Writing What do you think about a protagonist acting as an anti-villain against an antagonist acting as a hero?

[Eldoria]

Imagine fiction being narratively highlighted from an anti-villain perspective.

Pain (Nagato) becomes the anti-villain protagonist against Naruto who becomes the hero.

Thanos fights the Marvel heroes with Thanos being the protagonist, instead of placing the heroes as protagonists.

Or this role can occur organically without a remake. For example, Eren Yeager was initially depicted as a hero, at the end of the arc he is depicted as an anti-villain who is 'forced' to become evil for the sake of the world's destiny.

Eren can be considered an anti-villain protagonist against his friends (Mikasa, et al) as heroes who save humanity. Another example is Yagami Light or Lelucoch.

They are narratively anti-villain protagonists against antagonist heroes.

Imagine reading fiction from the perspective of an anti-villain character from beginning to end, instead of focusing on the hero?

Note:

1. The protagonist is the main character who drives the conflict and plot.
2. The antagonist is the character who opposes the protagonist.
3. A hero is a character who has good values, generally likes to help or save others.
4. An anti-hero is a character who has ambiguous values (gray morals) and his/her actions often go against the grain and are considered controversial even though he/she still maintains minimum moral values.
5. A villain is a character who is portrayed as evil for the sake of being evil (pure evil).
6. An anti-villain is a character who commits crimes but with humane motives or a specific ideology, "for the good of others," in his/her own version.

 

[Tetrahedron]

going by that standard, we got the likes of Vult from Kuroinu who's the villain and also the protagonist. Yes, it's from an R18+ visual novel, but there are numbers of cases for protagonists who wanted to rule the world ruthlessly, and through any means.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

A villain protagonist is actually pretty good sometimes, I just wish the villain protagonist would actually win sometimes. Think Death Note.

 

[CinnaSloth]

Are we talking about Sesshōmaru fighting with Inuyasha?

 

[kor.vithan]

Imagine fiction being narratively highlighted from an anti-villain perspective.

Pain (Nagato) becomes the anti-villain protagonist against Naruto who becomes the hero.

Thanos fights the Marvel heroes with Thanos being the protagonist, instead of placing the heroes as protagonists.

Or this role can occur organically without a remake. For example, Eren Yeager was initially depicted as a hero, at the end of the arc he is depicted as an anti-villain who is 'forced' to become evil for the sake of the world's destiny.

Eren can be considered an anti-villain protagonist against his friends (Mikasa, et al) as heroes who save humanity. Another example is Yagami Light and Lelucoch.

They are narratively anti-villain protagonists against antagonist heroes.

Imagine reading fiction from the perspective of an anti-villain character from beginning to end, instead of focusing on the hero?

Note:

1. The protagonist is the main character who drives the conflict and plot.
2. The antagonist is the character who opposes the protagonist.
3. A hero is a character who has good values, generally likes to help or save others.
4. An anti-hero is a character who has ambiguous values (gray morals) and his/her actions often go against the grain and are considered controversial even though he/she still maintains minimum moral values.
5. A villain is a character who is portrayed as evil for the sake of being evil (pure evil).
6. An anti-villain is a character who commits crimes but with humane motives or a specific ideology, "for the good of others," in his/her own version.

totally get you, i'll be sure to check out your story too.

 

[BearlyAlive]

If I understand you right, you want an anti-anti as your anti so you can antaprotagonize the protagantagonist?

 

[Eldoria]

totally get you, i'll be sure to check out your story too.

If I understand you right, you want an anti-anti as your anti so you can antaprotagonize the protagantagonist?

Well, this question has nothing to do with my fiction. The protagonist (FMC) in my fiction is more of an antiheroine (although the world views her as a villainess who was disrupting the status quo).

However, I think this concept is interesting enough to be developed into another story.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

So The Watchmen from Rorschach's point of view?

 

[Eldoria]

So The Watchmen from Rorschach's point of view?

It's right.

 

[Placeholder]

> Imagine reading fiction from the perspective of an anti-villain character from beginning to end, instead of focusing on the hero?

