Tag: villain

Has Your Antagonist Stolen Your Story?

July 15, 2019 / Kyle A. Massa

Protagonist: the character who propels your story forward. Usually the main character. Antagonist: the character who impedes that forward progress. Usually a supporting character. Seem simple enough. Except when it’s not.

What if your antagonist is more compelling than your protagonist? Contrary to conventions, what if your villain feels more like the main character than your main character does? What if it feels like your antagonist has stolen your story?

Let’s look into some answers to these questions.

Option 1: Improve Your Protagonist

If your antagonist is a 10 out of 10 and your protagonist only a nine, it’s time to turn the latter up to 11. In other words, maybe it’s not that your antagonist has stolen your story. Maybe your protagonist just needs to be a little stronger (or louder, as it were).

Voldemort

This imbalance is sometimes caused by focusing too much on building likable main characters. Since we most likely want readers to root for our protagonists, they can turn into types rather than individuals. Traits like courage, resourcefulness, and fairness are great. But they can also be a little boring all by themselves.

If your protagonist feels uninteresting, try adding flaws. These tend to create internal conflict, which builds good characters.

For instance, imagine you’re writing a heroic protagonist. We’ll call her Solara (after one of my cats). Since you want Solara to be likable, you write her as a kind, intelligent, capable character. Whenever she encounters a challenge, she succeeds. Although Solara sounds like an awesome person, she’s not a particularly interesting character. Pretty much any antagonist you set against her will overshadow her.

Instead, let’s add a flaw. What if she succeeds all the time, yet fails for the first time when the world needs her most? How does she react to that? How does she live with herself?

By adding this simple flaw of overconfidence, we’ve enhanced our protagonist greatly. Doing so returns her to the forefront of the story, which simultaneously reclaims some mojo from your antagonist.

Option 2: Shift the Focus of Your Story

If you feel your antagonist is the best character in your manuscript, it’s entirely possible that your antagonist should’ve been the protagonist all along.

Gollum

But in the words of Treebeard, don’t be hasty. Agonize over this decision before you make it. Sometimes it’s exactly what your manuscript needs. Sometimes it means months of work with little (or no) payoff.

Furthermore, this solution is rarely correct because an author’s instincts are rarely wrong. You know your story better than anyone. Therefore, if you decided to tell it from your original protagonist’s point of view, that’s very likely to be the correct decision. Because when it comes to writing, initial inclinations are usually right.

Bottom line: This solution works, though not as often as you might think. Consider it, but don’t expect it.

Option 3: Accept It

The Joker

Stories are best when conventions are broken. So maybe it’s alright for your antagonist to be more compelling than your protagonist.

The Dark Knight provides an excellent example. This film came out when I was in high school and became an instant hit. I myself saw it three times in theaters (and nearly a fourth, that time in IMAX). Everyone saw it. I remember the conversations about it vividly.

No one talked about Batman. Everyone talked about the Joker.

On its face, that might sound backward. The film isn’t called The Joker, after all. Shouldn’t Batman be the character everyone’s talking about?

Not necessarily. Ultimately it comes down to the story you’re writing. The Joker’s popularity works because villains are an essential ingredient of comic book films. In addition, the Joker himself is one of the most famous antagonists there is. Making him the emphasis of the film works, and works well.

Will the same work for your work? As with all of these tips, you’re the best judge. Figure out what’s best for your story, your protagonist, and your antagonist, then act. Because no one knows your story better than you!

Kyle A. Massa is a speculative fiction author living somewhere in upstate New York with his fiancee and their two cats. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction.

Sympathy for the Titan: Thanos & How to Create a Good Bad Guy

May 29, 2018 / Kyle A. Massa

In Avengers: Infinity War, Peter Quill calls Thanos “Grimace.” Funny insult, but Thanos is anything but a cartoon character.

Thanos

Thanos, played by Josh Brolin, is the central villain of Marvel Studios’ latest blockbuster. If you’ve seen the movie already (I’m assuming you have, otherwise, why are you reading this?), then you know he’s an excellent villain. In fact, people all over the internet are raving about him. Some have even called him the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s best villain, full stop. (I think that distinction belongs to the Mandarin, but that’s just me.)

Thanos is indeed an excellent villain. Why is he so compelling? Why are audiences responding so well to such a bad dude? And for writers like you and me, what can we borrow from Thanos and share with our own villains?

Thanos is Tragic

Thanos’s life is a sad story. He’s an outsider with no home, and he’s pretty much the worst dad ever. He believes half the universe must die so the other half may live; this mission has left him utterly alone. Imagine having a calling for your entire life, which no one has ever agreed with or understood. That’s Thanos. His life is a tragedy. This is a significant reason why audiences respond so well to him.

Furthermore, the events of the film hit Thanos harder than any other character. Just after he’s collected all the Infinity Stones and his plan is finally set in motion, there’s a brief, somewhat hallucinogenic scene in which Thanos approaches a young Gamora, his adopted daughter who he sacrificed earlier in the film (told you not to read this). She asks if he accomplished what he said out to do; he answers yes. And when Gamora asks what it cost him, he says, “Everything.”

It’s these moments of humanity that make the character so resonant. It’s easy to write villains who commit terrible acts simply because the plot demands it. What is much more difficult, and ultimately more compelling, is a villain who earns our sympathy. Thanos does exactly that.

Thanos is Actually Kind of Right

Remember when I mentioned that Thanos has no home? It’s not because he’s been evicted. Rather, it’s because his home planet of Titan is dead. The cause of said death: overpopulation. In Thanos’s estimation, the resources of the planet could never sustain its demands. As a result, everybody went the way of the dodo.

Titan’s fate is essential to justifying Thanos’s evil plan. He’s not only claiming overpopulation is an issue—he’s actually witnessed its consequences. Likewise, the audience needs to see this as well. By observing the ruin of his home world, we as the viewers understand why he does what he does.

Furthermore, there’s a certain logic to his plan beyond the world of the film. Sadly, overpopulation is a real problem in the real world, as we know. Resources are not unlimited, at least not right now. So the film touches on a real issue, and works off a real problem.

Thanos is Positioned as the Film’s Protagonist

Thanos

Classic storytelling structure dictates a story’s protagonist strives to achieve a central goal. The antagonist, on the other hand, must prevent the protagonist from accomplishing said goal. We usually see protagonists portrayed as heroes and antagonists portrayed as villains.

Now let’s apply that framework to Avengers: Infinity War. The central goal of the film is Thanos’s pursuit of the Infinity Stones—which would then make him the protagonist of the film. And that would therefore make the Avengers the antagonists, since they want to prevent the protagonist from achieving his goal. Co-director Anthony Russo confirmed this notion by stating, “The moment I felt like we had cracked the movie creatively, was when we started to think about Thanos as the lead character of the movie.”

There you have it. Thanos is a great villain because in many ways, he’s not a villain. In many ways, he’s actually the film’s protagonist.

In my opinion, Thanos’s reputation as one of the MCU’s greatest villains is spot on. A great deal of care, time, and thought went into this character, and it shows. Who knew a big, buff purple guy could be so deep?