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Wonderful ideas all. Thank you.

Lovely.  And most entertaining!

"I find that audiences (including myself) have difficulty generating empathy for a female protagonist who is in some sense evil." That's a very interesting observation. Your comment reminds me of the purported historical audience reaction in ancient Greece to Euripides' Medea.

A while ago you mentioned that female protagonists are not as popular.  Do you suppose that the concept of building a "center of good" surrounded by "all kids of evil" is perceived differently by the audience based on the gender of the protagonist?  I find that audiences (including myself) have difficulty generating empathy for a female protagonist who is in some sense evil.  Does that leave us with snow white female protagonists who cannot show intelligence, sense of humor, calmness in extreme challenges and power, while at the same time being, well, human?  I hope not.

I enjoy a type of story escapism that doesn't contradict McKee's point of view (Story: pg. 12, paragraph 3) and parallel's Jessica's experience. 

It's entered into via the center of good. It's the experience of a wish, a taste of what is missing.

Good stories are two things for me. One, an aesthetic revelation that "life is like that!" and two, an escapism into "I wish [my] life was like that (or had that)."  FWIW.

I'm watching the David Tennent Patrick Stewart DVD production put out by the BBC and RSC back in 2009. Really an extraordinary production, but what helps the most for a neophyte such as me is the ability to turn on the Director's Commentary on the first pass through the DVD so I can do a second pass with the Commentary turned off. I explain it to my friends as saying that its like having Bob McKee tear apart a play in slow motion, but since Bob is otherwise occupied I had to choose a second best solution, so I'm listening to the director. I'm wondering how many other people here use the Director's Commentaries on DVD's to pull apart a movie?

there are some movies I can enjoy even if I don't empathize with the protagonist. e.g. I didn't give a damn about Scarlet O'Hara so for me Gone With The Wind will always be about Rhett Butler. 

it is true that people today get overly emotional when you criticize "their" movie and it is also true that we live in an anti-romantic age. hmmm...is there a connection I wonder?

"...as if they had written the damn thing." Wonderful first lesson, says the newest paying student. Thank you and I am happy to be here with all of you. What a gem.

Can I parlay this gig as a lone toga commenter on Storylogue into some type of acting gig? Perhaps and older, more decrepit socratic version of the Old Spice commercial man?

Michael Mann has done it twice in his career - created characters that shouldn't be empathetic but are - one was Frances Dollarhyde in Manhunter, and the second was Robert DeNiro in Heat. I realize these are Antagonists rather than Protagonists but in these genres, its quite a feat to not render the Antagonist as a caricature and thereby trivialize the Protagonist's role. Of course, maybe I should have held my fire in this comment and posted it on a Lesson that discussed Antagonists specifically, or does that make me a type of virtual Antagonist to this thread?