These 7 types of Antagonist Can Save Your Novel

This is a very good video, sifting down antagonists into archetypes that viewers can understand. Solid stuff!

Great reminders and some clever addition insights. Thx!

7:05, Once Upon a Time found out the hard way that backstory will only make your villain sympathetic to a point. Also, for the record, there’s nothing wrong with a villain being unsympathetic.

Everybody always says that we need to see the backstory or some slimmer of good nature to make us feel bad or care about the villain. While these villains are good, like Thanos, we forget about some truly great all evil villains because we see their power or the fear they instill in others, like Sauron, Joker from Dark Night, or White Witch from Narnia

6:49, I know you said “rule of thumb” rather than hard and fast rule but Finley in The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O’Brien is a villain and the protagonist. Ditto for Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

4:55 - this is absolutely correct. I started to go more on the motivations of my antagonist and he became a tragic hero, destined tonne defeated by the protagonist.

Great vid. Thank you.

Bold of you to assume being evil and being likable are mutually exclusive.

You should have more view in this video. It's simply amazing!

That's great advice 😃

6:57, not every villain needs to be sympathetic. Some can be dog-kicking child-harming overly boorish diabolical fiends.

We obviously don’t need the Night King as he’s not a real character in the books lmao. But I get your point

villains are the one carrying this show people do not give enough respect to today 99% of the antagonist of become bad and now people carrying for the old days

Wining a Noble Prize in math would be extremely impressive.

7:00, There is no chance whatsoever of Arthur Fleck, as portrayed in the so-called Joker movie, could conceivably become a threat to Batman. He’s not the Joker, he’s just a broken man who lashed out when bad things happen to him. Which is a fine thing to make a movie about but isn’t The Joker.

I have got a really complex one here. Still storyboarding so nothing concrete yet. The premise is that the protagonist falls from grace in essentially a military dictatorship, so here’s antagonist #1 the state (antagonist entity), since he’s a fugitive. Before his fall he was friends with the leader of the country, who in essence wants the best for his country and resorts to harsh methods to achieve the best solutions he can imagine striving for equality etc. So antagonist #2 the good antagonist. The leader has a close advisor, who is especially cunning and brilliant, a Tywin Lannister type guy with even less emotions over all. He manipulates virtually all of his environment including the leader to gain more power. In the end he is also the reason for your downfall. Theres antagonist #3, definitely a villain. Then there is a side antagonist siding with #3 also a villain, scientist also striving for power, but through knowledge instead of manipulation. He will need more fleshing-out still 😅 And last but not least there is the protagonists mentor, who played all sides of the conflict for his own ends. Without getting into too much detail of world building here. He will be the final twist since the protagonist wont suspect anything. For now he is the one i need to work on the most. In the end i believe the hero must loose or else the whole story becomes unbelievable. For someone to have played all sides, to be revealed virtually in his triumph, to loose just like that would be strange. Its pretty much ambitious to say the least 😂

"All villains are antagonists..." I think that's wrong. A villain can be very well the protagonist. Take Michael Crichton's "Great Train Robbery" for example: Edward Pierce is clearly the protagonist, as he organizes the heist and is in almost every scene. We might admire him for being smart and daring, but he is a villain with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is a rich man with the goal of getting richer and he uses and abuses poor people to reach his goals. Just think about what he does to Clean Willy or to that little girl he sells to Fowler!

Ayn Rand. LMFAO

You talk more about movies than books…

This video isn't bad but it's kinda basic. Most of this is stuff we've already heard and not very comprehensive. It is fine advice though I guess.