Using Backstory To Define Your Character
A case study using the heroes of Gladiator I & II
“What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
This is the quote Ridley Scott chose to re-use in the sequel to Gladiator. In one important scene, the words are even chiseled into the wall above a memorial to the hero from the original film.
It’s a line that encapsulates what makes the original film so great. It tells us what Maximus values—honor. Maximus doesn’t just fight well; he fights for what matters, for his home, his friends, and for the dream of a truly great Rome ruled by the senate for the good of the people.
The same isn’t true for the hero of the sequel. Lucius fights only to survive, first against an invasion and later in the arena, and to gain revenge (for the death of his wife? the invasion of his home?). At the end of the film, the stakes are higher, but Lucius’ vision for Rome is unclear. Like many other moviegoers, I never felt any connection to him. And I think that stems from the fact that we never understand what he values.
It’s tempting to think that the two most important questions a writer can ask herself are these:
What is my main character’s goal?
What obstacles stand in his way?
But these questions will only help the writer formulate a plot. And no matter how great the hero’s goal, or how difficult the obstacles in the hero’s way, readers won’t fully engage with a plot unless the hero himself is worth reading about.
To create a character readers will root for, it helps to ask these two questions:
What does my main character long for, even before the story starts?
What burdens my main character, even before the story starts?
And it works best if the hero’s longing and burden are two sides of the same coin. Today we’ll look at how Maximus from the original Gladiator is shaped by the answers to these two questions. Then, we’ll workshop the character of Lucius from Gladiator II by giving him a longing and a burden that make him a more complex and sympathetic character.
The Dream of Paradise
In both Gladiator movies, the heroes have clear goals: survive captivity, and get revenge for murdered loved ones. But in the original Gladiator, it’s who Maximus is before the story starts that makes him a sympathetic character.
The opening of Gladiator sees Maximus as a general leading his soldiers to victory over Germanic tribes who threaten Rome’s border. After his successful campaign, the emperor calls Maximus into his tent, where the general expects to finally receive the award he’s been promised: his admittance to “paradise,” as he tells Marcus Aurelius.
What does Maximus consider paradise? A peaceful hillside farm where his wife and son wait for his return.
As a general, his goal is to beat back the tribes at the border; later, as a gladiator, his goal is to survive the arena. But through it all, he longs to be with his family. This longing defines him better than the glory of victory in battle, or the honor of the promised title of regent, or dominance in the arena as a gladiator. He lives for something much deeper than many of the characters around him, who care mostly for superficial things—power, fame, money.
Maximus’ longing is given a concrete representation: the figurines of his wife and son, which he sets up as an altar and prays before. Few know about Maximus’ inner life, but we the audience see it clearly. We understand that whenever he fights, whether as a soldier or a gladiator, he fights for the those he loves.
We root for Maximus because we respect his longing for his simple paradise.
In contrast, it’s never clear whether Lucius fights for more than survival and revenge. He sometimes dreams of the underworld, and the wife who was slain in battle. But we don’t know if he felt connected to his home in Numidia, if he believes he’ll return to his wife after death, or if he feels he has a greater purpose in life other than to fight.
The Burden of Glory
A heavy burden weighs on Maximus, even before the story starts. And this burden keeps him from what he longs for.
As the emperor’s best general, he’s expected to fight for the glory of Rome. His victory against Germania should lift that burden, but instead it increases the terrible weight of the emperor’s expectations. Instead of allowing Maximus to retire, Marcus Aurelius now wants to name Maximus as regent, to hold power until the Senate can return Rome to a republic.
This is a noble role for Maximus, a high honor for himself and a beautiful dream for Rome. But it’s also the very thing that will ensure he will never return home.
The burden also defines his time as a gladiator. What starts as a struggle for survival and revenge turns into something more important. Maximus has a chance to save Rome from the clutches of power-hungry Commodus. He can restore the dream of Rome as a republic.
But to pit himself against Commodus is to ensure that he will never return to the family he longs for.
Does Lucius feel a similar burden in Gladiator II? As a boy, he was exiled to Numidia, where he seems to have made a life for himself. Was this life a burden to him—did he hate being far from home and from his mother? Or did he love his simple life and feel that his obligation to challenge the corruption of Rome was a burden that threatened his peaceful existence? Was it difficult to keep his Roman identity secret while he lived in Numidia? During the plot of the film, we know Lucius has a hard existence as a gladiator, but we don’t know how this hardship ties into the life he lived before he became a gladiator, and therefore, it’s difficult to feel much sympathy for him.
