Who is the protagonist, his features, the meaning of the word. Literary terminology

An ICQ discussion about one local villain has gotten so hot Dedicated to all fans of villains

25 Things You Need to Know About the Antagonist

1. Real person with real problems

The antagonists are just people, well, until they become crazed sex robots, killer dinosaurs, or super-advanced Windows processes. But even then, we need to lead them as people. People with desires, needs, fears, motivations. People with families and friends and their own enemies. These are flesh and blood characters full of life. Blood and milk, energy, passion! These are not know-it-all, seed-husking rednecks.

2. They are used not only to develop the plot

A character is a motor, an engine. The plot is a car racing into the sunset. The character moves the plot, the plot does not move the character. The antagonist is not just a pitfall in the protagonist's path; he does not serve the sequence of events. He exists in order to change it, swing it, turn it into the sequence that he wants, into a sequence that stands in opposition, opposes the protagonist. Into confrontation.

3. Confrontation is the key

The antagonist opposes the protagonist. They have a clash of motivations. Their needs and desires are polar in relation to each other. The protagonist wants to free the slaves, the antagonist wants to keep the slaves. The protagonist wants to save the hostages, the antagonist wants to hold the hostages, or worse yet, kill them all. The antagonist wants a lollipop, the protagonist has stolen all the candy. The antagonist can confront the protagonist directly, nullifying all his efforts. Or indirectly, appearing in the story in the guise of an angel (but continuing to oppose the interests of the protagonist). The meaning is the same - no matter how you present it: the antagonist stands in the way of achieving the protagonist's goals.

4. I like hamsters, and you flush them down the toilet. So, the battle!

The antagonist is a reflection of the protagonist, literally a mirror image. They are contrasting. It's simply heroism versus villainy, but it can (and should) go deeper. The protagonist is a drunkard, the antagonist is a preacher healthy image life. Protagonist - modern woman atheist, antagonist - religious fanatic. The protagonist likes Smeshariki, +100500, TNT, The antagonist Luntik, This is good and STS. Characters who exist in disharmony. Thesis, antithesis.

5. Like the Dalai Lama, only a complete bastard

The antagonist is the embodiment of the conflict, its cause. His character contains conflict. The antagonist arranges the sequence of events the way he likes. He creates problems for the protagonist. He ups the ante. It changes the game and makes it more difficult.

6. The antagonist believes that he is the protagonist.

The antagonist is the hero of his own story. In fact, the protagonist of your story is the antagonist of the antagonist. Cool, right? People who commit bad deeds, often justify them with something positive. Hitler wasn't just a bastard international scale. He thought that he was the deliverer of humanity from evil. This is not to say that the antagonist's desires must be noble ("I killed the hostages to save orphanage"), only such as he considers noble. The antagonist reads that he is right, that he is doing the right thing, even if it is terrible.

7. Evil for evil's sake breeds boredom

The antagonist who does evil for the sake of evil is often a regular cartoon. He is Professor Nimnul, Dr. Evil, Shredder or in other words boring, unreliable and completely untenable. Give him motivation beyond "Be the biggest asshole I can be." Yes, in certain moments and stories you can get by with this (see “Joker”), but it is difficult and it places an unbearable burden on the shoulders of the protagonist.

8. Motivating Terrible People

The antagonist must have credible motivations. And motivations are things we tell ourselves, right? A racist doesn't do his racist things because he thinks people of color should feel pain. Racism has much deeper roots, often rooted in a system of justification. Motivations don't have to be good or good, they have to be credible so that people can believe in them. Or at least that we would believe that the antagonist believes in them. Ask yourself, what is the antagonist telling himself? How does he sleep at night?

9. Harmful black and white

All villains are antagonists. But not all antagonists are villains. A "villain" is a type of character that fits perfectly into many stories: serial killer, diabolical magician, powerful vampire, it doesn't matter. But in assortment real life There aren't always bad guys. The antagonist can (and often should) be in the gray area against this black-and-white dichotomy of the structure of evil and good. Want an example? In "Rimbaud" First Blood" John Rimbaud is the protagonist and Sheriff Teasle is the antagonist, but Teasle is not the "bad guy". He is wrong in many ways, but he is not a villain.

10. Worst enemy, retribution

Previously, an example was given of direct confrontation between the antagonist and the protagonist, when the antagonist literally gets a hard-on at the opportunity to jam the protagonist’s ass. (“I pissed in your bed, kicked your cat, threw all your ficus trees off the windowsill and drank everything your beer. Ahahahaha, suck the rails, Bruce Wayne, I've beaten you again!") An antagonist of this nature is, of course, the protagonist's worst enemy.

