We’re back with another story structure analysis. This time, we’re doing a three-act analysis of The Princess Bride, which happens to be another one of my all-time favorite movies. This film is not to be confused with the book by the same title. The book is entirely different and, frankly, I find this to be one of those rare cases where the film is much better than the book.
Up until now, we’ve done analyses of the novels Pride and Prejudice and The Hunger Games, the movies Die Hard and Star Wars IV: A New Hope, as well as the short story “The Story of an Hour.”
Today we examine the fairytale adventure, The Princess Bride, which follows the three-act structure to a T, showing that this story structure works across wildly different genres.
As always, if you need a refresher about the three-act structure, check out this article for an in-depth rundown on this framework.
Spoiler Alert! This movie came out in 1987, so I feel like the statute of limitations on spoilers has long-since expired. That said, if you haven’t seen The Princess Bride yet, get thee to a streaming service, stat! It’s a great movie that’s fun for the whole family and has a little something for everyone (action, adventure, humor, romance, you name it!) Alright, let’s dig into our analysis of The Princess Bride.
DUAL PROTAGONISTS: One of the things that I find particularly interesting about this film is that—like many romances—there are two protagonists: Westley and Buttercup. And because it’s a dual-protagonist story, different significant plot points focus around one or the other of the two main characters.
While Westley eventually becomes a slightly more significant character than Buttercup—particularly in Acts 2 and 3—we still have certain moments where a landmark scene seems to revolve more around Buttercup than Westley.
In a lot of dual-protagonist stories, we usually have twice as many landmark scenes (i.e., pivot points, midpoint, and climax), one for each of the two protagonists. But in some cases, the characters pass the baton from one to the other. The latter is true of The Princess Bride, where we have some landmark scenes focusing around Westley and other landmark scenes centering on Buttercup.
In novels, we often see double landmark scenes because books have more space to accommodate twice the number of significant moments. It makes sense, though, that a film would alternate between the characters, otherwise the story would become too long and the pace would drag.
ACT 1: Westley and Buttercup live on a farm. Buttercup loves to ride her horse and torment Westley, the farm boy who lives and works on the farm. What she doesn’t realize at first is that Westley is in love with her. Eventually, she falls in love with him.
Character: In this case, we have two characters: Westley and Buttercup.
Voice: From the beginning of this film, we can sense that the mood is whimsical and there’s a feeling of magic and adventure. The camera shots have a golden glow, giving the film a feeling of warmth and comfort. It feels like we’re watching a fairytale.
World: While this opening takes place exclusively on the farm, we already get the sense that we are in a magical world. Later, we realize that the world of this story is truly an enchanted place, where people have swashbuckling duels and face off against strange monsters (like screaming eels and giant rodents).
Problem: Westley and Buttercup want to be together, but Westley has no money. He decides to leave the farm and go off to seek his fortune.
Event: His ship gets attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who never takes prisoners. Westley is presumed dead.
PIVOT POINT 1: This point in the story is interesting because we never see the decision happen. The true moment of choice occurs completely off-screen.
After finding out that Westley is presumed dead, Buttercup is distraught and decides she will never love again. Some years pass and Humperdink, the prince of Florin, decides he wants to marry Buttercup.
On the eve of their wedding, she is kidnapped by three bandits and gets carried off to the shores of Guilder. The external event is Buttercup getting kidnapped, but the choice comes from Westley—AKA the masked man—who decides (off-screen) to follow and rescue her.
ACT 2: Now we get to the adventure. The kidnappers climb the Cliffs of Insanity and one by one, Westley faces off with each of them. First, he duels with Inigo the swordsman, and wins. Next, he bests Fezzik the giant.
Finally, he engages in a battle of the wits with the leader Vizzini. Of the three kidnappers, Fezzik and Inigo both do not seem to want to destroy Westley, so when he wins, he merely knocks them out and continues his search for Buttercup. Only Vizzini dies, and that is mostly because of his own hubris.
After being reunited, Westley and Buttercup run into the Fire Swamp, where they must face off against multiple dangers, including the flame spurts, lightning sand, and ROUS’s (or Rodents of Unusual Size). Finally, they make it past the Fire Swamp and it looks like they have escaped.
RULE OF 3: We see two Rules of 3 in play in Act 2 of the story: the three kidnappers and the three dangers of the Fire Swamp.
With the three kidnappers, Westley does not kill the first two (Inigo and Fezzik) and they come back to help him later in the story. Only the third, Vizzini, who is holding Buttercup at knifepoint, dies because he loses the battle of the wits against Westley. Later on, Westley takes Vizzini’s place as the leader of the group.
