"Villain Protagonist"
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2023
- #breakingbad #infinitywar #villain #writingtips
I have a villain I have a protagonist UGH Villain Protagonist. The popularity of the term villain protagonist has exploded on the modern internet as characters like Harley Quinn, Joker, Walter White, and Thanos continue to enjoy the spotlight. But is this label all it's cracked up to be?
Thanks to Ruthie Hanson for the concept and writing behind this video!
Ruthie Hanson Linktree: linktr.ee/ruthiewrites
Diregentleman on Twitter: / diregentleman
Join our Patreon: / diregentleman
The Kingmaker Histories on Twitter: / kingmakerpod
The Kingmaker Histories on RUclips: / @thekingmakerhistories
BloodyFM on Twitter / bloodyfm 
Развлечения
Thing that people forget is that the phase "Everyone is the hero of their own story." denies the idea that people can be willfully malicious and rebel against the idea of being a hero. "There are no such things as hero's." is a mindset that such characters can take, seeing acts of kindness as just as selfish as acts of petty vindictive behavior. The idea that good and evil are abstract concepts does not mean that you can not define them. Perspectives can add up to a greater whole, and the narrative that takes into account every perspective will always have a better understanding of what is right and wrong in a given situation.
I see that, the thing about everyone sees themselves as the hero is well how they justify they actions, they see themselves as justifed in what they do.
Doesn't matter if they're as they don't see it that way, thanos believed he was the hero in his justification he's not ingori sacrafice he's causing, but if he's mind he thinks he's saving the world he's gonna be driven by it.
@@alexcat6685Joker blows "everyone's the hero in their own story" out of the water being self aware enough to know he's evil but apathetic enough to enjoy doing it anyway, and the same is true of Norman Osborn, Sheev Palpatine, and Jack Horner
yeah though they feel so inhuman since why would they consintely destroy things that could help them.
I mean moving past his grand comedy and seeing he was stupid enough to noe value his team enough to where they could help him because he was that evil.
His hole purpose is to show what happens when you treat life as just for you and ingore everyone else.
They can work, they can just lack in varity as they well aren't really complex.
@@alexcat6685 It's because you don't bother exploring the villains beyond their desire to be the bad guy. Jack Horner for instance embodies the idea of entitlement, a very human flaw. In his mind there is no reason he can't have what he wants, even if it hurts other people in the process. He does not want to be the "Hero" because he knows he would have to waste his time making petty justifications for his actions that would bring him joy regardless. In a sense, he understands what a hero is and why he doesn't want to be one.
What is more human than a person who spends time doing what he wants because every second he doesn't he misses out on doing what he wants to do?
Even if you're the Bojack Horseman of your life, you're still the protagonist.
It's always seemed pretty clear to me that the terms hero protagonist and villain antagonist are just to showcase the contrast between their role in the narrative structure, on the protagonist/antagonist side of things with the perspective of the story, and their morality, the hero/villainous side which aren't as explicitly tied to story structure in common usage the way protagonist and antagonist are. Rather than sounding like a contradiction it sounds pretty intuitive and straight forward to me and only sounds like it muddies the water if you conflate protagonist/hero and villain/antagonist as being one and the same.
That’s already what antihero and antivillain mean
@@nykcarnsew2238 An antihero isn't necessarily outright villainous and antivillain doesn't suggest that they're the protagonist. There's definitely some overlap though.
@@nykcarnsew2238not really, a Anti Hero/Villain is basically a character who believes the Ends justify the means, weather the story agrees with them determines which they are. The Punisher believes War Tactics are necessary to stop criminal organizations and the story agrees with him. Magneto believes Mutants must kill the non mutants before they are genocided first and the story disagrees with him. Walt starts as the Anti Hero but over the corse of the series becomes an Anti Villain.
@@stephensmith7327 no an antihero is a morally complex protagonist in a story that follows a structure resembling the hero’s journey (and an antivillain is a morally complex antagonist in this type of story). They don’t have to have any specific beliefs, they just have to subvert expectations about the heroic archetype
@@nykcarnsew2238ur argument is conflicting. What do you call a protagonist who does not fit your definition of anti-hero yet still can't be called good? What if they aren't meant to be heroic? What if they don't have anything resembling the hero's journey?
It can't be an anti-hero because you just defined that as a morally complex character who follows a structure similar to the hero's journey
What about an antagonist who's just a good person yet still opposes the protagonist? What if they're simply heroic?
It can't be antivillain because you just defined that as a morally complex antagonist.
But then you contradict yourself by saying they simply have to subvert expectations about the heroic archetype, which would mean that antiheroes don't need to be protagonists and antivillains don't need to be antagonists because like you said "they just have to subvert expectations about the heroic archetype," that says nothing about their role within the story
You're really showing why hero should not be equated protagonist and villain should not be equated with antagonist. You can't be consistent with it, because a character's role in the story and moral character are two different things that don't always neatly line up.
Edit: even Diregentlemen doesn't categorize every morally dubious protagonist as an antihero.
Ladies, Germs, and Nonbinary-Worms is now a new phrase living in my brain.
I love being a germ
It especially fits well since most worms are hermaphrodites so worms are definitely nonbinary.
#WormGang
My definitions are:
I think you’re conflating hero/protagonist & villian/antagonist.
I think Hero/Villian should be a moral description according to the books themes.
Whereas Pro/antagonist should be a writing PoV description. The active agent Vs the person in their way.
Protagonist: The PoV character leading the story. Usually the main character (most PoVs) & usually proactively driving the plot towards achieving their goals.
Antagonist: Anyone who gets in the way of the protagonist achieving their goals.
These are morally neutral terms. Unlike hero / Villain.
Hero: The character in the right (a “good guy”) in the framing of the story & its themes. Usually the protagonist &/or main character but not always.
Vilian: The character who the story & themes frame as in the wrong.
So I see no reason why you can’t have Villian Protagonists & Hero Antagonists.
If you have multiple PoVs in the story then each PoV will usually be their own protagonist fighting with their own antagonist depending on their goals.
And these are all different from sympathetic or non-sympathetic.
You can have a sympathetic villian (a sad boy who does evil things for sad reasons) & an unsympathetic hero (a jerk who does the moral thing-anti-hero)
But these words are all so muddled in their definitions. Just like anti-hero (a hero with traditionally unheroic resists)
Part of the issue is that people conflate protagonist with hero or the moral center of a story when as you said a protagonist is just the POV character. The protagonist doesn't even have to be the main character necessarily, just the one we experience the story from.
Villain protagonist feels like an oxymoron because in a way it kind of is. Being the protagonist doesn't exclude a character from BEING a villain, they're just the eyes used to experience the story. The person behind those eyes can be anything, which I think is what Gus was trying to get at.
I think Gus's issue is that people are treating this as the only way to be a villain is to oppose the protagonist. Which isn't even necessarily true either because a character can be a villain without being the antagonist i.e opposing the protagonist.
Antihero and antivillain already cover those
"Villain, simply put, is a word we use for othering people. Think of the classic Disney villain ... ultimately, we are meant to see them as responsible for evil. There is always a possibility that we relate to these characters, but the intent to differentiate them from *the baseline morality of the audience takes precedent.*"
"But here's the thing: a well written immoral protagonist will still invite the audience to empathize, in some way or another, with their point of view. And that is a position that a *proper villain* will never be able to occupy, for reasons both literary and practical."