11. Dissecting your favorite antagonist

Want to know what goes on inside a good antagonist? Then look deeper, beyond the history and pop culture that you love so much? Why is Hannibal Lector a great antagonist? Is he really great? What about Darth Vader, Voldemort, Gollum, Prince Zuko or Rob Schneider?

12. Take a closer look at your own life

Take a closer look at yourself, try to identify your own antagonists. Now imagine that they are much more complex and attractive than the ones you can find in most fiction. Our parents are often our antagonists when we are teenagers, but they do not start this confrontation and they do not end it. Now try to dig deeper - try to understand, have you ever been someone's antagonist? Certainly. Your parents may have viewed you as such. A teacher, maybe. Forgotten friend. The dude you were teasing. Brother or sister. Transfer what you saw into your story. Find difficulties with the antagonist, you don’t necessarily need sympathy for him, but you need to experience empathy, understand his feelings. If we cannot understand him, we will not believe him.

13. Write from the enemy camp

Write from the antagonist's point of view. Maybe it's something that happens in the story, or maybe it's just an exercise between you and your inner voice. We need to get to its insides. We need to get into the shoes of the antagonist and use his mind like an aluminum cap. Unpleasant, of course, but necessary.

14. Shake hands with the monster

We need to sit down, sorry, have a shit with the antagonist on the same field, spend time with him. To fully understand how this monster lives, how it breathes. Give yourself time to spend with the antagonist away from the protagonist, somewhere in Turkey or Egypt. To understand who they are, what they want, why they do what they do. Become the monster's nanny.

15. Hyper-powerful - uninteresting

The god-like super-antagonist who has never been defeated and who knows everything a few steps ahead is just a dumb joke, as is the protagonist who is endowed with the same super-powerful properties. This should be a game of cat and mouse, not a game of mouse versus an orbital laser system built by Jesus.

16. Malevolent too

The antagonist must pose a real challenge to the protagonist. A narrow-minded and blind nerd with senile tendencies will not do well in the role of an antagonist. We need to let the protagonist fight with someone. A credible opponent has to go a long way, especially one that has an advantage over our main character. We want to worry that the antagonist cannot be defeated. Not because he's a super-powerful genius, but because he's simply smarter, stronger, and more capable than our hero. A lack of power in the antagonist means a lack of tension in the story.

17. Follow the rules of the story world

The protagonist must exist in the world of the story - the antagonist, therefore, too. All characters are bound by the world you created. The antagonist can exploit, use the created story world, can bend the rules in certain ways, but not ignore them.

18. No more explanations

Strong advice to seriously get involved with chatty “tell-but-don’t-show” antagonists. No more villains who give excessive amounts of exposition in the finale. Well, the ones that tell you “how it happened” and “why” before you pull the trigger. They're pissing me off.

19. Excite me through emotional connection

Just once, just once, let me understand how the antagonist feels. He can be any kind of freak, he can kick cats, scare children, drive slowly in the left lane and cum on toilet paper in a public toilet, but. Just give me an emotional connection with him, show me something he's done, something he believes in, something I can believe in. Or show me his past. Help me understand why he jerks off to pay phones or chops Barbie dolls to pieces with an ax. Empathy is a very powerful thing. Give me an emotional connection to the protagonist and I will connect with his struggle. Give me that same connection to an antagonist and I will delve, even if only fleetingly, into his atrocities.

20. Balance

Valuable note - just as you can increase the number of main characters, you can also increase the antagonists. So that everyone gets their share of the confrontation. We need balance. And you need to be sure that the timing is enough.

21. Villain Arc

The antagonist can have his own arc. Actually, there should be one. The antagonist does not begin and end at the same point. He changes and grows (sometimes shrinks) just like the protagonist. Don't think that the antagonist should be unshakable and static. A sort of stone face of conflict. The way he will be influenced by circumstances, let his madness grow, his pain or illness progress, his evil grow by leaps and bounds!

22. Idea, organization, element as an antagonist

The antagonist doesn't have to be a character, it can be an idea (racism), an organization (CIA), or an element (rainbow). Zombies, by the way, also fit into this type of antagonist - they are impersonal and more reminiscent of a natural disaster. It is desirable that these antagonists be represented by someone, some character, either serving the idea, or working in an organization, or understanding the elements.

