The Portrayal of Central and Peripheral Quadras in Artistic Creation

The first of the most conspicuous factors distinguishing judiciousness from decisiveness in works of art is the portrayal of the author’s world in terms of its hostility toward the protagonist. Whereas judiciousness more often creates plots set against a friendly and safe environment, decisiveness, by contrast, prefers as its setting worlds in which the struggle for dominance and all manner of associated dangers are portrayed as an inevitability, resistance to which constitutes the basis of the plot.

Secondly, the activity of the main protagonist (on whose behalf the author narrates), if the protagonist is portrayed as judicious, is itself based on a desire to harmonize the surrounding world, end human suffering, and reconcile warring sides. Through their actions, a decisive protagonist not only makes no attempt to smooth over contradictions in their surroundings but, on the contrary, exacerbates and radicalizes them, fuels a spiral of mutual grievances, non-forgiveness, and a thirst for revenge, and brings the situation to an irreconcilable conflict.

Thirdly, it should be noted that in the works of decisive authors who, moreover, adopt a position closer to that of the third quadra, one frequently encounters, in various forms, the idea that the activities of judicious protagonists will not necessarily prove more beneficial to others in the end than those of decisive protagonists. This includes the idea that everything initially created for good purposes turns out in practice to be “burdened with evil” and, conversely, that sometimes a great good can be achieved only by using villainous methods to one degree or another, and, of course, the proverbial “cash triumphs over evil.”

Works in the spirit of the second quadra, meanwhile, usually simply declare the existence of an enemy whose image is demonized, without making any attempt to understand that enemy’s motives. The subsequent plot amounts to a struggle for annihilation on the principle of “either us or them,” with rare exceptions (for which the grounds must be very compelling).

Where judicious meanings are conveyed, however, conflicts are resolved differently. A typical tendency of the fourth quadra is to end the plot with the former villains recognizing that they were wrong, being re-educated, and ultimately joining the common friendly ranks. In works of the first quadra, meanwhile, authors prefer to enlist the forces of nature to eliminate the most irreconcilable antagonists (thereby conveying the message that the existence of manifest evil is contrary to the very essence of this world).

Fourthly, it must be understood that predicting where the narrative will ultimately lead, whether to a happy ending, an open ending, or universal disappointment and frustration, is more a matter of other meanings - primarily those associated with the balance of the author’s positivism-negativism, constructivism-emotivism, and, less often, other traits at the time the work is created. Unexpectedly, however, the balance of judiciousness-decisiveness also proves important here.

Thus, V. L. Talanov previously observed that the decisive quadras more often go to extremes in emotional life - precisely because the poles of the two dichotomies mentioned above combine within them in quite a specific way. Namely, on the one hand, it is decisiveness that more often allows negativism to combine with constructivism - creating a truly explosive mixture of dissatisfaction and a pessimistic outlook. It is unsurprising that authors belonging to the corresponding types often seek to end a book on a tragic note, even with a catastrophe that sweeps away everyone and everything, leaving the reader in a bewildered state of mind and with thoughts along the lines of: “Is everything really in vain? Is the moral of what is happening around us really so bitter?” Yet here too, on the other hand, we may encounter a mixture of positivism and emotivist optimism, giving rise both to a self-satisfied protagonist who believes nothing is beyond them and to a happy ending that sometimes emerges against all odds, even disregarding logic, common sense, and all the preceding twists and turns of the plot:)

Judiciousness, meanwhile, is usually more moderate in the meanings it seeks to convey to its listener, viewer, or reader; it does not promise mountains of gold and a heroic victory over all enemies, but neither does it wish to plunge anyone into the depths of despair. A judicious author will prefer to offer hope while also leaving doubts about the rightness of what has happened - so that each person can decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, whose side they are on, and what conclusions follow from this.

And, of course, an ambiguous ending can also take different forms. Thus, a judicious negativist-emotivist would be more inclined here to show how the protagonists’ efforts to change the world noticeably for the better have, alas, failed, but would do so at those very protagonists’ wedding. A constructivist-positivist, by contrast, would be more likely to end the narrative by moving into the distant future, when the protagonists themselves are long gone, but there is a world that they have changed for the better through their actions.

Appendix:

Examples of judicious music videos:

• Valeriya - You Are Somewhere Out There
• Lyapis Trubetskoy - Postmen
• Hi-Fi - Not Given
• Ivanushki Int. - Poplar Fluff
• Funtik - It Is Good to Wander the World
• Mashina Vremeni - Once
• Shura - Do Good
• Valeriy Syutkin - King Orange Summer
• Geri Halliwell - It’s Raining Men

Examples of decisive music videos:

• Rammstein - Sonne
• Mara - To Cold Men
• Loboda - New Rome
• Kipelov - I Am Here
• Polina Gagarina - I Will Never Forgive You
• Leningrad — VIP
• Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
• Korol i Shut - Necromancer
• Aleksandr Rozenbaum - A Wolf’s Revenge