I think most people here seem to have the appropriate understanding of what a protagonist *is* and what an antagonist *is.* And, further, they understand what a villain is, somewhat, as well as what a hero is. The antagonist/protagonist roles are narrative roles, structural to the story; the villain/hero labels, however, are not narrative roles. At least, not directly. If one is called a hero, there is the *expectation* that one is also a protagonist, and if one is a villain, there is the *expectation* that one is an antagonist. But hero and villain have more do to with the virtues and vices, the ethics and ethos, of a character. Or at least, that is how they *can* and often *are* used, *at the same time* as they are used to imply protagonist/antagonist roles.
I think what we have here is just a historically-derived semantic disgruntlement. We can see a clear logical space for the idea of a character which is a protagonist and is *at the same time* differentiated, distinguished, and outside of "the baseline morality of the audience." A character which is a point-of-view character, a main character, playing a decisive role in the story, influencing its outcomes, making difficult decisions which intrigue and delight and dismay us, and as well still *a character who we believe to be evil, immoral, amoral, vicious, or unrepentant.*
Now, as to the "practicality" and literary merit of constructing such a character, I won't profess. On the face of it, I'm sure this idea of a "villain protagonist" can doubtlessly be made to work, and it can offer some interesting possibilities. What sorts of things might we be able to see if we take a long look from behind the eyes of the vile old sorcerer lofted in his obsidian tower, working his arcane arts to subdue the heroes of the story. Whether or not what is called a "villain protagonist" in popular parlance is *this* sort of thing described, I can't easily say, but if anything, people may be making their "villain protagonists" *insufficiently* beyond the pale, such that calling them "villain protagonists" feels unjustified because they are still too... Sympathetic? Understandable? Maybe the balking at "villain protagonists" comes not from the inability to see the logical space they can be situated in, but in the refusal to accept the given examples of "villain protagonists" as sufficiently "villainous."
@@nykcarnsew2238 So, is Mr. C. of Twin Peaks: The Return an antihero or antivillain? He is a completely static protagonist who doesn't learn or grow, who is awful at every turn, who literally says explicitly "I don't need anything, I want; if there's one thing you should know about me it's that I don't need anything". There are no redeeming features in him, nothing to relate to. And yet he is very obviously the protagonist of several episodes.
Now, I'm fine with the take that such characters are unusual enough that it's fine to say there's no need for a generalized term for them, but I don't think it can be said that 'antihero' and 'antivillain' cover them at all.
@@seanmckibben3912 I mean we have not the team poison medicine, it's just called bad medicine. If we want to break the concept of hero and villain, we lose these words in the end and they mean nothing, all because of a site made by people who know little of literature.
"People think that writing is just putting words on a page, but it's so much more than that" - True! you also have to get them in the right order. That's the trick, or so I hear
Waltuh
Put your apologetics away Waltuh
I'm not having a conversation about whether you're redeemable right now, Waltuh
Back in school, a protagonist was always defined as "a person with a goal" and typically the main perspective of the story. Because of this, I've always been confused as to why 'villain protagonist' is so contentious. Thanks for breaking it down, Gus & Ruthie! I love learning more about the technical parts of writing. Love your guys' content
The problem with the video is, protagonist doesn't mean hero. Protagonist isn't a moral term. What you learned in school IS true. Villain protagonist IS a valid term and it predates tv tropes by a hot minute.
Gus fundamentally misunderstood that protagonist and The Hero are not the same thing and never addresses this.
@@jessealonso5413 Sure, you're right that protagonist and antagonists aren't inherent moral terms. However, I think Ruthie (the scriptwriter) made strong enough arguments as to why the term 'villain protagonist' isn't typically used in most professional writings - particularly in discussion of society's wider view of villains and the nuance that ultimately should come with this type of protagonist.
I don't think it's necessary to 100% agree with someone if one still thinks the argument was well-made (which is typically the camp I'm in most of the time). I'm very much happy with "agreeing to disagree" in opinionated subjects like this one.
@@jessealonso5413Yeah. My understanding of the hero/villain and protagonist/antagonist dichotomies are that the former hinges entirely on how a character's *position* is framed morally whereas the latter is a morality-neutral dichotomy. I also didn't see anything on the subject of the "Hero Antagonist", where a character opposing the protagonist is still framed as morally correct.
"becomes Heisenberg" Walter White was ALWAYS Heisenberg, he just leapt out of hiding at the first chance he got
also, Diregentleman advocates The Snap?! APPALING!
Walter White is so dissatisfied with his life he would have thrown it all away if there was an easier way to be recognized and be “the man”. The fact that he succeeds in being the meth kingpin or that because he is so destructive he took out any competition, then by his collapse removed the drug trade or chance of it to come back, or that he ostensibly cares about his family and Jesse, doesn’t mean anything when he subsumes them under his childish need for recognition. He was basically Heisenberg. He just would have died bitter and seemingly a victimized teacher (which he willingly inflicted on himself when he walked away from Grey Matter).
I personally disagree with this video.
In a lot of points you treated things that a villain, hero or protagonist can/often tends to be as things they need to be to earn the denomination, and at points were inconsistent with it (Saying protagonists are nevertheless people we should emphasize and root for at least at the start, and then talking about Cautionary protagonists, who are meant to be disliked from the getgo), and then there are minor instances like claiming it defeats the purpose to see Alex from Clockwork Orange as a villain, because the point is the society is corrupt, when in reality, both Alex and the politicians are villains (One is the corrupt system, the other is the evil that will take advantage of that system), it's not a role only one of the two sides can have (There are Marvel stories where Thanos and Mephisto fight, and they're both garbage people).
I will admit, I disagree with this video mostly because, in my head, "Protagonist" and "Villain" will have two set meanings
Protagonist: "The character the story spends most of the time with, focuses on and may be in the POV of, regardless of their morality"
Villain: "a character filling any role on the Protagonist-antagonist scale that is either (almost) completely evil or overall more dangerous and selfish than they are sympathetic."
While the definition of "Villain" may change from person to person, I am confident in my definition of protagonist, and in that definition a "Villain Protagonist" can be a thing.
I know he is a meme more than anything and I'll look harder to take seriously for this, but Patrick Bateman from American Psycho is the Protagonist (he is telling the story, every scene focuses on him, he's the Primary (Protos) actor (agonistes)) and he's not sympathetic at all, he is a danger to everyone around him and he's barely even cautionary or someone we may become, he's just a rich, delusional murderer who is both deplorable and pathetic and meant to be a laughingstock for us. He's a moral villain who is in the narrative role of protagonist.
I also disagree with how MCU Thanos is not a villain because we delve into just how determined he is to reach his goal and how he justifies it, leading to us being connected with him, which makes him not a villain in your opinion. To disprove this, we can look at Funny Valentine from Stell Ball Run, whose main concept is that he's delusional, xenophobic, powerhungry, vengeful, predatory and despicable, yet with his great speeches, the framing, the fact his grand ideals get more screen time than his more unforgivable moments etc, the story ends up being propaganda that makes us seriously think he may be a good guy, when he isn't. The point of Steel Ball Run isn't that Valentine is a hero because he managed to convince us he was right, it's that Valentine is a VILLAIN WHO IS VERY GOOD AT MANIPULATION because he managed to convince us he's right, when he isn't.
