# is it possible to have an antagonist be to strong?



## Philster401 (Dec 10, 2014)

What do you guys think?


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## Vilya (Dec 10, 2014)

I think that given the right amount of planning an author can make just about anything work, but an overpowered antagonist does open the door for some problems.  I have seen a lot authors write themselves into a corner this way (usually over the course of a series).  They make the antagonist uber powerful to make everything seem hopeless and more dire, but in doing so make it incredibly illogical that the antagonist would make a mistake or leave an opening for the protagonist to exploit.  This usually means that either the author has to pull a rabbit out of their hat (deus ex) or the protagonist has to grow at a very unrealistic rate.  The other thing is that an uber strong antagonist can be a little one dimensional if the author isn't careful.


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## Philster401 (Dec 10, 2014)

What about if there is a character that is stronger then the antagonist but is being controlled by antagonist because character lost his soul.


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## Mythopoet (Dec 10, 2014)

Generally speaking, you want your antagonist to be much stronger than your protagonist at least in the early stages of the story. Otherwise, where's the tension? But as Vilya points out you don't want your antagonist to be so ridiculously strong that your protagonist can't beat him without some sort of deus ex machina or having his development become unnatural or illogical. 

I'm not sure what the question is in your second post. Is the question whether or not that is possible? Sure. Anything is possible.


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## Philster401 (Dec 10, 2014)

Or if your story is based finding and piecing together an object  before the enemy destroy's the suviving kingdoms.


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## Queshire (Dec 10, 2014)

One thing that matters is the themes of the work. Take the Daleks of Doctor Who. You can't hurt them and they can kill you in one shot. In this way they are incredibly more powerful than the Doctor, but it's OK because the story is about out thinking your opponents, not out fighting them.


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## Mythopoet (Dec 10, 2014)

Philster401 said:


> Or if your story is based finding and piecing together an object  before the enemy destroy's the suviving kingdoms.



Once again, I'm not sure what precisely you're asking. Are you asking if it's possible to have this kind of story? Of course. It sounds like a fairly typical fantasy story.


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## spectre (Dec 10, 2014)

Vilya is right, don't create traps for yourself. I began to read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series and in the first book, this was the feeling I got from the uber lord fella that the allomancer's were to go up against. He balanced it out by having very "positioned" powers available through alomancy though. 

@queshire, I was going to say the exact same thing about having stories that aren't necessarily about brute strength but about cunning and conniving. 

Also Philster, both controlling an individual through some means despite their being stronger than you are is a good way to create tension because it's like playing with fire and the need to obtain some source of power (like an artifact that has to be pieced together) to remain safe are good storylines if you develop them right. You might think that the pieces of your artifact/relic might each need to be accessed a specific way, in a specific order, or impose some set of strains and rules to achieving the piecing together of the relic. I don't want to tell you how to write your story but what I'm getting at is that if you put enough of your own creativity into those ideas you will be able to think of an interesting read that is also original.


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## Tom (Dec 10, 2014)

By all means, the antagonist should be stronger than the hero. But he should also be a lot smarter, more experienced, and harder to catch off guard. It makes a much more interesting story if the villain has all his bases covered and the hero must actually use that thing between his ears if he wants to have any hope at success. 

Also, try to make your antagonist a real person, not a menacing shadow who cackles about his soon-to-be world empire. My own antagonist is a halfbreed who was despised for carrying the blood of the "inferior" culture. Through ambition, charisma, and talent, he rose to a position of power, but was toppled by a ferocious civil war that forced him to take refuge in a wilderness. Now he's planning to eliminate all the greed and corruption in hopes of creating a better world. To do so, he's made a deal with Faeries so he can use their power to kill, but little does he know that the Faeries are plotting to exterminate the entire human race and take back their stolen lands.

That story is one of degradation, determination, resentment, vengeance, desperation, anger, and hope. My antagonist is powerful, but he's also a complex character.


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## psychotick (Dec 10, 2014)

Hi,

Oh hell yes. Remember the Borg? An actual invincible enemy that could wipe out the entire Federation in a matter of days. Not only did they have vastly superior technology but when one Borg could land on a planet and a few days later that entire planets was Borg, their power was simply too vast. Which meant that every epp the writers had to come up with some other ludicrous plot device to beat them.

And then there's vampires in general. Why you ask are they unable to face the sun? Because they had to be given some weakness to explain why the entire world hadn't already been turned.

