Creating contradictory character traits in the antagonist.

By ElSmootho · Feb 26, 2015 · 1.1K · 4

I've started writing my first screenplay and have already gone through a couple of changes or drafts. I'm actually looking for ideas in terms of adding some complex characteristic traits to the antagonist.

The premise of the story is as follows:
"An abandoned boarding-school boy endures horrific acts of abuse from his headmaster. He eventually triumphs over tragedy with the aid of a troubled monk and a rebellious girl".

The headmaster (antagonist) is a married man with 4 young girls. The abandoned boy (protagonist) eventually gets his innocence taken away from him through a series of abuses by the headmaster. The headmaster's complex inner character is driven by the fact that he'd always wanted to have a boy and kept trying but to no avail. The headmaster tries to turn the abuse into masochism but the young teenager is finally saved by a local monk (pro-protagonist) and the transfer of a new rebellious, eccentric girl into this school.

The story continues but what I'm looking for is a couple of ideas or some conflicting characteristics to add to the headmaster's personality in order to expand the depth of his character and inner conflicts.

If anyone out there could make any suggestions then I'd be most grateful.

Cheers,
....A
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Comments

So, the headmaster has four daughters but wanted a son - this leads to him somehow abusing one particular male student. Why him? Was it just that the boy in question was the most susceptible (headmaster's crimes are that of opportunity) or was there something peculiar about the boy that drove him to the abuse (crime of passion) - perhaps questioning this could lead you somewhere interesting. Either way, the boy is rescued - does this mean that he will try again or will he try to cover it up? Is he afraid of people learning about that side of him or does he feel justified? How does his interactions with the protagonist compare with his family? Sometimes just fleshing out what kind of person he chose to marry will flesh out his own character; was he only looking for good genes to pass on to his progeny, was it just the first woman to come along and decide to make him a part of her life and he just went along with it because at least she wanted kids as badly as he did, did he try marrying up in the world, or was she just a puppet he could manipulate?

Hope something fires an idea for you.
-XaP

XanthePersephone, Feb 28, 2015
Thanks XaP for your insightful input, you've put forth quite a lot of ideas and scenarios. And thanks for taking the time to add these comments.

To be further clear, the reason the boy is chosen is because of his good looks. He's also been abandoned by his parents and the headmaster sees him as a vulnerable entity. When the boy becomes a teenager he gets rescued by a local monk and then he befriends a teenage girl who's a newcomer to the school.
The boy goes onto a personal journey with the monk. At the end, now that the monk had found himself he decides to leave his robe/cloak behind in search of his lost love. So the change occurs in both the monk and in our protagonist. We see through the story that there could be a future for both the teenage girl and our protagonist but a civil war erupts and she sacrifices many things to see our protagonist flee the country, safely.
The question remains, when faced with a calamity such as a paedophile in a war torn country, who would one turn to in order to seek justice? If we had to inflict punishment on them would it be justifiable? or should society take care of it? or let Karma (the natural course of events) would eventually deal with it? or maybe it would never be resolved and the ones that got damaged were left to repair the emotional cracks and let time blur out some of the memories.

ElSmootho, Mar 15, 2015
Are you trying to make the headmaster more sympathetic as a character to ramp up the ambiguity of justice? Or are you highlighting the depth of his corruption and letting the setting speak for the ambiguity? Rhetorical; I just think that's the important difference in which conflicting characteristics he should have.

XanthePersephone, Mar 28, 2015
Interesting contrast....
Actually, I'm more inclined to follow the latter suggestion. I don't think we can be sympathetic towards a person that deliberately rob the innocence of a very young boy.

The dilemma the boy will face as he becomes an adolescent in a country that's ravaged by civil war is how and who should punish such villains? People of this sort would be placed in the third or fourth row within the chamber of horror. In a war zone, we tend to fear the killers and militia men that roam amongst us than pedophiles or sex attackers. They would become almost negligible in the grand scheme of things.

I've been thinking is to let the aggressor struggle or suffer within his own mind and destructive world.

If you could think of an alternate ending then feel free to share it.

Cheers.
....A

ElSmootho, Apr 9, 2015

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Creating contradictory character traits in the antagonist.

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