Hm. Good point. I surely must have read, but nothing at all comes to mind. I'm about to write a character such as this, in my current WIP. I'm thinking of making her the main antagonist, but will figure this out on the way. How about you?
Well to be honest I can't think of a female antagonist right now....but I am thinking perhaps Nikkita the movie? Do you know it? That is off the cut but in terms of a novel I can't think of one right now. I am wondering whether female antagonism is a good idea??
I've seen the movie years ago and I don't remember a thing about it. Why wouldn't it be? Do you mean for main antagonists only? Because I can think of plenty minor female antagonists that play out quite well. Let me juice my brain a bit... Not sure if this is considered an antagonist per say, but I loved the character of Olivia in Hemlock Grove. In the series "Weeds" the blond (don't recall her name) one was a major antagonist. In "Matilda" it was her new school teacher. In "Misery" by Steven King, it was Misery. I have other references as well, but I don't think that you will know them. Fun fact! There is a novel, written by a greek author titled "The Witches of Smyrni". The protagonist is called Katina. Her antagonist is another, older and uglier witch. I don't recall her name either.
Katina did you say?? Really?? I am shocked. LOL I will look into it. I mam surprised you don't remember Nikkita. The first time I watched it I thought it was incredible hence why it stayed with me ever since. So what about your antagonist that you are thinking of? How is that come about?
Maybe because I refrain from watching something twice and I watched it on TV. I was never into watching TV a lot, because of all the commercials. A simple movie would be extended twice its original playing time and when it was a late night, it would even turn thrice, since the 12 o'clock news. Maybe I should rewatch it. Anyhow, my female antagonist is still brewing in my mind. My story is adventure and fantasy, situated in China, Southern Song dynasty era and I'm using some folklore here and there. I don't want to stray a lot from the chinese folklore of the time period, but I have also blended some external "magical" influences as well. One of my first antagonists, which serves mostly as a trickster and a catalyst, is a Nine tailed fox. I was thinking of extending her role, since she came out to be much more charismatic as I had originally thought. There is also another female character, a fellow assassin that might turn against him at some point and hunt him down to the edge of the world. Difference in ethical values and a huge misunderstanding. So now that I gave you a general picture of what's up, I'll explain why I like this concept (male prot - female ant). I just like the appeal that some battles my protagonist is meant to lose and my protagonist is very skilled and clever and... male of course. A man has a much stronger body than a woman. When he loses, he becomes vulnerable (externally) towards a being that is considered to be much more vulnerable than he is and that, I just find sexy for a reason. There's a sweet appeal watching a strong enemy sleep (or being generally unconscious) and for my antagonist, my protagonist is considered to be the antagonist, if you catch my drift.
I don’t think I’ve written a female antagonist yet. The antagonist of my WIP is an asexual alien entity. Come to think of it, I can’t think of too many female antagonists out of the books I read, which is a bit surprising. I read a lot of scifi and fantasy, which means a decent number of the antagonists aren’t human, or are organizations. Still, there probably needs to be some more equal opportunity in this regard! Female antagonists who stand out in my memory though are Eshonai from Words of Radiance and Carrie’s mother from Stephen King’s first novel.
An antagonist doesn't have to be a villain: a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary. In Of Sins and Shadows, the first book in my high fantasy series If Eternity should Fail, the main antagonist is actually one of the supporting characters, the druid Urraca. Now, I do have another female antagonist later on in the series who will be a villain.
In Crazy Rich Asians (fun movie, worth owning, gorgeous in 4K HDR) the antagonists are all female. In fact, all of the characters with substantial agency (the MC, her allies, and her antagonists) are female. The men are either beefcake (and how!) or comic relief.
In my WIP, as the series progresses, the antagonists are (in temporal order): the MC's mother, an ambitious woman with sociopathic tendencies, the fanatical organization the ambitious woman founds to gain control of a city-state, the city-state that the ambitious woman gains control of, and a small group of humans and AIs that control a world-destroying machine (which the ambitious woman wants to get control of.) All the antagonists either are or include women.