Cheers, Greg.


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## DeathtoTrite (Dec 10, 2014)

Link about too powerful villains

This problem will lead to three outcomes-

1) bad guy wins. Generally pretty meh
2) deus-ex-machina. Cause the heroes sure can't solve it. No one wants to read about some new magic device or how the villain turns moron.
3) Villain decay. Author realizes how powerful antagonist is, so tones them back, or else has the hero get buffed.


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## Penpilot (Dec 10, 2014)

The short answer, no. 

It all depends on how you balance things out, how you give your antagonist flaws and how you give your protagonist strengths.

Let's look at the opposite here, the super powerful hero like Superman and a villain like Lex Luthor. Even without Kryptonite, Luthor can battle Superman and win. How? Superman cares about the innocent. Luthor can harm Superman by harming those he cares for.

I use Superman and Lex Luthor as an example because they're perfect foils. Superman is physically superior with one physical weakness, Kryptonite. Luthor is mentally superior with one mental weakness, arrogance.


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## Mythopoet (Dec 11, 2014)

DeathtoTrite said:


> Link about too powerful villains



Interestingly, tvtropes cites a number of incredibly popular manga/anime for this trope. (And cites only one piece of literature, but it seems like you could find plenty of examples in fantasy. The Sword of Truth series comes to mind.)


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## wordwalker (Dec 14, 2014)

"Power" might mean different things. Winning a duel is one thing; being able to lead an army into a city and crush the defending army is another, whether or not the villain ever draws his own sword. Especially if the villain is enough in control to keep from being caught in a duel or personal threat where he doesn't have the most troops on hand.

In some ways, how smart the villain is is more dramatic than how tough he is. The way I see it:

If the villain weren't already strong enough to block the hero (or set up so he doesn't need strength), the story would be very short. 
Since the hero can't simply smash the villain (so far), most of what he does becomes more about working through maneuvers, changes, and other tests that are more about wit and choices than the raw power he shows on the way. That lets the story show how clever, original, flawed, and sympathetic his choices are.
So the most dangerous villain is the one who's too strong or well-prepared to fight, and _also_ smart enough to see the hero trying to get around that and get ahead of him.

Too often, I've seen a story create a strong villain and try to pull this off-- and fail. The hero's simply handed a by-the-numbers quest that doesn't show off a real character and conflict. Or the villain's passive and lets the hero run rings around him. Or worst of all, the villain's outwitting the hero at every other step and then makes a basic Evil Overlord Mistake as the climax approaches.

So I'd say what matters isn't how strong the villain is. It's what weaknesses he has, and how consistent--and interesting--he is in covering them when the hero's trying to shut him down.


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## srebak (Dec 18, 2014)

Is this too powerful a bad guy?

A villain who always plans things out before doing it, always has a contingency plan in the wings and even when things don't go the way he plans, always manages to take something away from the battlefield upon his escape. A villain who has a powerful, and competent, private army of minions who are completely loyal to him and no one else. A villain whose not afraid to do the fighting himself if the situation calls for it. A villain who has numerous ways to basically herald doom in every direction.


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## ThinkerX (Dec 19, 2014)

There is a logical continuation of this that I see as a major problem with long series.  

Ok...first few books, the heroes go up against the dark lord.  Dark lord has them outclassed, but the heroes manage to come out on top, often becoming incredibly powerful in the process.  Which leads to the problem for the next part of the series:

Now the heroes are the uber-powerful ones.  Any conventional villain they tangle with is toast, barring some sort of intrigue or extreme secrecy type deal.  So what foe is fit to challenge them?  Dark lord mark II?  If so, where did this new dark lord come from?  If the world is big enough, dark lord II could come from another continent, one unknown or barely known in the heroes corner of the world.  This, though, works once, maybe twice.

What I usually see after dark lord II is the original heroes stepping into the background while a new generation takes over.


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## glutton (Dec 19, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> There is a logical continuation of this that I see as a major problem with long series.
> 
> Ok...first few books, the heroes go up against the dark lord.  Dark lord has them outclassed, but the heroes manage to come out on top, often becoming incredibly powerful in the process.  Which leads to the problem for the next part of the series:
> 
> ...



