How would you deal with your Protagonist as a Mid-stage Villain?

How would you deal with your Protagonist?


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RootBeerBert

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Through a nondescript method you’ve found yourself transmigrated into a Mid-stage Villain/Antagonist about 1-2 arcs before they face off against the Protagonist and die. Your only way back is to survive to the ending, whatever that may be with your presence changing the plot. Either through your current affiliations or past deeds, you will be forced to clash with the Protagonist. With all this in mind, what would you do?
 

Cipiteca396

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N/A

My antagonists are basically zombies. The only way 'back' is to die and be revived as a dungeon monster.

Otherwise, my protagonists are pretty reasonable people. An alliance is definitely the way to go.
 
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TheMonotonePuppet

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Through a nondescript method you’ve found yourself transmigrated into a Mid-stage Villain/Antagonist about 1-2 arcs before they face off against the Protagonist and die. Your only way back is to survive to the ending, whatever that may be with your presence changing the plot. Either through your current affiliations or past deeds, you will be forced to clash with the Protagonist. With all this in mind, what would you do?
Hmmm… I would psychologically torment them. They have a litany of issues I can exploit.
 

Paytoechip

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Simple. I’d compliment her and her wife until they calm down enough, then we talk from there. Otherwise, I’m dead in less than an instant.
 

Sergeandgreen

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I have three protagonists. One i would need to kill, no matter the cost. One I could safely ignore. And from the last one, I should run. Run as fast as i can and never look back.
 

RecursiveDescent

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I wish I even had enough of an 'arc' to be able to take part in these kinds of posts. But my pacing is so bad for my first work.

Either way if I ended up as a villain there I'm pretty golden. All I gotta do is leave the protagonist alone and I'm fine, or if it comes to it I can wipe the floor with them like pretty much every villain I can remember aside from some bandits.
Hell, even if I had to become one of the bandits, given some time I could probably still have a useful mop. (Actually now that I think about it, even those bandits weren't far from winning. Being OP as a mc isn't very helpful without any experience)
 

Kamelingil

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Oh god please no, not even Hajun or others could stand a chance, let alone me who will just get erased with his gaze alone ?

But, I am his author so I know how, befriending him. He's way too friendly for some reason. But I'll have to give up being the villain.
 
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2wordsperminute

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Well, considering my mid stage antagonist's location and what he's done, it would be hard to either avoid my mc or befriend/dissuade him. At least, befriending/dissuading would be pretty impossible for my mc's friends. But if it's 1-2 arcs before the conflict? Then avoiding him is possible.
 

Jerynboe

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(Checks options)
Ok so good news is that good ol’ Sebastien survived book one in canon anyway. The bad news is that (based on the rules set out) this *probably* happens after Sebastien tried to murder the MC for sleeping with his little sister so that bridge is almost certainly burnt and he’s already planning the mutiny.
The other bad news is that the MC decided to spare the mid-boss mostly due to the fact that they teamed up to fight off an army of more than 300 ghouls laying siege to their wrecked ship. So I’m going to have a bad couple of days either way.
 

Jemini

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Yeah, with each new series I write, fighting against my protags becomes an increasingly bad idea.

Ironically, my most recent protag is both the easiest and hardest to kill. She's a time-looper protagonist.

So, yeah. The mere act of killing my protagonist also ends the current time-line I'm on, and it also completely fucks over whatever future version of me exists on the next timeline.

In other words, talking it out is literally the only option.

(Note: The series in which the newest protag exists is currently in it's pre-writing phase. It has not been publicly released yet.)
 

RecursiveDescent

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Yeah, with each new series I write, fighting against my protags becomes an increasingly bad idea.

Ironically, my most recent protag is both the easiest and hardest to kill. She's a time-looper protagonist.

So, yeah. The mere act of killing my protagonist also ends the current time-line I'm on, and it also completely fucks over whatever future version of me exists on the next timeline.

In other words, talking it out is literally the only option.

(Note: The series in which the newest protag exists is currently in it's pre-writing phase. It has not been publicly released yet.)
Okay, but what if you just tie her up and then restrain her in a way she can't die?
Then you just have to make sure she can't refuse nutrition, as well as handle sanitization.
I don't know about you, but she sounds fucked to me.
 

CharlesEBrown

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Depends on which story. In several, the mid-stage villains often either slink off into the shadows, possibly to return in a sequel, or wind up providing key information to defeat (or, in at least one case, to REVEAL) the main villain, usually by switching sides, sometimes just before death.

For the one story here... well, the whole point of this "first book" is to defeat a "mid stage" villain and find out about the bigger bad guys lurking out there... and that mid stage villain will probably survive until a second book unless my plans change mid-stream. Again.
Teach them that the human anus can expand up to seven inches before taking damage.
Depending on the genre that could be "team up," "beat up," or "entertain before moving on"....
 

Rhaps

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I'm fucked, killing the mid-stage antagonist is a central part of the story and there is nothing in my arsenal can stop a walking ticking nuke.

Guess I have to fold.
To expand on this, the MC need to kill me to get the missing part of her power, which is intergeral to save humanity.
 

Seaspecter

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Just walk away, Anna's not a vindictive person so long as someone's not actively trying to hurt her friends she won't bother them.
 

Nolff

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Oh, my protags?

We chill man, all this war's formality and we were just doing shitloads of tomfoolery just to Schadenfreude at each other.

I mean, look at this goober.

Hopper (Remastered).png


And here's the rest of the morons

The goobers.JPG

Depends on which story. In several, the mid-stage villains often either slink off into the shadows, possibly to return in a sequel, or wind up providing key information to defeat (or, in at least one case, to REVEAL) the main villain, usually by switching sides, sometimes just before death.

For the one story here... well, the whole point of this "first book" is to defeat a "mid stage" villain and find out about the bigger bad guys lurking out there... and that mid stage villain will probably survive until a second book unless my plans change mid-stream. Again.

Depending on the genre that could be "team up," "beat up," or "entertain before moving on"....
Bro, he's asking what would you do if you were the mid-stage villain forced to meet your protag
 

georgelee5786

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I'd try to persuade him to let me live. He probably would if I'm convincing enough, but would threaten my life
 
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