About a decade ago, I found a book in a used bookstore about ‘literary foils’. As I didn’t know what a literary foil was, all I got from skimming the textbook (I didn’t buy it) was that some short stories were really messed up. Now, with at least a million words of writing added to my resume (counting drafts and non-fiction), as well as more acquaintance with literary terminology, I’ve returned to the concept, if not as a central part of my stories. What is a foil? How do they work? What’s the benefit and drawback? I can’t offer all these answers, but I can get the thought-process started, both for myself and for you.

What is a Foil? How?

In the simplest possible terms, a literary foil is a set of contrasts around a fulcrum. As with many over-compressed definitions, this statement is obscure, so let’s unpack it, starting with a particular. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Smeagol-Gollum are foils for each other. That’s the first part of the definition, then: a foil consists of at least two parts. As the story unfolds, we see their differing response to the Ring. Smeagol wants the Ring, and he sees a life apart from it only dimly, only slowly; Frodo, on the other hand, struggles against his desire for the Ring, seeing from the beginning the terror of it. Indeed, where Gollum cannot bear to give up the Ring, Frodo three times endeavors to be rid of it, to Gandalf, to the council at Rivendell, and to Galadriel. This contrast between them, of course, has many more facets: their physical state, the stage of degradation Gollum has reached, Gollum’s sheer loathing for himself, the Ring, and everybody else in as contrasted to Frodo’s measured compassion.¹ This second part of the foil relationship is contrast, specific dichotomies, not necessarily opposite but definitely different.

Frodo and Gollum, though, are foils not just by their difference but by their similarities. Both are Ring-bearers; both are hobbits; both resist it with exceptional strength, beyond that of man or elf or even dwarf. Both have an earthy sense of life, essentially Hobbity, without desire for world-conquest or the like. This is a third part: similarity that makes the differences relevant. The final element of their foil-relationship is the fulcrum around which it all turns. For these two, it is how they approached the Ring. Smeagol, not-yet-Gollum, sought the Ring as a means of pleasure and (a little later) power, as his; he slew his friend to gain it within moments of its appearance. Frodo, meanwhile, took up the Ring reluctantly, as an heirloom of Bilbo’s; he bore it later, once he grasped an inkling of its nature, as a terrible duty, setting out without a purpose of self. This difference sets the contrasts between them in place.

A foil, in sum, is a set of similarities which diverge into contrasts at a fulcrum-point. This fulcrum point is the element the foil will inspect and consider, which it will expound; the point of the foil relationship, when intentional, is indeed to follow this divergence through to its results, to argue how it matters. Note, too, that a foil relationship is not necessarily binary or segregated. Though I traced Frodo and Smeagol-Gollum as a foil, I could (had I the space) have brought Samwise Gamgee into the analysis, considered his time with the Ring. Even Isildur is a possibility, and the rejection-scenes of Gandalf and Galadriel would both qualify. Not all of these share the same similarities; all have their own differences. Their part in the foil-relationship, however, is real. Further, I could consider proximate foil-sets: Smeagol and Gollum, Samwise and Frodo, Sauron and Frodo, Faramir and Samwise, a flock of others.

A foil relationship considers the effect of its fulcrum. This consideration takes the form of the course of two different entities. Most typically, these are characters. We follow how character A and character B proceed, how one rises and the other falls, where the flaws and strengths of their divergent choices lie. We learn, sometimes, that between the choices is a stark moral divide, a stark difference of results. We learn, at other times, that both had elements of virtue in their choice alongside some elements of vice, see how those different compositions lead to different failures and successes in each.

In some cases, these entities aren’t character. Foil-relationships can appear between institutions, between nations, between any two things which can start out similar and by their virtue or vice become something different. The fulcrum, however, must be moral. While mechanical contrasts can produce differences, only through moral weight do correspondences become relationships. Note that moral difference can be invested into the initial divergence by its effects, even when the fulcrum itself is apparently neutral, the choice between chocolate chip and raspberry ice-cream, or by the motives underlying the divergence (which motives become the true fulcrum).

What Do Foils Do?

The purpose of a foil is to provide opposing argument. The foil allows us as authors to delve into different sides of an issue in depth, to consider it in light of its opposite. The foil makes clear the consequences of each choice. It highlights differences precisely because they arise from and in the midst of similarities. This point bears expansion, actually, so let’s take a moment to do so.

Consider the sun and the stars. At the base physical level, the sun is a star. We can classify it, study it, and mark it down as possessing all the characteristics of a star. The similarities are undeniable. Consider, on the other hand, the similarities between a table and a star. Sure, they are both made of a composite of baryonic matter (mostly) and energy; sure, both have mass; sure, both are visible to humans. Those are similarities, but they are tenuous to the extreme. Nobody thinks a star and a table are closely related things.

