Worthy Adversaries

The classic villain: the Wicked Witch of the West from the 1939 Wizard of Oz film

At an audition for my local community theater’s upcoming production of The Wizard of Oz, I observed some actors trying out to play the Wicked Witch of the West, each one ending the monologue, at the director’s request, with their own distinctive evil laugh. As I listened, I reflected on how the Wicked Witch is the archetypal Bad Guy: gleefully megalomaniacal, fiendishly delighted at her own nasty cleverness, and as bad-looking as she is badly-behaving.

Times have changed since The Wizard of Oz was published in the early 20th century. Contemporary readers expect antagonists to be as fully realized as any other character. Ideally, they don’t even consider themselves the “bad guy.” Like the protagonist, they’re the hero/ine of their own story. Many antagonists aren’t arch-villains anyway. An obnoxious supervisor, a beastly ex, an overbearing parent, and a rival for a love interest aren’t criminals or demons. They’re more like obstacles, but obstacles with minds and motives of their own.

As with anything else about the writer’s art and craft, there’s no foolproof formula for generating formidable foes. Wherever your antagonist falls along the continuum of annoyance to full-on monster, however, they must pose an active threat to the protagonist, generating the story’s tension.

An effective antagonist must represent a true challenge to the protagonist. This redoubtable opponent won’t let the protagonist get away with an easy, predictable victory. To do this, the antagonist requires a goal. It shouldn’t be just any goal. It must run counter to the protagonist’s goal. It’s not an idle fantasy either. The antagonist is consumed by their single-minded obsession with this goal. They’re tenacious enough to charge toward that goal like an 18-wheeler headed for the runaway-truck ramp, which happens to double as the protagonist’s driveway. In pursuit of that goal, the antagonist causes significant trouble to the protagonist, the equivalent of that 18-wheeler’s cab smashing through the living-room window and coming to rest in the wrecked bedroom.

Antagonists are as individual as protagonists, but if I could distill their motives down, I’d assign them to one of two different personality types: the deranged messiah (the “hot” villain) and the sociopath (the “cold” villain).

The deranged messiah pursues their goal because a compelling, all-encompassing belief pulls them along. This antagonist isn’t a simple believer. They’re full of fervor and fanaticism, whatever they’re espousing: religion, social cause, or personal vendetta. They’re rigid to the point of absolutism and ruthless in implementing their beliefs, convinced that the lofty end justifies the reprehensible means. Their conviction might be admirable in other circumstances, but their willingness to bend the ethical rules in service to their cause distinguishes them from the protagonist.

The sociopath, on the other hand, lacks the passion that motivates the believer gone bad, but their hallmark feature–lack of empathy–is chilling. The sociopathic antagonist also lacks a healthy person’s rich emotional life. They only experience feelings associated with basic drives: hunger, thirst, boredom, frustration. The unsettling thing about an antisocial person’s lack of empathy is that they can be excellent mimics of the very quality that’s absent from their psychological makeup. They can feign interest, caring, even love. Such individuals seek intense stimulation (thrill sports, intoxicants, murder and mayhem) because without feelings, their lives are bleak and empty. When you introduce your antagonist, their lack of empathy makes them both frightening, as it allows for cruelty and callousness that wreak damage on the lives around them, and pitiful. Readers are moved by villains they can feel sorry for, and the empty, vapid, bored life of an empathy-less person is a sorry thing indeed.

Here are some other negative personality traits that work well for antagonists.

Aggrieved entitlement. Difficult people I’ve encountered consider themselves both victimized and deserving of the best in life–in extreme cases, worship by us lesser mortals. They lack the insight to take responsibility for the difficulties they’ve created in their own lives, instead insisting that others–ex-partners, the legal system, family members–have taken unfair advantage of them. Whether they’re complaining about the job that should’ve been theirs or their terrible ex-partner, in the stories they tell, they’re the innocent victim. It’s not clear whether they believe this themselves or use such stories to win sympathy and assistance, but from what I’ve experienced, underneath the apparent yearning to be understood, real-life antagonists believe people are either chumps to cheat or users to put one over on before they do it to you. After all, when one lacks empathy, if someone shows you kindness, it must be a con.

Hostility. It’s not just antisocial people who think, feel, and behave in hostile ways. I recently read that as much as 25% of the U.S. population has hostile personality traits. The hostile person is reactive, with a hair-trigger temper. They are impulsive, not stopping to consider before acting on their emotional reactions. They don’t “check in,” with themselves or the other person, whether their initial impressions are correct or their initial impulse is appropriate. They just explode. They interpret anything the other person says or does in the worst possible light, justifying their angry response to themselves. Often they have a low sensory threshold. Bright lights, noise, uncomfortable materials, and other unpleasant sensory impressions register as assaults with them, so they simmer in a state of low-grade irritability, ready to erupt at the smallest provocation…which, according to their sensitive nervous systems, represents an attack and thus necessitates a violent response. They may view others as idiots and jerks. This is the person you’ll hear complaining about the “sheeple” all the time and assuming that they are one of the few smart folks. Some people are aware of their hostile tendencies and “keep a lid on it” when interacting with friends, family, and co-workers, only to spew forth when a stranger looks at them the wrong way.

Rigidity. Difficult people don’t roll with the punches. Instead of responding flexibly to difficult situations, they become frustrated at their own perceived helplessness and lash out at others in response. This pattern of thought and behavior might’ve gotten started in early childhood, in reaction to living with chaotic circumstances, devoid of safety and a reassuring parental figure. Without a safe home and a consistent, caring parent, their primal needs for security don’t get met, so they take refuge in restrictive thought patterns, authoritarianism, and undeviating ritual. You can get readers to pity and be creeped out by your antagonist, both at the same time, by giving them a habit or behavior pattern where, if they’re forced to act differently, they snap or fall apart.

Negativity. In order to avoid painful, dangerous situations, our body-minds are primed to remember negative experiences. In learning from these experiences, we often end up magnifying them. Hence, people can define themselves by illnesses or pain they’ve suffered and harrowing experiences they’ve had. Developing a positive attitude takes time and mindfulness; perceiving the negative in every situation can become a default reaction. So what does this have to do with antagonists? Isn’t this conundrum just part of human experience? First, the very universality of this tendency is one thing that reminds readers about your antagonist’s humanity and makes them relatable. It’s both uncomfortable and revelatory to recognize the antagonist as a human being like oneself and to empathize with them. Second, by giving the antagonist a traumatic past that has created a persistent negative pattern of thinking and responding, you create conflict–the character gets into trouble as a result of their assumption that the world is a nasty, brutal place and because of the choices they make as a result. Such experiences explain, although they don’t justify, the antagonist’s selfish, thoughtless meanness. If a protagonist has undergone similar experiences and has nevertheless chosen a path of kindness and mercy, you’ve got a dramatic contrast right there. Same experiences, different choices–they can make the difference between the character’s becoming friend and foe.

A fully-fleshed, multidimensional antagonist presents significant roadblocks to the protagonist’s progress, which may even help the protagonist grow…although that’s not the “bad guy’s” intention. They also offer the reader a figure to become mesmerized by, perhaps against their better judgment, an effect they might exert on the protagonist too. But what ultimately makes a well-drawn antagonist so memorable is the way they hold a mirror up to our own shadow side, the side we engage with at our peril.

Can you douse your own shadow side with water and expect it to melt?