This week: Writing Believable Antagonists Edited by: Kit of House Lannister  
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Who is your favourite antagonist? Why are they your favourite?
It's difficult to understand the motives of someone who does terrible things. That makes writing a believable antagonist a real challenge!
This week's Drama Newsletter is all about avoiding one-dimensional characters by exploring the why.
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I like to think that I’m a reasonably moral person. Not perfect. I have my flaws and made my mistakes. I have no doubt that I will mess up again at some point in the future, because it’s hard to get it right all the time. Still, as Omar says in The Wire, “A man’s got to have a code.” So does a woman.
I try my very best not to hurt anyone. Not people, not other species. I don’t steal. I’ve actually returned to shops when I noticed they gave me too much change, because it wouldn’t have been right to keep it. I avoid telling a lie if it is at all possible. Unfortunately, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, by telling the truth you end up causing unnecessary pain or upset. New moms, for example, tend to ask you what you think of their baby, and who you think said baby looks like, and to me babies look like wrinkly potatoes, so I don’t know. But I’m not going to say that. Even if it is the truth. I’ll tell that mother that the baby’s beautiful and that I can see a resemblance to both parents and that’s all it takes to make someone happy, in that moment, which to me is the most moral option in such situations.
I’d love to be a moral purist, but it’s not quite realistic. The thing is, though… if I do something that I know is not right I get this icky feeling in my gut. A real, physical response to whatever’s going through my head even just contemplating a less-than-moral option. The same happens when I accidentally cause someone pain, whether it’s through awkward phrasing or by stepping on their toes. I’m a clumsy person in general, so it happens. I’ll feel icky and queasy and it’ll stick with me for a long time.
It’s what makes it difficult for me to understand people who don’t care if they cause harm. As a writer, I can struggle to put myself in such a character’s shoes. I know that there are those who do not experience empathy, or who experience it to a lesser extent than others, but it’s as hard for me to imagine what that would be like as it probably is for them to picture what it is to be more empathetic. Not that people need empathy to be moral. It probably helps, though, if you can generally understand others' emotions, fears, hopes and dreams, even if you can't ever 'get' what makes them them.
Perhaps this is why some antagonists seem rather one-dimensional. It may be that the authors who created those characters struggle to understand the mental states of someone who is willing to carry out acts of cruelty. We may be able to understand desperate acts of self-defence, or how someone who’s been treated badly for a long period of time can suddenly snap. Deliberate harm, though? That’s a different matter. It’s an alien concept to many of us, which probably explains the popularity of true crime novels and documentaries – they offer glimpses into minds that both fascinate and repel.
Yet, where the ability to carry out those deeds may seem alien, the people behind those deeds are as human as the rest of us. Whenever a terrible crime has been committed there will be comments calling the perpetrator a monster, subhuman, as though people need to distance themselves, need to believe that anyone committing such crimes is not like us to such an extent that a mental comfort zone can be created – we are completely different, we don’t have the potential within us to do anything like that, we are safe.
That isn’t true, though, is it? History has shown that ordinary people can end up doing extraordinarily terrible deeds. I’d be the first to exclaim that I don’t have it in me to cause intentional harm, that I know this because the mere thought makes me feel sick and I can’t even watch many movies and TV shows because my mind cannot cope with watching graphic acts of violence, but I have never been through a war, or any situation where my morality or general mind-set was placed under large amounts of pressure. The closest I have come is, I think, when I was set upon by a gang on my way home one night. It was a frightening and painful situation – I didn’t make for a pretty picture when I finally managed to get to my door. I didn’t fight back. But I can’t say for certain whether that is because I didn’t have it in me, or because I was in a state of shock and fear, in which all my mind could focus on was to make it to safety.
We writers have the gift of imagination, and we have to use that imagination to the fullest extent when we develop characters or enter scenarios that may be uncomfortable to us. It is the only way that we can explore the why behind the fact, and that is how we avoid one-dimensional characters, and enter the realm of creations that will stick with our readers for a long time to come.
Kit of House Lannister
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Drama: February 09, 2022 Issue [#11209]
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