Comments on: Villains vs. antagonists

By: amanda

amanda — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:32:08 +0000

I came to this site in trying to figure out how to write something I don’t know (something that’s not really recomended for writers) a truely fundamentally bad person. I liked the article & the comments listed but I really believe it’s a cop-out to say that if an antagonist’s motivations aren’t explained then the reader can’t get invested in them & thus they’re a villain. Think Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs; he’s frightening in a way that is almost unexplainable but does that make him a villain? No. As well I know that there are plenty of people in prison right now who claim innocence of their crimes even though they’ve given no explanation of motive & the hard evidence against them is incontravertable. Maybe because there is no motive. & I think it’s only comfortable for us to say that someone did something because of such-and-such thing happened in their past.

By: Pen to Paper: The Villain |

Pen to Paper: The Villain | — Mon, 09 May 2011 06:18:34 +0000

[...] sees villains everywhere she looks, which is an approach I appreciate and have used. Similarly, Marie Brennan suggests that rather than out-and-out villains, we can set up antagonists for our protagonists. Her [...]

By: Links on Writing « Seven & a Half First Drafts

Links on Writing « Seven & a Half First Drafts — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 22:28:35 +0000

[...] Villains vs. Antagonists - SF Novelists [...]

By: Writing Memorable but Believable Villains | Backward Memory

Writing Memorable but Believable Villains | Backward Memory — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:49:28 +0000

[...] villains, bland antagonists, character, evil overlord, villain Nothing against the subdued antagonist and his many shades of gray, but I always had a soft spot for great villains — antagonists with [...]

By: Marie Brennan

Marie Brennan — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:35:54 +0000

I saw yours had vanished before I could reply to it — not sure what happened. The site was down for a while the other night, so it appears there are some technical issues at the moment. Sorry!

By: green_knight

green_knight — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:34:05 +0000

It appears that this site is eating comments

By: Marie Brennan

Marie Brennan — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:32:03 +0000

Monsters are different, true. I don’t think I’ve ever really written one, though — it’s not the kind of fantasy I tend to do.

By: Daemon

Daemon — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:18:08 +0000

There is a third category – the Monster. The difference between being Villainous and being Monstrous is fairly significant.

By: Marie Brennan

Marie Brennan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:28:36 +0000

Megan — nothing wrong with wanting the occasional bit of black-and-white popcorn-eating fun.

John — damn Martin to heck for making me like Jaime. As for protagonists, I rarely deal well with stories where they’re truly unsympathetic; Burnside (to use your Sandbaggers example) is undoubtedly a bastard, but it’s never really in doubt that he does those things because he is ruthlessly practical in his pursuit of the greater good. It’s the ones where the greater good doesn’t figure in that I check out — I detested Death of a Salesman in high school because I hated Willie Loman so much (along with every other character in that play), and There Will Be Blood provoked a similar reaction from me.

By: John Dunkelberg

John Dunkelberg — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:35:20 +0000

I like your classification. I’ve often said that I prefer “noble villains”, but I think that the term antagonist is better since these types are not necessarily noble. I think it’s very rewarding when you can flip the PoV and have the reader sympathize with the hero/ine’s opponent. A good example from recent reading is Jaime Lannister from GRR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, who can be quite sympathetic.

Flipping the tables entirely is the non-noble or unsympathetic hero. I think that Walter Jon Williams “Days of Atonement” is interesting here – I have friends who could get into it since the protagonist is a right bastard. The BBC TV series “The Sandbaggers” also comes to mind, though there we develop the lead character over time such that we understand and sympathize with why he’s such an absolute bastard in many ways.