Nir:

First of all, I’ve become rather fluid on defining and applying terms and paradigms to plotting. Terms and paradigms are supposed to be tools, not inviolate rules.

“The Departed” is my favorite Scorcsese crime film. But I don’t think it’s a flawless film. I think it breaks some screenwriting “rules”. But it is certainly not boring. Not for any of its 151 minutes. In my rule book the one inviolate rule is: “Thou shalt not bore thine audience.” Boring an audience is the unpardonable sin and the whole purpose of all the “rules” is prevent a screenwriter from committing the unpardonable sin.

I’m mostly on the same page with you in your definitions of the main character and protagonist. Yes, most of the time they’re one of and the same. When they aren’t, I, too, would give the “protagonist” nod to the character who more than any other has the job of struggling for the objective goal.

However, when they aren’t one and the same, I’m not so sure about the character arc criterion.

In “The Departed” I would tap the mob boss, Frank Costello, as the main character. I haven’t timed the scenes he’s in, but I think it’s safe to say he gets more screen time than any other character. Or at least he’s a close second to the good cop, Billy Costigan.

More important, he’s at the center of the the story. He is in every way the central character (a synonym for main character). Everyone else is acting in response to him and just about everything that happens is because of him or about him.

I would designate the good cop as the protagonist because he is tasked with the primary responsibility to achieve the objective goal, build a strong enough case to take down Costello. And further, it’s a pro-social, pro-moral goal.

What is Billy Costigan’s character flaw? I dunno. I don’t see one. I see him as a tragic hero/victim of circumstances beyond his control. He dies at the hand of the bad cop who is more cunning, who is in a better position to stay one step ahead of him.

And why can’t Billy be a tragic victim through no fault of his own? That was the original essence of Greek tragedy. The Greek term “hamartia” has incorrectly been rendered character flaw. But in the days of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, it merely meant a mistake made more in ignorance than because of a character weakness. IOW: a blind blunder. And all it took was one to seal a character’s fate. Oedipus was doomed to fulfill the prophecy to kill his father and marry his father no matter how he tried not to. Because that was his fate. Mere mortals are pawns in the hands of the gods.

But I digress.

I can’t think of any major character in “The Departed” who has a significant character arc that transforms him or the outcome of the story.

I’ve only seen Donnie Brasco once, when it first came out. If you don’t think he’s both the main character and protagonist, I would be interested as to why you think that is the case.

>>The girl discovers that her friends killed these women and that she was meant to be their next victim.

I’m guesing this is the Big Reveal.? Notmally, a logline shouldn’t’ give away the Big Reveal.??? However, if she discovers this no later than the midpoint, than it might be okay to include in the logline.? But including it creates this other problem: the logline sets her up as the main character — and then the Big Reveal leaves me with the impression that she is not in jeopardy.? She has nothing to worry about.? It’s the guys who are in mortal danger — and deservedly so.

So where’s the suspense?? What should the audience be worrying about, fear might happen to her?? (It’s a horror flick: a stock feature of the genre is that the audience worries about the fate of the main character.)