These 7 types of Antagonist Can Save Your Novel

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  • Опубліковано 23 тра 2024
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 54

  • @acetofresh1
    @acetofresh1 Місяць тому +4

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

  • @guyriddihough
    @guyriddihough 25 днів тому +2

    Great reminders and some clever addition insights. Thx!

  • @libertymasterchief
    @libertymasterchief 19 днів тому +2

    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

    • @jmgonzales7701
      @jmgonzales7701 17 днів тому

      Can an antagonist be the main character? can he be good?

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

      Yeah. Sympathetic villains are criminally overrated

    • @jmgonzales7701
      @jmgonzales7701 2 дні тому

      @@matityaloran9157 i disagree. I think its better than just no morals villian. Less depth

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

      @@jmgonzales7701 Many of the greatest works of fiction ever written would not exist if the writers had insisted on making every villain a sympathetic figure

  • @matityaloran9157
    @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

    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.

  • @JollyGreenComics
    @JollyGreenComics 18 днів тому

    Great vid. Thank you.

    • @Bookfox
      @Bookfox  18 днів тому

      Glad you liked it! You're very welcome.

  • @andre_santos2181
    @andre_santos2181 19 днів тому

    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.

  • @matityaloran9157
    @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

    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

  • @ianbrewster8934
    @ianbrewster8934 Місяць тому

    That's great advice 😃

  • @PAPicturesOfficial
    @PAPicturesOfficial Місяць тому

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

  • @matityaloran9157
    @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

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

  • @sourov3122
    @sourov3122 20 днів тому +2

    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

  • @mathiaswittinger2808
    @mathiaswittinger2808 20 днів тому +1

    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 😂

    • @jmgonzales7701
      @jmgonzales7701 17 днів тому

      Can an antagonist be the main character? can he be good?

    • @mathiaswittinger2808
      @mathiaswittinger2808 17 днів тому

      @@jmgonzales7701 By definition I would say no, since that would make him the protagonist (main character), the antagonist is by definition the main counterpart of the protagonist. Moral alignment has little to do with that.

  • @matityaloran9157
    @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

    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.

  • @NixityNullt
    @NixityNullt 17 днів тому +1

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

  • @BirdMorphingOne
    @BirdMorphingOne Місяць тому +1

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

  • @xoso599
    @xoso599 17 днів тому

    Wining a Noble Prize in math would be extremely impressive.

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

      The actual movie he’s referencing uses the phrase “Field’s Award” which actually is for mathematics

  • @stgr6669
    @stgr6669 19 днів тому +2

    "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!

    • @andreww4751
      @andreww4751 18 днів тому

      Yea or Tony Soprano.

    • @jmgonzales7701
      @jmgonzales7701 17 днів тому

      Can an antagonist be the main character? can he be good?

    • @stgr6669
      @stgr6669 17 днів тому

      @@jmgonzales7701Everyone is the protagonist of his or her own story and can be the antagonist of somebody else's story. It just depends on the perspective. Depending on how the story is told, there can be one character whom the author clearly designed as the main character. Or there can be several characters whose perspectives are interesting and the reader decides who the main character is. (As a reader, I may even refuse to accept the author's concept and see the story of a side character as more interesting, thus more important. So I make this "my main character".)
      Shall we call this main character (no matter if chosen by the author or the reader) always the protagonist? I think, this depends on the plot. If there is someone who actively drives the story forward, we may call this person the protagonist and the one on the opposite the antagonist, even if we follow the latter. Isn't in a typical crime scenario the murderer the protagonist and the detective the antagonist? The former is also often the person with the character arc, while the latter stays the same. Nonetheless we may not even know who the murderer (thus the protagonist) is until the final page.

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому +1

      Not all villains are antagonists. Frank Underwood is a villain and a protagonist in House of Cards.

    • @jmgonzales7701
      @jmgonzales7701 2 дні тому

      @@matityaloran9157 can u be the main character, good guy but antagonist as well?

  • @futurestoryteller
    @futurestoryteller Місяць тому +2

    Ayn Rand. LMFAO

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

      Her books sold well.

    • @futurestoryteller
      @futurestoryteller 2 дні тому

      @@matityaloran9157 I've never heard that, but I don't think anyone assumes they sold well for literary reasons

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 2 дні тому

      @@futurestoryteller Maybe they didn’t but then the question is did a bunch of people just spontaneously become Objectivists or was there something that Rand said or did which resonated with people (for some reason)?

    • @futurestoryteller
      @futurestoryteller 2 дні тому

      @@matityaloran9157 Sounds like you're insinuating that objectivists weren't buying her books because they already were objectivists

    • @matityaloran9157
      @matityaloran9157 День тому

      @@futurestoryteller I’m insinuating something far stranger than that. I’m insinuating that, since she created the philosophy of Objectivism, the only way one could have been an Objectivist already would be through prior familiarity with her work so why would her prior work have sold well? Either, it’s that her arguments resonated with a lot of people or it’s that her stories did. If it’s the former then that raises the question of how her arguments were able to resonate with so many people given that they’re not very good arguments. If it’s the latter, that raises the question what did she do in her stories which led to them resonating with as many people as they did?

  • @Elslein
    @Elslein 21 день тому

    You talk more about movies than books…

    • @vinnieandhispizza6299
      @vinnieandhispizza6299 19 днів тому +1

      Movies are generally more well known and consumed, so they make easy examples.

    • @Elslein
      @Elslein 19 днів тому

      @@vinnieandhispizza6299 I agree, but it’s a different medium.

    • @Starburst514
      @Starburst514 13 днів тому

      Actually he doesn't? Have you seen his other videos? He talks a lot about books, even has a video about studying books over movies. Using movies as examples isn't bad
      In fact they say studying scripts helps novel writing with descriptions and dialogue

  • @ethanotoroculus1060
    @ethanotoroculus1060 Місяць тому +4

    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.

    • @Starburst514
      @Starburst514 13 днів тому

      Then why comment?

    • @ethanotoroculus1060
      @ethanotoroculus1060 13 днів тому

      @@Starburst514 Because I value giving feedback and I should hope the uploader values receiving it?