Thanos is a protagonist who is morally abominable BUT very charismatic, but none of that makes him moral, a good person, a hero.
And while I'm inevitably going to be morally bias, because im a human, I made an attempt to project the WRITERS' morality onto these characters, and all the people behind these films absolutely saw Alex, Thanos, Valentine , etc as a villain. Endgame made Thanos dying for good the Happy Ending. He is a villain.
As someone who is admittedly gonna take a while to detoxify from all the ways TVTropes can ruin media consumption for you if you're impressionable, I am saying this less based on what TVT tells me a villain protagonist is and more based on what I see as evil and what I strongly believe the writers intended to be seen as evil.
Media can be interpreted in a million ways according to you, so accept that I see Villain Protagonists as something that very much can exist.
Well said!
Couldn't have put it better myself
I'm only a few minutes in, and I really don't see how the term is contradictory. A villain is a bad person, a protagonist is the main character. How are these 2 things mutually exclusive? Light Yagami is a villain, he's an awful human being, but he's also clearly the character the story revolves around; he's a villain protagonist. I love Gus' takes and videos, but this is one area where I don't see where he's coming from at all.
Villain and hero are normative ethical judgements and not storytelling terms, protagonist and antagonist are the functions characters have in a story. Hank from Breaking Bad is an antagonist because he provides an obstacle to the protagonist, despite clearly being a better, more introspective human being than Walt.
Edit: The biggest reason for the disagreement seems to be coming from the definition of the word "villain". I think it's pretty healthy to use that term to mean a bad person rather than going with the definition that basically means "antagonist in a story". It's more useful to have 2 terms that refer to different things as opposed to 2 terms that sometimes have the same meaning depending on context.
Edit 2: The part at the end can be applied to all tropes, not just this specific one. You can even argue it applies to the term "protagonist" as well, since that is also just some arbitrary label.
This video is full ass incomprehensible, I just think he's ranting about something that personally annoys in more than he has any actual point, he's basically just reacting to Internet strawman's that he's had negative interactions with
I think the point was more that, no matter how morally apprehensible the point-of-view character may be, they're still the point-of-view character; there will always be some element the audience will connect to, which directly goes against the concept of a literary villain. A villain is by definition othered, and the moment you deliberately sympathize with them, they stop being a villain, and instead become either an anti-hero, a wish fulfilment fantasy, or a cautionary tale
Diregentleman absolutely advocates for the snap. How cruel...
Imagine thinking that Protagonists (literally just meaning the people you're following) have to be heroes. And that only one of the definitions of villains is correct.
No one said protagonists have to be heroes. This video is about definitions, not what types of stories you’re allowed to write
@@nykcarnsew2238 definitions that are being ignored clearly... He literally asserts that Villain-Protagonist is a stupid, self-contradicting term in the first two minutes and most of the video is built to present that argument.
probably a sign of too much children's media where the protagonist has to be morally correct. and if not (regardless of what age the media is made for) i guess the viewer is too stupid to figure out morals themselves😢
@@trutyatces8699 yeah, and if you watched the video you’d know it’s because calling morally dubious protagonists “villains” is reductive and misleading, not because they don’t exist
@@nykcarnsew2238 *he literally says that villains being protagonists is a contradiction.* This man is so stubborn about denying that they exist that he calls Walter White an Anti-Hero. What more is there to say?
Can a protagonist not be villainous?
Can an antagonist not be heroic?
that's not the correct definition of villain being used here though
bro thought he did something here lamo
The idea that morality is embedded into narrative structure is such a weird precept to accept.
@@crimsoncowboy7152 I disagree that the correct definition is being used at all. Heroes are good, and villains are evil. Protagonists and antagonists are blue and orange.
Yea. Megamind was a villainous protagonist, and Metro man was heroic antagonist
this feels kind of pedantic, I think It's a pretty reasonable stance to describe people who are on the side of evil/commit villainous actions, as villains (especially if they are described as villains within the text of the media itself, such as megamind and despicable me). so, since a protagonist is just whoever the story follows, and the term 'villain' is most commonly used as a synonym for bad-guy/evildoer/etc. you could totally have a villain who is also the protagonist
Best comment.
I mostly agree with the video, but in re: the demystification of art thing, I actually think that it can sometimes be helpful to take a more detatched, clinical look at your work. It isn't the only way we should analyze and critique media, but I think it's still a valuable one (at least it has been for me personally.)
Also, Guso Diregentleman advocates the snap.
Ruthie really went all-out on this script, shoutout to the both of ye for nailing this video🤝 The structure's done nicely, and I couldn't agree more with the core concept ngfl
How would you categorize a playthrough of a video game where you are evil? Games like Fallout New Vegas and Pathfinder Kingmaker let you play as "villainous protagonists" without the moral complexity expected from other story telling mediums.
you are still the protagonist. Protagonist and Antagonist as narrative focal points are not morally tied to good and evil.
The character is a blank slate, they’re a different trope entirely
@@nykcarnsew2238my brother in Christ, is a slaver not villainous?
@@cornfield2120 no, they’re evil. “Villainous” is way too goofy a way to describe something that awful
I think the hero/villain dichotomy and protagonist/antagonist one are entirely disconnected, but I think my biggest problem with the term extends to a lot of characters who people describe as anti-heroes too. A lot of these characters have so many people arguing that they are either fully morally right or morally wrong to the point that I feel like any kind of moral classification is too nebulous and subjective to mean anything in the objective analysis that a lot of these people seem to be aiming for.
Totally, for any definition of villain protagonist to work it requires such a broad definition of villain to be functionally useless, which I think is the issue. It can potentially describe so many characters that it adds nothing to a conversation. There are better more specific terms that already exist and are far more useful to actually talking about media and writing, such as anti-hero. The term is nebulous in nature because if it wasn't, it couldn't be used at all
I disagree with you about the hero/villain and protagonist/antagonist dichotomy being disconnected. Personally I view one as a subcategory of the other much like a squares and rectangles situation. Hero is a type of protagonist but not all protagonists are heroes. I think people's trope savviness is what muddies the waters when it comes to discussing that though. Hero and Villain serve a function in a story, and people are really good at picking up on surface elements. So we associate the easily identifiable surface elements with being a villain instead of the actual function they serve which is structural to the story.
This guy really just read the definitions of villain on Merriam Webster and decided everyone was using the one definition which would make no sense :skull:
Everyone is using that definition, otherwise you’d regularly hear real life people called villains
@@nykcarnsew2238I mean don't people already do that
@@audreyharris7643 I have literally never in my life heard a first-language English speaker use “villain” as a pejorative term. They only use it to refer to fictional characters
Yeah, he's committing an appeal to definition fallacy
@@nykcarnsew2238nice anecdotal evidence, buddy.
