Warriors Fanfics: Specialized Writing Guide

Antagonists (not Villains)

July 3, 2019

This section goes over antagonists and what makes them. The villain, who is specifically an evil character, is not covered here. Villains are usually antagonists, but antagonists do not have to be pure evil. There is a broader definition of antagonist than there is for a villain.

Antagonists, like villains, are as old as recorded history. No matter who you are or where you come from, there has always been someone or something to oppose your immediate or long-term goals. Antagonists are popular in modern media, with whole movies being made just from their point of view. Plenty of Western dramas, tragedies, and religious stories revolve around antagonists. We get more freedom with them and what they can be.

--------------------

ANTAGONISTS IN WARRIORS

Antagonists are characters, objects, or force that opposes the protagonist. For example, an antagonist can be an arrogant rival, a dark lord bent on destruction, or even a natural disaster. Keep in mind that, while antagonists are often villains, villains cannot be hurricanes. Because they are just something that opposes the protagonist, they can be virtually anything.

Warriors has a long list of antagonists including but not limited to: abandoned kits bent of rage against society, overambitious warriors, jealous lovers, forest fires, and even StarClan. Notable examples include Tigerstar, Scourge, Brokenstar, the Dark Forest itself, and Sol. Unfortunately, the list generally consists of villains for our main characters to overcome. It is not a bad thing, but given the scope of themes and topics the series covers it can do more with what it has. One thing the canon does do well with its antagonists is make them products of the societies the audience sees. Sol, Tigerstar, and Brokenstar were all clan cats once. Scourge came from a foster home for pets and just had a few bad days in a row (a much different experience from the other main kittypet in the story, Firestar). Sol was obsessed with a then-absent clan and it drove him to nearly worshiping it.

The Erins have done a much better job with antagonists than Disney has (noting some of the most well-known ones are Disney villains). This laundry list of antagonists to choose from may not be the best springboard when it comes to writing better ones, however.

--------------------

ANTAGONISTS IN FANFICTIONS

As expected from our derivative fanfictions, antagonists are plenty. Just like in canon, almost every single story has an antagonist as one of the main characters. They are usually the villains who our protagonist is trying to defeat via a prophecy or something. What else is there to expect? The antagonist is a core element of fiction, and almost every fictional work across all of history and mediums has one. No surprise our fanfictions do, too.

That does not mean there is no room to improve our antagonists. Most in Warriors fanfics can be reduced to a villain misinterpreting a prophecy, a villain written in at the last minute, or a littermate of the main character who betrays them in some way. Disabilities are popular antagonists in the Warriors fandom, but even then we tend to add a hateful character to scorn the disabled cat in question and make the audience feel sympathy for them. Was the disability not enough of an antagonist? Moving on to the jealous lover, writers here just love to make them cross the line one too many times. If jealousy led to obsession every time in Warriors and in real life, there would be a lot more murders and thefts in both worlds than there already are. Our antagonists can be more than targets or manifestations of evil.