July 3, 2019
[This guide was copied, as is, from Wattpad. At the time, I had no intention of posting it here. Please excuse any discrepancies.]
This section goes over antagonists and what makes them. The villain, who is specifically an evil character, is not covered here. Villains are usually antagonists, but antagonists do not have to be pure evil. There is a broader definition of antagonist than there is for a villain.
Antagonists, like villains, are as old as recorded history. No matter who you are or where you come from, there has always been someone or something to oppose your immediate or long-term goals. Antagonists are popular in modern media, with whole movies being made just from their point of view. Plenty of Western dramas, tragedies, and religious stories revolve around antagonists. We get more freedom with them and what they can be.
ANTAGONISTS IN WARRIORS
Antagonists are characters, objects, or force that opposes the protagonist. For example, an antagonist can be an arrogant rival, a dark lord bent on destruction, or even a natural disaster. Keep in mind that, while antagonists are often villains, villains cannot be hurricanes. Because they are just something that opposes the protagonist, they can be virtually anything.
Warriors has a long list of antagonists including but not limited to: abandoned kits bent of rage against society, overambitious warriors, jealous lovers, forest fires, and even StarClan. Notable examples include Tigerstar, Scourge, Brokenstar, the Dark Forest itself, and Sol. Unfortunately, the list generally consists of villains for our main characters to overcome. It is not a bad thing, but given the scope of themes and topics the series covers it can do more with what it has. One thing the canon does do well with its antagonists is make them products of the societies the audience sees. Sol, Tigerstar, and Brokenstar were all clan cats once. Scourge came from a foster home for pets and just had a few bad days in a row (a much different experience from the other main kittypet in the story, Firestar). Sol was obsessed with a then-absent clan and it drove him to nearly worshiping it.
The Erins have done a much better job with antagonists than Disney has (noting some of the most well-known ones are Disney villains). This laundry list of antagonists to choose from may not be the best springboard when it comes to writing better ones, however.
ANTAGONISTS IN FANFICTIONS
As expected from our derivative fanfictions, antagonists are plenty. Just like in canon, almost every single story has an antagonist as one of the main characters. They are usually the villains who our protagonist is trying to defeat via a prophecy or something. What else is there to expect? The antagonist is a core element of fiction, and almost every fictional work across all of history and mediums has one. No surprise our fanfictions do, too.
That does not mean there is no room to improve our antagonists. Most in Warriors fanfics can be reduced to a villain misinterpreting a prophecy, a villain written in at the last minute, or a littermate of the main character who betrays them in some way. Disabilities are popular antagonists in the Warriors fandom, but even then we tend to add a hateful character to scorn the disabled cat in question and make the audience feel sympathy for them. Was the disability not enough of an antagonist? Moving on to the jealous lover, writers here just love to make them cross the line one too many times. If jealousy led to obsession every time in Warriors and in real life, there would be a lot more murders and thefts in both worlds than there already are. Our antagonists can be more than targets or manifestations of evil.
Here is an example from our nonexistent fanfiction. Note it is part of the same example I gave in the "Out of Character Moments" section (no need to go back and reference it):
- Catstar, the pacifist leader of ShadowClan, must decide who to help in a war between ThunderClan and RiverClan. Catstar is of ThunderClan originally, and her mother is its leader with her littermates its senior warriors. RiverClan is holding hostage the much-loved Otherleaf, Catstar's best friend and medicine cat. ThunderClan is asking for her help as family rather than as a clan, stating they are losing more every day. RiverClan threatens to kill Otherleaf unless she helps their clan. She has been given an ultimatum and must decide soon before their final battle.
* We had written possible endings for that scenario in the "Out of Character Moments" section, but we do not need them here.
There are a few key takeaways from this. Our antagonist is not one singular cat, but is a choice. Of course, ThunderClan and RiverClan's leaderships are also antagonists. But the question of ethics and kinship are what Catstar must ultimately deal with. Let us look at the situation closer and see what makes this situation work.
First, our main character's antagonists do not stand for what she stands for; the differences are great enough to warrant action against each other. Catstar is a pacifist. Obviously, the leaders of ThunderClan and RiverClan are not. The very nature of their war and the decisions they are trying to guilt and force Catstar into are what makes them antagonists. Catstar would never do this to another clan, nor would ShadowClan be at war in the first place (under her leadership, at least). By opposing her in such a way ThunderClan and RiverClan are our tangible antagonists, with the ultimatum they gave her the moral one. Opposition is important when considering an antagonist. A reason to go against them is where most of your conflict will come from.
A second point is that neither side is evil for the sake of being a narrative and literary target. ThunderClan and RiverClan are not acting with evil intent, nor are their actions evil. Guilt-tripping and kidnapping are just nefarious means to an end. Both clan's leadership wants to defend their territory and their clamnates against an enemy they think is wrong. Even if our pacifist Catstar finds war and those who perpetuate it wrong, they are not. From ThunderClan's point of view RiverClan is evil, and vise versa. And when put on the moral scale of the Warriors universe as a whole, war is not considered an evil action in of itself (otherwise clans would not mainly consist of trained fighters).
Speaking on antagonists as a whole in this series, Warriors has a large cast of characters and so do your fanfics. An antagonist (or villain antagonist if you choose) allows you to do a number of things with your characters:
- Explore part of a character's psyche that would otherwise be ignored by the plot.
- Give your main character an overarching goal that does not involve violence (like converting an antagonist to their morals or escaping their influence).
- Help a character identify their own flaws and fix them, or even pronounce them.
- Become a problem a character cannot fix by defeating it in battle or moving away from it; maybe the antagonist is an earthquake or anxiety.
This is one of the good parts about not using a straight up villain in your fanfics. You can have your adversary be a mental state or the morals of another non-evil cat. This pushes the conflict in your story to 'gray morality', the same types of conflict people can find in real life. In the Warriors universe, the main plotlines are black and white from a moral standpoint. There is good and there is evil. But some of the super editions and subplots from the less important books tend to explore the perception of good and evil rather than good and evil itself. Take some time to explore your characters and the universe you have built for them in your outline. Do you need a villain? Does your antagonist even have to be another cat?
IN CONCLUSION…
Antagonists are in all fictional and nonfictional stories. They are the center of most conflicts and the motivations of our protagonists. The fact that they can, and have, been anything means they can be anything in our Warriors fanfics. Of course, they should be grounded in something our audience can grasp. Making an antagonist too evil is what drove modern audiences away from Disney-like villains. But it is your fanfic. If you want an epic tale of good versus evil, there are plenty of entertaining references out there.
The antagonist is a core element in your story. Take the same time to develop them as you do the main character, and your audience will subconsciously thank you.
- Tyto