23. Moment of villainy

Blake Snyder's books tell us to give the hero a "Save the Cat" moment, which means not just showing him saving the cat, but also making it clear to us that he is capable of saving her in order for us to believe in him. The antagonist needs the same moment and the same faith in him, only in mirror image. We have to believe that he can kick a cat, is capable of it, and will do it. We need to understand and see why the antagonist is an antagonist. We need to show the full depth of his problem, his disgust, his unwillingness to live according to earthly laws, his hatred of the ethical laws of humanity and all that.

24. Let the antagonist win

Let the antagonist win. Perhaps not in the finale, but periodically, during the course of history. Let him ruin Batman's return, or kill the hostages, or unwind all the toilet paper.

25. Love to hate, hate to love

If you don’t care about everything that is written here, which, in fact, I’m personally sure of, then at least absorb the main key point - the simplest test for the quality of an antagonist is the state of a) loving one’s hatred for the antagonist, b) hating one’s love to the antagonist. Do this and you win. If you make me like an asshole and feel bad about it, you win. If you make me hate the bastard and be over the moon about it, you're back on top. For God's sake, let me feel something!

Impossible to imagine good story without an antagonist. And the most convincing antagonists are remembered by the public much more than main character. Who remembers the name of the main character from the film adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola?

So, for a good story, we need a compelling antagonist, the pole of Evil in our story. Dracula wants to turn Jonathan Harker's bride into a vampire, Sauron wants to enslave the lands of Middle-earth - to kill John Connor.

But what kind of antagonist should be in history, and is it really necessary to mold every opponent into a picturesque supervillain? Of course not.

Antagonist- this is someone who poses a direct threat to the hero’s life and his world.

The antagonist may be very handsome and fabulously rich. Moreover, having pretty much frayed the main character’s nerves, the antagonist can even save her reputation and even marry her, as happens in Jane Austen’s classic novel “Pride and Prejudice.” Who is Mr. Darcy for Elizabeth Bennet, a provincial girl with complexes from a poor noble family? A very attractive, but still a snob who dissuades his friend from marrying Elizabeth's sister, thereby destroying the world of the main character.

And who is Mr. Darcy after this? The perfect antagonist. Despite all the intelligence, beauty and energetic character, without Mr. Darcy the chances of a happy ending for Elizabeth are extremely small. Either she will conquer him and win, or she will miss him and lose everything.

Rule #1

There is an opinion that the antagonist must always be human, otherwise it will not be interesting. Some writers have managed to create an entire series or franchise without a human antagonist.

For example, "Doctor House". In the first and third seasons, to be on the safe side, the authors of the series introduced a human antagonist (hospital sponsor Vogler and Detective Tritter), but they soon became convinced that an outside antagonist was not needed in the series.

House fights human diseases, and the parents of his patients and his boss Cuddy and Wilson do their best to interfere with his fight. They only periodically play on the team of the antagonist of the disease, which threatens to kill the patient.

Notice how carefully the image of the disease is always built - at first the enemy cannot even be determined, he is unknown or pretending to be something else - as, for example, it was in the series “Everything Inside” (season 2, episode 17). A boy named Ian is admitted to the hospital with a harmless diagnosis: he is suspected of food poisoning. Then the boy's kidneys fail, his parents cry (they are so scared that they will rebel against House only at the end of the story), the team is confused, Cuddy is angry, but House is not fighting them, but the disease.

Why did the series last so long? An excellent identification of the main character, while in almost every episode House confirms his status as a unique hero, a fighter for human lives.

Examples of antagonists to whom everything human is generally alien:

Sauron, against whom all the heroes of Middle-earth (the Lord of the Rings universe) rallied.
- A robot from the future who is hunting for Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor (Terminator universe).
- Xenomorph (Alien universe).
- Mars (film “The Martian”).
- Aliens (“Signs”, “ X-Files"and so on).
- Predator.

Well, or simply - demons, evil spirits playing with people, as was the case in the TV series Twin Peaks.

Rule #2

Any script is nothing more than a game in which the author must first involve the producers, then the director, then the entire film crew, and all together they must involve the audience. Once the authors begin to create their playing field, they determine by what rules its hero and villain-antagonist and his support group will play.

The idea to add Bob, the embodiment of the evils of the Black Lodge, to the series’ authors came up quite spontaneously when scene designer Frank Silva accidentally walked into the frame in final scene Twin Peaks pilot.