I never sympathized with Thanos at all lol. I was mad at them for not being willing to do what's necessary for sure. But that never made me feel for Thanos. His imagining of Gamora was just mental masturbation. He was making his own reasoning. Gamora was abused by Thanos point blank. Saying he loved her was just a bunch of MCU abuse apologism
Those things aren't at odds with each other
I would argue that this is exactly what makes the movie weak. It presents Thanos as the protagonist, even just implicitly, and at every point reinforces his ideology as the one that brings forth outcomes. As Gus said, the Avengers refuse to sacrifice their own at every turn even if it would theoretically lead to better outcomes (ex. bringing Vision to Wakanda instead of just destroying the Mind Stone, Star-Lord being unwilling to kill Gamora when she asks him to, Dr. Strange giving Thanos the Time Stone because he believes Tony needs to live in order for the worst outcome to be held off, Loki trading the Tesseract for Thor's life, etc.) while Thanos willingly sacrifices and/or accepts the sacrifice of everything he has in order to achieve his goal. As far as Infinity War is concerned, he's in the right.
And that's the problem. The moral framework the movie pushes is that death should not only be accepted, but embraced and strived for as the natural outcome. It's a pro-death movie, even if that puts it at odds with most of the other MCU films. That may be what made it stand out when it first premiered, and some elements of it being subverted in Endgame help it feel less morally dubious (like making Thanos more explicitly a narcissist who was more interested in being right than doing the right thing), but it still weakens the film to center it around a goal that is not only reprehensible, but is portrayed, purposefully or not, as the correct thing to do.
Everything that surrounds that is just side dressing for the movie, but morally damning for most viewers. Affirming the idea that Thanos loves Gamora as he murders her to get what he wants, framing Thor as more responsible for Thanos' victory by making his desire to see Thanos suffer outweigh his desire to stop him, Thanos applauding Tony for the places in which their views and superiority complexes align; all of it is seemingly minor to the movie, but it all carries a lot of weight. It's a big problem, and the reason I and many others have been incredibly critical of Infinity War as time has gone on.
Well, many MCU fans falled for that. That's what happens when the writers want to write complex characters and can't handle the topic. In the end they try to make Thanos look good, even though he is higly stupid and irredeemable.
Dude had all the power in the universe but instead of creating a utopia for everyone or whatever, he decided that killing off half the population was the solution to anything lmao.
He was an idiot, I don't know how anyone sympathized with him tbh.
Honestly I think Brad Armstrong from LISA The Painful is a perfect example of the Antihero you mentioned, he starts very sympathetic as we see his childhood of abuse by parent and peers and being unbale to save his sister from suicide alongside his desire to defend the last woman on earth from the sex starved people of the post apocalyptic world, however throughout the game(or hell, even in the opening cutscenes) we actually see how much Brad trying to "protect" his daughter actually leads him to essentially keep her locked everyday much like his own abusive father did to his sister, by the end of the game Brad has burned every bridge with the people he once called friends, left a bloody trail of destruction and generally has done little to nothing good because he is singlehandedly focused on "saving" his daughter, a excellent tale of how even those who truly love you can hurt you the worst and how much clinging to the past can really fuck up not only someone but also those in contact with them.
I know this is a tall order given it's a videogame and all but I would love if you guys ever covered this on your channel, LISA could always use more fans.
Well maybe it’ll get more fans anyways considering the definitive edition coming out.
@@skep2923 I'm hoping for more people but new fans coming has both upsides and downsides.
The biggest problem with this video is that, wether intentionally or not, it makes the critical mistake of using the dicotomies of "Protagonist/Antagonist" and "Hero/Villain" interchangably. Protagonist and Antagonist are rigid terms that describe the role of a character in the plot, where as Hero and Villain are descriptions of morality. This is actually why I think the term "Villain Protagonist" is a more useful term than "Anti-Hero," because Villain Protagonist tells you exactly what you need to know. The actions of the protagonist of this story cause more suffering than good, making them a villain. Where as Anti-Hero can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, from a morally grey or even evil protagonist, to a secondary character that is an obstacle to both the protagonist and antagonist, to someone helping the protagonist, but is more violent than the protagonist.
Wrong.
A protagonist within a heroic narrative is always cast as hero, since the audience has to agree with the values they present as good, and as good is something we like, the character has to be the most sympathetic and understandable person in the story we are meant to root for, ergo the hero.
The villain is the opposite of good and as something we don't like, usually cast as villain.
Villain protagonists destroys heroic narratives and makes people just project their own moral framework onto a story that doesn't support it, hence no one gets that Thanos was correct about sacrifice or why Edelgard was the hero in Crimson Flower and instead delude themselves that they were meant to be seen as wrong, even though they weren't.
Also, if the actions of a hero can cause more damage than harm and therefore a villain, is Rigby in the Regular Show Movie NOT the hero, even though he is cast as one and the protagonist? Spoilers, he is the reason why the villain wants to destroy his friendship with Mordecai by revealing a terrible error of Rigby's youth that ruined said Mordecai's academic future and Rigby also made Ross an enemy by ruining his chance accidentally to win the Volleyball cup. Still, Rgiby rectifies his failures and even if he fumbles, he is still the hero. If you meant someone like Light, then no, anti-hero fits.
Anti-Hero just means protagonist that is villainous, it is the concept of villain protagonist, but better, because it tells you that this person is not heroic and doesn't break the heroic narrative by projecting values onto a work that it does not have. Your bit about what an Anti-Hero is not only contradicts your point, it also just uses an appeal to the masses, a fallacious tactic, to be honest.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 I have a question, if we go by how you define these terms, where does Guts from Berserk fall into this? Because I can assure you that he's not a hero and he's definitely not a villain neither.
Not all art analysis and commentary is by people looking to be professional writers pitching a work to a publisher, so I don't see what that initial section about writers pitching things to publishers has to do with anything. The terminology used by people buying and selling labor within an industry is often different than the terminology used by people discussing the products made by that industry. I also don't see why tvtropes gets such a major focus here; it's not the origin of the term, and focusing on it just feels a bit like poisoning the well, though I'm not saying you're doing it with that degree of intent.
You say that "a well-written immoral protagonist will still still invite the audience to empathize, in some way or another, with their point of view" and I just don't think that's universally true, and I think the circumstances where that isn't true is the heart of what one would call a 'villain protagonist'. I think Mr C in Twin Peaks: The Return is a well-written immoral protagonist that doesn't at all invite the audience to empathize - it's quite the opposite of the purpose of the character. I think Humbert Humbert as the *character* in Lolita wants the reader to empathize, but is deliberately written in a way so that he comes across as unsympathetic and not someone to empathize with. Those are both to me clear examples of a "villain protagonist"; they're protagonists written for the audience to root against, rather than with. They could also well be described as cautionary tales, sure (or at least as allegories for things to be cautious about, in the case of Mr C), but I think that there is a relevant difference between a character and what we are supposed to "learn" from the character. The Tortoise of the fable of the tortoise and the hare is the protagonist in that fable - but it'd feel weird to say that the tortoise *is a fable*.
I agree the term is overused at times, but I think it is useful in some contexts. Those contexts might not include sales pitches to publishers - but most people aren't aiming to be professional writers, including most of your audience.
