Decided to expand both my reading and watching tastes a bit and discovered some phenomenal antagonists who really inspired me to flesh out my own antagonists/villains a lot more and presented some interesting concepts that I haven’t seen very often.
Recently got done watching “Monster” which is an underrated manga/anime series. It’s 80ish episodes in total, with no continuation afterwards. Usually not into this type of story, but I found the concepts introduced through this, and the use of history/historical disasters to be incredibly interesting.
The villain himself, Johan, is one of the most destructive characters I’ve encountered in media. The building of his backstory, and summation of his past trauma’s culminating into the person he is now was really well done and thought out but, most importantly, it deviated heavily from the usual depiction of “evil” or “monstrosity” you see in media.
This particular representation led me to become inspired to take more care in building my villains, to make them into something that I want, rather than what I think most often sales.
Monster, for those interested, is about a good-hearted doctor who discovers one of the patients he saved is a serial killer and goes on a journey to end him, struggling with his own moral values about life, and facing the evils of the world along the way.
Anyway, apologies for the word vomit. Are there any antagonists/villains that you were inspired by, or maybe even envious of (like damn I wish I wrote that) or perhaps even impressed by.
For me, A Song of Ice and Fire had a parade of villains and antagonists that was just glittering. So did Firefly/Serenity. From the latest shows, NEXT was great casting AI as far more interesting AI villain than anything I had seen before.
Sometimes you find the best ones in the dumbest places.
The old school live action He-man movie? The dude playing Skeletor MADE that movie. He-Man didn’t defeat him by being better, at all. It was solely that Skeletor wanted He-Man to bow before him, and had done everything to force him to, and when he couldn’t it broke Skeletor’s spirit a little.
So, a great villain is the Underdog Hero, who finally triumphs.
Then there’s the DOOM movie: Dwayne The Rock Johnson: “I’m not supposed to die!”
So, a great villain is the hero that the underdog is chasing after.
So, take any hero you’ve written, and find the character that this hero would be a villain to.
Skeletor indeed made that movie. I would say that they don’t make movies like that anymore, and I’d be right when it comes to villains…
Doom was something else, not a fantastic Doom Movie (from a Doom Fan’s perspective), but the writing of Dwayne’s point of view was quite the turn around. From This shit can’t reach Earth, to I’m a fuck it all up… Great!
My antag is myself…
When the world gets me down, and I’m about to explode Akira style, I write shit down. My feelings, my thoughts, my anguish regarding things that have happened in my life… All became my antag…
“When all the rage within spills out… Anything can happen… And, it often does.”:- SecretDurham.
This is very true! Some of my biggest character insperations come from cartoons, haha. To this day I reference them and think fondly back to them, and it’s because of the impressions they made and how they played off the character!
As for my antagonist, the situation is complicated. I deal with a lot of man vs. self, so any external villain is usually the product of projection. In my current project, though, I’ve certainly shifted the direction for this.
Advice for “who would be the antagonist” of the protagonist is great!
Honestly, I think it’s the best advice for a story that is stalling: reimagine your MC as someone else’s villain, rewrite it. Might get further along that way.
Brave? I do not know of such bravery… But I see much that could be used, and in the right context can be a useful ally within my stories. As such, sometimes I have to pull back and keep it more sedate and not let loose fully… Now that frightens me, to let loose fully that is.