The plot of the series, if desired, can be reduced to the following: the bright girl Laura Palmer fought with Bob to the last and died without letting him into herself, but still ended up in the territory of the spirits - in the Wigwams. This plot is a wandering one. Fairies, ghosts, spirits of swamps, forests and lakes - everyone has been accused of kidnapping people. The abducted disappeared without a trace, the kidnappers disappeared into the fog. Interesting? No.

Evil must have a physical embodiment. Let's take, for example, "". Despite the fact that only one eye remains of Sauron, the evil genius of Middle-earth, he also has a physical embodiment in our world and obeys its rules. Despite all the power of the owner, the eye remains in one place, only directing the will of its minions.

One of the reasons why movies and TV shows about zombies and vampires are such a huge success is that evil is clearly limited by a set of rules. Zombies and vampires have their own “instructions” for action. Vampires drink blood, zombies devour flesh, turning the living into their own kind. The audience likes it when “evil” is controlled.

David Lynch, adding the demon Bob to the world of Twin Peaks, got the perfect antagonist.

If such a story had fallen into the hands of an "entrepreneurial" director of the industrial scale with which the film industry is teeming, he would have made a compromise with the frightened ABC producers, calmed them down and continued to sculpt the mystical "Santa Barbara" for several more seasons.

Rule #3

In ancient epics, Celtic and Scandinavian epics, the following technique was often used. The hero meets his opponent and begins to list his “merits”: he did this and that, defeated such and such, ruined villages, burned the houses of poor villagers, sent small children around the world. At first glance, this is necessary so that the audience knows how nasty a villain the honest hero has to deal with. In reality, everything is a little more complicated.

1. The main character opposes himself to the villain, emphasizing that they are on opposite sides, even if the hero only yesterday considered the antagonist his good friend.

At the beginning of the film “Office Romance,” Novoseltsev borrows 20 rubles from Samokhvalov, who has not yet assumed the post of deputy director of Kalugina. Later, Novoseltsev finds out how slippery, vile and insensitive Samokhvalov is, and, having collected 20 rubles in change, he hands them to Samokhvalov, and insists that he count the given rubles and kopecks. After Novoseltsev, he slaps Samokhvalov in the face. Here it is - the classic confrontation between hero and antagonist. The hero's complete victory occurs, although everyone knows that the kindest Novoseltsev wouldn't hurt a fly. There was no lethal outcome, but all the i’s were dotted.

Gleb Zheglov from “The meeting place cannot be changed” shouts to Gorbaty and his gang: “You will get the hole from the donut, not Sharapov!” Just one door separates him from the bandits, who, we know for sure, are not joking. We see the hero's determination, his superiority over the antagonist. And all this - in one phrase. The scriptwriters, the Weiner brothers, build negotiations with Gorbaty’s gang in full accordance with that very archetypal squabble described by many peoples of the world. It affects the audience at the subconscious level. Gleb Zheglov turns from a fearless Murom resident into a hero who cuts off the head of a hydra.

Rule #4

The modest Lieutenant Columbo in a rumpled raincoat drives a decrepit Peugeot and conducts an investigation, while his antagonist is completely calm. He is confident that he has covered all his tracks and has outsmarted the justice system. But Columbo will definitely find evidence, a flaw in the antagonist’s armor and expose the killer. What next? Then Columbo is called to investigate another case.

His victory lies only in solving the crime. Columbo won't even be promoted, because he can do without a promotion. Hero in in this case prevailed, case closed. The same is the case with House's patients: he is not entitled to anything else, not even relief from the pain in his leg. But Dr. House is simply obliged to get an answer to the riddle, even after the death of the patient.

Let's consider the highest peak that a hero can climb and under what conditions this ascent is possible.

A modest guy, he lives on his uncle's farm on the desert planet Tatooine. He is infinitely far from Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader and their political games. But then the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 get to Uncle Luke’s farm and they ask Luke to take them to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who lives next door. By pure chance, Luke Skywalker finds himself drawn into the very epicenter of the war between the galactic Empire and the remnants of the Republic.

As soon as we learn that Luke is the son of Darth Vader, it becomes clear to us that our hero can achieve anything: both lead the resistance and go over to the side of the emperor and even overthrow him.

The hero must have sufficient strength to fight and defeat his opponent. No more, no less.

Hence rule number 5

What would Luke Skywalker have done if he had lived during the height of the Republic? Lived his life peacefully, maybe he would have become a Jedi, maybe not. In any case, the value of a hero without a compelling villain is zero. In chamber history, like, “ Office romance“An antagonist like Samokhvalov would be quite suitable.