The lead villain protagonist, a secondary villain protagonist, and the lead villain antagonist of the WIP I'm editing are all women, and my favorite female villain from established fiction is Princess Azula, Avatar: the Last Airbender The series doesn't just tell us she's brilliant and terrifying, it shows us Azula succeeding against the protagonists at a great many of the battles that come up between them (both by outsuperpowering them and/or by outsmarting them), but the more we learn about her, the more we weep for the girl who was molded into a monster while still feeling horror for the monster that the girl was molded into.
Annie Wilkes was pretty freaky! The one from the book Rebecca and Eve from the movie "All About Eve" - she may be one of my favourites. Lady Macbeth was a bitch.
I don't have a particular favourite that comes to mind... Maybe Cersei Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire, who is both despicable and a good character, but I don't know if I would classify her as a pure antagonist. I do have some in my own work, but again the lines are a little blurred, since they tend to get their own viewpoints and everything... They're not antagonistic, they're Differently Heroic. One of my novels does have a pure antagonist of the Big Bad variety. She is a demigoddess, the self-proclaimed Queen of the Galaxy; her necromantic abilities are orders of magnitude more powerful than the very greatest mortal practitioners of the art. She is sadistic, vengeful, greedy, politically and militarily savvy, and not afraid to choke a bitch. She's not particularly sympathetic, but there are reasons why she is this way.
Alex Forrest in "Fatal Attraction", played by Glenn Close. The debate still lives whether she was an insane stalker or whether she was used and tossed aside by an uncaring jerk who expected to escape any consequences. Given the severity of her actions, I favor the first interpretation, but Dan Gallagher, played by Michael Douglas, wasn't an innocent victim either.
I can think of a couple of movies that had a female bad guy. And there was the Countess the De winter in the Three Musketeers but that's all that Springs to mind. They're pretty rare. Might be a good prompt for the short story contest.
I haven't seen the movie, but my dad has, and he says the original ending would've leaned more closely in the second direction (and that would've made for a much better movie). Still a villain, but a humanized 3-dimensional villain as opposed to a caricature.
I was watching an old movie The Bad Seed. The 9 year old girl, Rhoda, was a "little devil". The ending was quite shocking since she was a child, but she deserved it. Now that I think of it, the Macaulay Culkin character in The Good Son met a similar fate.
The novel I'm querying has a couple of female antagonists. All of the antagonists are basically huge assholes, rather than evil.
Disney animated movies are chock full of female antagonist: Ursula, the Evil Queen, Maleficent, the Step-Mother, Mother Gothel, Cruella De Vil, Yzma ... Some aren't even villains (e.g. Elinor, Merida's mother in Brave.) Ursala's the best, just because of her "Poor Unfortunate Souls" song.
Female antagonists? Hm... I can think of a few. Bellatrix LestrangeHarry Potter MaleficentSleeping Beauty Cersei BaratheonGame of Thrones Annie WilkesMisery Wicked Witch of the WestOz Universe Cruella de Vil101 Dalmatians Harley QuinnBatman universe Nurse RatchedOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest MystiqueMarvel Universe Dolores UmbridgeHarry Potter Elle DriverKill Bill Universe CatwomanBatman universe UrsulaThe Little Mermaid Jadis the White WitchThe Chronicles of Narnia Catherine TramellBasic Instinct Regina GeorgeMean Girls Poison IvyBatman & Robin O-Ren IshiiKill Bill Universe Alex ForrestFatal Attraction Regina MillsOnce Upon a Time EstherOrphan Miranda PriestlyThe Devil Wears Prada Joan CrawfordMommie Dearest Sister Mary EuniceAmerican Horror Story: AsylumMama FratelliThe Goonies Queen of HeartsAlice, Alice in Wonderland, Alice in WonderlandLady TremaineCinderella III: A Twist in Time, Cinderella, Cinderella II: Dreams Come True Emma FrostWolverine and the X-Men, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class Phoenix ForceMarvel UniverseXenia OnatoppGoldenEye Alien QueenAliens UniverseSantanico PandemoniumFrom Dusk Til Dawn Samara MorganThe Ring, Rings, The Ring Two Kathryn MerteuilCruel Intentions Regan MacNeilExorcist II: The Heretic, The Exorcist Mallory KnoxNatural Born Killers Lady MacbethMacbeth, We Work Again, Macbeth Talia al GhulThe Dark Knight Rises, DC Universe Constance