Todorov's theory

Narrative structure theory narrative structure theory by Tzvetan Todorov is about how the narration in a story is created. In this theory, Todorov mentioned that there are 5 stages that a character will go through; those are Equilibrium, Disruption, Recognition, Attempt of repair and the New equilibrium.

In his theory he states that in the begging of every story there is an Equilibrium which is the state of balance where the characters are living there ordinary day to day lives though it is not the most perfect of day to day lives it is still considered "alright".

But then as time passes a Disruption appears, this is the part of the story where conflict might appear and ruin the character's daily life which would make them notice the problem and would prompt them To repair the Disruption.

This predicament brings us to the resolution phase of the story which is when the problem has been solved by the protagonist and now after the problem is solved a New equilibrium would appear which is another different state of balance that could either be worse or better than the previous equilibrium.

Case study:

McQueen's current Equilibrium is that he does his usual things such as racing, being McQueen and winning and continues to do so over the course of his career. McQueen being McQueen is still the cocky and competitive person he was in his last movie although less egotistical.

After some time has passed in his racing career a "rookie" appeared out of absolutely nowhere and beat McQueen in a race thus stealing the win from him which caused a bit of a Disruption for him, He later realized that the rookie's name was Jackson Storm and that he is a series of new generation racing cars that are faster, more fuel efficient and have much better aerodynamics than the old generation racing cars (this is a Recognition phase).

His Attempt Of Repair was to "train" his speed by practicing in various amounts of different and old race tracks that are either run down or completely revamped to be used for a different purpose, he tries and tries again but can't seem to get faster, but in the end he resorts to just get a successor named Cruz Ramirez, which went on to beat Storm and win the race for McQueen.

The New equilibrium of the story is that McQueen is retired and Cruz takes over McQueen's spot as the new number 1 racer. They would also occasionally race each other for fun to see which is faster in the canyons of radiator springs.