A few ways to get around this in a long series -

1. The heroes never become nearly as powerful as the 'dark lord', but win an underdog victory and/or using a one-time plot device and would still be underdogs in a rematch or against a similarly powerful 'dark lord II'... or even dark lord's surviving general

2. The heroes become as powerful as the 'dark lord' but expend their power/are severely weakened defeating him - similar to 'one-time plot device'

3. The heroes do become and stay powerful, but they and initial 'dark lord' were never unique, but just a few among numerous very powerful beings in the world

My Rose series follows the last pattern as the heroine is one of the strongest fighters of her country by the end of the first book, but it's shown as the series continues that are many countries and places for new enemies to come from.


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## K.S. Crooks (Dec 21, 2014)

It is never possible because you can always change your story. When I create characters, heroes or villains, I like to know what flaw or weakness they have so that they can be beaten. The other characters in the story may not know of it, but I think the author should. Also consider that a character can lose in different manners. Anything from being killed to simply being delayed and missing the opportunity to achieve their goal. Characters can also be powerful but have their own personal limit to what they are willing to do. Also consider that even the most powerful beings can be killed by the microscopic. Biological life from a bacteria or virus, technological from a computer virus.


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## stephenspower (Dec 21, 2014)

Wait, we didn't ask the computer for antagonist who could defeat Holmes. We asked for one that could defeat Data."


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## Fyle (Dec 23, 2014)

Philster401 said:


> What do you guys think?



Well, one of most popular stories/heroes of all time is invincible. The Man of Steel has seemed to survive the test of time and remains popular to this day...

If your antagonist is "too" strong, you have to show how s/he feels about this and make consquences of mistakes they could make clear. The tension has to come with what will happen to the characters around the powerful character?


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## BronzeOracle (Dec 24, 2014)

My understanding of dramatic structure is that an antagonist needs a flaw, one that they do not resolve as the protagonist resolves their flaw, and that in part causes the antagonist's downfall.  e.g. Palpatine being overconfident, General Zod bigoted, Sauron consumed with the ring.  So you can have a ridiculously powerful antagonist, but they must have a character flaw - and this flaw is linked to the theme of the story itself.  So Palpatine's overconfidence is linked to Star Wars' theme of connectedness/trust.  Sauron's covetousness is linked to LOTR's theme of love overcoming corruption.  General Zod's bigotry is linked to Man of Steel's theme of acceptance.  This may well be one of those rules that experienced writers can flaunt, but most of the novels I've read and loved have had antagonists like this.


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## wordwalker (Dec 27, 2014)

glutton said:


> A few ways to get around this in a long series -
> 
> 1. The heroes never become nearly as powerful as the 'dark lord', but win an underdog victory and/or using a one-time plot device and would still be underdogs in a rematch or against a similarly powerful 'dark lord II'... or even dark lord's surviving general
> 
> ...



Another option: one of the *heroes* becomes the next villain. :devil:

(Or a milder one, someone steals their newly-gained power, manipulates them, etc. Ah well.)

Otherwise, I would agree with Option #1 and with Oracle:



BronzeOracle said:


> My understanding of dramatic structure is that an antagonist needs a flaw, one that they do not resolve as the protagonist resolves their flaw, and that in part causes the antagonist's downfall.  e.g. Palpatine being overconfident, General Zod bigoted, Sauron consumed with the ring.  So you can have a ridiculously powerful antagonist, but they must have a character flaw - and this flaw is linked to the theme of the story itself.  So Palpatine's overconfidence is linked to Star Wars' theme of connectedness/trust.  Sauron's covetousness is linked to LOTR's theme of love overcoming corruption.  General Zod's bigotry is linked to Man of Steel's theme of acceptance.  This may well be one of those rules that experienced writers can flaunt, but most of the novels I've read and loved have had antagonists like this.



Sure the conflict could be about raw power, and of course the more power one side has the more corners they can cut; it always sets the stage for everything else. But it usually comes down to who can use whatever resources they have and outmaneuver the other (even if it's only uniting the world against the villain; "you're stronger than any of us, but nobody's stronger than all of us"). That makes both practical sense and human sense, and puts the story back in the realm of people dealing with their own issues (and using each other's).

Some stories bobble their climax because the writer stopped using common sense about what's a real, exploitable weakness (of the villain's or the hero's!) and left a blind spot. But many others do it because the writer _tried_ to go for an insightful, human solution and overreached. Still, it shows how much we understand the story ought to come down to this.


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