Ultimately, the protagonist is inconsistent. Here he is with a unique reputation with his closest friends. It’s not like these are scrupulous men. They have their issues they wear on their sleeve early in the movie. Their type of character would deem that under any special circumstance the protagonist would not hold back the difficult situation he’s in. They are the only ones he can trust, and for no clear reason, he won’t tell them and get their support.
The disappointing climax to the Peter Parker/Harry Osborne relationship in "Spiderman 3"
This is an example of what I call “variables of realism.” Given the variables of his character from the time the movie starts to finish, there is no good reason he chose not to tell his friends the first time he had the chance. At least, no reason not the tell them the second chance he got. Or the third. The film covers a span of about three months, and in that time, he does not tell till it is convenient for the dynamic of story-telling to do so.
This is not an isolated incident of poor “variables of realism.” Perhaps one you would be familiar with is the example from the Spiderman trilogy with Peter Parker and his best friend Harry Osborne. Harry’s father, Norman, was for a while the Green Goblin in the first movie without Harry knowing. When Norman died by his own devices, trying to kill Spiderman/Peter Parker, he asked Peter not to tell Harry he was the Green Goblin.
This makes sense. The father doesn’t want to put his shame into his son’s mind, forever influencing his judgment and perspective of his father. Peter, inclined to give the old man his dying wish, refuses to clarify to Harry that Spiderman did not kill his father. His father died by his own glider, and Spiderman was not at fault. Why didn’t Peter defend Spiderman? He had every reason to do so.
Another example of the misuse of realism. Like the first two Spiderman films as a whole. They both support authentic life-like relationships. The last one didn’t at all. So this major plot inconsistency for the first two between best friends and the death of the Green Goblin stands out almost big as a train.
Why do story-tellers paid good money bend authentic characters with pathetic inconsistencies? Because for some part of the story the writers are going by a formula, and in the process of sticking to what they’ve been told the story needs, they do not know how to fix these characters discrepancies. In the end, they put the story, and often times critical characters of the story, at the mercy of the judgment of an intelligent audience that cannot be fooled by such disappointments.
I find all of this interesting because this has always been a problem in storytelling—long before movie-making was ever dreamed of. Still, it is prevalent in storytelling and ruining good plot everywhere.
These are examples of poor execution of the “variable of realism.” When I feel like it, I might delve into better examples of good variables from more consistent characters.