In the Fire Swap, we have three dangers: the flame spurts, lightning sand, and ROUS’s. The flame spurts and lightning sand are dangerous but they are inanimate objects. Only the ROUS’s are living beings and Westley fights a significant battle against one of these creatures.
WORST-CASE SCENARIO: What Buttercup and Westley want most is to be together. Their greatest obstacle changes as the story evolves. At first it seems the main thing holding them apart is Westley dying. Then the kidnappers appear to become the main thing preventing them from being together.
Eventually, we realize the true obstacle between them is Prince Humperdink and his scheme to start a war between Florin and Guilder. From the midpoint on, Prince Humperdink becomes the primary obstacle that Westley and Buttercup must overcome.
In terms of risk, Westley is willing to do whatever it takes to be with Buttercup and she is determined to hold fast to true love (at least that’s true after she decides never to doubt again).
What’s at stake if they can’t be together is that the mythology around true love will be broken. If true love can’t save these two individuals (who so clearly embody everything that true love is supposed to be) then true love loses all its meaning.
The two also transform throughout the course of the story. Westley goes from being a simple farm boy to being a swashbuckling pirate-hero, and Buttercup goes from deciding she will never love again to fully believing in true love and holding fast to it.
Notice that most of Westley’s transformation happens off-screen before he reappears as the “masked man.” In terms of on-screen transformation, Buttercup’s is far more significant.
MIDPOINT: The midpoint is broken up into two separate sections. In fact, we have two Temporary Triumphs, a smaller one followed by a more significant one. The first Temporary Triumph occurs when Buttercup pushes Westley down the hill and he calls out, “Aaaaaas yooooou wiiiiish!” She immediately rolls down the hill after him and the two are reunited.
When he asks her why she didn’t wait for him, she says “Well, you were dead.” To which, he replies: “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.” She then says: “I will never doubt again.”
This is the moment of introspection for Buttercup, where she realizes that she had been wrong to doubt Westley and not fully believe in the power of true love. This scene happens a little bit prior to the real middle of the story, but it sets us up for the next Temporary Triumph at the exact middle of the film.
When Buttercup and Westley escape the Fire Swamp, it looks like they are in the clear and will be able to run off into the sunset together. Suddenly Prince Humperdink appears with a bunch of soldiers. They are about to shoot Westley with arrows when Buttercup intervenes and says they will surrender, so long as Humperdink does not hurt Westley.
This moment is the true midpoint of the story and a more significant Temporary Triumph because until Humperdink and his men show up, it feels like Buttercup and Westley are in the clear.
The earlier moment (“Aaaaaas yooooou wiiiish” and “I will never doubt again”) is significant because it gives us introspection. That moment is what allows Buttercup to intervene on Westley’s behalf. If she didn’t fully believe in true love, she would not have been nearly as confident in trusting Humperdink with her beloved’s life.
But she does now believe in true love, and she no longer has any doubts. For this reason, she can intervene and allow herself and Westley to surrender, because she knows that no matter what, true love will conquer all. If we didn’t have that earlier, smaller Temporary Triumph (with the moment of introspection) this true midpoint would not have nearly as much significance.
ACT 2 (CONT’D): Humperdink sends Westley to the Pit of Despair, where Count Rugen tortures him. In the meantime, Fezzik finds Inigo drunk in the Thieves’ Forest and nurses him back to health. Fezzik tells Inigo that Count Rugen is the six-fingered man (who killed Inigo’s father) and Inigo insists that they must find the “masked man” (i.e., Westley) to help them hatch a plot to storm the castle.
Inigo follows his father’s sword like a divining rod and it leads him to the entrance of the Pit of Despair. Inside they find Westley, dead. Together, they take Westley to Miracle Max.
PIVOT POINT 2: Miracle Max reveals that Westley isn’t all dead, only mostly dead. He pumps air into Westley’s lungs and asks,” What’ve you got here that’s worth living for?” and Westley croaks out, “True love.” Miracle Max and his wife make a magic pill and give it to Westley. Then Fezzik and Inigo carry Westley out to storm the castle.
In this pivot point, the external event is that Westley is apparently dead. The choice is Westley refusing to give up on true love. His choice to hold on (and not become “all dead”) is the choice that propels us forward into Act 3 of the story.
ACT 3: From here, the pace picks up considerably. Westley wakes up and the three hatch a plan to storm the castle. Then they execute the plan by scaring away all the armed guards and taking the castle gate key from Chief of All Enforcement, Yellin. Once inside the castle, Inigo finds Count Rugen and fights him, eventually winning.
