Foil characters?

[AWritersFantasy]

Not sure if this is really the right place to put this, but I'll take a guess.

Someone at the YWS board has talked about how two of her characters are what she calls foil characters. For a while, I've kind of been wondering what those are and how I would go about creating them in any of my stories. My -guess- is that they're sort of two characters who are opposites or something? I dunno. Anyway. Anyone know what they are and what the process, if any, is to creating them? I did a quick Google search and while I haven't gotten to read what I found yet, I didn't find much (outside of this, (http://www.ehow.com/how_2143839_write-foil-character.html) which will probably end up being useful and what I'm looking for). So, any ideas? Opinions? Links? o.O

[Andy]

From what I've read, foil characters are sort of like opposites, but they're presented in a way that will highlight the actions or choices of the main character. For example, your main character might be someone who is completely against revenge, and the plot shows what sort of life that person might live. An appropriate foil for that would be a person who lives solely for revenge.

By presenting a foil, you can zero in on what you want the reader to see in your main character. If a story about the evils of revenge is what you're after, your readers will notice your theme better if a foil with different ideas about revenge is present.

A lot of books use foils. Hamlet is a big one, with multiple foils. One of Hamlet's major flaws is his hesitancy in avenging his father's death. Fortinbras is a foil in this aspect: he immediately wages war when presented with his own father's death. Horatio is a foil in a different manner: he is a steadfast and loyal friend, while Hamlet is always confused and wavering. Finally, Laertes is furious about Hamlet's killing of Polonious, while Hamlet is, again, hesitant and not very passionate. All three of these foils help to show what sort of person Hamlet is.

[Shaun]

This is the right place.

A foil character basically is just a character that makes characteristics of another character stand out. Usually your protagonist has a foil character of some sort, but that doesn't mean they are the bad guy.
I think we probably do these things unintentionally a lot of the time. You'd have to just make a character that is the right opposite for the characteristics of your main character are more pronounced. I read a play this quarter that did this very well.
The play was called Andorra by Max Frisch. Basically the story is about a character who is supposed to be a Jew and how everyone imposes stereotypes on him even though none of them are actually true. This character was actually the foil character for everyone else because the more and more these other characters tried to push their ideals on the main character, the more you realized that those other characters were just reacting to issues within themselves. The stereotype that Jews are good with money turns out to be the exact same thing that can be used on the other characters--the Andorrans. So you'd have to use it in a way that the character you're trying to foil stands out and we get a glimpse into his or her personality.
A really simple example would be having one character be super dumb and your protagonist be relatively smart. Sooner or later the audience is going to realize that the protag is actually not an idiot.

[GeorgeMichael]

That is so strange because right now in my story I am creating two foil characters, only I didn't know that's what they were called when I created them, but that's the exact definition of them. :) Cool, thanks for posting this. :)

[AWritersFantasy]

Haha, you're welcome. Glad I could help.

[Ichigo]

Ugh...the F.O.I.L method...math sucks....
[/SPAM]

[kitkat]

From what I've read, foil characters are sort of like opposites, but they're presented in a way that will highlight the actions or choices of the main character. For example, your main character might be someone who is completely against revenge, and the plot shows what sort of life that person might live. An appropriate foil for that would be a person who lives solely for revenge.

By presenting a foil, you can zero in on what you want the reader to see in your main character. If a story about the evils of revenge is what you're after, your readers will notice your theme better if a foil with different ideas about revenge is present.

I like useing foil characters in lots of my stories. Normaly piting them against each other, other times I team them up and make them fight back to back! An example would be the storie I posted (even though it kinda died) Tape and Kati are diffrent in every way, They were the best of friends till the world ended and the were forced to fight eachother. Each fighting for the wrong side but thats not the point! It makes a storie way more fun.

[Starry]

Ick, foils. :P I just spent like a month in school analyzing Hamlet, and when Shakespeare does lit devices, he does it to the extreme.

I don't like writing foil characters. I feel like it limits the development of the two (or more) characters to only ways that are opposites of each other. If they do happen to appear on their own and help the story, then fine, but I won't make them intentionally.