Internal Vs. External Conflict in Climaxes

For this post, I want to talk about why external and internal conflict are important in climaxes. SPOILER ALERT! I will be talking about some material that you may have not read, specifically from The Wingfeather Saga. I have chosen two instances in The Warden and the Wolf King as climaxes, but if you think I completely missed the climaxes in this story, just try to bear with me!

External conflict and internal conflict are very different yet both are greatly important to an impactful story. External conflict is between the character and something outside of the character, whether it be a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual struggle. This is a very interesting kind of conflict, and it is a great way to drive a story to a good climax. In daily life, we experience external conflict all the time. We may argue with a friend, wage war on a spider who has entered our house, or complain about the rain. These are all external things, which we try to fight against in one way or another.

Internal conflict, on the other hand, is about the struggle within a character’s mind and heart. It could be as simple as deciding whether to study for a test or watch that movie that you were looking forward to. It could be the fight between wanting to make people happy but also tell them the hard truth. It is not a physical fight, and it is not a mental fight with another person. It is along the lines of Character vs. Himself, rather than Character vs. Nature, Character vs. Man, etc. However, I would go so far to say that internal conflict is a struggle between good and evil, or the God-given conscience and the sin nature from the curse. But that could be a whole other blog post.

To see how external and internal conflict work and how they are important, I will focus on the final book in Andrew’s Peterson’s The Wingfeather Saga. The first and most obvious climax is the external one. It is the fight between the Wingfeather family and Gnag the Nameless. Janner Wingfeather fights in these scenes with the enemies around him, but here he is strong in his own thoughts. He knows who he is fighting for and why he is fighting. He fights against Gnag, using both mind and muscle. This moment is extremely important because Gnag wants to destroy the Shining Isle, and the Wingfeathers want to save it. It is a struggle between two worldviews––what Gnag believes and wants and what Janner and his family believe and want. It is the culmination of good versus evil, and it is absolutely vital to the resolution. After all, Gnag will not coexist with the Wingfeathers, so there has to be a reckoning. However, while Janner is fighting his heart out, he never fights himself.

Even though it is a strong climactic moment, there is a separate internal climactic moment, which I would argue is just as powerful (maybe more so) as the epic battle. It is the scene when Kalmar goes down to the Fane of Fire.

Kalmar tells Janner that he is the one who should go down, not Janner, which doesn’t sit well with him. Janner is afraid to face the Maker, but he feels that it is unjust for only Kalmar to go. As the older brother, Janner has always struggled with Kalmar being the king ever since the first book. He has tried to be at peace with his feelings, but still “the old familiar anger, which had only moments ago filled him with shame, now filled him with indignation” (Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King 474). From the beginning, Janner has always struggled with selfishness. He says himself in the first book, “I never get to do anything I want to do...I don’t want to spend my life fretting over Tink and Leeli” (Peterson, On the Edge 19). As Kalmar descends, Janner is alone with his thoughts.

This is a perfect example of internal conflict. Andrew Peterson displays this as he writes, “He felt as if he were two people: one boy who saw the situation objectively, who knew the right answers––which were to be content with his lot, grateful to the Maker, humble to his calling––and another boy whom he hated, who felt things hotly and demanded attention like a child throwing a fit”(The Warden and the Wolf King 476). He struggles between these two feelings. The war wages and wages in his mind: he wants to do what is right but his selfishness continues to get in the way. See the internal conflict? He is not truly struggling with Kalmar or Leeli. Kalmar is below him and Leeli is sleeping. Even the external enemy has been defeated. Janner’s enemy is himself.

This part of the story was likely the most impactful for me because of the internal conflict. I saw my own struggle in Janner, and I needed to see how the battle would be won. Even though we struggle with those around us, the battle begins in our own hearts. If goodness wins there, then we can better fight the evil outside. On the flip side, if we are governed by evil in our hearts, the antagonist will defeat us time after time. And yet, as Janner sees, we are not alone.

Why are these two conflicts important to create a good story? Because we are not merely people with one dimension. We grow and change. We make mistakes and learn from them. As humans, we need challenges from within and from without. If a story doesn’t teach us something about truth or goodness or ourselves, it doesn’t mean much. It may be interesting to have a story where the knight fights a dragon to save the princess. But it is impactful to have a story where the knight saves the princess, struggling with the fact that once he saves her she will marry someone else that she loves. We need the truth, but we can’t be given truth on a silver platter. No, we have to wrestle with it, inside and out to see if it is true. That is what external and internal conflict can give a character, and through the character, the reader as well.

A great story has both.

~Evelyn Knight

Sources:

Peterson, Andrew. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2008.

Peterson, Andrew. The Warden and the Wolf King. Nashville: Rabbit Room Press, 2014.