Antagonists

What makes a great antagonist? Well, that’s easy; make a list of antagonists that are especially memorable to you. Here, I’ll start: Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, Glen Close in FATAL ATTRACTION, The Wicked Witch of the West, Mrs. Danvers in REBECCA, Tom Cruise in COLLATERAL, Harold’s mother in HAROLD AND MAUDE, Lena Lamont in SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, Meryl Streep in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA – to name only those that immediately come to mind.

A good antagonist is a character that we love to hate. They elicit a depth of feeling in us that is some kind of combination of every frustrated childhood, road rage, just-got-fired moment in our lives. And then some. But even better, a good antagonist also, oddly, elicits our sympathy. Just a little, tiny, microscopic bit. Because a good antagonist fully, truly believes in what they are doing. They have to do it. They have no choice. Really, who remembers those turtle-neck wearing German (or was it Russian) bad guys in DIE HARD? They were a blur; it’s Willis we are watching. Don’t get me wrong; DIE HARD was a great action flick, but great villains should lodge in our memory almost equally as much as great heroes.

Villains tickle our deepest primal urges. They represent the evil in the world, the unfairness, the jerks that get away with it, the idiotic meter maid who just wouldn’t listen, the…I’m sorry. I digress.

Many writers trip up on writing a great antagonist because they either make the antag too soft (the belligerent boss) or so wholly e-vil that the character is mechanical, lacking absolutely any complexity. We know from our screenwriting classes that antagonists don’t usually have an arc, per se, but they should have some dimension.

Now don’t get all fancy on me and say Ooh Ooh! But ooh! Antagonists can be shape-shifters! Or tricksters! The antagonist can be the main character’s inner whatever. Sure. Yes. But let’s keep this simple for the moment. Let’s go straight up antagonist.

It is true that a good-old fashioned antagonist is 100% focused on the Bad Thing they want. They will not downshift or see reason. A clever one might shift tactics and be manipulative but at the end of the day, this antagonist wants you dead dead dead and nothing will stop them from achieving that goal.

Something I run into with newer writers is that while the modus operandi of the antagonist is pretty clear, the antagonist’s ultimate evil plan is not. Think it through. If the antagonist gets their way in this situation – what, exactly, are they planning to do next? For some it seems a moot consideration because of course the bad guy is gonna be melted with a pail of water. But you really must think it through – because if you can’t imagine the machinations and future goals of your antagonist – how scary or formidable can they be to us? What will the total world domination of your antagonist look like, exactly? Or to take a totally different genre – what would the family dynamic be for the antagonist, once they have totally humiliated and emotionally destroyed their son-in-law? What is that they want, exactly, after they win? What is the evil stasis they wish to return to? We just can’t have Meryl Streep in PRADA continue to destroy the souls of innocent assistants! She must be stopped.

Establishing this larger motive will give the viewer something to grasp onto. Glen Close doesn’t want to argue over the remote with Michael Douglass. No, she’s beyond that. She wanted that at the beginning. But now she wants to ram a knife through his throat. She’s beyond cuddling – she’s insane.

Hannibal Lecter is really one of the most brilliant, unforgettable villains in the movies, full stop. He was so crazy – he was sane. Beautifully, elegantly, manipulatively sane. Now that was one scary guy. Norman Bates in PSYCHO, on the other hand was all nervous vulnerability – insane but trying desperately to cover up for it. Great antagonists run the gamut from highly sophisticated to brutally simple.

In some ways it is more instructive to think about movie villains that don’t even register when you think about a movie. DIE HARD is but one paltry example, except in a slightly funny way (those accents! those turtlenecks!) but the movies are heavily populated with villains who are cardboard cut-outs that fill a role from a mechanistic point of view – but they’re just no fun. For you sticklers, yes of course villains can be a bit two-dimensional from an academic and dramatic point of view. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t make them memorable. Rouge Wave readers, as always, I encourage you to shoot for the moon. In a spec market in which your script must be more than good, it must be GREAT to get noticed, why not exploit the big, fat opportunity of your antagonist? Why stop at "okay" when shooting higher may result in wondering what to wear at your meeting?

Remember to make sure that you write an antagonist who has a plan, a motive, an agenda and an m.o. What do they want? What do they plan to do once they get it? How will they respond to unexpected obstacles? How will they react in the end when defeat is inevitable? Why is it somehow personal to them, this epic battle? What do they have to lose?

A good villain is every bit as important as a great hero. It’s just no fun if we don’t get to hate and fear the bad guy as much as we cheer and shout for the good guy. Anybody remember how it felt to watch Kaiser Soze slowly limp away – scott free? Or the chill that went up your spine when Hannibal Lecter called Clarise from that tropical island? Or how funny the Wicked Witch looked when she was melting and all those monkeys just sat there and watched? Good times.

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