Whether your film is a philosophical low-budget parable or a 10-film-long epic saga, everything our hero can achieve is determined by the antagonist, because sooner or later they will have to come face to face, in that very archetypal duel and the hero must win even at the cost of death.

Cover: still from the film “Alien: Covenant” (2017) / 20th Century Fox

Writers Guild of America member Michael Tabb, who has worked with Universal Studios and Disney Feature Anomation, wrote for Scriptmag about what to do if your script has the same person as the antagonist and the protagonist.

I'm always flattered when young authors try to pitch their ideas to me, and I often hear them say that their protagonist is also an antagonist. Let's think about this possibility. In a script, can the hero be his own worst enemy? We all understand that a fatal flaw can become the essence of a hero's character, but will this turn the hero into a villain?

In four cases, the protagonist can have a powerful antagonistic force:

1) something or someone inside the protagonist creates conflict in the film

2) when internal changes dominate external ones - the focus moves to the hero’s personal flaw

3) when there is no one to oppose the protagonist

4) the protagonist does something obviously wrong or is evil incarnate

Let's look at each case in turn.

The first case is associated with a situation where the main character has clearly expressed two sides of his character (for example, like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”). Having written a werewolf film, I see these "monster within" stories as an allegory for man's struggle with impulses and instincts. As a classic example, The Wolf Man can be seen as a metaphorical struggle with alcohol. At night, the hero becomes depressed, becomes rude, does the wrong things, being under the influence or out of his mind. The next morning he wakes up, remembering nothing of the violence he committed the previous night. I immediately exclude this point. This bloodthirsty beast is inside the protagonist, but he himself is not the protagonist. This is like saying that a cancer patient is his own enemy. The "beast within" operates independently of the protagonist without his consent or influence; therefore, they are not equal to each other. These are antagonists who are separate characters, even if they are in the same body of the protagonist.

In the second case, dramatic films that focus more on internal changes than external ones may lead a young screenwriter to believe that a character's internal flaw can make him an antagonist. Speaking about behavior under the influence of any stimulants, we need to remember the film “Leaving Las Vegas”. Don't be fooled by the first possible idea: the hero's alcoholism is not his antagonist. This is the story of Ben's slow struggle with suicide due to loss, his personal struggle for the will to live. Thanks to the inclusion of a love story (involving Sera, a prostitute), the script resolves the central question - can new love replace the emptiness in a broken heart? The answer is no. Some traumas are unsurvivable—ask someone who suffers from PTSD.

Here you can recall the film “Born on the Fourth of July,” where Ron Kovik fights the ideology of blind patriotism in wartime. Confronts the heroes, within whom a struggle is unfolding, a certain external force. Ron suffers from a guilt complex and is full of self-hatred, which fuels him as he fights against the ideology of a patriotic nation that has a superiority complex because it has not lost world war(and in general any war at that time). When the protagonist cannot come to terms with the actions he has committed in the past, a struggle begins... But in the film, this struggle must be shown and confirmed by various external elements of the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist and other obstacles. Only through external struggle and confrontation with the external enemy (and this is the social ideology to which he was introduced in his youth and which led him to wheelchair) the hero can recover and forgive.

I came across the opinion that in the film “Rudy” the limitations that the hero set for himself are the antagonistic force. Again, can some character trait or flaw become an enemy of the hero. The film is based on - true story about a man trying to prove that anything is possible if you're brave enough. He faces one single antagonist who prevents the fulfillment of desires - reality. To make the Notre Dame team, Rudy needs money and enough GPA points. To play football you need to score physical fitness. He has none of this. He struggles with poverty and tries to overcome physical limitations, but does not think about the struggle with himself.

It may be difficult to discern the difference between obstacles and antagonists. Obstacles are what the protagonist must overcome, while the antagonist is a person with an iron will who does something to prevent the hero's goal from being achieved. The disaster spreads, the fire burns, the storm rages. Whether he is personified or not, the antagonist acts. Rudy fights against everything to overcome obstacles, but his obstacles have no of one's own will. Rudy fights against society. He refuses to accept his conditions, opinions and errors in those things in which he himself is capable of making a decision. Admissions Committee, coaches, family... anyone who is the bearer of the generally accepted opinion that society is divided into types, each of which should know its place, becomes an antagonist. Through his willpower, Rudy overcomes a world that constantly says, “No, stay realistic. Stay where you are and don’t interfere.” This hopeless philosophy is the main enemy.

