In every story or movie there's always a narrative structure, that may be for the story in general or the characters apart of the story most commonly known as a "character arc."
The running theme with characters in every story now is either having one or two protagonists with the antagonist on the side. Both protagonists having a dual narrative where the same story is told from both perspectives and eventually their stories intertwine and they have a common enemy. This could also work between the Protagonist and Antagonist, the concept is still the same and you'd still end up with a dual narrative.
The most obvious example of the dual narrative would be Harry Potter. We see both sides of the story from Harry and Voldemort's perspective, both characters lives have intertwined at some point and the story is based around those two and their encounter with each other.
Furthermore, every story has the basic roles. Hero, Villain, Princess, False Hero, Dispatcher are the most common in today's narrative structure. And once again all of these characters are connected to each other through the story. The hero has a quest and gets sent on one by the dispatcher who can also be the father sometimes if a princess is involved. The hero usually has a sidekick and they save the princess and defeat the villain. Sometimes stories don't follow this narrative and can switch it up. For example, Frozen made Elsa the hero and the villain at the same time, whilst Hans who was supposed to be the prince turned out to be the false hero. Although very commonly characters can play two different set character arcs.
Character Arcs and Narrative Theory go hand in hand, as the story goes through its arc so do the characters as they slowly grow and learn before the end. It starts off in the ordinary world before something goes wrong and the reluctant hero gets the call for adventure and goes out on a quest after some denial that they cant save the world. However, as the story moves along every single time the hero will change and learn how to conquer their fears, gain friends, some else bad will happen that maybe makes them doubt themselves again but they push on. Then it all eventually leads to the final with a character that has gone through the stages of the narrative and had developed as a character through out. This narrative theory 90% of the time only applies to the main characters such as the hero, villain and maybe helper. You don't often see the king/father go through a traumatic character arc.
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