Creating A Antagonist Who Believes They Are Doing Good?

[Zak]

For my plot, the antagonist in a queen who wants to free the universe from its boundaries by uniting the billions of worlds. She honestly believes she is doing good for creation when, in reality, the protagonist knows it would cause trillions of deaths.

How can I make the queen realistic? How could I convince my readers that she is truly not evil, but JUST the antagonist?

 

[Ophiucha]

The simple fact is that most evil people think they are doing something good for the world. That fact in and of itself doesn't make them not evil. Causing trillions of death is pretty morally objectionable. I would argue that the end result would either have to be utopian for the survivors or she's simply unaware of the deaths in order for us to see her as potentially good. If all it's going to do is bring together billions of universes full of creatures that may not be able to communicate with each other, may themselves be objectively evil, or may be predators and prey to one another... then you'll have to make her seem very idealistic. To the point of childlike naivety and perhaps stupidity.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

Maybe the answer lies more in her motivation. When a character isn't that believable, I usually find I haven't really delved deep enough into the character to understand them. Sometimes we have to take a journey down their past and ask some of the necessary question about events in their lives that molded them into a person that could believe what they believe, and be willing to do what they would do.

The simple fact is that most evil people think they are doing something good for the world.

I don't think all evil people feel they are doing good, some people lack the same sense of morality most of us share to some extent. In fact, I'd suggest there are more people who just do what they want and have no regard for others than do things that to them are good. People can be, and will ever remain, evil. People kidnap, rape, and kill small children...hard to frame that into a deluded framework of doing something good for the world. They are acting on their own desires. Some people get guns and go out and randomly shoot people, it has happened quite a few times in recent history. Even deluded, it's not easy to put that in a positive light. Antagonists can be just evil sometimes, but that tends to make the story something other than what was in the original question.

 

[Ophiucha]

Addendum: People who are evil and have supporters or are otherwise in power, like a Queen would be, rarely see themselves as evil.

Also, you'd be amazed what people see as 'good' when they have a serious mental problem. There have been serial killers who had voices telling them that 6-year-olds were evil, or they thought aliens were going to destroy the world if they didn't come up with some sort of sacrifice. So even those people do, occasionally, think they are doing something good for the world.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

Agreed, but is that their excuse for their actions when caught? or do they really believe it? Society usually looks for an excuse for people who behave in a manner repugnant to the majority of society, so when the person is caught, they invent excuses to provide to society to try and gain pity or lesser punishment.

Rulers do not have to be loved to rule, if you have the money and power (and a well paid army to back you) then a ruler can be very evil. History has a few of those as well.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I'd advise writing the queen's arguments as thoroughly as you would if you agreed with her--not necessarily to include them all in the story, but just to get a handle on how she thinks. Then write the protagonist's arguments the same way. If the story will allow for it, you may not even need to portray the protagonist as right--given a purely objective perspective, readers will add their own subjective views, and hopefully most will decide on their own that the protagonist's ideas are better than the antagonist's.

(I encountered a similar issue with the antagonist of one of my own stories. Whenever she got the chance to speak, she would outline her philosophy, using diction similar to what the heroes of certain other writers' stories use when they're telling the reader the story's moral. As time went on, she said more and more things that, while self-consistent, clashed radically with what my readers expected. The specific turning point for at least one reader was when she said that she only killed rather than tortured men for sins of lust, because unlike women, men can't be expected not to fall prey to such sins.)

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

I'm doing something similar, my antagonist is trying to completely reform the land, which he sees as decrepit. You can show this in little details. If the antag is human thats definately a bonus. Show little things in dialogue, like saying how she looks forward to the liberation of the universe, when she dies show her disappointment at being unable to fulfill her role, there's all kinds of things. Oh and never, ever have her say "you have failed me for the last time" before strangling a minion. Unless you want it to be a surprise that she is not evil.

 

[Queshire]

There is another thread were the nature of good and evil was discussed in depth, if you are going to continue discussing this line of thought please go there.

back to the OP though, honestly I don't think you'd have to do much here, just write her as a good character, avoid the common villian cliches, and have be hesitant to hurt anybody or regret it afterwords and that ought to be enough. Essentially, just treat her as a "good queen" that just happens to be on the other side of the conflict of the heros.

Frankly, I think your hardest challenge would be convincing the readers of just why she's wrong, she has a perfectly noble goal after all. I would suggest having the heros go to or be from a world where just what the queen is trying to achieve happened and they suffered for it. So basically a world that some time in the past had another world fused with it and show the chaos and destruction that resulted.

 

[Jabrosky]

Some of my favorite villains are those whose actions and attitudes are objectively evil but nonetheless believe that they're doing the right thing. Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a terrific example of this, although he may not be what the OP's aiming for; he is extremely evil from our perspective, yet his evil stems from a twisted religious morality that a lot of people back in the 1400s uncritically accepted.

 

[Zak]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Ankari]

This shouldn't be too hard, actually. An antagonist is simply one who works against the protagonist. In that regard, you can have an antagonist with any motive you want. But I understand what you're saying. The answer is simple: make the goal of either to be of shared desire. Both want the hand of the maiden, both want to be the next king, both want to be wealthy, or both want to be the applauded hero of the army.

Another suggestion is to make the antagonist simply desire a resolution that will further what he thinks is right. The antagonist wants his family to survive the politics of the land, he wants to make sure his family survives the common people's revolt, he wants to crush the neighboring country as they are a threat.

All those above stated scenarios can be considered good from his perspective. From the protagonist's point of view, which may be a member of the common people leading the revolt or the general of the country that is considered the threat, the antagonist may be considered evil.

The point is to make sure you paint the colors of the antagonist's portrait. Are you going to use black/white or a combination of colors?

 

[Helen]

What does the protag know that the antag doesn't?

How come the protagonist knows it would cause trillions of deaths but the antag doesn't?

That's probably what you're trying to make the antag get to.

 

[The Dark One]

I can see a simple solution (via analogy). What if cows really were sacred...were, in fact, on some transcendent level the true spiritual masters of the universe? How would that make us look as we tuck into our steaks and chops and sausages? What if some wide-eyed protagonist somewhere were to happen upon this fact and etc etc

If your queen has no concept of the damage she's doing...OR if on some meta level someone with far greater perspective knows that what we call life was in fact some kind of rip off and that true life only started after what we think of as death, then wouldn't she be some kind of amazing hero if she arranged the death of trillions?

 

[Varamyrr]

I don't know if you have seen the movie 'Hero'; it shows an antagonist which is in fact a dictator but on the other hand. He is the sole thing that keeps the provinces united, through their hate towards him. And he knows it.