A villain protagonist has nothing to do with whether you sympathize with them or not, I have no idea why he's even bringing that up, that would be the definition of an antihero
@@xxstaryyxx161 I agree it's not based on whether you sympathize, but I do think that it is to an extent based on whether it is framed by the text as being sympathetic; in general, an antihero is supposed to be sympathetic, a villain protagonist is not.
I dont really care about the term "villain protagonist" but like antagonist and villain aren't the same thing, hero/villain is based on morality and protagonist/antagonist is just based on their roles in the story
i don't get the overall point of the video,
the term villain protagonist exists because some stories have protagonists that in most stories would fall into the role of a villain.
because the traits that we would normally consider "heroic"or "villanous" are not things that are inseparable from protagonist or antagonist
but i do find that the concept usually fares better on more comedic stories like the game nefarious or xavier renegade angel
yada yada, guso advocates the snap
EDIT: Was responding to your intro -You do later address this somewhat.
Wait - isn't protagonist just the POV character? And antagonist just whoever gets in their way? Like how in the Music Man, our protagonist is a con artist and the mayor who suspects him of being a con artist is the antagonist, but for most of the show (pesky reforming aside) that doesn't correspond with their moral positions at all. Our protagonist isn't meant to be a hero for stealing and spreading misinformation about pool.
Moreorless. i see the hero/villain dichotomy as more to describe how a story frames a character's position from a moral sense. Meanwhile, the protagonist/antagonist dichotomy just centers around whose perspective the narrative primarily follows and who is an obstacle in opposition to the protagonist. This second dichotomy is completely detatched from moral framing, to me.
An antihero still has to be heroic, the examples you listed in under “wish fulfillment” are more in line with classic anti-heroes than characters like Walter White and Alex. Unlikable or Unsympathetic protagonist would be much more accurate in describing those characters rather than anti-hero.
Also, in a manner of speaking Alex and Walter White are villains. They are not the worst or overarching villains, but they are certainly going around worsening the world. They are not even incidental heroes, or villains whose goals rely on preserving some part of the world that incidentally serves good goals. The fact that Walter White does actually choose his family and Jesse in the last episode also does not mean anything; in fact, he literally cannot have his goal of helping his family, and he was about to gun Jesse. His last-second decisions of “good” were coin flips.
There's a concept called 'sturm und drang'. It roughly means 'storm and urge', but it's the idea that heroes can do villainous things, and villains can do heroic things. That's probably not a shocking concept, but that's what it's called.
"Villain" and "Antagonist" are not synonyms.
And you keep using them as if they are, and a lot of your early points seem built upon this mistake.
You say people can't use "Villain protagonist" as an easy shorthand for an elevator pitch.
1: There's a lot of terminology that isn't suitable for that, that doesn't mean the terminology should be discarded.
and 2: Outside of people who don't know what the word "Antagonist" is, you're the first person I've ever experienced who doesn't immediately understand the term. It is self descriptive. If you know what both words mean, you know what the term means. An immoral main character. A primary lead who is a bad person.
You provide three Types of characters who Might be labelled as a villain protagonist, but that doesn't mean Villain Protagonist is a bad term.
The word Bird isn't useless because we can specify different creatures as "chickens" and "feathered creatures" and "corvids".
But hey, what can we expect from someone who advocates for the snap?
Love your content, looking forward to more, but hard disagree on this one.
Villain and antagonist aren’t synonyms, but a villain is a type of antagonist. This is how everyone outside TV Tropes uses the term
@@nykcarnsew2238 You're just incorrect. And I was taught the difference in high school English.
A villain is not necessarily an antagonist. You can have villainous protagonists, villainous deuteragonists, all sorts.
Villain is just a moral judgement. It has nothing to do with that character's degree of focus within the story.
@@calemr no I’m entirely correct. An evil protagonist is a separate type of thing, no non-nerd would call them a villain unless they’re a deliberate genre riff like Megamind
@@nykcarnsew2238 Oh, well, yeah, I'm a total Nerd, dude, I paid attention in class before my GCSEs.
And that... Makes me LESS correct, in your eyes?
The fact I know what words mean is why you think those words Don't mean that?
Well, damn, I'm sorry I'm not poorly educated enough for you to listen to me.
@@calemr do you think I’m calling TV Tropes users nerds because they have a good grasp of literary theory?
Because I’m not
My favorite story with an amoral protagonist is definitely the comics version of Lucifer, you've got a complex storyline where almost everyone sucks in their own ways and a protagonist who has a clearly defined code that does not at all resemble morality as we understand it but is consistent and, appropriately, tempting for the freedom it represents.
Diregentleman advocates the snap
I think your mistaking the term "protagonist" and "hero"
Similar to how people mistake "main character" and "protagonist"
Protagonists are meant to be the one who we see the journey of, Villain or Hero
For example, Crypto Destroy all Humans, we are playing as the Bad Guy, the villain, and bastard. He does grow tho, as overtime he realizes his corrupt government system and realizes he has been cloned numerous times. He also finds out one of his comrades got experimented on by the US military. He has points of growth, but they all point to him wanting to destroy humanity even more. Hell by the 3rd game, he loses his own leadership and just goes back to destroying all humans. He is a Villain, but also the Protagonist... He's a Villain Protagonist
This whole video is so stupid, if a protagonist can be a hero, then a protagonist can be a villain, and ta antihero is somewhere in-between, is literally all you have to say to debunk this video
Man I used to love Diregentleman! It's a shame that he went off the internet after saying "Diregentleman advocates the snap." I'm not sure why. He only wanted things to be balanced.
Bowser in _Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story_ is perfect example of a villain protagonist done right.
He has always been the main baddie in Mario games, though there are times when the baddie becomes playable and even teamed up with Mario to face against a bigger threat than himself, especially in RPG games. In BiS, he saved the day only because he wanted to get his castle back and get rid of another villain he faced, but still retaining his villain status and give him a personality that makes him come out of his shell.
good point and kindly follow the exit signs
He is also a good example of a power fantasy. I mean he is a king of the powerful kingdom, physically powerful, subjects love him, has a good number of kids and a decent dad. I mean if that is not a masculine powerful fantasy, I don't know what is
@@starmaker75 Bowser used black magic to turn every Toads into bricks and horsetails in the original Super Mario Bros. (and the Japanese sequel), and not to mention he used painting canvases to create worlds in SM64, so I wouldn't be surprised if he fits the power fantasy category.
@@poweroffriendship2.0 also wanted to point out that Mario and Luigi respents a different type of fantasy and that is the humble fantasy. Where unconventional people are the ones that save the day. I mean Mario and Luigi don't have the heroic build, Luigi get easily scared and more recently Mario's relationship with peach doesn't go romantic(Mario Odyssey) so far. However both of them still fight what is right and take down the villain that is more powerful traditional speaking. Another example would be the hobbits from tolkien works(the hobbit and lord of the rings)
@@starmaker75Funnily enough, Mario and Luigi are very OP'd in terms of gameplay because not only they can attack with their hammers to hit and shoes to jump on enemies, but they also managed to defend themselves by counterattacking them and not let the enemies beat them up and not to mention that they have powerful items and moves that are aided throughout their journey. After all, they are built different unlike other RPG protagonists because of toon physics. No wonder why they can beat Sephiroth with no problem.
