A reactive or passive character is one that only "reacts" to things that happen around/to them...

>A reactive or passive character is one that only "reacts" to things that happen around/to them. An active character is one that "actively" tries to shape their world or control what happens next.
Why are there so few active mc's in anime? Most anime mc's just react to whatever the antagonists are up to, or get swept up in a bigger thing. They are never the driving force behind the plot. Why is that?

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kill yourself shonenfag

Because writing an active MC takes more effort and IQ than a reactive MC in most cases. Reaction is a much easier way to establish goals and motives (AND it's easier to self-insert into a reactive MC).
>be normal guy mcgee
>nothing special about you or your life or your environment
>criminals kill your family
>now you're out for REVENGE
>you have a goal to work towards now, and you're gonna from normalfag to coolfag

Easy establishment. Easy progression. It's basically lazy writing, until it's written extremely clever somehow.

unless it's written*

Your greentext is an active MC though.
As you just said, the MC has a goal to work towards.

You suck at this.

You're really dumb, dude. No joke, work on your reading comprehension. His goal stems from a reaction to an external impetus, not an internal one.
This is an active MC
>I'm gonna kill all criminals because they're bad and I wanna clean up society

This is a reactive MC
>I'm gonna kill criminals because they killed my family

No, you don't quite understand what active and reactive mean.
Every active MC has of course a backstory that shaped them. That doesn't make them reactive.
What makes them active is that they decide, at that moment, without current outside stimulus to the effect, to take action.
A reactive MC sees criminals and reacts to them. Once the criminals are gone, he goes back to his life and forgets about the whole affair until the next situation arises that forces him to react.

>No, you don't quite understand what active and reactive mean.
>goes on to write something I completely agree with
What is human communication, even?

>>goes on to write something I completely agree with
And you dare accuse me of needing to work on my reading comprehension?
You REALLY suck at this.

I think I get what the issue is here. And it's still you who needs to work on his reading comprehension. This is a shit convo.
When I said that the MC is gonna be hunting criminals because they killed his family, I meant specifically the criminals that did the deed, not all criminals in general. Batman for example is not a reactive MC, he's an active one, even though it's the murder of his parents that shaped him into being a vigilante. However, the Punisher from that old movie IS a reactive MC. He's just a guy who goes on a revenge quest against the mafia that killed his family. All revenge stories have reactive MCs by default.

>When I said that the MC is gonna be hunting criminals because they killed his family, I meant specifically the criminals that did the deed,
Yes, and that is a motivation. A driving purpose that will guide him through the story. He is going to act according to this goal, even when he cannot see the criminals and react to them.
He is ACTIVE.

You need to learn how to read, because you suck at it. Hard.

To highlight the points you failed to see and read:
>the MC has a goal to work towards.
>without current outside stimulus to the effect,

You're fucking retarded, now I know for sure. A reactive MC's reaction doesn't have to be resolved IMMEDIATELY, dumbass, it can be a sustaining force over the course of a story. This is your last (You).

Nice backpaddling from the recognition that you failed to read what was in plain words from the very beginning. But you remain wrong.
When people speak of reactive protagonists, they refer to characters who respond to direct outside stimulus and seem to have no agenda of their own that they would pursue.
That is what reactive means.

it seems like most of the typical manga stories don't allow a lot of room for proaction.
like take your standard "I'm gonna become the top X". there's typically already an established set of hoops you have to jump through the climb the ladder and make it to the top, with tests and challenges and trials and people trying to sabotage you. so beyond the initial decicision to become top X, the bulk of the plot is inevitably gonna be driven by reacting what those tests and trials are.
like if you make a manga about someone wanting to reform the police force by becoming police commisioner. most of what they do between getting into police academy and becoming police comissioner is gonna be following orders and reacting to the cases they are assigned and the officers they are ordered to work with. you could make the protagonist more proactive by making them a cowboy cop prone to ignoring orders, or giving them a hitlist of corrupt cops they've researched and want to get fired by secretly exposing their misdeeds, but if they get away with too much they'll come across as succeeding too easily, but if the punishment has too much consequence then the plot will be bogged down by the protagonist being too busy reacting to the punishments and keeping their head down for the sake of not losing their career and dreams, and they spend significant swathes of the story basically on proactiveness cooldown.
trying to balance it out is a pain snd would require a buttload of research into real world cases that'd be a huge waste of time if your manga gets axed nine issues in due to being too in-depth to engsge anyone but other people who've done just as much study of legal proceedings, in this example.
keeping things simple and reactive is not just easier, but a more reliable means of putting bread in your belly than trying to make the best most well written manga about X that you're capable of.

Looks like you won that argument

It feels like a video game problem.
People are *used* to stories of getting scenarios delivered to them that they need to solve, and of the plot progressing like a tunnel, and so they write their stories in the same way.
It's probably an unfair impression, but I can't quite help it.

If you want to become the best cook, you can decide that your dishes need flavor, and go out to research a certain cuisine. Look for a master that can tell you what's essential about making the perfect curry, or go on a quest to find the perfect wine to go with baked tuna.
If the character comes up with these things by themself, they'll be active. If another character samples their food and tells them: "You need to climb that mountain and talk to the sage who lives there", they are reactive.

>mentions reactive
>leaves out proactive

There are plenty, stop reading shit manga.

So your complaining that there are too many protagonists with a clear cut motivatio and actual goal they want to achieve and not enough with just a vague ambition?

>there are plenty
yes but there still uncommon

give me 10(teen)

Me head hurt

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Why so many protagonists have plot happening to them?
Why they no can make plot happen?

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Originally i was gonna say lelouch makes the plot happen but not really, C.C makes the plot happen.
Even light from Death note doesn't make the plot happen he is just entertainment for Riuk.
Maybe Okabe from Steins;Gate would qualify? since ya know kickstarted all of the time machine deal
I suppose we are mostly arguing about the McGuffin supreme

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No light makes the plot happen because he's the one who starts shit. Ryuk just provided him with the means to do it

if i want to massacre people and the chinese government sends me a heavy machine gun to do so, am i making the massacre happen or the chinese government?

>am i making the massacre happen or the chinese government
You are responsible for the massacre more than the chinese. Also this is stupid because it's not like ryuk forced this on light he had his own initiative

Light is a pawn to Ryuk, in the same way you would be a pawn to the chinese government, you are doing what they want by means they provided.

>OP is a literal brainlet

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>I buy a house
>the bank gives me a loan to do so
>NAH, THE BANK IS BUYING THE HOUSE
Have you got rocks in your fucking head?

no because ryuk was fine with light just giving up ownership of the death note, he was also fine with doing nothing for years until near showed up because he doesn't have any strong goals

most people are reactive anyways. if anything, a well written reactive character can be quite tragic

>>I buy a house
>>the bank gives me a loan to do so
>>NAH, THE BANK IS BUYING THE HOUSE
Literally yes, that is why the bank can then take the house from you if you fail repayment
The death note is a tool who's only use is killing people, Ryuk drops the death note to watch people kill each other, light goes around doing precisely what Ryuk wants, light much like lelouch in code geass lacks power to do anything on his own, only allowed by Ryuk dropping him the death note.

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