Building a Strong Antagonist

so you have built your protagonist, you know their beliefs, you know what they want and you know how they are going to pursue 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 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 game if there is no conflict the playwright not only needs characters who are willing to fight For your convictions, you need characters who have the strength and stamina to take this fight to its logical conclusion. a

strong

antagonist

has important beliefs that challenge your protagonist after having created your protagonist's beliefs.

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 completely agree with the beliefs of their protagonists. They do not create a strong opposition. The antagonist in the story is weak, one-dimensional and clearly. the bad one and this is a serious problem. Have you ever watched a movie and thought it was too simplistic or too obvious preachy? What probably happened is that the writer spent too much time reinforcing the protagonist's beliefs while he created a weak and easily defeated antagonist. no real philosophical beliefs, I've talked extensively about philosophical conflicts on this channel and how your characters need beliefs.

The second step of this is that beliefs don't matter unless they are tested and your antagonist is here to test your protagonist's beliefs. its absolute limits in Snow Piercer our protagonist is Curtis, a man in the back of an apocalyptic train trying to get to the front to defeat Wilford, the tyrannical leader of the train and the antagonist of the story, Curtis, believes that the people in The back of the train are treated unfairly, their children are taken from them, they eat insects and live in small spaces, 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 sake of the train. good for the small portion of humanity that is still alive on earth Wilford challenges what Curtis believes when Curtis reaches the front of the train his choice about what to do is no longer clear Wilford challenges Curtis with a dark truth and that is that the difficult taking wilford's decision making is what has kept humanity alive wilford does more than send his henchman to fight curtis and his friends wilford challenges curtis' point of view challenges why he fought on the front lines in the first place beliefs wilford's are directly opposed to what curtis believes in the dark knight that batman is trying to rid the city of organized crime and create law and order batman believes that people need law and order to be able to live in peace, however, these beliefs are directly challenged by the prankster.

The joker believes that the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules and defies Batman's rules. worldview trying to show him that everyone in Gotham will turn against each other if they get desperate enough. The Joker shows Batman the ugly side of people and the Joker destroys Harvey Dent to show Batman that anyone can fall when times get tough. The Joker's beliefs directly. Opposing what Batman believes, a strong antagonist has a clear desire and takes action to achieve it, forcing your protagonist to react. In the previous video I talked about how your protagonist will largely drive the conflict in your story because they will be the ones taking action. to get what they want remember what aaron sorkin said in his interview instead of telling the audience who a character is i like to show the audience what a character wants and it all comes down to intention and the obstacle someone wants something get in the way on his way to get it something get in his way to get it this is your antagonist your antagonist will have goals like your protagonist's and these 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 and wants to show batman that he is wrong about the city.

The Joker seeks to change Batman's beliefs. Sometimes your antagonist will be working to achieve what he wants and suddenly the protagonist gets in his way like in Snow Piercer Wilford is not trying to fight Curtis Curtis starts his rebellion and suddenly becomes a problem that Wilfred must deal with. cope. He doesn't really see Curtis as a threat until he starts doing Front of the Train, the clash between your protagonist and your antagonist should have an impact on the story, meaning that every time they meet someone they're losing something, there's a cost or sacrifice for their conflict and through this sacrifice we see how important desires are. and the characters' beliefs have returned to Snow Piercer Curtis continues to lose his friends and allies as he cuts through Wilford's men when Curtis reaches the front of the train, he has lost everyone who was close to him, he made sacrifice after sacrifice to reach the front and then we realized how important it is for him to reach wilford and kill 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 a lot and through this we see how important his beliefs are.

He was meant to inspire good, not madness, not death. Batman has to decide if his fight is worth the sacrifices he has to make. This is powerful. This will. Invest your audience in the conflict of your story and this 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 that they need to be able to face. be a challenge to the other or the conflict of your story will die too quickly in the art of dramatic writing, agree to write if for some good reason the antagonist cannot withstand a prolonged fight, you could also look for another character who now, of course, will do it many times. the protagonist begins being completely surpassed by the antagonist, for example in Matrix Neo he does not have the power to fight against the agents of the Matrix, however, throughout the story he gains power and in the end he is able to fight them. but the protagonist must have the ability to rise to the occasion and confront the antagonist.

You wouldn't pit Paddington Bear against Thanos. The conflict simply does not make sense. There has to be some push and pull. It is necessary to have confrontations in which both sides are involved. Forced to sacrifice himself and adapt his strategy to defeat his opponent, does your antagonist have to change like a protagonist? your antagonist can go through changes but they don't have to and ultimately the story is the protagonist's story most of the time your antagonist won't change many times a protagonist defeats an antagonist by going through changes themselves the antagonist becomes In the vehicle for change in the protagonist all stories need an antagonist there are no different types of opposition a protagonist can also be in opposition to nature or himself, for example in the Martian, the main antagonist, is the harsh reality of try 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 types of opposition in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo's main antagonist is Sauron and Sauron's servants, but it is also the mountains, valleys and cliffs that he has to traverse on his journey and it is 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 take nothing else from this video, take this, the clash between the beliefs and desires of your protagonist and antagonist should force the characters to make sacrifices in both what they want and what they believe.

The sacrifice shows us the importance of what the characters do. Believing in and sacrificing helps change the story and create new situations where both characters must figure out what to do next. Hello, thanks for making it to the end of the video. I hope you enjoyed it, if you like and subscribe for more videos. like this you