It's an established trope, there's been vast quantities of "Reincarnated as the Villain/ess" manga and webnovels.

The Villainess Is Actually A Magical Girl?! - Chapter 0 | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

https://mangadex.org/chapter/a53dbaa3-3ede-4853-bc95-9d5a49b163a0 - Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord

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Or just now I'm reading Murderbot.

Shakespeare's Othello?

Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, certainly.

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You should definitely write a villainess story if you have an idea for it.

 

[Eldoria]

> Imagine reading fiction from the perspective of an anti-villain character from beginning to end, instead of focusing on the hero?

It's an established trope, there's been vast quantities of "Reincarnated as the Villain/ess" manga and webnovels.

The Villainess Is Actually A Magical Girl?! - Chapter 0 | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

https://mangadex.org/chapter/a53dbaa3-3ede-4853-bc95-9d5a49b163a0 - Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord

---

Or just now I'm reading Murderbot.

Shakespeare's Othello?

Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, certainly.

---

You should definitely write a villainess story if you have an idea for it.

Well, you need to distinguish between narrative roles and gimmicks in titles.

I have read many fictions where the protagonist is transmigrated or reincarnated into the body of a villain or anti-villain. But the protagonist acts as the hero or anti-hero in the narrative, rather than remaining the villain or anti-villain.

This is why I dislike gimmicky titles that deliberately deceive readers with sweet talk.

Look at the examples I gave above, like Yagami Light. He's consistent from the start with his absolute morals, eradicates evil arbitrarily (selfishly), becomes a god in the new world, and ultimately dies because of his arrogance.

This is what I mean by a narratively consistent anti-villain protagonist, not a hero protagonist who pretends to be an anti-villain like in mainstream isekai titles.

 

[Naravelt]

Well, there’s a manga I forgot the name of. It’s about a girl who likes playing StarCraft RTS and gets isekai’d into a fantasy world.


She keeps her human form, but gains the ability to command giant insect swarm, similar to the race she used to play in StarCraft. She chooses to live peacefully in an elf village, but later the village is destroyed by a human kingdom. That’s when she starts a war against humanity.


As the war goes on, she slowly falls to the dark side, becoming a kind of insect queen, destroying human cities and towns without mercy.

 

[Eldoria]

Well, there’s a manga I forgot the name of. It’s about a girl who likes playing StarCraft RTS and gets isekai’d into a fantasy world.


She keeps her human form, but gains the ability to command giant insect swarm, similar to the race she used to play in StarCraft. She chooses to live peacefully in an elf village, but later the village is destroyed by a human kingdom. That’s when she starts a war against humanity.


As the war goes on, she slowly falls to the dark side, becoming a kind of insect queen, destroying human cities and towns without mercy.

Well, I've read the manga and yeah, she is indeed an anti-villainess protagonist.

However, the protagonist's enemy (antagonist) isn't a hero, but rather a hopelessly corrupt villain. So this manga falls outside the scope of my question.

 

[L1aei]

This guy immediately came to mind. He's a villain who starts off by murdering supervillains who would cause his superheroine crush intense problems and trauma in the future, then he escalates to terrorist incidents that he baits her into to resolve. He's a villain alright. And you could argue the superheroine is sort of the FML but she's the antagonist too since she is always trying to stop him.

Name of the manhwa is "I Became the Villain the Hero Is Obsessed With."

 

[Grizzly18]

I mean it’s an idea. If you want to have a villain as the protagonist as an anti villain then you’re going to have to walk a very thin line. If they’re killing people who are corrupt in order to better the city or world then thats not villain thats anti hero which isnt what you’re going for. I’d imagine you’d have to do it that the MC benefits in some way like him inheriting the wealth the people he kills has. That way he’s doing bad things for the right reasons but not with the purest of motives so that he can do bad things that makes things better in the end but still be selfish.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Oh... does Dexter Morgan of the Dexter novels and TV show fit (IMO, the novels much moreso than the series but that's just my opinion - and based on seeing the original series from start to finish but not the follow-ups and reading two of the books)