The way I've always seen it is that a villain protagonist is what you call the protagonist if they would otherwise be the villain in the story if the focus were on another character. For me, the value of the title is really more about separating "hero" or "good guy" from "protagonist". In a way, Thanos is actually a pretty good example of it. He is The Villain of the arc, and he does not stop being the villain in Infinity War. But now, suddenly, he's also the protagonist. Nothing about who he is or what he's doing has changed, but now the story is following him and not, say, Tony Stark.we
And while this might not strictly follow the dictionary definition of "villain", well, that doesn't matter too much because words can mean all sorts of things that aren't in the dictionary. That's how language evolves.
Everytime I hear the word "Villain Protagonist" I swear that I can hear your screams of rage somewhere in the distance
edit: Wow I can't believe that Diregentleman advocates The Snap
Is there a discussion to be had about protagonists advertised to be villains but just end up being anti-heroes at worst? Venom, Black Adam, Morbius. I've already seen people roll their eyes at Kraven having daddy issues being the reason he hunts what are probably gonna be bad guys+spiderman.
that's because those characters are supervillains and not villains. Villain is a role in a story where our idea of the supervillain is more of a collection of tropes and ideas that emerged from superhero comic villains. In the original comics, the supervillain would be the villain, but you remove them from that context, they're still a supervillain, but they're no longer the villain. Supervillain just became it's own thing
Have supervillains become their own thing, or are they just turned into the typical hollywood protagonist?
What separates super villains like Venom, Black Adam, and Morbius from super heroes like Wolverine, Iron Man, and Blade? All of them are willing to kill bad guys attacking them, all of them are concerned about the well being of innocents, all of them are discriminated against for what they are, and by the end of their movies, they are either redeemed or accepted. The difference is that at the end of super villain films you get a scene of them going "hmmm... I should do something bad... Nah, just kidding... but what if... I don't like that spider guy's face." Trailers saying something along the lines of "no one is born evil" rings hollow when the protagonists are always justified since the people they kill are drug dealers who use orphan blood to resurrect beelzebub in order to increase their colonizing military's profit margins by 2%. The homogeneity is frustrating when Hollywood films write villains to be protagonists instead of creating stories where the protagonists are villains.
It's not like stories can't be written with true villain protagonists. Suicide Squad: Assault on Arkham is my favorite and probably best example of an actual villain movie. The protags do form a friendship with each other throughout the film, but by the end they do not hesitate to turn on each other if it meant they can save themselves. Thanos from infinity war is also a pretty good example of what a villain protagonist can be, even if him being the protagonist isn't immediately understood going in or out of the movie. TBH, I think the closest thing a Hollywood-made super villain movie has gotten to what people want from a villain movie is the first deadpool movie.
TL;DR super villains aren't really villains, and their movies aren't really super. If someone can make a novel explaining what I'm feeling in much better words or can debunk this entire comment in one sentence of better words, I'd be happy to read it some other day.
If Gus didn't advocate for the snap, we would have more diversity of writers and have world peace somehow. IDK, I'm tired.
Ngl, I both love and hate the "villain-protagonist"/evil protagonist trope. I do feel it can work out really well if the writer doesn't ignore/downplay the protagonist's immorality and uses it to appropriately show off a specific narrative or moral. However, I feel a lot of media that uses this trope can quickly become pretty distasteful and unenjoyable if they don't properly address said evil, or don't use it to good effect. To me, the original God of War trilogy (mainly in the later half) had the issue where they showed Kratos become a monster as the game progressed, but didn't do a whole lot with it (especially when they make the majority of the people he kills *also* massive assholes later on.) They did at least help fix this issue with the new series however, where Kratos has reflected on his actions and not only realized how fucked up it was, but actively did everything he could to make sure his son never follows the same fate as him. I am fine with an evil protagonist, so long as the evil serves a role beyond making the story darker.
They’re gonna make a third dad of boy?
@@Gloomdrake Maybe. I feel the narrative work it already did was amazing and that it could be left as is, but I wouldn't doubt they could've find a way to make it work out.
That pitch line about Superman shows me you do not understand the character.
My pitch line for Superman is
Small town man with small town values fights Big Time Problems
The execs are gonna be really confused when they find out during production that he comes from space and has superpowers. They need to know what genre your story is
@@nykcarnsew2238 true LOL
Diregentleman Advocates The Snap
Henry Advocates The Crackle
and Meg Advocates The Pop
Definition 1 can be an antagonist, but doesn't have to be. Defintion doesnt say the hero had to be a protagonist.
Defintion 2 and 3 are not inherently protagonist or anragonist, and depending on tone, complextiy and narrative, a villian can be 2 dimensional or round, (just like heroes can be), which means the words arent contradictory bc "hero, villian, ect" are words that describe the narrative's position on morality. Antagonist and protagonist are just POV signifiers.
My personal favorite use of the phrase "villain protagonist" is as a Steam tag for the Ethan Klein DLC for Payday 2
This has nothing to do with the video, the title just reminded me of it lmao
I think TV-Tropes jargon is kinda like that one animation show (it could really be any one, its the one that comes to mind), by dignifing it with an opinion you are degrading the debate around it cause the debate itself is the problem.
No one knew or cared about it before getting exposed by some rando in the internet, if we ignore them, the problem should solve itself, its not like this guys are gonna right stuff, i think.
So im a TV Tropes denier, SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE! this is all just a natural phenomenon!! There is no cientific poof!!
villain is an archetype of a character meaning a person who has evil motivation,a protagonist is a role in the story where a character is the focal point of it and the story is said through their perspective.the opposite of villain is a hero and the opposite of protagonist is an antagonist.i dont see how the concept of a villain protagonist is contradictory as its just a main characters who is evil in some way
yeah, this has been a particlerly odd opinion of diregentelmen i dont really aggre with? honestly, i agree with a lot if stuff they say but this.
Unless you’ve grown up on TV Tropes a villain is *always* an antagonist, that’s just how the term is used. A morally unscrupulous protagonist can fit several other archetypes, like the antihero, but they aren’t a villain. That’s just not what that word means
@@nykcarnsew2238 when you describe someone as villainous,you mean that they are evil ,when you describe someone as a heroic you mean they are good.they are clearly archetypes
@@gigablast4129 I wouldn’t describe someone as villainous, that’s not a thing anyone actually does unless you live in the renaissance. If I were to call a character a villain though that’d mean they’re a capital B Bad Guy, as would anyone else who wasn’t raised by TV Tropes
@@nykcarnsew2238 i wasnt raised on tvtropes i barely even used the site
You complain about the fact that people project their morality into the story, when it is natural, even in the writers case, since what you believe is right and what you believe is wrong does affect how you portray things in your story.
Also, kinda get the vibe from the video that it seems only "morally dubious and vile protagonists" can make comments about society and corruption in the system, which i feel is not always the case.
And the whole "unlike cookie clean protagonists" kinda makes me feel like you separate the protagonists in fiction as either "reprehensible" or "pure good with no flaws", with nothing existing in between these two categories.
These are three new sentences. I don’t disagree with any viewpoint you expressed here, and take full responsibility if this video didn’t convey room for these distinctions.
