The Universe is immensely poetic. Like many truths of life, this happens to be more evident in fiction than it typically is in “real life”. Audiences can see this in those moments when a chill runs down their spine, as they realize for the first time – the protagonist has at last come full circle.

This is a phenomenon known as the “circle of being”. It is as if the Universe, shall we say, conspired to take the protagonist from one place to another and, at the same time, nowhere new at all.

A circle of being moment is the point of impact when it becomes clear that a character has completed a story arc. They begin in one well-defined place then experience either a physical or emotional journey (or even better, both) that brings about a clear change in their persona.

Along the way, they discover an important lesson or truth, then arrive at the end of said journey in a position that parallels where they started. It’s a circle. It serves to signify to the audience exactly how much the protagonist has changed since the outset of the plot, because the character in question is in a familiar situation, except now they are handling it in a completely different manner than they would have before. (Any character, of course, can display a circle of being. The protagonist will be used here for simplicity’s sake.)

It is not the case, however, that the protagonist did not change, or at least, the circle of being should not come across this way. The contrary should be true. Otherwise, it’s not really a circle of being as much as a stagnant state of being. If the protagonist doesn’t change in some way through the events of the story, readers or viewers will often be left with a case of cognitive dissonance (subconsciously or otherwise), feeling as though something is missing from the narrative. A circle of being is more as if the main character has unfinished business with the person they used to be.

These key points in the character’s arc can be identified by tying them together with common “cues”. An effective illustration of this can be found in the character Iron Man. (Spoiler alert for Avengers: Endgame.) Tony Stark is a favorite fictional character for many because his story is not a simple straight line – it twists and turns and loops back in on itself.

When we first meet Tony in Iron Man and Iron Man 2, it is clear that he has some relationship issues – both familial and romantic. His parents, particularly his father, seem to have been physically present but emotionally unavailable, leaving Tony feeling perhaps like being a father is the one thing he is not qualified for.

Even Tony’s relationship with Pepper Potts is not an easy road because Tony is at a bit of a disadvantage, never having experienced actual love for most of his life. The audience can see him chasing it in his flings with various beautiful women, but it is evident that none of these bring Tony more than momentary happiness.

When he and Pepper finally do get together, Tony begins to pull back just as soon as Pepper begins to get close. Tony is ill-equipped to handle the depth of emotions developing between himself and Pepper, so he avoids them altogether in an attempt to avoid causing anyone to get hurt. He hides this emotional insecurity behind the demeanor of a snarky, innately cool genius, a front that most of the people around Tony believe, because that’s what they expect of a billionaire of his reputation.

Fast forward to Captain America: Civil War. Tony recruits 15-year-old Peter Parker for “Team Stark” and, especially in Spider-Man: Homecoming, we quickly see Tony take on a father figure role for the orphaned Peter. In Homecoming and the following Avengers movies, Tony and Peter become an entertaining but unbalanced team, with Peter trying to jump through hoops to prove himself and impress “Mr. Stark”. Tony gives Peter some tough love at times, even comparing himself to his own father, but does genuinely seem to care about Peter’s safety and well-being.

When Peter endangers himself and others trying to save the day in Homecoming, Tony responds by taking away the high-tech suit he gave Peter, remarking at the time that he wanted Peter to “be better” than himself. This sounds like a high standard to expect of a high school kid, especially given who Tony Stark is through Peter’s eyes, but it reveals yet another facet of Tony’s complex emotional arc.

Tony doesn’t see himself as a hero or as someone to look up to the way Peter does. The standard he weighs himself against is far greater than that of everyone else, and he is projecting this onto Peter. By revoking Peter’s super suit, he is trying to protect him physically, but also emotionally, by steering Peter away from the idea of imitating Tony’s often reckless behavior.

In Spider-Man: Far From Home, Tony posthumously comes full circle with this. He leaves for Peter, rather than his own daughter or his wife or any of the other Avengers, a pair of very Stark-esque sunglasses that give Peter command over an armada of drones and Tony’s trusty A.I., “Friday”.

The note he leaves with the glasses declares they are for “the next Iron Man”. This, from the man who told Peter not to be like Iron Man. In this common cue connecting the two Spider-Man films, we can see that Tony has grown past the impossible bar he set for himself, while also finally giving Peter the assurance that he has, in fact, lived up to expectations and become worthy of inheriting the legacy of Iron Man.

(Interestingly, Peter misunderstands this in Far From Home, unable to believe he truly did become the hero Tony wanted him to be. It is almost as if Peter became a bit too much like Tony by picking up his hero-insecurity complex. What Peter has to learn through the film is that he has grown into the mantle of a true Avenger, the leader of the Avengers even, as Iron Man’s heir-apparent.)

Meanwhile, Tony comes full circle with Pepper and his father in Avengers: Endgame. The first circle of being moment in the film occurs in the second scene, when Tony is stranded in space with mere hours left to live. He records a message to Pepper with his Iron Man helmet (which, it is important to note, he has taken off in this scene), expressing his fear over his impending death, and confessing that Pepper will be who he is thinking about when he “drifts off”.

The common cue creating the circle of being moment here goes back to the first Avengers movie, when Tony flew a bomb into a wormhole to save the world and, just as he thought he was about to die stranded in space on the wrong side of said wormhole, he attempted to call Pepper. She didn’t see her phone ringing, though, because she was too busy watching Tony sacrifice himself on TV.

In Endgame, Tony is completing almost the exact same task, except everything is different now. In Avengers, Tony didn’t actually leave a message for Pepper. Now, he does. He has also literally and figuratively removed the mask of Iron Man and allowed himself to show a level of vulnerability usually deeply hidden beneath emotional and literal armor. Tony has completed a circle of being with Pepper, tied together by the common cues of “stranded in space” and “calling Pepper”.

Finally, after Tony is safely back on Earth and attempting once more to save humanity, he comes full circle with his father. Tony travels back in time with Steve Rodgers to retrieve valuable “Pym particles” and the Tesseract, which will enable them to complete their mission. Who should Tony run into in the past, but his own father – young, alive, and with baby Tony on the way. Howard Stark doesn’t recognize Tony, naturally, and vents to him during an awkward elevator ride about how unprepared he feels to be a father.

Ironically, he unknowingly asks his own son for parenting advice. Tony could say all manner of things here that could potentially improve his childhood, about how Howard should praise and love his son, but he doesn’t. Instead, he tells Howard that he’s going to be a great dad. It is at this moment that Tony has completed his lifelong circle of being with his father – he has forgiven him.

In this case, Howard himself is the common cue revealing the profound change and growth that Tony has experienced in the years since Howard’s death (in Tony’s timeline). At this point, he has had a pseudo-son in Peter and a real daughter in Morgan Stark. He’s grown past his despise for his cold and calculating dad and learned to be a better father himself because of it, perhaps after seeing some of Howard’s tendencies in himself through his relationship with Peter.

By the time he sacrifices himself in Endgame, Tony is back where he started, but at the same time has come a long way, in more ways than one. He got to speak to his dad again, yet everything had changed between them. He called Pepper one last time, but now was unafraid of his feelings toward her. He brought Peter back from “the Blip”, but had fully realized what Peter meant to him and allowed Peter to see that.

Everyone wants to see characters grow and become better people, no matter how heroic they may or may not initially seem. The key to making circle of being moments happen is developing intricate detail in characters and their lives, maximizing opportunities to create these important common cues for circle of being arcs.

People love to read and watch these moments play out on page and screen, verse after verse being written into a graceful sonnet. If the circle of being can be properly mastered and utilized, we may just be able to craft a stanza the likes of Shakespeare… or Kevin Feige.