origin story

English

Noun

origin story (plural origin stories)

1. (narratology) An account of how a fictional character or characters became a protagonist or antagonist.

   Coordinate terms: backstory, origin myth, pourquoi story

   • 2022 April 5, Tina Brown, “How Princess Diana’s Dance With the Media Impacted William and Harry”, in Vanity Fair‎^[1]:

     More unsettling was the origin story of the infamous tell-all book Princess in Love. Diana claimed to be outraged in 1994 when Daily Express journalist Anna Pasternak spilled the beans of her affair with former army officer James Hewitt […]

     adapted from the book The Palace Papers, published 2022 by Penguin Books

   • 2022 July 8, Judy Berman, “The Anarchists Is a Messy, Gripping Anarcho-Capitalist Saga”, in Time‎^[2]:

     Premiering July 10, The Anarchists […] circles loosely around these dilemmas throughout six episodes that alternate between origin story, character study, true crime, and trend report.

   • 2024 January 1, Holland Cotter, Alissa Wilkinson, Mike Hale, Salamishah Tillet, Jesse Green, “What Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2024”, in The New York Times‎^[3], →ISSN:

     George Miller returns to direct an origin story for the character that Charlize Theron played in 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” with Anya Taylor-Joy in the Furiosa role.

Translations

account of how a fictional character or characters became a protagonist or antagonist

• Finnish: alkuperätarina
• Hungarian: eredettörténet