LangdonAmerican Horror Story: Murder House Mother GothelTangled Queen RavennaSnow White and the Huntsman Carrie WhiteCarrie Nancy DownsThe Craft Other MotherCoraline AzulaAvatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar: Legend of Korra, The Last Airbender MedusaThe Understudy, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief Baby Jane HudsonWhat Ever Happened to Baby Jane? DrusillaBuffyverse Queen AkashaThe Queen of the Damned Veruca SaltWilly Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Marquise de MerteuilDangerous Liaisons Agatha TrunchbullMatilda Borg QueenStar Trek: First Contact Morgan le FayMerlin, Excalibur, Dr. Strange Heather ChandlerHeathers Elektra KingThe World Is Not Enough CallistoXenaverse Queen NarissaEnchanted Elsa SchneiderIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones franchise Gogo YubariKill Bill Volume 1 Grand High WitchThe Witches - "Witches" DarlaBuffyverse EnchantressThor: Tales of Asgard, Marvel Universe UrsaSuperman Universe Wednesday AddamsThe Addams Family, Addams Family Values, The Addams Family Aileen WuornosMonster VickyThe Jimmy Timmy Power Hour, Channel Chasers - "Fairly Odd Parents" Winifred SandersonHocus Pocus Madam MimThe Sword in the Stone (alright, I admit it... I googled it...) https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-female-villains
Settling on a single favorite is tough. Cersei Lannister has to be near the top of my list, insofar as a POV character from A Song of Ice and Fire can qualify as an antagonist. Her influence and position of power make her a legitimate threat to many of the more sympathetic characters, but despite her cunning she's also woefully out of her depth when it comes to politicking. Paranoia and pride warp her view of the world, leading to some key mistakes. Seeing how disconnected her view of this is from objective reality made her chapters a joy to read. Aside from that, she's a surprisingly deep character. Renfri, from the Witcher short story "The Lesser Evil" is up there too. She poses compelling physical and ethical threats to Geralt, and ends up a very complex character. That the question of whether she was born a monster or molded into one by circumstance is never answered adds to the complexity. Eloise Prichart from the Honor Harrington series is an interesting one, of the "opposition rather than villain" type of antagonist. As the President of a revived Republic of Haven, she only ends up opposing the protagonists due to the political machinations of certain people on both sides igniting a war. A war she moves to end as soon as the lies, manipulations, and outside influences come to light. *** Personally, I've written quite a few female antagonists. Often, but not always, opposed by female protagonists. My first published story, a Weird Wester, featured a Deer Woman by the name of Nidawi who tries to lure the protagonist to his doom. My second had a tribal priest confront the monster her daughter's ghost had become. My third had a female werewolf as a very minor antagonist at the start, but for most of it my hero Arlise was her own antagonist. My forth and fifth stories also had Arlise as her own antagonist. My sixth story had a bandit sorceress as one of its two major antagonists. My eighth had the protagonist's owner/lover as one of the two antagonists, although she's only defied; never confronted. The novel I have out on submission has several. The protagonist's twin sister Galatea, who runs a vast criminal network. Several of the family bosses in Galatea's organization are women too. As is Elene Melos, a professional killer currently part of a radical neighborhood watch/vigilante/revolutionary group. She provides the most direct physical threat in the book. There's also Cora Parrill/the Arsonist, who has a sometimes enemy, sometimes ally, sometimes lover relationship with the hero.
In my first book, I had a secondary antagonist that was very minor. She was only mentioned, though her deeds were cruel. She died shortly before the climax with the main male antagonist began.
Trianna Flame. She was a witch who was the mother of the protagonists of one of my early stories. She was messing around with some sketchy magic when she didn't know she was pregnant, and as a result her children were... let's just say... not human. Her magic corrupted her when Jathan and Syl (The children she had as a result of her sketchy magic) began to mature. Jathan became a merc, Syl a healer. Trianna turned into an evil mage who only partook in black magic. She ultimately killed Syl, and then Jathan dropped her off a cliff and lit her up like a christmas tree.