@@WeRNotAlive Apologies for the assumptions. Just by the tone of your video, i thought that these if what your actual opinion was and what you tried to convey. The way you separated "protagonists who are horrible people" with "cookie cutter protagonists" made me assume that you think that these are the only types of protagonists that exist. And your emphasis on "bad heroes" reflecting and making stance about corruption of the government made me assume that you think only "bad heroes" can have this stance.
Once again, I apologize if that was the takeaway. “Bad Heroes” is more or less thumbnail text, I don’t believe those words are said next to each other in the videos. I also don’t believe morally dubious and morally pure protagonists are a hard binary, quite the opposite - stating that the moral framework of a protagonist can be wider than prescriptive assumptions is one of the intentions of the piece. If that didn’t track for you, my b.
Re: writing only ending up in a desktop folder. I publish fanfics and I have no desire to join the professional writing industry. So I hone my craft without having to conform to publishers standards. I think it’s a little rude to assume that publishing your work requires a pitch especially with self publishing growing so fast.
I personally like the idea of an "antagonist protagonist". A protagonist who has extreme problems that make themsleves there own worst enemy. When done right it is often a very interesting character study. However most movies manage to f*** it up by either not going into it enough or going all out on the heros problems, for some reason directors cant get the right ratio.
Man vs Self.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf"
That’s a classical anti-hero
You would love "Malcolm In The Middle"
Diregentelmen advocates the snap
I had the true story of the 3 little pigs as a child! Such a classic
So... I interpret it as him blatantly lying about what happened as an alibi. Do you see it that way?
Edit: Oh wait that's obviously the point.
TIL I'm the same age as fucking tv tropes. This information will somehow persist in my brain long after I've forgotten loved ones and important events once my brain starts going I guarantee it
What do you have against catdog?? 😢
Look at them.
@@WeRNotAlive you are a cruel and heartless monster
I can’t believe Guso Milkarella would personally do a Thanos snap
You could call them anti-villains but that confuses people. Protagonist is simply the focus of the story, it doesn't require that protagonist to be good or bad, so calling them a villain protagonist is kinda accurate fitting though for a character like Walter White. Antagonist is the opposition to the protagonist, good nor bad isn't required. It's the relative role in story it isn't their morality, even if there is a typical expectation of the protagonist to be the "good guy" that's not what those words mean.
There are probably anti-villainous protagonists as well, people who are, at the end of the day, bad, but have some aspect that the work can agree with and paints them as better than some other degree of villain, and are not just meant to be just an evil person or a cautionary tale. Season 6 Rick Sanchez would be an anti-villainous protagonist - he is still a jerk and only wants to kill one person, but he has had some personal growth enough to care about the Sanchez family he lives with, so he is basically a villain, but he is not the worst villain and is framed as bad but with some positive qualities and not the worst person.
@@iantaakalla8180 Man I got like 4 seasons of Rick and Morty to get around to watching.
I consider Colfer's Artemis Fowl to be one of these characters
Protagonist and hero do not mean the same thing, likewise with antagonist and villain. Hero and villain describe the character's relation to the assumed audience's sense of morality, and their opposition to each other, not their position within the perspective of a narrative. Also, I can't believe I had to dig six minutes in to get to that argument.
All of your alternative suggestions are just ways to dull the edge when someone is really just trying to say, "the protagonist of this story is just a shitty person." Also, when I say villain protagonist, I am generally not complimenting the story, I am saying their protagonist jumped eagerly off the cliffs of moral ambiguity into moral reprehensibility, and people rooted for them anyway because they aren't good at reading media or secretly enjoy the protagonist's immoral actions.
Well if a villain watched a villain protagonist it would be a hero to him.
You conflate “villain” and “antagonist” the protagonist is merely the main figure of which a story is told around. If Vader was the protagonist of A New Hope, it wouldn’t automatically make luke a villain, it would simply make him the antagonist while still occupying a heroic role within the story
I throught a "villain protagonist" was a villain that takes the main role
Like, they aren't relatable at all but he still takes the protagonist, something like black hat
I've never heard them referred to as specifically villain protagonists. I've heard villain-OUS protagonists plenty of times, though.
Diregentlemen advocates the snap :o
DIRE GENTLEMAN ADVOCATES THE SNAP?
People who advocate the snap are a different kind of bread
I think the main argument is semantics; if one uses "villain" to mean an "evil person" regardless of the role in the story, whether they be the main character (protagonist) or an obstacle (antagonist)... then an evil person who is the point-of-view character makes sense. The only way it wouldn't is if one uses "Villain" to mean "An antagonist who is evil", which in that case 'Villain Protagonist' literally means "Evil Antagonist Protagonist" which is a contradiction.
That being said, the point-of-view, the Protagonist, does not have to be morally good. A story can focus on a murder and be like "Hey, this is messed up" or say that the murderer's actions are good, and if the second case is true then you better watch out for whoever that storyteller is.
Of course normally in stories you do have "This is the main character and they are morally good" and "This is the opposing character and they are morally evil" but they aren't mutually exclusive either. I remember TV shows about villains as the main characters, and in theory they are... Villain Protagonists, despite their frequent antagonists being superheros...
And also I realized like, when I was a child before I even knew of TVTropes, that the Protagonist/Antagonist and Hero/Villain (or Good/Evil) dichotomies aren't mutually exclusive.
I was on the TvTropes page "villain protagonist" because the 1996 Fargo page uses the term. I immediately thought of you because of the moment when you insulted Lily Orchard and their use of the term, and now a video about it pops up!
I don't understand how you can say that Thanos isn't a villain just because he's the protagonist. I think the whole point of the term "villain protagonist" was to emphasize that there's a difference between the roles a character plays in the narrative structure and whether the character is portrayed as right or wrong, and Thanos fits the term to a T. The video didn't actually give any reason for why he's not a villain other than because he's the protagonist, but that's just saying, "He can't be a villain protagonist because there's no such thing as a villain protagonist." It's trying to make your point into a tautology.
Sure, the movie makes us disagree with Cap's philosophy of, "We don't trade lives," but it also makes us disagree with Thanos's philosophy. And any sane person watching it still think Cap is in the right compared to Thanos, even if we also think that Cap should have taken more extreme measures to defeat him. I certainly don't think the movie is trying to portray Thanos as actually being a hero - it just wants us to know why he thinks he's the hero.
No he doesn't. He was right in the story. All the tiem the "heroes" tried to proof him wrong on how sacrefices are bad, they fail and just proof that they are incabale of accepting loss even if necessary. He was in the eyes of the story, far from wrong, quite the opposite, he was portrayed as right.
That is why you get so many people agreeing with him. The Protagonist is the most sympathetic character on virtue of you seeing their viewpoint and they can't really be villians per definition as Diregentelmen laid out, as this is a form of othering and thus, an antagonistic archetype.
You can be the protagonist and evil, but in literature, a Villian is a form of oppostion, not some moral value or lack of, it is not how it works.
In fairness, trying to save Vision by removing the stone safely wasn't a bad idea, they were just pressed for time. Also, Star-lord was willing top shoot Gamora like she asked, just waited too long.
To me, “villain protagonist” only made sense when the character in question was explicitly trading in preestablished conventions of villainy, i.e. supervillains, classic monsters, evil overlords, that sort of thing. They are “a” villain, even if they aren’t “the” villain in this particular story.
