Media Theorist: Vladamir Propp

Vladamir Propp was a Russian theorist who analysed old Russian folk stories. His theory pondered that there is 8 possible character roles in each story: I will look at each of these character roles and relate them to a soap character.

1. The Villain

Archie Mitchell

Archie Mitchell (right) is regarded as one of 'Eastenders best baddies' he bullied his daughters, threatened his wife and caused outrage amongst soap viewers, Eastenders always has a villain and each running storyline usually features a character similar to Archie.











2. The Hero

Peggy Mitchell

This is traditionally a male character in old folk films, however in a world of androgyny it is now just a brave and courageous person, all soaps will have a hero who usually smites the villiain and ususally end their run in the show, the polar oppisite to Archie Mitchell would be Peggy Mitchell, the wife of Archie who kicks him out of the square.


3. The Donor

The donor is the supplier of an essential object in the story, depending on the storyline in a soap this could be any character they are usually close to the hero (either a relative or have a link between the hero and the villain) they usually know a secret, making the essential object verbal rather than a physical object. 


4. The Helper. 

In The Act: Den and wife+ 'The Helper'

A character who aids the hero, like a sidekick in superhero films, they may also be the donor who supplies vital information, a certain storyline which springs to mind when thinking of a helper is the demise of previous EastEnders villain dirty den, Cat and Den's wife murdered him and buried him in the 'Vic'.




5. The Princess. 

Again, this is not a literal meaning, it could be the object that the hero is trying to protect, or the object of the villains deeds, in a literal sense, this could be Princess Peach from Mario or Maid Marian from Robin Hood. The princess of soap storyline could be a child that a couple is trying to earn custody of, a house in the same circumstance or even something as simple as respect from other members of the soap community.








6. The Father Of The Princess.


This would be the person who gives the object to the hero/ villain, the villain will very rarely win in the long run, however they may have short term gains as most soap villains are manipulative and anger the viewers as they make other cast members look stupid as they are aware that the villain is evil, however the other people in the soap are not aware of this. 


7. The dispatcher. 


This is the character who sends the message or the 'gossip' on the soap, every soap has a cast member who will tell secrets to others, they are usually older women such as Dot from EastEnders who get joy from telling secret to their friends. 

8. The False Hero. 

The False Heroes

False heroes are common in soaps, they are usually working with the villain in some way and look to 'aid' a character in need, in EastEnders Dotty Cotton and her Father were looking after Dot (above) but were actually trying to kill her as she had left them money in her will and they were trying to exploit her trust, they were looking like heroes as they were looking after their old relative. However, they initially had no good intentions.