Reader Question: Is there a danger in having a ‘good’ antagonist until the last act?
Second open forum question via email from Eric Daley:
2. Is there any danger of having an antagonist ‘good’ and ‘sympathetic’ until the last act? In my attempt to make a ‘real’ character, one of my antagonists isn’t really ‘bad’ until near the end, and I’m worried the audience will get confused on who to root for.
If the reason one of your antagonists isn’t really ‘bad’ until the end is because it’s a revelation that the character is really bad, then theoretically at least it would figure you’ve done a good job; after all don’t you want the Protagonist — and the reader — to be surprised when the antagonist pulls away their ‘mask’ to put on display their ‘real’ face?
This type of scenario is one you find in certain types of mysteries, from Sherlock Holmes to Perry Mason, Miss Marple to Hercules Poirot, where the ‘detective’ runs through a series of possible ‘suspects,’ only to learn the identity of the guilty party at the story’s end.
There are some interesting challenges for a writer of this type of story and here are two of them. First and foremost, laying in lots of twists and turns to help ‘shroud’ the identity of the antagonist — is the guilty party this character or perhaps that one (the proverbial red herring). Second, while the identity of the antagonist may not be known, there still must be some sort of opposition to the Protagonist, everything from additional crimes that ratchet up the pressure on the P to direct threats to the P’s safety.
But perhaps, Eric, you don’t have a mystery on your hands, but rather the thrust of your question is this part of it: “In my attempt to make a ‘real’ character.” In other words, have you dug so deeply into who your antagonist is, gotten to know them so well, that you’ve humanized them on paper to the point where they don’t function all that well as a Nemesis character?
If that’s the case and you’re not terribly concerned with shrouding their Nemesis identity, perhaps you need to reorient your character a bit. Someone once wrote, “Even villains have mothers” as a way to ensure that a writer get in touch with the Nemesis’ humanity (antagonists a reader can relate to and be sympathetic toward are much more interesting, compelling bad guys). Perhaps you’ve gotten too much in touch with your antagonist’s human side. Or perhaps you haven’t gone deep enough into their Dark Side. Your antagonist should almost assuredly have a goal that conflicts with your Protagonist. Their want / need for that goal should be powerful. I assume they want to ‘defeat’ your P. Maybe you just need to ratchet up their desire for success to make them become more active in challenging the P.
For more, you can check this out: How to build a powerful Nemesis.