Why The Antagonist Must Be Unsympathetic - Jeffrey Alan Schechter
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ธ.ค. 2022
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After moving to Los Angeles, Jeffrey Alan Schechter quickly established himself as a versatile writer, able to work in all genres from action films to family comedies, from pre-school to adult drama, from live action to animation. His writing has earned him a Gemini Award as well as nominations for two Emmy awards, a Writers Guild of America award, a Writer’s Guild of Canada award, and a BAFTA award.
Over the years Jeff has worked with dozens of studios and networks including Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, ABC, NBC, The Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, The Hallmark Channel, the BBC, VH1 Films, RHI, and The Walt Disney Company.
Jeff is the author of a book on story structure titled My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! and is a noted speaker and lecturer on screenwriting. Jeff is the founder/creator of WritersRoom Pro software, a digital writers’ room for secure, remote creativity and collaboration.
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Too many stories these days have an antagonist that’s so sympathetic I end up wondering why I would want to see them defeated in the first place. And you can usually feel the moment when the writer scrambles to justify their third act downfall.
How about when they forget to make the villain sympathetic throughout the story and then dump it all on you in the eleventh hour?
@@GhettoFabulousLorch lol yes "i am doing all this because i have trauma!" at the last second is old and tired. and the "hurt people hurt people" trope needs to die.
Having a sympathetic villain means that the story isn't playing into the black/white games of heroes and villains. It's no longer 'easy' to consider taking out a villain because that villain isn't doing blatantly evil things 'just because they're evil' like eating puppies and burning orphanages
Which seems, in part, like an advancement in human storytelling. Since it's more 'real' and immersive. Makes you gaf more
Same goes for the upcropping of stories where the villain sometimes wins, as opposed to the 'hero saves the day' in the past. Because, for those storytellers who DON'T want their stories to have ends that neatly tie up, it opens the doors for aligning fictional tales with something they'd see more irl
Sometimes the heroes DON'T win and their survival is left ambiguous (or for that necessary or sometimes unnecessary sequel in the works)
Realistic villains/antagonists are, in essence, heroes. They are 3-dimensional characters with depth and motives and wants and fears. They are the MC of their own story
@@lillydevil2486 don’t think the main antagonist of No Country For Old Men would be any better if we found out he was beaten as a child or something.
It really doesn’t matter whether your villain is a monster or secretly a nice guy on the inside as long as there’s catharsis at the end of the story. If anything I think they just have to be understandable in some way.
Where I think stories often go off the rails is when they spend so much time explaining why their antagonist is such a reasonable person I wonder why they didn’t just make different choices. Which is probably why a lot of them end up “going mad” at the 11th hour. The writer paints themselves into a corner. An antagonist can only be so heroic before they no longer serve their purpose in the narrative. Which can be interesting but you have to plan for it so your story doesn’t end on an empty note. Few stories are really going for experimental deconstructionist conclusions on the lack of closure that’s often found in real life. So personally I think it’s best to keep things relatively simple unless you’re gonna commit to that.
I think that in real life the worst things people do are usually just profit driven. And then we make up a reason it was justified after the fact in case someone asks. Not necessarily because of any inherent good or evil. But that’s reeeeeeeally hard to write in a satisfying way.
A hero seeks to reduce the suffering they find in themselves or in the world, a villain looks to spread their suffering far and wide because misery loves company.
Well said!
Dr. Zaius in "the Planet of the Apes" (1968)...René Belloq in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981)...Carter Burke in "Aliens" (1986)...Hans Gruber in "Die Hard" (1988)...my kind of well-written motivated villains.
“Villains are often cooler than the heroes”
- EVERYONE
Perhaps people mix up sympathy and empathy. I find the best villains are relatable because they have an element in their character that resonates with me. But I seldom sympathize with them. We all want to see the bad guys get what's coming to them.
Sympathetic is a term of art in writing though. And the techniques for achieving a sympathetic character can be applied to any character.
Absolutely. For some years people have been using “empathy” when they mean “sympathy”. Empathy is what makes me fear a big stranger in a dark alley but I do not feel sympathy for him.
They have to have motivation. They can’t just be “evil” with no believable reason as to why.