Longing As A Defining Characteristic
Maximus’ longing for his family defines his character throughout the story and serves to prove how his values contrast with those of the movie’s villain, Commodus. In one scene, while Maximus waits to fight in the arena, Commodus’ nephew (young Lucius) asks about the horses on his breastplate. Maximus explains that these represent his own horses back home, Argento and Scatto; he values his family and home so much that their emblems represent him in the arena. The villainous Commodus holds his own family in no such regard—he cares only for power and will resort to tormenting his sister and nephew to maintain his control of them.
Maximus’ darkest moment is when he learns that his family have been slaughtered. I always have to look away from the screen during this scene because it’s so tragic, and the images are quite disturbing. Despite the fact that Maximus is a gladiator, no injury or confinement could be worse than this moment, not even for the proudest fighter.
On the other hand, the movie’s most stirring moment is when Maximus dreams of his farm as he lies dying in the arena. He sees his wife and son watching for him, and he floats above golden grains. Finally, Maximus will have what he longs for as he enters the afterlife.
Burdens As Elevated Obstacles
The obstacles in both Gladiator movies are really exciting. There’s nothing cooler than watching gladiators fight a live tiger, or dodge a rhinoceros, or maneuver a ship in a mock battle (although the sharks were… a bit much).
But obstacles are meaningless when they represent only a temporary, external problem. They become a show of skill only. In the original Gladiator, Maximus’ skill at fighting past formidable opponents is admirable. But these challenges would be meaningless without the greater context of Rome’s fate.
Even before the film starts, Maximus carries the weight of Rome’s glory on his shoulders. Once he is forced into the life of a gladiator, it would be easy to focus the plot on his impossible quest to survive. But his burden is made even greater by the fact that he is drawn into a plot to save Rome herself.
The movie’s final battle isn’t only a struggle between a beleaguered hero and a twisted villain. Maximus must fight to save Rome from Commodus’ plans to wield absolute power over her people, even at the cost of his own life. We root for Maximus not only because of his deeper values, his love of family and country, but also because he represents the forces of good over evil.
In Gladiator II, it would be easy to give Lucius the same destiny. In one battle, he fights to protect his mother, but their relationship is so muddled that it’s hard to feel any emotional connection to his efforts. In another scene, he fights a scheming villain, but it’s difficult to say whether he believes he’s fighting for anything more than revenge. The villain is certainly evil, but is Lucius good?
In Gladiator II, Lucius is a cipher. We don’t even find out his real name until halfway through the film (I use it throughout this article only because it’s revealed in all the marketing materials; his name for the first half of the movie is Hanno). I don’t mind a mysterious character, and I love a secret identity twist, but it helps to know something about a character. We get a glimpse of him at home with his wife before his city is invaded by Romans, but we don’t know what kind of person he is, what his life is like, or anything else about him.
In fact, all we learn about him from the opening battle is that he didn’t make a sacrifice to any gods before the fighting started. I was very curious about this. Why wouldn’t he fully participate in the ritual with his comrades? Does he not believe in divine power? Why not? What does he believe in—his own skill at fighting? His connection to his fellow soldiers? But his avoidance of religion is never revisited. We never get a sense of whether he believes that “what we do in this life echoes in eternity.”
After his city is sacked and he’s forced to become a gladiator, we get a few glimpses of his hidden character. For one thing, he recites Virgil, an intriguing hint that he spent his childhood in Rome (which we already know if we’ve seen the movie trailer). But why does he choose to recite this particular verse, one about hell?
His captor, Macrinus, says multiple times that he sees “rage” in Lucius—but I found this baffling since I never caught a hint that Lucius felt any such strong emotions. Even if we assume Lucius does nurse a secret rage—where does that rage come from? Is he simply angry that his city was conquered, his wife killed? Angry that his mother sent him away when he was young? That he has lost his birthright to rule Rome? Any of these motivations would be fascinating, but none is ever explored (beyond a scene where he screams at his mother—but why does he do that? Does he not believe that she sent him away for his own safety, or does he resent losing the opportunity to rule Rome, or is it something else that makes him hate her?).
In keeping Lucius’ identity a secret for the first half of the film, the writer sacrifices opportunities to explore the hero’s motivations. But even if we wanted to keep the mid-point plot twist that reveals Hanno’s true identity as Lucius, we could make the character more sympathetic and complex by showing some form of longing early on in the film. Hanno might secretly long for the honor of his birthright, or for a return to his home and mother, or for a peaceful life far from politics, even if we don’t know the full details of his situation.
