Protagonist vs Antagonist

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Protagonist vs Antagonist
In school, you are always asked to digest a story, perhaps even a novel, and look into the different aspects of it. The teacher would ask you about the setting. Where was the story set? What year or era do you think the story happened? Is it a modern setting or a pretty old school one? And then there comes the characters, which are the most scrutinized aspects of the story. Who are the main characters? Who are the secondary characters? And then you will hear two words that seem to be very heavy, especially if you are hearing it the first time while you are still a child: the protagonist and the antagonist.

To help us define these two words, protagonist and antagonist, let us first understand their etymologies. The two words are of Greek origin. The word protagonist comes from two Greek words, protos, and agonistes. Protos means first in importance, while agonistes means actor. Protagonist, then, means “the actor who plays the main part”. Apart from this definition, there is also another definition for the word, which is “an advocate of a particular cause”.

Antagonist, on the other hand, has various etymologies. It also comes from the Greek word antagonistes, which means rival or opponent. However, it also stems from the Latin word antagonista, which roughly means the same.

Given both etymologies and definitions of these two words, we can, then, say that the protagonist is the hero while the antagonist is the villain. Protagonists and antagonists, then, are not just found in books. They are found in every story there is, whether simple or complicated.

Although some stories have many characters, technically there can be only one protagonist. The same goes with the antagonist. There is a duality involved in stories that writers are very fond of, so sometimes, even if there is a group of five people who seem to have the same effort in fighting evil, so to speak, the story will still only highlight one of them. Of course, there are times that this is not very obvious. However, as writing progress, writers also make ways to have more than just one protagonist, especially if the story is more complicated than usual.

In very complicated stories, however, looking for the protagonist and antagonist is not as easy as looking at who is doing something good or not. Especially for philosophical movies and stories, writers make readers or viewers think thoroughly. There are times where the protagonist is actually the externally villainous person while the antagonist is actually the one doing upholding the moral good.

Whatever the case is or whatever the storyline is, the protagonist and the antagonist are main characters, only the protagonist is the primary focus compared to the antagonist. There are times when the antagonist can be used as a prop to strengthen the personality or the story of the protagonist because, after all, the protagonist, by definition, is the actor who plays the main part and who is first in importance.