Or the stories where it makes you question if the main character is actually the hero are some of the best ones.
Morally grey antagonists are the best
When I see this guy, I always know he's going to say to not do something for which there are bunches of successful exceptions.
A villain who makes the audience think, "Yanno, they have a point...but their _methods,_ tho...!"
A prime example is Ozymandias from "Watchmen"; his goals are good, but he killed a lot of people to achieve them (plus, recent events have shown that his ideas were baseless, regardless of his intentions).
The villains I don't really understand are the ones whose goals are nothing more than power, than being the top dog. Because if they win...then what?
I like the idea of a bad guy who wins, takes over the world (or the universe, or whatever)...and ruling the world _stinks._ The Big Bad thought it'd be all sitting on his throne with a scepter, issuing commands and sending his enemies to be executed, but no...it's nothing but paperwork and administrative chores. That'll teach ya to want power!
Making a sympathetic antagonist and the story is still good is much more work. You already have to know how to write a script before trying to do that. At first stay classic. Then break the rules.
For example in a film like Falling Down the antagonist is the policeman who is sympathetic while it is the protagonist who shows to be gray and relatively unsympathetic. Same for Fight Club the antagonist Tyler Durden is very charming and sympathetic. In the manga Pokemon, which plays on the clichés of the genre, the 3 main antagonists of the rocket team are rather sympathetic.
Arguably, this depends on the genre and tone. I mostly write westerns, meaning if I grant my heroes victory I prefer they remain pyrrhic.
Thia is a perfect description of Gul Dukat from DS9
Thanos is a great example of this because the Infinity War Thanos was such a good villain because he believed in himself and his cause and used brutal methods to achieve it. However the Endgame Thanos, did not show that same belief in his cause as it was sort-of dropped into his lap and therefore was not as threatening or as compelling.
I feel like if you could reshoot a movie from the opposite angle and still have a story you could watch, that's golden. Imagine a movie about a small town beset by a violent drifter. It could be played as a horror movie where you feel sympathy for a small town under attack. Let's say he's an ex soldier with ptsd. That gives the villain some sympathy because you know he's not well and is in pain, but you still root for the innocent residents of this small town. It's obviously just First Blood but shot from the other side. Only the sheriff was truly evil and he survives while dozens of cops and hunters are killed.
I'm reading Mr. Jeffrey's book. His prose is actually quite good. Lots of hilarious lines too.
Definitely sounds like storytelling from a classic, epic, comic book. good-vs-evil, morality tale, type perspective. Great for Marvel and the ancient Greeks, maybe not always applicable to all genres and styles today.
I guess there's room to take this to mean "if your protagonist is evil, the antagonist needs to be unsympathetic to the proagonists' (and thus the viewers') perspectives." Classic example is if the protagonist is an assassin, they're somehow a noble assassin, and the cops tying to stop them need to be unsavory and madly driven to break all the rules to stop their nemesis.
And I can see the way that that is an important thing to keep in mind when writing.
But just listening to the interview, it kinda seems like the advice here is mostly to make the protagonist someone we can root for and cheer on as a good moral standard we can map onto ourselves, a role model; while the antagonist is beyond some barrier of sympathy or empathy and is supposed to be all-around indefensible. And then I just think of many great stories where that just wasn't the case.
It's good for some stories to force us to confront the ways in which people do turn down that dark path, and show us where even the best intentioned and highly 'moral' people can make a bad choice. And then shows us where that 'bad choice road' can lead. It's not always pretty, but it can be compelling.
And even then sometimes the storytellers back off and try to redeem that broken protagonist; give them a chance to turn around, to expose the lie that gave them power, or given a final chance to make some good action from what they've done before their tragic tale comes to a close. It's rare a storyteller has the courage to just say "yeah, they became a terrible person, we liked them anyway, and now they're going to get away with it." But those can be some of the most eye-opening and interesting stories to hear.
I somehow got this feeling when I reread the interview about making an antagonist appealing to the audience, and it felt like very classic as you just said, not very modern. However, stories has limitless of its ways to tell a story, its just best to represent to the reader the very stereotype characters to cope with it easily by intuition, so its not always the case to be limited by the standards but also be aware of the basics too to break the rules.
