My faceless antagonist

[Velka]

I'm having a crisis of faith at the moment and need someone to talk me off my mental ledge.

Without miring everyone in endless details, my WIP involves members of a (not-so-secret) secret society using their power and influence to get the rulers of a bunch of united city-states to engage in a war against the prevailing religious order; lets call them Bad Guys Inc. for the sake of this post and pronoun issues.

Bad Guys Inc. believe they are doing good, but in a 'kill or convert the heathens' and 'undermine the rule and law of the land in name of our gods' kind of way. Think crusades and Knights Templar and you'll be close. They're fat and confident off the success of their crusades on foreign soil, so now they're beginning to look around home turf and figure they can run the place better than the guys on the thrones. The guys on the thrones are understandably growing nervous of the power Bad Guys Inc. are gaining in their own lands. The (not-so-secret) secret society, who have their own motivations for trying to undermine the power Bad Guys Inc. are gaining, are using the armies and insecurities of said rulers to puppet-master a war against Bad Guys Inc. that they know they could never win themselves.

Still with me?

Anyways, the antagonist of the story is Bad Guys Inc. as a whole for a large bit of things. I'm starting to think that having the 'bad guy' be an organization instead of a character with a name and face is weakening the urgency I am trying to create in why it is important for my MC, et al. to win in the end. I have it planned for a member of Bad Guys Inc., who used to be a good friend of my MC, to become a more active figure later in the game, but now I'm reconsidering bringing him in sooner to give my readers someone more personal to root against instead of an organization.

Thoughts and opinions needed!

 

[Chilari]

Having a single or central antagonist gives your story focus, making it stronger, so I would recommend you try to do that. That doesn't mean that the rest of Bag Guys Inc have to follow your focus antagonist like minions or junior managers, they can have their own battles to fight and their own independent authority - even over your focus antagonist - but their actions should either not be so obvious in how they affect your protagonist, or actually have a smaller or less urgent effect. Consider how their influences weave in, but don't let the protagonist know all of it. Then, as you go into more depth in the story and your protagonist finds out more, you can feed in more information, while keeping your focus antagonist in focus, to give the impression of something larger behind him, something bigger than he is, which still keeping focus; ultimately you can bring in enough details to have a well fleshed out cadre of Bad Guy Inc antagonists without losing too much focus, just by the sheer volume of information your reader has absorbed over the course of quite a lot of reading, perhaps several books. But I'd suggest you let complexity build up slowly, to give the reader the chance to absorb it.

 

[glutton]

Do the good guys see/confront some of these bad guys? If so it shouldn't matter too much that there's a group of them.

 

[Velka]

Then, as you go into more depth in the story and your protagonist finds out more, you can feed in more information, while keeping your focus antagonist in focus, to give the impression of something larger behind him, something bigger than he is

This is what I'm struggling with. I don't want the reader to feel like if 'focus antagonist' is defeated then the world is saved and everyone will have punch and pie. Creating a balance between 'focus antagonist' and 'something larger behind him' as a whole has me a bit befuddled. My MCs aren't battling a person, they're starting a war against a well-organized religious order with tens of thousands knights and the power of an ideology.

 

[Feo Takahari]

It sounds like what you're fishing for is the concept of the hate sink. For instance, Rainbow is a show about boys in juvenile detention. There's really nothing for the boys to fight against--life won't get better for them until the entire system is overhauled. Consequently, the show puts in a corrupt prison guard for the boys to confront, thereby metaphorically "battling" the system. (I'm not really fond of this approach, but I've seen it work a few times.)

 

[Gato Cat]

My MCs aren't battling a person, they're starting a war against a well-organized religious order with tens of thousands knights and the power of an ideology.

Perhaps as a religious order you could make the fact that they have a highly influential ideology also a source for conflict? Perhaps have a 'spokesperson' that reflects the ideals of the organisation and provides a figure to act against for the reasons Chilari suggested at the beginning, but show the growing threat of Bad Guys Inc. through their effects on society and the populace. Maybe this society finds conflict through a citizen's resistance or propaganda movement (which may also generate a more sympathetic or tragic antagonist?)

Personally, I like an ambiguous, hierarchical organisation. Remaining faceless creates a feeling of mystery and foreboding, making you wonder how far their reach actually extends. This also creates room for plot twists and may subvert expectations on who these guys actually are.

 

[wordwalker]

I'd say it's better with faces on your enemy. You may want a mix of one or more familiar people as Bad leaders, other friends who join the Bads in the middle of things, and some honest innocents who start going along with the Bads because they've got too much power and there doesn't seem like a way to hold out.

I guess I'm saying, give Bad Guys Inc a lot of advantages and inroads among the people the MC lives with and wants to trust. That puts the emphasis not exactly on particular Head Baddies but on the sheer pressure the Bads' idea and resources can generate-- as measured by how many friendly faces that come at least partly under their influence. Religious wars are just that nasty.

 

[Velka]

I guess I'm saying, give Bad Guys Inc a lot of advantages and inroads among the people the MC lives with and wants to trust. That puts the emphasis not exactly on particular Head Baddies but on the sheer pressure the Bads' idea and resources can generate-- as measured by how many friendly faces that come at least partly under their influence. Religious wars are just that nasty.

Thank you for outlining this so clearly. This is what I have been trying to achieve, but am sorely lacking in the "one or more familiar people as Bad leaders" area early in the story. I've been overly concerned about giving the reader a 'focus antagonist' for fear that the magnitude of what my heroes were up against would be overshadowed.

Creating a balance between the appearances of my focus antagonists and all the bits I already have that show how their influence, power, and subjugation are affecting the world and various interests is now my goal. I'm also excited about the opportunity to have my MCs fight/kill a focus antagonist or two to show how it cripples the enemy, but doesn't defeat them.

Personally, I like an ambiguous, hierarchical organisation. Remaining faceless creates a feeling of mystery and foreboding, making you wonder how far their reach actually extends.

Same here! I've been going too far down the ambiguous route though. In my mind I understand the sense of urgency behind the struggle, but putting that aside and only internalizing what the story was telling left me feeling lacking in that area.

 

[Addison]

It sounds like a concrete twist to Organization 13, from Kingdom Hearts. A bunch of evil guys working to turn the universe into their own twisted vision. While Sora and his friends fight against the Organization as a large business of evil, they take it down by encounters with individual members, each encounter bringing more information.

Is that maybe what you're going for?

 

[Penpilot]

I think your instincts on bringing in the friend sooner are right. Faceless organizations usually, but not always, use a face to represent the greater whole. In the original Star Wars movie it was Darth Vader, in the first LOTR movie they created that uber orc for the heroes to fight at the end. Notice in movies and TV when a guy faces off against a group of thugs there's always at least one that stands out? That guy is the face for the greater whole. Which kind of makes sense. Organizations need people to do the leg work and those people are probably going to be the ones encountering the hero, so they represent the organization as a whole.

 

[wordwalker]

Agreed, this kind of tension usually works through putting a face on things. Often it's putting a face on the evil itself, or it could be putting a face on temptability or helplessness (the respectable people coming under this evil's sway) when you don't want the problem to seem too much like just a person they can hit.