If contrast were all that mattered, then, the star and the table would be perfect foils. They aren’t, though. Who cares to compare a star to a table? They are different, everybody knows it, and nobody cares at all. Tables and stars aren’t supposed to be similar; we have no reason to find significance in their being different. So they aren’t perfect foils, and that’s precisely because they are too dissimilar, too different. Foils have to possess a base similarity.

Consider, now, the sun and the stars. They have, as already established, deep similarity. They have also immense difference. The sun has a place in the human consciousness no star can hold and vice versa. The stars are far-off and small; the sun is great and mighty, overwhelming. The stars watch; the sun moves. In the stars, men have read fate; in the sun they find blindness. These differences matter to us, but why? They matter because the similarities make them matter; the similarities guide us to expect similarities. Having been guided so, we are intrigued when instead of the similar we find the dissimilar. We want to know why.

This ‘why’ is the fulcrum of a foil, the point of departure, the originative difference. Between Frodo and Gollum is a myriad of differences, but the differences which form that part of their foil-relationship all rise from the different ways of approaching the Ring, their purpose in coming to it. I acknowledge now that this has some artificiality in it. In defining the foil-relationship by the fulcrum, I necessitate that everything in it is defined by the fulcrum. Yet the definition holds and is useful; the fulcrum is the essential base of the foil’s use.

Here’s my answer, then: the foil is a means of examining the fulcrum-divergence in great detail and from multiple perspectives. Those multiple perspectives, of course, interact, both in the story and in the reader’s understanding, and from this interaction rises the richness of the examination. Dialogue changes men more than monologue, and foil is a moral dialogue instantiated in the story’s structure.

Where Do Foils Come From?

Before we leave off, let’s consider where foils come from and a little bit about their problems.

To be quite honest, foil-relationships are an inevitable part of any story with more than one character, assuming some thematic unity. Inevitably, two people will deal with roughly similar problems and the foil-relationship emerges unremarked. To be honest, I don’t know whether Tolkien considered the various foils he set up as ‘foils’- he never noted them as such in his notes, to my knowledge, though I’ve not read all his letters. These foils, informal and unintended, are nevertheless as effective as their siblings.

These ‘siblings’ are the intentional foils, and here’s where we come to a problem. Writing two characters as foils intentionally is all very well, but it’s dangerous. Like with many things that sound advanced, literary, and appealingly intricate, writing foils intentionally can be more of a drawback than a benefit. This is not advice to avoid such entirely. Foils intentionally written as foils can be an immensely effective part of a story.

This advice is advice to be cautious. When you write two foils, be sure that each works as a character, not just a foil; be sure you aren’t warping the story to its own harm in order to fit contrasts. Be cautious of cramming in unnecessary elements to make the foil relationship obvious or to fulfil some quotient of similarities and dissimilarities. A story that forgets the foundations of writing in order to fit a foil relationship will mess up the foil relationship too.

Conclusion

For all their potential beauty, foils are a surprisingly mundane and unavoidable part of writing human² characters. Don’t get too bogged down in cramming them in, but do consider their use. By being a foil for one another, characters can provide each other vibrancy and depth neither has alone. Foils provide all sorts of opportunities; ‘there but for God’s grace go I,’ and ‘what could have been’ are only the start. Foils are, indeed, an element of daily life in that we all make choices just a little different from a thousand choices we³ and others have made before. Getting invested in a character has something of the foil relationship in it: we see ourselves in them, just a little, and we compare their choices to ours, for better or worse. So take joy in them. Wield foils like swords⁴ made of ink. Write for His glory, in the joy of His world.

God bless.

Footnotes

1 – The movies did Frodo dirty. In fact, Frodo, alongside Faramir and Arwen, even more than Aragorn, suffers the most from the adaptation as a character (leaving aside complete removal, like Glorfindel). Please, go read the books; Faramir and Frodo are just leagues better, as is Aragorn (who I bring up particularly because of how his behavior the Black Gate scene in the Extended Edition diametrically opposes the point of the scene in the book). Treebeard also gets… mishandled. The ents in general have a hard go of it.

I hold a grudge over Elrond too, incidentally, and the Balrog, but that’s over miscasting and ‘not-as-good-as-the-book’s-imagery’ respectively. Who thought Hugo Weaving was the right choice for somebody who is physically in the youthful prime of his life?

And Bilbo got a little smeared too, albeit it’d be hard to translate that book scene into film without doing so.

2 – Mind matters here, not body.

3 – There’s an idea I didn’t get into: using a character’s past self, with or without time travel, as his own foil.

4 – Yes, this is a pun.