Ben (“Leaving Las Vegas”) refutes the idea that “everything goes away,” Ron (“Born on the Fourth of July”) struggles with blind patriotism, and Rudy (“Rudy”) wages a personal struggle to live up to his own expectations—it’s all “ incorrect judgments” (misconception), which turn out to be the main enemies. These “misjudgments” are voiced by the heroes (who are convinced that they are acting absolutely correctly) who surround the protagonists and interfere with them. That is, when the focus is on the hero's internal changes, the antagonist can be intangible and elusive. The protagonists fight against beliefs and ideologies that turn out to be incorrect in any particular situation. Ideology in this case is described as a kind of public property, a general delusion. However, it is never enough to have just one storyline with an internal change of the hero and one internal conflict.

The antagonist openly opposes the external goals of the protagonist. Physical strength is required to organize an external battle with the will of the protagonist. All of these films have an antagonist who serves this function. For example, Rudy's goal is to play for Notre Dame. He spends all his strength trying to convince the coaches to let him play in the game. As with any screenplay, there is an external goal against which antagonistic forces are working (even if the film, for the most part, concentrates on internal changes).

Thirdly, films that may come to mind are those in which there is no one but the protagonist. Pictures such as “Gravity”, “Cast Away” or “Buried Alive”. Cast aside your doubts. Once on desert island, V outer space or in a wooden box underground, they fight the antagonist - the circumstances themselves. Circumstances are a powerful force that threatens their survival or reunion with loved ones, as does a battle with nature or illness.

Finally, let's discuss films in which main character — bad guy. Similar characters can be terrible people, but they have their own antagonists, who are often personified by the forces of law and order. Alex in A Clockwork Orange must go to rehab and confronts his parole officer and the Home Office. William Foster and his desire to reunite with his family are confronted by Sergeant Martin Pendergast in Enough. Detective Donald Kimball can't stop Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. So even in such cases, the protagonist is not the antagonist. Newton's laws apply here. For every action there is a reaction. The most interesting thing about a character like this is whether he will survive or not, because, like most antagonists, they do not have a special arc. If you central character there's no arc, which means he's not really a protagonist. This relegates him to the category of a false protagonist. This is nothing new. For example, Shakespeare's Richard III and Macbeth fall into this category. So even in those rare situations where we feel like the story isn't following the rules and the protagonist is behaving like an antagonist, there is still an outside force they must fight against.

We live in brave world, and unlike the old days, key characters don't always die at the end of a tragic story. Shakespeare measured tragedy through the eyes of the protagonist, so that his or her death was highest degree tragedy in his time. Today, tragedy is often measured by the audience's reaction to it.

A scribbler like me will think that the fact that such characters live with impunity is a much greater tragedy than if they died. Getting away with it after terrible crimes is in some cases much more tragic. However, this article is about something else. Let me conclude this case. It doesn't matter who the main character in the script is - a likable false protagonist who dies (like Vincent Vega, who died because he didn't follow the advice of his partner Jules in " Pulp Fiction") or a literally disgusting false protagonist who lives to kill again (like Louis Bloom in The Stringer or Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley) - they all meet an external enemy. The antagonists want to stop these characters and serve as a kind of counterargument to the plan, an external basis for the audience’s understanding.

In every great movie story I can think of, the protagonist declares war on something that represents a point of view opposite to the main message. A film is not a book where we can spend the entire time in someone’s thoughts, listening to the endless text of an internal monologue. It would be boring. We need to see the opposition to understand it. We need to see ideals being questioned. Thus, the viewer is immersed in the narrative and understands what the story is about. specific examples. This triggers a catharsis that, when executed well, touches the viewer's soul.

Think about it logically. If the protagonist is the antagonist, what will that look like? In visual art, it is very important to represent a picture. There is always conflict at the center of the story. If the character is not confronted by a separate external force, then there is no external conflict in the story, and therefore there is nothing to see there. Protagonists fight something outside of themselves, like Jacob, who, according to the Bible, fights another shadowy creature before meeting his brother. Yes this battle could be a metaphor internal conflict, but the antagonist must be a separate entity. Why? Movie - visual art, and personifying the enemy is the only way to show confrontation.

Shakespeare tried to give the protagonist's opponent a face hundreds of years before the advent of cinema. Iago defeats Othello by manipulating his jealousy. You can call this character a provocateur if you want, but he is the antagonist here.

I completely understand why many people are so keen to promote scenarios in which the protagonist is the antagonist. It sounds dramatic, emotional and cool. But similar stories do not work technically and cinematically. So after the final analysis, at least in my opinion, the answer to the question of whether it is possible to make the protagonist an antagonist is a resounding “no.”

