The Three Narrative Theories and Applying Them to a Trailer (The Witch)

The Three Different Types of Narrative Theory

Prop's Theory (7 characters)
The idea that films are made up of 7 different base characters:

• The Villain - A character who has a conflict against the hero.
• The Donor - They give themselves to the conflict against the villain by either preparing or giving something to the hero to help them.
• The Helper - Helps the hero in their mission against the villain.
• The Princess - The romantic interest who is often sought after.
• The False Hero - Someone who appears to be good at the beginning but has their true intentions revealed.
• The Dispatcher - Someone who reveals the problem within the mission and sends the hero off.
• The Hero - This can be a victim, seeker, paladin, or winner. This person will receive the donor's help and engage with the princess romantically. 

Strauss' Theory (Binary Opposition)
The theory that in order to understand one thing, you must understand its opposite. For example, to understand what light is, you must first experience dark. This is commonly interpreted with:

• Good and Evil
• Night and Day
• Light and Dark
• Love and Hate

Todorov's Theory (Equilibrium)
The theory that the story of a film is based around equilibrium, the idea of things being in perfect balance. This theory orders films like this:

• Everything begins with a peaceful equilibrium, a normality for the characters.
• Something happens which disturbs the normality.
• The disruption is recognised and the characters sought to fix it.
• Things are fixed and a new equilibrium is put in place but things are not the same again.

Narrative Theory Applied to 'The Witch' Trailer

Prop's Theory

• The Villain - Not clear by watching the trailer though we can assume it is 'The Witch' since that is the name of the film.
• The Donor - The Donor is also not made very clear since the trailer is leading the audience to believe the family goes against each other. It doesn't want to give us answers within the trailer so it leaves us with the question of who is on whose side. 
• The Helper - Like the Donor, this is also not made clear for the same reasons.
• The Princess - Since the only young woman in the film is the older sister, we can assume she is the princess. But she will not be a romantic interest because the film focuses on a family, instead it would be maternal love.
• The False Hero - Because the trailer leads us to believe any one of these people could be under the Witch's 'curse', we're not yet sure who the false hero is. Also giving away the false hero within the trailer would spoil the plot of the film.
• The Dispatcher - Here, the dispatcher would be the mother who recognises that one of the children is under a curse. Though whether this is actually true to the film's plot or it's an assumption made by the character who is not only deeply religious but lives in a time where curses would have been something heavily believed in, we are not sure.
• The Hero - We are not entirely sure who the hero is because, again, the trailer isn't giving too much away about the film because it's leading the audience to believe the family turns against each other. But we can assume the hero might turn out to be the father in the end because he is the only one not seen doing bad deeds.

Strauss' Theory

• Light Vs Dark - The trailer begins with a setting during daylight, and then the later clips are within darkness as things take a disturbing route.
• Good Vs Evil - The family of the film is deeply religious, and through the disturbing images we see of what could possibly be the Witch's work, we can assume they are up against something incredibly dark, maybe even satanic. Therefore this point could also be seen as Christianity Vs Satanism. 
• Young Vs Old - At points during the trailer, we see the adults turning against the children. At one point the mother even accuses someone of being 'cursed'.
• Love Vs Hate - At the start of the trailer, the family obviously love each other. But as the trailer goes on and it's assumed one of the family is cursed, they all begin to turn against each other.

Todorov's Theory

• The equilibrium can be seen as the family carrying on with their religious routine, travelling from home to maybe find God. We see them getting on with everyday work such as tending to crops and milking goats.
• The thing that disrupts the equilibrium is the baby going missing, after that the mother recognises something is wrong by accusing someone of cursing the family. 
• We do not see the last two steps of Todorov's Theory as it would spoil the film, this is common for trailers as they tend to only include the first two theories in order to get the audience interest in the film and wanting to watch it to find out what happens.