Hello all! I've been struggling with the creation and development of the villain/antagonist in my story. I have my protagonists and their character arcs, but no developed villain. I think that the problem for me lies in the motive of my villain, and how reasonable/realistic/understandable it is. The problem is the fact that my favourite kind of protagonists are found in fantasy/sci-fi stories, and my favourite antagonists are found in horror/mystery stories. For example, I find myself drawn to protagonists like Captain America and Optimus Prime, who are noble, likeable, and simply bad-ass, yet I am drawn to antagonists like Moriarty and Hannibal Lecter, who are so difficult to stop due to their minds. I'm sure you can understand my problem here, my ideal protagonist just wouldn't be in the same story as my ideal antagonist. Hopefully you can see why I'm struggling to incorporate both into my story. Is it possible to have a Captain America-like protagonist in a story where the antagonist is like James Moriarty? If so, how??? I appreciate anybody who takes the time to read this! Thank you!
We're going to need a lot more info, but in essence yes, and by writing it like that..... If your antag is an intelectual but you want a bad ass hero you'll need to give your antagonist some side kicks or henchmen for the protag to kick the shit out of.
Welcome to the site! Protagonists and antagonists with different strengths (in this case, physical versus intellectual) isn't a bug, it's a feature because you're pushing your hero outside of his comfort zone Let me use Superman as an example: Superman is overpowered in so many ways, and a fight between Superman and a normal human would not make for an interesting story because it would be painfully obvious that Superman would easily win. There are three ways to make a Superman story interesting: Take away his powers (Kryptonite). This is literally a cop-out in most cases and is generally less of "making a Superman story interesting" and more of apologizing for making Superman overpowered by "making a story interesting by not making it a Superman story anymore" Give him someone who's better at whatever he's good at, such as Doomsday, General Zod, Darkseid... Give him a challenge that his powers can't automatically solve. Ideally, this is what makes Lex Luthor such a perfect villain for Superman: Superman is a stupidly over-powered individual, but Lex Luthor has built such a vast criminal enterprise with his vast intellect that he should be able to set up too many events to happen in too many places at one time for Superman to be able to catch up with every single thing that's happening.
I think it would be much more intriguing to read the exact opposite, with the intellectual protag and brawn antag. But that is just opinion to shake things up a bit. Think about it, Batman is the middle ground since he is both intelligent and strong. He has the knowledge to take out friend or foe, and the muscle and stamina to do either. On the other hand you can have the typical action hero type vs. intellectual villain. Overall I would second @Simpson17866
Optimus Prime is a good example of what you described. Think about what Prime deals with? He's a truck that turns into a guy with a sword and his powers are talking well and punching. He's dealing with Starscream, who can fly stealth from beyond sight lines and deploy missiles from huge distances, Soundwave, who can turn into many innocent objects like iPods and tape decks, while having the computing power to hack international satellites. Megatron only gets into the fight when he has the upperhand, but until then, is content to pull the strings on everyone else.
Brilliant feedback! Thank you so much! I will definitely be referring to this constantly during my work!
I can see your point, however it gets on my nerves when villains are brawn simply because brawn villains tend to lack a good motivation other than "for evil's sake", if you see what I mean? Thank you for the response though!
Have you studied Bane from Batman? That guy was both ruthless in fighting and calculating. The truth is, Bane worked so well because he planned his attacks.
You know, if your antagonist doesn't really affect the main characters in any way other than: "he's the bad guy and we have to stop him", then you could just not give him a defined personality beyond: "he's a total jerk and wants to do bad things." A good example of this is Fire Lord Ozai (is that how you spell it?) from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He didn't directly affect any of the main characters (I mean, I guess he affected Zuko pretty hard but he didn't need to have a personality to do that), and he was still a pretty good villain with a solid role in the story. The Point: If your villain doesn't really directly antagonize you main characters, they don't have to have a defined personality beyond being evil. Hope this helps.
This does help, thank you! However, I should have specified in my post. Bad guys who are bad because they are jerks aren't really that memorable or relatable. They're pretty two dimensional, wouldn't you say?
Why not? Can Bruce Lee fight Godzilla? Can Clarice Sterling chase the demon from The Exorcist? Can Sherlock Holmes help that dude who keeps asking where's his car? There's no rules saying it can't happen.
I think a Moriarty is the perfect villain for a Captain America. One, the honor-less string pulling and pointless murder will really get on the nerves of the honor bound, shiny teeth good guy. Two, the maniacal genius can pull out all the great "I'd hoped you'd been the challenge I'd been waiting for. Guess not." lines, and really throw it in the heroes face.
