I'm certainly late to the party on this one, but I've finally got around to binging Cobra Kai. Seemed like the thing to do and I don't regret it. We're immediately introduced to William Zabka's Johnny Lawrence, the antagonist in the original Karate kid movies (that I haven't seen in ages). I remember him being a bully, right? Haven't seen these movies since I was a kid. And, when we're introduced to him, we see that he's a loser, he makes bigoted comment about immigrants and/or Mexicans (can't quite remember). We have every reason to hate him.
But, before the first episode is up we're rooting for the guy and it happens so fast your brain barely has time to process the switch. What sorcery is this? What bloggable list of 4 things can a storyteller do to build empathy for a somewhat racist, crass, loser character? Can I make such a list here? Let's see.
1. Treat your character unfairly. Johnny is treated pretty badly, sometimes for no apparent reason (the reason is to make us root for the guy). The guy at the convenience store befouls his pizza (and poor Johnny just eats it anyway), the woman who's television he's installing starts yelling at him for not reading her mind, a bunch of kids try beating him up. You're already thinking, "Wow, no wonder this guy is terrible. Life sucks. For both me and Johnny! We're bros!"
2. Make your character really good at something. In this case Johnny is really good at Karate. What's so charming about the story is how dated even the word Karate seems in an era of mixed martial arts and occasionally Kung Fu. But, in Cobra Kai Karate is almost like the Force in Star Wars, a magical ability wielded by our characters to fix problems.
3. Afflict your character with internal conflict. Johnny is dealing with a ton of internal conflict. At the moment I can't remember how many of these things we got up front but a short list: he's jealous of Danny, he's feeling guilt over his relationship with his son, his relationship with his stepfather is horrible and he's almost certainly struggling with feelings of inadequacy.
4. Give your character an admirable quality that ends up costing him. Cobra Kai seals the deal when Johnny jumps in to defend Miguel, who's being bullied by some kid. Ultimately, Johnny is admirable and does the right thing and over time it ends up costing him his most valued possession, his car.
5. He's dealing with grief.
6. He's trying to make changes in his life.
7. He cares about others.
8. He often finds himself in dangerous situations.
I wonder how deliberate it was to, essentially, make Johnny the focus of the show. It would have been a lot harder to make us empathize with Danny, an affluent know it all who seems to have it all together. I'm almost always team Cobra Kai, myself, even though they're a terrifying, violent cult of teenagers. At least... They're inclusive?
What's striking is a lot of this could come off as cliched but hey, things are sometimes cliches for a reason. They work! And sometimes when things work too well you barely notice and it's easy to forget how it's done. If nothing else, the show pulls off the magic trick of getting you to route for a man who is, for the most part, quite unlikeable when you first meet him. And now I'm hooked! I'm basically watching a cheesy teen drama spinoff from a movie from the 80s that I don't really think of too much. . . .
Until a few weeks ago!
Well played, Cobra Kai. Well played.
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