Antagonist(from ancient Greek ἀνταγωνιστής - “rival”, “adversary”) - in work of art: a character who opposes the main character (protagonist) on the way to achieving his goals. Antagonist-protagonist confrontation is one of the possible driving forces the central conflict of the work. The actions of the antagonist not only create obstacles that the protagonist must overcome, but can also cause the development of the protagonist's character. It is also possible for a plot to exist without an antagonist.

The antagonist can be not a single character, but a group of characters (family, organization, etc.) or a non-personified force - a natural disaster, social order. It is possible to broaden the definition of an antagonist to include not only forces external to the protagonist, but also general moral principles or his own character traits. A narrower interpretation of the concept is also possible, when in the group of characters opposing the hero only one, the “most important” villain of the work, is considered as an antagonist.

IN classical literature, especially in ancient Greek tragedy, usually the main character (protagonist) acts as positive character, the bearer of good, and the antagonist is negative character, a villain. However, the “negativity” of the antagonist can be smoothed out - for example, in Romeo and Juliet, the parents and family members who act as antagonists to the heroes are not so much villains as bullies and fools stubborn in their delusions; however, even in this case, the figure of the antagonist causes the author’s disapproval. The relationship “the protagonist is more virtuous than the antagonist” can be completely violated, for example, in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” the more virtuous Macduff opposes the main character. A plot is also possible in which the protagonist and antagonist are heroes of equal size to each other (Achilles and Hector in Homer’s Iliad).

Antagonist figure different genres carries his characteristic features. Thus, in a comedy it is usually the antagonist who draws the hero into comic situations; in thrillers and horror, the most vivid and naturalistic scenes of fights, violence and death are associated with the antagonist; to some extent, it is the portrayal of the antagonist as the personification of the forces of evil that can be the main artistic task of the genre; The Western is characterized by some rapprochement between the protagonist and the antagonist, similarity in the mode of action and methods; in women's love story the antagonist, as a rule, is older and more experienced than the heroine, she provokes the heroine to break prohibitions and sets “difficult tasks” for her, promoting the heroine’s female initiation.

An antagonist should not be confused with an antihero - a protagonist endowed with negative qualities.

And here is what the source gives about such a confusing concept of antihero:

Antihero- conditional type literary hero, devoid of heroic traits, but despite this occupying a central place in literary work. Close to antihero concepts are the trickster and the Byronic hero.

An antihero should not be confused with a villain or an antagonist, an opponent of the protagonist (hero or antihero).

The “antihero” has become widespread in modern Western popular culture, for example in comics. Thanks to Pulp magazines and the noir detective stories of the mid-20th century, characters like Sam Spade became popular. Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns featured a traveling vigilante (the so-called "Man with No Name", played by Clint Eastwood) whose surly demeanor was at odds with other heroic characteristics. Typically, an "antihero" is positioned as a character who has the negative personality traits traditionally attributed to villains or unheroic people, but who nevertheless also has enough heroic qualities to win the sympathy of the audience. Other classic examples of antiheroes in 20th-century literature include Alex from Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange", Tyler Durden from Chuck Palahniuk's novel "Fight Club", etc.

The antihero is typical of a picaresque novel. In such works, the protagonist commits crimes that do not receive moral justification from the author. However, the hero himself acts as a trickster and arouses the reader’s sympathy not with his moral qualities, but with his intelligence, dexterity and determination. Classic examples of this kind of antiheroes are Reineke the Fox from “The Novel about the Fox”, Chichikov from Gogol’s “Dead Souls”, Ostap Bender from the books of Ilf and Petrov, Arsene Lupin. Another type of criminal antihero is shown in crime novel And crime films, such as “The Godfather”, “Scarface” or “Carlito’s Way”, where the authors do not seek to justify the crimes of the main character, nor to arouse sympathy for him, but only show him as a typical representative of the criminal world.

I want to end my thoughts here. I hope that this article will make someone think and understand who is who in his story.

The only broad designation for a key character in the art world is the protagonist. Everyone already knows this very well. In literature, when writing most stories and characterizations of characters from fairy tales, children call the central character the main character. There is nothing wrong with this, excellent terminology, which allows you not to remind in your story, which is due tomorrow, a boring name. Over time, the essay is written, but there is no zest in it either. Everything is simple and according to the template. Then you start searching on Google for new ones. interesting words and you end up on the protagonist. At first glance, it is a rather strange word that is unlikely to mean anything important or interesting.

