Building a Strong Antagonist

so you've built your protagonist you know their beliefs you know what they want and you know how they're going to go after it but goals must come with sacrifice and beliefs must be challenged by opposition without conflict you have no story without opposing beliefs your protagonist will never be challenged creating a strong antagonist is just as important as building your protagonist remember in the last episode that egry wrote there is no sport if there is no competition there is no play if there is no conflict the dramatist needs not only characters who are willing to

put up a fight for their convictions he needs characters who have the strength and the stamina to carry this fight to its logical conclusion a strong antagonist holds important beliefs that challenge your protagonist after you've created the beliefs of your protagonist it's time to turn the tables and look at the philosophical conflict from the other side a mistake i see many writers make is that they totally agree with their protagonist beliefs they don't create strong opposition the antagonist in the story is weak one-dimensional and clearly the bad guy and this is a serious problem have

you ever watched a film and thought that it was preachy too simplistic or too obvious what likely happened is that the writer spent too much time reinforcing the beliefs of the protagonist while creating a weak easily defeatable antagonist without real philosophical beliefs i've talked at length about philosophical conflict on this channel and how your characters need beliefs the second step of this is that beliefs do not matter unless they are tested and your antagonist is here to test the beliefs of your protagonist to their absolute limits in snow piercer our protagonist is curtis a man

at the back of an apocalyptic train trying to get to the front to defeat wilford the tyrannical leader of the train and the story's antagonist curtis believes that the people at the back of the train are treated unfairly their children are taken from them they eat bugs and they live in cramped quarters however curtis will find wilford at the front a man who believes that to keep the train moving certain sacrifices must be made for the good of the small sliver of humanity that still remains alive on earth wilfred challenges what curtis believes when curtis

reaches the front of the train his choice on what to do is no longer clear wilford challenges curtis with a dark truth and that is that wilford's tough decision making is what has kept humanity alive wilford does more than send his henchman to fight against curtis and his friends wilford challenges curtis's point of view he challenges the reason he fought to the front in the first place wilford's beliefs directly oppose what curtis believes in the dark knight batman is trying to rid the city of organized crime and create law and order batman believes people need

law and order so that they can live in peace however these beliefs are directly challenged by the joker the joker believes the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules and he challenges batman's view of the world by trying to show him that everyone in gotham will turn against each other if they get desperate enough joker shows batman the ugly side of people and joker destroys harvey dent to show batman that anyone can fall when times get hard joker's beliefs directly oppose what batman believes a strong antagonist has a clear want and

takes action to get it that forces your protagonist to react in the previous video i talked about how your protagonist will largely be propelling the conflict of your story because they will be the ones taking action to get what they want remember what aaron sorkin said in his interview rather than kind of tell the audience uh uh who a character is i like to show the audience what a character wants uh and it all boils down to intention and obstacle somebody wants something something standing in their way of getting it something standing in their way

of getting it this is your antagonist your antagonist will have once and goals just like your protagonist and these ones will be in direct opposition to what the protagonist wants now this can manifest in different ways sometimes your antagonist will be directly against your protagonist like in the dark knight the joker is specifically playing with batman he wants to show batman that he's wrong about the city joker is seeking to change batman's beliefs sometimes your antagonist will be working towards what they want and suddenly the protagonist is just in their way like in snow piercer

wilford is not trying to fight against curtis curtis starts his rebellion and then suddenly becomes a problem that wilfred must deal with he doesn't really see curtis as a threat until he starts actually making it to the front of the train the clash between your protagonist and your antagonist needs to be impactful to the story meaning every time they meet someone is losing something there is a cost or sacrifice to their conflict and through this sacrifice we see how important the wants and beliefs of the characters are back to snow piercer curtis continues to lose

his friends and allies as he cuts through wilford's men by the time curtis gets to the front of the train he has lost everyone close to him he made sacrifice after sacrifice to get to the front and so we realized how important it is to him that he gets to wilford and kills him in the dark knight the joker kills rachel and destroys harvey dent with the death of rachel batman has lost the most important person in his life we see that his fight with a joker has cost him greatly and through this we see

how important his beliefs are i was meant to inspire good not madness not death batman has to decide if his fight is even worth the sacrifices he has to make this is powerful this will invest your audience into your story's conflict and it will force your characters to change as they must handle the consequences of their fight part of creating good story conflict is that your protagonist and antagonist are working with a similar level of power they have to be able to be a challenge to one another or your story's conflict will die too quickly

in the art of dramatic writing agree writes if for any good reason the antagonist cannot put up a protracted fight you might as well look for another character who will now of course many times the protagonist starts by being completely outmatched by the antagonist for example in the matrix neo doesn't have the power to fight against the agents of the matrix however over the course of the story he gains power and is able to fight against them in the end but the protagonist must have the ability to rise to the occasion and take on the

antagonist you would not pit paddington bear against thanos the conflict simply doesn't make sense there has to be some push and pull you need to have clashes where both sides are forced to sacrifice and adapt their strategy to beat their opponent does your antagonist have to change just like a protagonist your antagonist can go through change but it isn't necessary and ultimately the story is the protagonist's story more often than not your antagonist will not change many times a protagonist beats an antagonist by going through change themselves the antagonist becomes the vehicle for change in

the protagonist do all stories need an antagonist no there are different kinds of opposition a protagonist can also be in opposition against nature or themselves for example in the martian the main antagonist is the harsh reality of trying to survive on another planet mark watney and nasa are constantly at odds with nature as they all work to rescue mark from mars your story can also have multiple different kinds of opposition in the lord of the rings frodo's main antagonist is sauron and sauron's servants but it's also the mountains valleys and cliffs he has to go

through on his journey and it's also frodo's personal struggle against the power of the ring the antagonistic forces are not all characters they are also nature and the self if you don't take anything else from this video take this the clash between the beliefs and wants of your protagonist and antagonist should force the characters to make sacrifices both in what they want and what they believe sacrifice shows us the importance of what the characters believe in and sacrifice helps turn the story and create new situations where both characters must figure out what to do next

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