What does a fight scene do, besides the obvious of ‘stop one person, allow another person past,’ tournament style? I could say that I’ll be answering that question, but honestly, it’s too big. Fight scenes come in all shapes, colors, and positions. Perhaps in time I’ll have some sort of organizing principle therefor, a set of categories or clades. For now, the study of fight scenes will have to go in a different direction: gathering data. To that end, I’ll be analyzing a fight scene from a movie (with a linked YouTube clip so you can know what I’m talking about) to see what it does in the story. In fact, I’ll start with a scene from one of my favorite films, The Princess Bride.

Go watch the movie (or read the book),¹ if you haven’t, because I will not be holding back from spoilers.

On the Cliffs of Insanity (The Princess Bride)

This is the first major fight scene in The Princess Bride, by my memory of book and film both. Therefore the scene is set-up, positionally if nothing else, and it will establish the expectations and understandings we have of its survivors. In the first place, too, we must consider that straight-up part of the fight: who wins and who loses. See, because this is near the beginning of the movie (though over 1/3 of the way into the book, by page count), we as the audience are do not expect the man in black (his moniker in the book) to die. We are asking not, “Will he survive?” but “Will he win? How will he win?”

Two things are important to note here. First, while The Princess Bride does not use this possibility (yet), the man in black could win the fight in a way which loses him the chase- a leg wound, a wound in general, possibly even amnesia (though it’s not a soap opera). In fights like there, where the metatextual element reduces tension, consciousness of these side-results can be crucial. Second, particular in introduction, the how of the protagonist’s victory (and of his foe’s defeat, if that foe is to be important later) really, really matters.

See, fight scenes are almost always about character; in many ways, their closest relative is dialogue. What measures the character will engage, what lengths he will go to, what skills he has, all these speak to his character. So when the man in black repeatedly- in the film version, not the book version- refuses to punish Inigo for leaving himself open in transition, opting to fight only when both combatants are in a fencing-position (the moment in the middle of the fight where Inigo does a front flip over the man in black to resume facing him is an example of this- stabbing Inigo when he’s in the air has a pretty good chance of working, but neither combatant seems to view this as an option), when he does this, the man in black speaks to a respect for his opponent’s skill, a desire to win in swordsmanship and not merely ruthlessness, as well as to pay Inigo back for the sportsmanship exhibited by helping him get up the last few fathoms of the Cliffs.

That Inigo repays the favor by not punishing the man in black for the chuck-my-sword-and-do-a-full-revolution-on-the-monkey-bar maneuver speaks similarly to his character. Both of these interactions, alongside the generally jocular tone of their dialogue (which will contrast with Wesley’s speech to Prince Humperdinck and Inigo’s to Count Rugen), establish expectations which permit for the rather bloodless end to the fight. They also, alongside that end, work to prepare the reader for the later team-up between Inigo and Wesley.

We should also consider what the fight teaches us to expect from each fighter as a fighter. Two different characters, after all, can have radically different combat-reputations even with an equal win-loss ratio, based on how they won, how much it hurt, how long it took, and their attitude to the fight. Compare a hero who comes through a fight against vastly superior odds with not a scratch, barely breathing hard, with a hero who comes through that same level of difficulty banged up and bruised, bleeding a little, panting even as he continues towards his next challenge. These are two very different outcomes.

For the man in black, this fight teaches us that he is immensely skilled, driven, and self-possessed (the last, particularly, will be reinforced by the next fight scene). He comes through this fight not unchallenged but the distinct victor (by a margin larger than in the book, though Inigo’s exceptionality is reinforced in the book, for a similar net effect). This impression is important in large part not because Wesley will actually get into a lot of sword-fights in the future but because it establishes the level from which he’s fallen to barely being able to stand in the ‘to the pain’ scene, as well as his status as a man of daring and intellect. Meanwhile, for Inigo, this fight prepares us for a man with a sword for a brain and a heart made of vengeance. It establishes both his wit and his passion; it sets him up as a man of immense skill in his own right, even in losing, and a man who respects skill.

We should take note of this shared quality of respecting each other’s skill. This simple fact makes both much more likable to the audience. We would understand ruthlessness in the man in black, probably even sympathize with it somewhat; we would be unlikely to appreciate it in Inigo, where it would take an antagonist and make him a villain, to the detriment of his later role. Because each man respects the other, though, and because each clearly operates by a sort of code of conduct (perhaps not explicit or written out but present nonetheless), we are drawn to like them just a little more.

The overall impression of the man in black is of near unstoppability. Because this is a story, however, we know that the greater the protagonist, the greater the antagonist. The hero’s strength at the beginning, therefore, raises the stakes implied by the introduction: because Wesley is strong, we know what he faces must be even stronger. Further, as briefly noted, this fight establishes a baseline for the man in black, and it is from that baseline that he will be eroded over the course of the story, beaten to near nonfunctionality by the end. It is the next fight, with Fezzik, that gives us our first taste of this process (along with Wesley’s tumble down the ravine).

We should also note the implications of the story structure: Inigo’s fight, Fezzik’s fight, and the Sicilian’s conversation. This bears with what I said above, about dialogue being the closest relative of the fight scene. Both are conversations, communication of intent and means; when inimical, both can end in death; when friendly, both can end in tragedy. The similarity is not total, obviously, but it is strong enough for a conversation to sub in for a fight structurally without disappointing (most of) the audience. That it is the third also means the dialogue’s differences become a distinct end-point to the triple sequence of Wesley’s chase after the kidnappers.

Conclusion

If there’s a single point you take away from this article, it should be this: fight scenes are amazing opportunities for characterization. In the pressure of a fight scene, the mettle of a character is tested and scraped free and shown off; his proclivities, instincts, and morals are shown. Further, because fight scenes are generally intensely physical, they provide an opportunity to draw the reader into the physicality of the character, how he moves, how he watches, how he interacts with the world. Remember, people are incarnate beings, just as much flesh as soul, and so building a conception of the characters’ physicality in the reader can be a powerful tool to get them to see the characters as human.²

God bless.

Footnotes

1. Be aware that the book is more sardonic and cynical than the movie, though essentially the same (as Goldman wrote both the book and the screenplay, which makes a Death of the Author analysis of the adaptation particularly intriguing). ↩︎
2. To be quite frank, this article is not my most organized, being an analysis conducted in some part during the process of writing. So I’ll just have to beg forgiveness for adding an entire extra point into the summary. ↩︎