Story Palette: A prioritized list of repeating actions and choices for characters that give a story its personality and feel.
I was texting a friend about what the Story Palette might look like for Indiana Jones. In my first book on the Story Palette, I go through my ideas on repeating actions in Star Wars, but do not show how I pieced it together. I walk readers through how most of the scenes in the original trilogy have the good guys rescuing, escaping, and fighting while the bad guys search, capture, and destroy. But you don’t see me laying on the floor in frustration trying to identify a pattern, or giving up for months at a time, which is probably a good part to edit out. I have not made it as far with the Indiana Jones series as I have for Star Wars. But since I watched the Jones series so many times as a kid, especially Last Crusade, which I can almost put on mental replay, I have some preliminary thoughts.
I will focus on Raiders and Crusade because they seem to have the most in common for feel and character choices. I do not know Temple of Doom as well as Raiders of the Lost Ark or Last Crusade, but considering that Temple is how Steven Spielberg met his wife, it’s arguably his most successful film.
Solving puzzles with props
Indiana solves lots of puzzles. Even traps are often puzzles. And I think he even fights like he is solving puzzles. And he usually solves the puzzles with an object or action (kneel, step on the right letters, etc.) Indy often grabs props to help him. He can’t outbox a german soldier, but he can duck under a propeller. Indy can’t beat a swordsman, but he can shoot him. He cannot defeat a tank, but he can put a rock in its barrel. Indiana uses props constantly, whether it is the gemstone to locate the ark, his father’s grail diary, or a flagpole to joust a german biker.
Indiana Jones is kind of like a Jackie Chan character, who fights with ladders, clogs, or whatever is within arm’s reach, to solve his problems. It’s just that Indiana Jones is not a great fighter. He spends most of his time getting beat up, but when he solves a puzzle, like taking a luger from a german soldier, he might take out three soldiers in one shot.
Maybe I need to separate fights and puzzle solving, but I’ll have to think about that a bit more. Even finding his father requires props. And his father uses an umbrella and a flock of birds to beat a german fighter plane.
There might be a clear distinction between plot driving props like the Headpiece to the Staff of Ra, the knight’s inscription on their shields from the crusades, and Henry Jones Senior’s grail diary and the guns, rocks, machetes, and rocket launchers Indy picks up. And maybe there is another division separating all the different vehicles from the 1930s. But, however they split up, it feels like props and puzzle solving are essential to Indy’s story.
Losing objects and people
Indiana loses the golden statue from the beginning of Raiders. Bellock takes it. Marion gets kidnapped so many times. He leaves her behind to get to the Ark of the Covenant. How many times does he get the ark and lose it? I can think of four off the top of my head.
- The Germans leave Indy in the snake pit while they take the Ark away from him
- The German Sub takes the Ark and Marion.
- Indy threatens to blow up the Ark with a rocket launcher, but gives up and lets the Germans capture him instead.
- The ending where the US government takes the Ark
I am overwhelmed by how often Indiana Jones loses things. How can he make money as a tomb raider if he loses everything? Good thing he has a backup career as a professor of archeology.
Escaping
Indiana Jones almost always has to run away. Then he gathers and comes after the object again, only to lose it once more, then run away. Then find a prop, like a rocket launcher, to take it back, only to lose it again.
And that’s what I have so far. It’s not a long list, but I think it covers many of the character’s actions. Unlike in Star Wars, the bad guys do not seem to have different goals from Indy, and their methods are not that different either. Indy is just better at putting the puzzle pieces together. The bad guys lose their treasure every time Indy takes it. Indy is not really enemies with Bellock. They understand each other and chose different teams. Bellock takes the golden idol from Indy because he knows Hovitos, the local tribal language, and Indy does not.
And Indy does not kill Bellock in Raiders or Donovan from Last Crusade, even if he threatens to. They get the Ark and the Grail but die by powers protecting them. Indy lives because he will let go. So while Indy never gets to keep his spoils, he gets to save his life. I’ll keep thinking about this and see what else comes to mind. But losing and letting go also seems essential to the story.
My friend also pointed out that Indiana repeatedly proves biblical events accurate, but completely ignores these findings’ implications or grander meanings. He’s too focused on getting the object, which is a funny reversal. And maybe the audience, like Indy, must let that go.
Daniel N. Blair 