As the name suggests, this antagonist has all the aspects of the villain except the actual villainy. Note that a character cannot qualify to be a Villainy-Free Villain if they participate in unethical activities. If you're a complete jerk and rub your victories in the faces of the people you step over, you'll still be seen in a bad light. A person doesn't have to kill or steal or do anything illegal to be unlikable. Still, this is a clear case of Truth in Television. So do any authority figures whose job requires them to be harsh: police officers, judges, and drill sergeants are all especially prone to this. Authority figures who have to control children (teachers, especially) also make fine default antagonists even without being a genuinely malicious Sadist Teacher. The hero may even end up fighting them as much as the villain. In any work of fiction in which the protagonist is a Lovable Rogue or Justified Criminal or an innocent person who has been framed for a heinous crime, the law enforcers chasing after them are inevitably going to appear unsympathetic to the audience, even if their motives are beyond reproach. It's as if they don't care about their own well-being, but see their actions as a wonderful opportunity to crush the protagonist's hopes and dreams. They're not a villain, but they sure act like one. To make sure that viewer sympathy is still squarely on the protagonist, the Villainy-Free Villain is an antagonist who compensates for their completely socially acceptable aspirations by being as much of a Jerkass about them as humanly possible. Meet the Villainy-Free Villain, the very personification of a Felony Misdemeanor.
Surely, these stories are going to be Good Versus Good, right? Sure, their success would make the hero's life worse, but in real life, nobody would hold it against them.
If, say, you're writing an inspiring story about an underdog who aspires to be a great chef, the antagonist would be a tough-to-please food critic or the owner of a rival restaurant. In a sports story, the antagonist would just be the leader of the Opposing Sports Team. Sometimes, what the antagonist is doing isn't illegal, or even immoral. After all, if there's no villain, who will create the conflict? Who will the heroes confront in the climax? Who will sing the best songs?īut sometimes, writers encounter a problem. Almost all works help accomplish this by having a villain of some sort.
No work of fiction can exist without a conflict.
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