I really appreciate your intake for this because it seems only few have noticed this ^^
11:00 To be clear, Joker says "do I look like a guy with a plan"…after getting into and out of the hospital without anyone noticing, which required him planning that beforehand.
A villain is an antagonist, but all antagonists are not villains. Just because someone opposes the hero doesn't mean they can't be sympathetic. There is conflict between the hero and the antagonist but we don't need to be taught to hate on opposing forces, which are a necessary part of the hero's development and indeed our development as humans. These glib Hollywood types are a true reflection of the creative emptiness that pervades the studios.
One of my favorite villains for decades has been Francis Dollarhyde from Red Dragon the book and Manhunter while the movie Red Dragon made him just a one note standard Hollywood villain. My new favorite is Silco from Arcane who is practically a tearjerker.
@@j.f.fisher5318 Dolarhyde is a monster who was made, not born.
A rare exception to this trope is the character of Carl Starger in The Cell, played very effectively by Vincent D'Onofrio. Without minimizing what he does, the director creates a villain who breaks your heart by revealing the abused child inside the monster. The Cell was famous for its visuals, but its stunning visuals aren't in any way empty. He really manages to convey this feverish world as the interior world of a deeply damaged, disturbed man. It's a thriller with a real heart and it's probably no coincidence that the director is a non-Westerner.
Yes, but... At the end a murderer is a murderer. A criminal is a criminal... Not all poor people steal. Not all survivors of abuse become abusers. Not all people with sob stories become assholes... Not half of them. Not even a significant fraction of them... If a person does something evil, they damn wanted to do it... They just wanted an excuse.
I normally like these videos but seriously, constantly bringing up Hitler shoots credibility in your argument because that's an extreme we example
The Fugitive is another good example of this. The antagonist is a police officer trying to arrest who he believes is an escaped murderer.
This is why he writes scripts for things like “Care Bears” movies
Sometimes you want a villain who is evil and just loves being evil, like the wicked queen in Disney’s “Snow White.” But think about how more effective “Heat” is with DeNiro’s and Val Kilmer’s and Dennis Haysbert’s characters being sympathetic and relatable. Or Darth Vader in “Return of the Jedi” Writing antagonists and protagonists is not a one size fits all approach.
Fairytales were originally told by adults to adults, and were often quite brutal. Also, when e.g. the Brothers Grimm collected and published them, their intent was patriotic: to strengthen the Germans' understanding of their own cultural roots and national identity.
What about the antagonist from the movie The Founder? That was Maurice Mcdonald, a simple nice guy who didn't want to make changes to his patent.
Omg I was recently wondering if there’s a book that talks about kid stories and what they’re for and boom he names that book. Thank you.
I've recently finished My Story Can Beat Up Your Story. His story structure was exactly what I needed right now for my novel (not screenplay - sorry). As a bonus, his style is clear, no-nonsense, and funny.
Everyone (within a few %) _loves_ Silco from Arcane and that guy evokes literal tears.
More broadly the idea that artificial black/white reality makes us _better_ human beings is so far from true it's downright disturbing that someone would actually say that. It's a common feature of diagnosible mental illness in fact. Vlad Vexler puts it very well saying it is important to complicate our view of other people, cultures, nations, and ideologies even the objectively bad ones, not simplify everything to a black/white caricature. I've noticed in digging through Arcane to extract as much technique about writing character and plot as I can that I'm becoming more compassionate. I feel that's directly attributable to nobody in the show being purely villainous or heroic.
^^^^^^^^
I'm so glad you said this. I heard the interviewee say in one breath that stories are good for preparing us for the real world, and in the other that good stories have unsympathetic antagonists, and together this suggests that your antagonists in life will be beneath sympathy, and thus you should treat them as such. What a horrifying implication. I wonder if the American political disunity is not in part fueled by such an infantile black-and-white conception.
I'm reminded of a quotation of Tolstoy: "The best stories don't come from 'good vs bad' but 'good vs good.'"
Yeah this video is baffling in how deeply it contradicts everything I believe about good story telling. Parasite is a good example of how the rich couple were the antagonists, but they were never villainous in intentions, simply blind to the plight of the poor. So when our “hero” stabs the rich father in the climax, it doesn’t feel like a glorious victory but just a tragic collision of two different worlds. Creating evil rich people as the antagonists would have cheapened the complexity of Parasite.
