Question on villians

[DrRita]

Hi folks.
I just wanted to find out from you pros out there if the antagonist has to be human or can it be an opposing force such as the weather, nature, an institution, government, etc. And if so, should/could this non-human villian have one or more representatives? I have a story set in the late 1800's where the family is moving out west to homestead. The antagonist is the wild west in general. Is this too general? Any input would be greatly appreciated
R

[James D. Macdonald]

To Build a Fire (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/LostFace/fire.html)

[brokenfingers]

Man vs. Nature is one of the primary plot conflicts...

[Zolah]

Nature is a classic antagonist - and it seems to me that the various faces of the Wild West offer all kinds of interesting conflicts. Go for it.

[DrRita]

That's what I thought but when I began developing characters and I came to the antagonist/villian I lost my way. Thanks for putting me back on track again. Thanks, James, for the link. I appreciate your help.
R

[katiemac]

Yep, Rita. Man vs. nature is a completely legitimate plot goal. Jim's already given you an example, but the main plot of the movie Castaway is oriented this way.

[Torin]

Yup. That'll do just fine. :) Good luck with your project.

[zizban]

The general things I do when I set out to create a villian is think about he/she's motivation. No villian, unless its a humoress work, is totally evil and wakes up each morning thinking, "How can I do evil today?"

Villians, like heros in a book, have a motivation that drives them and when this motivation croses with the hero's motivation, there you go, conflict.

In my WIP the villian is a prince who wants something and that is to unleash a god he worships from inprisonment. The god promises him power, immortality, etc. The hero want to stop him. The prince doesn't think what he is doing is evil, sure people are going to get hurt when the dark god returns but life under him as immortal leader will be just fine (as long as they stay in line).

[Zolah]

One of the best pieces of advice I ever read was 'Every character thinks they're the hero'. The taxi driver who gets one line thinks he's the hero. So does the secondary character with the interesting subplot. The villain certainly does. When you look at it that way, it seems silly to write an antagonist whose motivation is wanting an excuse to twirl his mustache...

[sunandshadow]

Sometimes you get a villain which is both an abstract force and a particular character, or more than one particular character. Like 'prejudice' - that could be your antagonist, but in order to actually get it to interact with your protagonist you might have to embody prejudice as a few particular people with particular prejudices.

[Kallahan]

Think of nature as a villian, even though it's chaotic in real life it should have a purpose in your book. Think of it as a character set out to destroy the protagonist, but it has no voice of body language.

[James D. Macdonald]

See also Storm by George Rippey Stewart and The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger.

[DrRita]

Now that I've gotten such excellent answers, I would suppose as in any story where there's a human villian/antagonist (as Zolah pointed out) an abstract antagonist such as would have the purpose, albeit indirectly, to bring out the hidden weaknesses and/or strengths of the protagonist. Since nature cannot plot against the protagonist, it should prove interesting to see how the character deals with the forces that be and how the character changes when pitted against such a foe.

[debraji]

Your protaganist could characterize the facets of nature that he's fighting, calling the storm "an old bastard," calling the rising river "menacing," calling the parched soil "stingy, mean," etc.