Protagonist’s need allies, of course.? But to include one in a logline runs the risk of elevating the ally to a rival for the lead role in the story.? Which is my first impression here.? And first impressions matter, because? you can’t assume that a logline reader is going to slow down and re-read a logline.? You have one chance, 15 seconds or less, to make the right impression — and a strong impression.

So I can see the mage as being a more interesting protagonist.? Why? Because he’s young, immature, untested? needs to prove himself.? He needs to grow into his calling .? Which is to say, the mage has an implied character arc.? In contrast, I see no particular character arc for the pit fighter.? All I see is a weak character, so weak he needs to be rescued by the mage.? The pit fighter doesn’t commence to change his life on his own — it takes the intervention of the mage for him to break out of his status quo.

So who is in the driver’s seat of the story?? Who make the plot happen?? The pit fighter or the mage?? And how does the leading candidate for the role of the protagonist make the plot happen?? As written the logline seems to say that the mage enables the pit fighter’s life to change (which implicitly casts him in the action mode of a protagonist).

I realize my reading? leads your intended story line off the rails.? But this is what can happen when you inject another character other than the protagonist and the antagonist into the logline.?

And who is the antagonist, anyway?? Who opposes the protagonist? Who doomed him to be a pit fighter in the back story?? And where is he now?? What is the antagonist up to while the? protagonist is on his quest?

fwiw