Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp, the Russian critic that published his Morphology of the Folk Tale in the 1928 when the soviet was gooding great he found out that folk tales were very similar, they all had a the basic struggles and seemed to have the same stock of characters. He showed us the theory about the characters.

Characters that perform a function

The Hero	character that seeks something
The Villain	who opposes or actively blocks the hero’s quest
The Donor	who provides an object with magical properties
The Dispatcher	who sends the hero on his/her quest via a message
The False Hero	who disrupts the hero’s success by making false claims
The Helper	who aids the hero
The Princess	acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villain’s plots
Her Father	who acts to reward the hero for his effort

                                                                                                                                                                                       

It’s about avoiding treating characters as if they are individuals and tells us they are manmade constructs. Some characters are indeed there just to progress the narrative.