ABOUT THAT VILLAIN: Forces of Antagonism & Non-Human Villains

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

There’s usually— going on almost always— going to be a clear, identifiable MAIN ANTAGONIST in a story. But even when there’s an obvious Villain, it's always much more useful to think of a story as having a set of OPPOSING FORCES or FORCES OF ANTAGONISM.

Happy New Year, all! And YES, I’m going to continue with my breakdown of Die Hard! But just as Sequence 1 was a lot about setting up the iconic protagonist, John McLean, Sequence 2 is about setting up the possibly even more iconic villain: the inimitable Hans Gruber. So first I want to talk about villains in general and give those of you following along some things to look at in Die Hard.

• Watch Die Hard

Also, analyzing villains seems particularly on point this January.

It’s useful to assume that there are at least three or four antagonists in a well-rounded story. And there are often more!

Let's take a couple of tangible examples first.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, you have:

1. The rival archeologist, Belloq;

2. The team of Hitler's minions, Major Toht and Colonel Strasser;

3. There's Hitler himself, the offscreen but powerful antagonist who is determined to get the supernatural power of the Ark to rule the world.

4. And then you have a less tangible antagonist in the form of Indy's own disbelief about the supernatural/spiritual power of the Ark. And that last, internal opposition is what Indy really has to overcome in the FINAL BATTLE to save his own and Marion's lives.

5. And of course, number five is the supernatural power of the ark!

So, FIVE antagonists - number 1 and number 2 are very human and present; 3 is offscreen; 4 is internal, and 5 is supernatural.

Now, let's take The Hunger Games.

There Katniss has

1. A peer antagonist: Cato, the bleached blond Alpha professional tribute

2. A powerful adult antagonist, President Snow: the human representative of the Capitol

3. Katniss’s internal conflict: her own powerful reluctance to kill, even for her and her family's survival

4. And the most powerful antagonist of all: The oppressive, dystopian society of Panem itself (which President Snow is only a tool of, really.)

In stories where the society is the real antagonist, there is often a human representative of that society for us to hate, like President Snow in Hunger Games or Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But the evil in Hunger Games is bigger than blond bully Cato or autocratic Snow— it’s the whole dystopian societal system.

• Full breakdown of The Hunger Games

• Video analysis

Now let’s look at some less obvious examples!

Who are the Antagonists in Eat Pray Love?

1. In Eat Pray Love, the protagonist's first opponent is the American societal pressure to succeed. Meaning external success.

2. She also has internal opposition about giving herself over to anything or anyone—and in her soul journey, she has to learn to surrender first to the unknown, then to her senses, then to God/dess, then to love.

3. & 4. Also, the spiritual MENTOR and the LOVE INTEREST both function as ANTAGONISTS for the heroine. This is very, very, very often the case with these two characters!

Who are the Antagonists in About A Boy?

The book may have been less on the nose about it, but the movie is structured as a love story between Will (the man who never had to grow up) and Marcus, the troubled boy whom he ultimately grows up for. Well…

In a romance or love story, the lover is always the main antagonist!

So —

1. Marcus is Will's antagonist. Early on he starts blackmailing Will to date Marcus’s mother so she won't try to kill herself again. If Will steps out of line, Marcus will expose Will’s “Big Lie” that he is a struggling single father. So Marcus is a very clear and present threat, and continues to be through the story.

But as in any love story—The antagonism between the two is what forces both characters to grow and change.

2. As for the other forces of opposition, Will’s self-absorption and hedonism is for sure some internal opposition

3. And a society that still expects women to do the lion’s share of child rearing is some powerful external opposition, and there are probably some other characters I can’t remember who act as antagonistic forces as well.

Who is the antagonist in Notting Hill?

1. It’s a love story, so Anna is both Will’s desire and his antagonist (and she can be a pretty surly one!)

2. But Notting Hill is also a fantastic example of a Non-Human Antagonist: Anna’s fame, which is constantly getting between the lovers.

3. The paparazzi in Notting Hill are a great physical representation and ever-present reminder of that fame and the huge, seemingly insurmountable gulf in status between Anna and Will.

Who are the antagonists in How to Have Sex?

Cinematographer-turned-writer/director Molly Manning’s award-winning 2023 debut feature How to Have Sex is an excellent example of multiple antagonists and non-human antagonists in a Young Adult/New Adult coming-of-age drama.

This powerful, important film is a must-see anyway, so if you don’t want SPOILERS — file the rest of this post and come back to it!

• Watch How to Have Sex

1. The film’s obvious antagonist is the rapist, Paddy, a smarmy older frat boy type.

Protagonist Tara’s (aka Taz) “friend” Skye is more than just outwardly bitchy — she fully enables the rape culture that the movie is steeped in and through taunts and dares, pushes her less experienced friend into danger.

1. And rape culture is the biggest antagonist: the alcohol and drug-fueled, post-GCSE (exams) club hub scene — the UK equivalent of the rape culture that permeates the Spring Break, frat/sorority party scene.

2. The party hosts at the pool party, a male/female pair, are human representatives of that rape culture as they horribly encourage blackout drunk girls to take the stage and perform fellatio on boys who are equally too blackout drunk to be consenting to this.

The film has more layered antagonism from other characters as well:

5. There’s the passivity of Tara’s more loyal friend Em, who fails to pick up on the danger to Tara and her friend’s trauma until the very end.

6. And the supposed nice guy, Badger, who seems throughout the movie to be the only one in the group both aware of Tara’s distress and willing to clumsily comfort her, turns out to be the biggest enabler of all. He’s obviously known for years that his childhood buddy is a predator, and like so many boys and men, he consistently fails to hold that friend accountable for his criminality.

7. Society in general is also villainous, for not making a full education on consent part of sex education, and not giving both girls and boys a vocabulary to talk about sexual assault. I’m looking straight at Florida, whose Department of Education is instructing educators not to teach about critical concepts or even use words like consent, abuse, domestic violence, gender identity, and “fluids,” or to show students basic diagrams of human reproductive anatomy or images of contraceptives. (Read more here). We can expect more of this Orwellian horror under the incoming administration of sexual predators.

So here’s a useful assignment:

— Identify the FORCES OF ANTAGONISM in your own story.

What are the forces of antagonism layered into your own story that you can start to bring to the surface and develop into satisfying story conflict?

Try to come up with at least four!

And as you watch the first Act of Die Hard, pay attention to the way Hans Gruber and his henchmen are presented. What are the qualities we notice about each of them in this sequence, particularly Gruber? Freeze on the opening shot of Gruber: How is he presented, specifically?

• Watch Die Hard

You can find much more discussion of Villains and Forces of Antagonism in the workbooks, Stealing Hollywood : Chapters 10-11, Writing Love : Chapters 12-13, and throughout the books.

So what are your own favorites?

—Alex

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• Stealing Hollywood ebook, $4.99, also available as print workbook

• Writing Love ebook, $2.99

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