance in Bohemia that saves the soul of Leontes. Her power is circumstantial at best.
8. Hermione.
9. Florizel.
10. Mamillius. Nobody ever seemed to care.

So there you have it. A rogue got second place and a prince got last place. In the story of The Winter’s Tale, it’s not royalty making the decisions. We assume that Leontes is doing other powerful things in Sicily, like maintaining national security and averting state budget crises, but as far as this story of love, loss, and heartbreak is concerned, he’s a mediocre player because he didn’t–or couldn’t, or didn’t know how to–change his fortune.

This is the part where I tell you that you can apply this lesson to your life. And you can. Try thinking of a certain aspect of your life, like your job. Rank your power among your coworkers. Ignore salaries and corner offices. How much power do you really have? More than your boss, maybe? Are you really the one that knows the customers and the employees and can make them come through in times of need? What about if you’re part of a team or other organization, like a sports team or a board of trustees in your hometown. How much power do you have there? What about that time in high school when there was all the drama and feuding between your friends after so-and-so cheated on so-and-so? Were you a player or a bystander? How did you handle it? Did you ha
ve power over the situation? Did you wish you had? Who did? Who didn’t?

And why?