CLIMAX: At the end of the film, Westley engages in another battle of the wits, this time with Prince Humperdink. While lying on a bed (because he is still weak), he tells Humperdink that he will fight him, not to the death but “to the pain.” He then describes in great detail the gruesome way he plans to destroy him.
Humperdink, not realizing that Westley is weak, gives in. Westley and Buttercup tie him up, then meet up with Inigo and Fezzik, who has brought four white horses for them to ride off into the sunrise.
Ending Type: This is an example of a happy ending. Westley and Buttercup want to be together. They get what they want and they still want it at the end of the story.
FRAME: In addition to this perfectly plotted structure, The Princess Bride also has a frame, or a story-within-a-story. In this case, the framing device is a grandfather coming to visit his grandson who is home sick from school. The grandson is sitting in bed, playing video games, and the grandfather brings a book to read to him.
He tells his grandson that the book is filled with adventure, but when he starts reading the story, the boy immediately cuts him off. “Is this a kissing book?” he asks, clearly not enthused. The grandfather promises that the adventure sections are coming and tells the boy to be patient.
A little later, when we get to the section about the screaming eels, the boy is clearly afraid so the grandfather interrupts his reading to let me know that Buttercup will be alright. Later, when Westley and Buttercup reunite after falling down the hill, the boy again doesn’t want to hear about the romance and says: “Do we have to hear the kissing part?”
As the story continues, the boy becomes more and more invested and interested. When Buttercup supposedly marries Prince Humperdink, the boy becomes furious and insists that his grandfather is messing up the story.
Then, when Westley dies, the boy is convinced that Westley is not dead and that Humperdink will be defeated. He asks, “Who gets Humperdink?” and doesn’t want to believe it when his grandfather tells him that Humperdink survives at the end.
Finally, when the four friends—Westley, Buttercup, Inigo, and Fezzik—escape on the white horses, the boy doesn’t mind hearing the kissing part. In fact, when his grandfather tries to skip over it, he says it’s okay for him to read it. After his grandfather is finished reading, the boy asks him to come back tomorrow and read the book again. The grandfather replies, “As you wish,” and the movie ends.
This frame is important for a couple of reasons. First, just because it’s a frame doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own structure. In fact, this frame has a neat little rule of 3 where we have three “kissing parts,” and the boy rejects the first two, but is willing to listen to the last one.
We also see a clear arc in the boy’s character development from being skeptical about the book at the beginning, to being swept up in the emotion of the adventure with the screaming eels, and finally with being convinced that the story needs to turn out a certain way (i.e., that Buttercup can’t marry Humperdink and that Westley can’t be dead).
And at the very end of the film, we see the boy asking his grandfather to come back and read the book again. The grandfather’s “As you wish” brings us full circle, to the beginning of the story when Westley was saying those same words to Buttercup.
CONCLUSION: The phrase “As you wish” is a recurring thematic element in this film. In fact, there are two neat Rules of 3 surrounding “As you wish,” one nested inside the other.
The first Rule of 3 takes place at the very beginning of the film, when Westley and Buttercup are interacting on the farm, Buttercup makes three requests of Westley and each time, he says that famous phrase. The first time, she tells him to polish her horse’s saddle because she wants “to see [her] face shining in it by morning.” He responds with, “As you wish.”
The second time is when she realizes that every time Westley says “As you wish,” what he really means is “I love you.” This time she asks him to fill some water buckets, but it’s no longer a demand. She says, “Please.”
Finally, the third time is the moment when Buttercup realizes she loves Westley back. She makes an almost silly request—for him to hand her a pitcher that’s right in front of her. He says, “As you wish,” and does as she asks. That third instance is different from the first two in that Buttercup has finally realized she’s in love with Westley. From here on, the two are joined by the bonds of true love.
This phrase—”As you wish”—also comes up at three significant points throughout the entire story. The first time is at the beginning, with those three instances of “As you wish” while Westley and Buttercup interact on the farm.
Next, the thematic element returns when Buttercup pushes Westley down the hill and he calls out, “Aaaaas yooooou wiiiiish!” and she immediately tumbles after him. This is a crucial moment in the story because it’s when Buttercup has her moment of introspection and says, “I will never doubt again.”
The third time that element appears in the story is at the end when the grandfather says, “As you wish” to the grandson in the final scene of the film. This third and final instance is different from the first two because it’s not said by Westley but by the grandfather. In this way, it not only comes full circle and hearkens back to the beginning of the story, but it also serves as a bridge between the fairytale and the frame.
Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!
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