What Does Lucius Want Before Rome Invades His Home? Three Revision Suggestions.
Let’s pick a defining motivation for Lucius, and a way to illustrate it. (Small SPOILERS ahead, but I won’t spell out the biggest plot twists.)
Option 1: Lucius wants to rule Rome. Recall that in the first film, Lucius was introduced as the son of Lucilla and grandson of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. As such, Lucius should now be emperor of Rome. But after the events of the first film, Lucilla sent Lucius away to protect him, presumably from those she thought would plot against him politically. We might revise the second film to show that for the past sixteen years, Lucius has believed that it’s his right to rule Rome, or at least to serve as its protector alongside the senate.
In this case, Lucius might feel cut off from his power and status. In Numidia, he might be treated in such a way that he feels doesn’t befit his secret role as Rome’s champion. I imagine this would leave him feeling unsure of himself, and pained at his inability to make his way back to Rome and challenge his political rivals.
Even if we don’t want to reveal that Hanno is Lucius, we could still show him rankling under his lower status and dreaming of greater things. He might be planning his return, perhaps trying to find some token that would prove his true identity. He might be eager to hear news of Rome’s current rulers.
Option 2: Lucius wants to make Numidia his permanent home and to leave Rome’s corruption behind. In the first film, Lucius was an innocent boy kept from the harsh realities of Rome’s bloodthirsty wars. He saw war as a game, something to watch in the arena. Now, in exile, he’s had a chance to see that Rome isn’t glorious or noble to the people her armies conquer. We might revise the second film to show that Lucius wants nothing to do with his former life and that he takes pride in his life as a soldier defending his new home, Numidia.
This situation feels closest to what the sequel attempts, except that the film gives us no indication of Lucius’ feelings about Rome or Numidia. We could add another minute or two to the opening of Gladiator II to show Lucius’ love for his new homeland and its people. What makes Numidia a lovely place, and why is it tragic for the kingdom to be sacked by Rome’s soldiers? A few key moments at the beginning of the film could stir the audience’s emotional attachment to Lucius’ adopted home.
The challenge with this option is to give Lucius any reason to want to restore Rome’s glory at the end of the film. We would need moments where it’s clear that he feels ashamed of his ties to his past as the grandson of a conqueror, and then other moments where he comes to understand that he can’t escape his identity. There’s a moment in the film when Lucius puts on Maximus’ armor, and this could be very powerful if Lucius first comes to believe that he has an important role to play in Rome, one that’s as honorable as his loyalty to Numidia.
Option 3: Lucius wants to reunite with his mother. Whether Lucius resents his mother for sending him away and never coming to retrieve him, or whether he understands that his mother thought he was better off far from political danger, Lucius might be driven to see his mother once again. We still need to decide how he feels about his birthright by picking one of the two options listed above, but we might choose mostly to focus on Lucius’ fractured relationship with his mother.
If Lucius’ mother believes he can serve as the savior to Rome, his resentment or attachment will affect whether he accepts such a role. If he resents Lucilla, we’d need dialog that indicates why. What action did Lucius perform in his exile while he waited for his mother to return? Did he look for her envoy? Did he try to send her a message? Did he recite Virgil to himself to help him remember when he would do the same for him in his childhood? He might tell his mother this in order to help her (and the audience) understand why he feels so much pain and anger over their separation.
If instead he doesn’t resent her, he might feel conflicted between his loyalty to her and his loyalty to his adopted home, or he might worry about whether he can live up to her expectations of him after he has spent so much of his life away from Rome.
Lucius Needs More Focused Agency
In the first half of Gladiator II, Lucius seems only a pawn for Rome and her villains. He fights invaders, but loses. He fights in the arena, but only because he’s compelled to.
He gains a little agency when Macrinus offers him a deal: fight well in the arena and Macrinus will help Lucius get revenge on the general who led the attack against Numidia. But this doesn’t change the way Lucius behaves inside or outside of the arena. In contrast, although Maximus is similarly powerless in much of the original film, he uses his experience as a general to rally the other gladiators to fight as a team. He also makes choices in the arena that align with his values, whereas Lucius mostly fights in ways that are shocking (biting a baboon’s arm, cutting off the head of the fighter after the emperor called for mercy); his actions don’t serve a greater purpose.
Choosing any of the motivating scenarios above will allow us to revise the plot so that Lucius is working toward a goal that aligns with his deeper values. Then, at the end of the movie, his final battle can achieve a greater purpose. It will signal either the acceptance of his complex identity as a Roman, or it will validate his impossible dream of serving an important role in Rome’s future. ●