Then he decides to write more specifically “synonyms for the main character” in the address bar. What a surprise: the word protagonist appears again. It turns out that such a noun is directly related to the “main character”.

On Wikipedia the protagonist is called key character in the story, the plot driver in cinema, the owner of his destiny in the real world. Indirectly speaking, this word can be called any creature, object, phenomenon or person on which the skeleton of a narrative story rests.

The meaning of the word protagonist can be easily found out by searching in a search engine, on information resources, or in videos of film reviewers. This word was first spoken in 534 BC. e. at one of the performances of the playwright Thespis. From ancient Greek, the protagonist is literally translated as “the first active fighter.” Thanks to this poet, the world gradually began to call all the people about whom a story is told as protagonists.

Protagonist in literature

It is quite strange that such a term is not included in the compulsory school curriculum. Most often people become acquainted with him in the first year of art and similar institutes and colleges. But generalized acquaintance occurs almost in kindergarten with the question: “Who did we just listen to the fairy tale about?”

In elementary school, the concept is expanded a little, under the pretext of the main character, children get acquainted with brief description character, which consists of:

Seems like quite a complex system, doesn't it? But in practice everything happens much more simply. After processing the work with the help of leading questions, the teacher evaluates the quality of comprehension of what was read. And as many have already guessed, all this happens through the prism of the main character, that is, the protagonist. Primary school teaches you to identify the key character in the story. Then gradually the volume art material increases, but the above system does not change.

One has only to remember how they met Kolobok in first grade and the Little Prince in sixth grade. Initially, it is difficult to see the difference between them. However, if you look closely at the key issues, it immediately becomes clear that there is no difference. Getting to know the protagonist is present in any work of fiction..

At school, the most memorable protagonists are Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, and so on. That is, those who are easiest to remember and compare themselves with.

Protagonist in films

When cinema appeared, there was a smooth movement of most artistic literary terms. Now cinema sets the rhythms, and most people first time hearing the protagonist in a movie. In this case, there is a similar comparison of the term with active hero films. That is, the main character of the film is the protagonist. But you shouldn’t close the article here, thinking that you won’t read anything else interesting. With the advent of a new round of art, like cinema, the protagonist expanded a little in his understanding.

Characters who are not up to the level of the protagonist often began to appear on screens, and they act as the main characters. A slight contradiction arises. New heroes have vices in their souls, sometimes behave disgustingly, causing negativity in a person. All these criteria are more suitable for the antagonist (there will also be a little talk about him below). But then we find out that the main character had good intentions, was able to achieve the goal by such means. Thanks to such a sharp change in concepts, a new word emerges - antihero. This is the person who is considered actor, but has open negative sides. In modern cinema, their popularity is only increasing, since the protagonists are too predictable, compared to these guys.

Unfortunately, female protagonists rarely gain popularity in the world of cinema.. They are assigned the role of helpers, reasons for actions, or “damsels in distress.” The fashion for female protagonists began to appear only in 2001, with the release of the gorgeous film “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.” In the series, the heroine Vika Prudkovskaya gained fame in the CIS countries, showing a well-written character.

Antihero is the main character of the work, because it also appeared in literature over time, which is not without its shortcomings.

Every story involves a problem, a contradiction, or a confrontation. If there is good hero or not so much (let’s not forget the anti-hero), there must also be someone who does not try to interfere, create opposition, catch the opposite thought. Such characters are called antagonists. Most often, they are shown in a negative light and clearly prevent the main character from achieving his goal.

The main features of the antagonist:

• obvious conflict with the main character;
• egoistic intentions;
• tendency to sacrifice.

As is easy to notice, all art world consists of from confrontations between protagonist and antagonist(rarely an antihero is an antagonist). This is necessary to create possible situations that will either bring a person closer to real life, or can reveal the full potential of fantasy, like that rosebud in the neighbor’s garden.

There is another specific name for the protagonist - false protagonist. This non-standard method is rarely used in cinema, so many people do not know about its existence. The bottom line is that initially the viewer is shown the main character, his story and goals are told. Everything seems to be going smoothly. But then he disappears for a good half of the film and appears at the end. Wow, a turnaround - you say. This technique is most often used for trailers.

Protagonist in games

It was impossible not to say a few words about games. All terms are present in this area. Only everything is much simpler. The protagonist is called acting character, controlled by the player, the antagonist is his enemy, the opposite side. And an anti-hero is a character that players control but commits bad actions.

The easiest way to consider these concepts is using the example of the world-famous game from Blizzard, I think you guessed which one.