What the Protag?
In the commentary to the movie Die Hard, one of the commentors said something interesting: that the protagonist in the movie is actually Hans Grueber, the man who takes over the building in an attempt to steal millions from the company’s vault, and the antagonist is the hero, played by Bruce Willis. And I went: What? The hero is the ANTAgonist? The commentor also said that the reason the movie was so great was because everyone who was a part of the movie understood this about the movie.
But the hero as antagonist? It made me sit back and actually ask myself what the two terms meant: protagonist and antagonist. What are they and what role do they play in the story? And guess what. I had to rethink my initial basic assumptions about their roles. So I figured I’d play a little devil’s advocate and say what I think about the two roles and what they mean, and then see what everyone else out there thinks. So here goes:
Protagonist: I think the protagonist is the person in the story who has a goal, something they want to achieve, and the story itself is about how they go about trying to achieve that goal. In other words, the story is about their struggle to achieve their goal, how they go about it and the problems that they run into along the way. For Die Hard, the protagonist is the thief Hans Grueber, because he is the one in the movie with the main plot-oriented goal. He wants to steal all the money and escape with it. He has some basic problems he needs to work through to achieve this goal: the money is inside a rather sophisticated safe, and much of the movie is spent cracking that safe. He also has other problems, such as the police catching on to what he’s doing, and how he’s going to escape with the money. And then he’s got Bruce Willis’ character, the unplanned-for problem.
Antagonist: The antagonist is the person (or thing) that blocks the protagonist from achieving his or her goal. The one who throws a monkey into the wrench, so to speak. The person often does this for their own reasons or goals, but those reason aren’t the driving force behind the plot. Instead, those reasons are usually character-oriented. Their goal is basically to just stop the protagonist. If the protagonist wasn’t there, the antagonist wouldn’t have a plot-oriented goal at all. For Die Hard, the antagonist is the Bruce Willis character (who’s name I CANNOT for the life of me remember even though I’ve seen all of the Die Hard movies and loved them), because he’s the one that screws up all of Hans’ well-laid plans. His initial character goal is to try to fix up his relationship with his wife, or ex-wife, or family. Hans is messing those plans up, so his new goal is simply to stop Hans and save his wife’s life. His actions are determined by Hans’ actions; he doesn’t initiate the plot itself.
So that’s what I think the two personas are supposed to be in a story. I got to thinking about most of the fantasy and science fiction novels out there, and I think we’ve all got it screwed up for a lot of them. The hero ISN’T the protagonist in most of the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Because most fantasy is about how the hero goes about stopping the well-laid plans of Evil. Evil is the protagonist, because it has a goal, something that it wants to achieve, and somehow the hero finds out about it and the ends up screwing up Evil’s plans as best they can.
This obviously doesn’t apply to all fantasy out there. Obviously there’s the LOTR example. Frodo is the protagonist; his goal is to destroy the Ring, and evil is attempting to stop him. The story is his struggle to fight the Ring’s influence and evade all of the Evil forces trying to stop him. But a lot of the more recent fantasy that I’ve read, or even write, seems to be the other way around. In my recent book, just finished (and still basking in the afterglow), the main character spends the entire book trying to stop the Evil forces from taking over the city. So the protagonist would seem to be the Evil forces. They’re the ones with the plans, the goal. Varis, my main character, seems to be the antagonist, because it’s her goal to stop them.
So, here’s the challenge. Take your book, or the book you’re currently reading, and ask yourself who you think the protagonist and antagonist are, and tell everyone about it in the comments (without spoilers if you can). Or if you don’t agree with the definitions I came up with here—and I’m not claiming they’re good definitions at all, just my thoughts on the two—then tell everyone what you think the definitions should be. Is the hero always the protagonist? I no longer think so.
In the commentary to the movie Die Hard, one of the commentors said something interesting: that the protagonist in the movie is actually Hans Grueber, the man who takes over the building in an attempt to steal millions from the company’s vault, and the antagonist is the hero, played by Bruce Willis. And I went: What? The hero is the ANTAgonist? The commentor also said that the reason the movie was so great was because everyone who was a part of the movie understood this about the movie.
But the hero as antagonist? It made me sit back and actually ask myself what the two terms meant: protagonist and antagonist. What are they and what role do they play in the story? And guess what. I had to rethink my initial basic assumptions about their roles. So I figured I’d play a little devil’s advocate and say what I think about the two roles and what they mean, and then see what everyone else out there thinks. So here goes:
Protagonist: I think the protagonist is the person in the story who has a goal, something they want to achieve, and the story itself is about how they go about trying to achieve that goal. In other words, the story is about their struggle to achieve their goal, how they go about it and the problems that they run into along the way. For Die Hard, the protagonist is the thief Hans Grueber, because he is the one in the movie with the main plot-oriented goal. He wants to steal all the money and escape with it. He has some basic problems he needs to work through to achieve this goal: the money is inside a rather sophisticated safe, and much of the movie is spent cracking that safe. He also has other problems, such as the police catching on to what he’s doing, and how he’s going to escape with the money. And then he’s got Bruce Willis’ character, the unplanned-for problem.
Antagonist: The antagonist is the person (or thing) that blocks the protagonist from achieving his or her goal. The one who throws a monkey into the wrench, so to speak. The person often does this for their own reasons or goals, but those reason aren’t the driving force behind the plot. Instead, those reasons are usually character-oriented. Their goal is basically to just stop the protagonist. If the protagonist wasn’t there, the antagonist wouldn’t have a plot-oriented goal at all. For Die Hard, the antagonist is the Bruce Willis character (who’s name I CANNOT for the life of me remember even though I’ve seen all of the Die Hard movies and loved them), because he’s the one that screws up all of Hans’ well-laid plans. His initial character goal is to try to fix up his relationship with his wife, or ex-wife, or family. Hans is messing those plans up, so his new goal is simply to stop Hans and save his wife’s life. His actions are determined by Hans’ actions; he doesn’t initiate the plot itself.
So that’s what I think the two personas are supposed to be in a story. I got to thinking about most of the fantasy and science fiction novels out there, and I think we’ve all got it screwed up for a lot of them. The hero ISN’T the protagonist in most of the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Because most fantasy is about how the hero goes about stopping the well-laid plans of Evil. Evil is the protagonist, because it has a goal, something that it wants to achieve, and somehow the hero finds out about it and the ends up screwing up Evil’s plans as best they can.
This obviously doesn’t apply to all fantasy out there. Obviously there’s the LOTR example. Frodo is the protagonist; his goal is to destroy the Ring, and evil is attempting to stop him. The story is his struggle to fight the Ring’s influence and evade all of the Evil forces trying to stop him. But a lot of the more recent fantasy that I’ve read, or even write, seems to be the other way around. In my recent book, just finished (and still basking in the afterglow), the main character spends the entire book trying to stop the Evil forces from taking over the city. So the protagonist would seem to be the Evil forces. They’re the ones with the plans, the goal. Varis, my main character, seems to be the antagonist, because it’s her goal to stop them.
So, here’s the challenge. Take your book, or the book you’re currently reading, and ask yourself who you think the protagonist and antagonist are, and tell everyone about it in the comments (without spoilers if you can). Or if you don’t agree with the definitions I came up with here—and I’m not claiming they’re good definitions at all, just my thoughts on the two—then tell everyone what you think the definitions should be. Is the hero always the protagonist? I no longer think so.
