Villain Vs. Antagonist

*I want to apologize for my lengthy absence. I got caught up in school life and let this blog slip by the wayside, but I am trying to get back on the ball again because writing is my life.*

You may already know the differences between an antagonist and a villain, although sometimes they are one and the same even if the terms aren't interchangeable. In this post, I just want to go over, in my mind, what separates (and brings together) the two terms.

I touched on villains a bit in my post Creating Your Villain, but there is so much more to discuss.

I. Love. Villains. I love them. If you have an intelligent villain, chances are I'm rooting for them and not your hero. Like I mentioned above, I've written about them before and I'll write about them again because you can never dig too much into the concept of the villain.

So that is why we need to at least look at the differences between a villain and an antagonist.

Just like protagonist is not synonymous with hero, antagonist is not synonymous with villain.

In order to make sure we are all on the same page here, let's look at the definitions.

Villain:  1. a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime 2. a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot

Antagonist: 1. a person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another 2. the adversary of the hero or protagonist of a drama or other literary work

(dictionary.com) 

Though, at first glance, these definitions may look similar, there are a few key differences. Notice in the number one definition for both terms, the word "person" is used in the description. And then notice that the word villain basically describes an evil person who is "devoted to wickedness" while the word antagonist describes a person opposing or competing with another. So, in short, a villain is an evil, malicious person while an antagonist is simply a person who is competing or up against another.

Now take a look at the second definition for both. These relate the terms to their uses in literature. The villain is a character who constitutes, or creates, an evil agency in the plot and the antagonist is the adversary of the hero or protagonist. 

So the villain is an evil person and the antagonist is not necessarily evil, but they get in the way of your protagonist. For example, in Harry Potter, Voldemort is clearly the villain while Professor Snape, for much of the series, is an antagonist. 

One thing to acknowledge is the antagonist is either an opposing force to your protagonist or the opposing force. So a villain who is against your protagonist is also an antagonist. But, while a villain has to be a person or character of some sort, an antagonist does not. An antagonist is just what we call the force that your protagonist is up against. 

An animal can be an antagonist, a force of nature (like a hurricane, or even a geographical location like a jungle or desert), the whole of society, even your protagonist can be the antagonist if they are having inner struggles. If your protagonist is struggling with fear, envy or pride, then their fear or envy is an antagonist because they are the opposing force. 

If you think about these terms in all the different ways they can be used, it can get confusing. When you start considering the fact with a villain or human antagonist, your protagonist is an antagonist to them because they are your villain's or antagonist's adversary and that if your villain was the main character of the story, they would be the protagonist and the "good guy" would be the antagonist, it can make your head spin. Once you've got it down, though, it's really not that confusing. 

Some people have slightly different ideas about characteristics between an antagonist and a villain. Some articles I've read say that one difference is that an antagonist is someone who doesn't necessarily believe they are in the wrong and that an antagonist can change, but I don't really like that idea because that suggests that the villain can't and I don't really think it illustrates the difference. 

The main thing I want to say and want you to understand from this post is that your story needs an antagonist but it does not need a villain. An antagonist provides conflict and if your protagonist has no opposition then the story will be over quickly. 

Hopefully, this didn't confuse you too much and made some sort of sense and now you can go and create the perfect antagonist for your story.