I love villains, they are great, they embrace the shadow within, their inner darker selves. Something most of us might never do in our lives.
Perfect example of how extremes, the inbalance withing every single one of us could break us.
For me a villainous antagonist is a guide to what to do to fail at life. And that there are many ways to make your life miserable, along with everyone around you.
And then you read a novel like Master and Man by Tolstoi or see a movie like Stalker and realize how Hollywood storytelling is often limited by a very specific philosophy and style.
There are real people who are more evil but less sympathetic than what typical villain advice tells you to write. People often revile someone without wanting their side of the story. There are plenty of stories that would lose their emotive effect if they made the villain sympathetic.
Know what story you want to tell. Know your audience. Writing only sympathetic villains is reductive and can be unrealistic. It can even be tone deaf. Storytelling and characterization is nuanced.
Very true but there are also true stories that are strings of events so impossibly unlikely that they would appear to be preposterous deus ex machina if such events were presented as fiction. Read the book Shinano for example.
@@j.f.fisher5318 indeed, also true.
Interesting theory regarding conflict and how it can brace you for real life conflict.
I'm sure this guy is great at what he does but I disagree about this point. Especially his point at 6:20 - isn't he describing Scrooge from A Christmas Carol? We do want to see people redeemed. That story would be awful if he doesn't "see the light" and ends up getting murdered or something.
I'm sure everyone can think of other examples but I recently watched "The Menu" and the antagonist was very sympathetic by the end and I think it really worked.
Not saying I know better or anything bc this guy is a pro, but it doesn't make sense.
Thanks for sharing!
I love watching these videos but I wish they were a bit more engaging. I wish you started with the good bits, I wish there was better editing, sometimes these artists just waffle on... I often find myself getting bored and I don't think I've ever finished one of the vids. I think this is reflected in how many subs you have compared to how many views this video has.
I'm not trying to be rude, just sharing the perspective of a viewer
I'm afraid I have to disagree. Darth Vader is an excellent example of a antagonist you have sympathy for in the end.
He wasn't the antagonist at that point, he had been redeemed
@@gander4872 I literally had this conversation in my head. In the end Palpatine is the irredeemable villain.
@@gander4872 Of the 8 characteristics of a sympathetic character usually applied to heroes, Darth Vader in ANH even ignoring the prequels checks off Courage (both physical in not shying away from combat, and moral standing up to imperial officers who don't believe in the force), Skillful (for example not taking Leia's lies about the plans, convincing Tarkin to use the homing beacon, as a combat pilot, sensing Obi Wan), hard working at least to the extent of being actively involved in the action of the movie quite often, and obsessed with finding the stolen plans and tracking down the rebel headquarters. By contrast a hero should net 5 and he resoundingly cancels out many of his sympathetic traits with cruel and seemingly arbitrary actions, and he isnt in danger. Still we have a lot of admiration for him because of those sympathetic traits which is why he's such a great antagonist. Once we know his tragic backstory that effectively adds the unfairly harmed trait as well.
Ashes were from burning the bodies, clothes, etc. Like the Coronavirus, people were responding to patterns and generalizations that were being made from early experience.
I only really enjoy antagonists and villains when I can relate with them. The kind of scenario where I can easily see myself doing the same stuff they're doing if my circumstances were the same.
My 8 year old self would wholeheartedly agree.
Though interesting points were made, after hearing his opinions on antagonists, sympathy, and the goals of storytelling, I'm afraid I'll find little use for this fellow's output.
To parrot Tolstoy: "The best stories don't come from 'good vs bad' but 'good vs good.'"
This is why today's stories don't hold up. Some villains do what they do for no meaningful reason. That's what being bad means. No well-written villain sees themselves as the hero. They act on vice, whatever form that takes. If you draw on sympathy, then the villain's arc must be the return to the Good, or at the very least, the hero's desire for the villain's return.
This guy clearly has no clue about anything. Many good stories have sympathetic antagonists and the poem he mentioned had nothing to do with the black death.