I really love it when Diregentleman does scripted content. More please!
OK, but here's what you miss: the term Villain Protagonist means significantly more than the term Anti-Hero. The protagonist is the character we follow. A villain is a bad person. Put those together, we know that you mean we follow a bad person.
Anti-hero means that someone has some negative traits and some positive traits. This could mean everything from "They murder and cannibalize orphans, but they tip 21% every time they get food" to "They're basically Superman, but they smoke." The only thing the term means is that someone isn't literal Jesus who has done no wrong in his life, or literal Satan who has done no good. Anti-hero doesn't tell you anything about the moral framing, if the character is in the spotlight, or even what they actually do wrong.
Saying "The story is about an anti-hero" just says "the story is about a human who isn't as squaky-clean as Superman."
Saying "the story is about a villain protagonist" instead tells us "The story is about someone who is fundamentally a bad person, but we still focus on them."
Its amazing to me that when people think of sympathetic villains they think of the Joker immediately. I dont think these people even know the joker. Just because hes cool and charismatic doesnt mean hes sympathetic. This was even before the Joaquin pheonix movie came out. Im pretty sure todd philips's only knowledge of the character was these people.
I was skeptical if this was for real or not when you said Walter White wasn’t a villain but it all became clear when you said THANOS wasn’t a villain and now my stomach hurts from laughing so hard
I think what really defines the hero/villain in a narrative is whether a character's overall position is framed as morally just or not.
@@ArbitraryOutcome *Breaking Bad Spoilers*
Walter White is still the villain in that regard. The show wants you to know he’s in the wrong by the end. He doesn’t win at the end, he gets what he deserves.
That's actually extremely gross, if he's seriously said that, thanos's a fantasy representation of actual people like Elon musk, who are brutally dangerous because of how how they think they're the one who's going to solve the world's problems with their half baked ideas
@@ethanhethcoat3144 It’s also clear that any good he does is incidental on his power trip, because part of his power trip is that he is the protector and provider for his family and a father figure to the manipulable Jesse, This weird cognitive dissonance, and the interplay between most cops, Hank, the Salamancas, Jesse, Gus and Mike, and then later Jack, and Lydia (and Todd) is why Walter White incidentally takes out most drug dealers, and then incidentally makes it hard for people to deal drugs en masse in Albuquerque, and then purposefully secures a future for Jesse and his family also incidentally. Walter was never a good person, and if he was otherwise helpless, he brought it on himself. He just never had a chance to break bad.
can't believe diregentleman would advocate the snap smh
catdog is a slice of life anime
Anticipating any future video responses to this. Would make for an interesting discussion.
Also, Gus advocates for the snap kekw
5:08 You need to define hero first.
Not relevant because “villain” is the word being used to modify the term protagonist - which encompasses typical heroic characters but also morally bankrupt individuals without said modifier.
Diregentlemen advocates the snap.
Also, very well written video.
Diregentleman is super supportive if all snap related decisions and effects, he biggest snap advocate if i have ever seen one.
What about Patrick Bateman? He isn't an antihero, there isn't really any wish fulfillment (I for one don't daydream about killing hookers and having an existential crisis over a font), and he isn't relatable enough really be a cautionary tale (and those that do relate to him tend to ignore what a horrible person he actually is).
Also what about those asshole protagonists from Tales of the Crypt? Their only purpose is to be as horrible as possible so that it's cathartic when they get their just desserts at the end.
I’d like to imagine an actual villain protagonist is like cat dog but one end is the hero and the other is the villain.
Me watching this while eating Chef Boyardee🗿
My favorite part of this video is when Diregentlemen advocated the snap
TV Tropes would save all a lot of trouble if they chose "Villain *ous* Protagonist"
Or antihero, except for some reason they use that exclusively for characters that resemble Todd McFarlane creations
#DiregentlemanAvocadosTheSlimJim
I'm more of a villain supporting-character, personally.
Can't believe Diregentleman condones the snap smh.
Legit tho, I loved this video and it even made me laugh several times. xD Good job y'all!!
Invader Zim is a great comedic villain protagonist
Walter White is also a comedic villain protagonist, and is comedic because he is not a person meant to be a meth kingpin.
Man I can't believe this channel is so pro snapping. Making the claim Thanos should have killed seventy-five percent of universe was a wild take I didn't see coming.
Diregentleman "advocates" the snap.
I would never call Abuela or the volcano lady "hero antagonists," bc the protagonists of those stories are the heroes of their stories. (Sure a story can have heroes with different solutions and oppose each other, but I wouldnt say that Moana or Encanto are good exanples or even bad examples of your point, just different story structures all together).
Abuela is a misguided matriarch, and Mirable is trying to find a way to save her family deepite her place as the family scapegoat, while Abuela is trying to do good, but doesnt know shes the problem. That makes Abuela a sympathetic antagonist, not a heroic one.
And volcano lady is angry she lost her treasure (or something like that), and even tho it was wrong for it to be stolen, Moana isnt a villian for trying to oppose the volcano, again, the volcano is a synpathetic antagonist, not "hero antagonist."
Niether of these stories fit the "hero antagonist" definitions and examples that are shown on the screenshot of TV tropes, which the entry does show reasonable examples for when such a term can be useful. I find it odd that it was included as if it would help co-sign this point in the video when it doss the opposite.
Dire gentleman advecats the snap
Protagonist: the perspective character
Antagonist: the obstacle character
Hero: a character who conforms to the authors morality
Villain: a character who objects to the authors morality
Its not that hard
No one outside of tv tropes actually use them that way. A hero is a heroic protagonist and a villain an evil antagonist, a protagonist who isn’t recognisably “heroic” in an archetypal sense is a different trope entirely, not a villain
@nykcarnsew2238 these are the terms I was taught in middleschool. Then again I've never used the term villain protagonist to describe my characters because I see every character as the protagonist so I won't die on this hill.
@@Mandus_The_Mad you were probably taught by a TV Tropes user in middle school then
@@nykcarnsew2238bruh, can you seriously just shut up about TV tropes. Every person I see you reply to you accuse them of getting their views from tv tropes or they were taught by someone who got their views from TV tropes. You don't like TV tropes we get it, but it doesn't make claiming that no one uses the terms hero, villain, etc. different from the way you use the terms true. You think that your usage of the term is the only correct one, but that's not how language works.
Direfentleman Advocates the Snap
Wow, I can't believe that this channel so wholeheartedly agrees with the snap /s
Summary: Villain protagonist is a functionally useless description. Villain is a role within a story that overlaps with antagonist, and for it to be applied to your protagonist it requires such a broad definition of villain it could describe any number of characters. There are other, more specific terms that exist that are much more helpful when actually talking about media and writing.
diregentleman advocates the snap
Ngl for years now my working definition of an anti hero was that shadow the hedgehog is one
He's really not, though.
He's just an edgy hero.
Can't believe that Diregentleman advocates The Snap 🤨
Direngents usually are really good but this one just seems petty to me, even being kinda stupid, its strawmaning how 99% of people use villain, protagonist and villain-protagonist.
It misconstrues colloquial vs professional.
An example of an actual relevant colloquial vs professional miscontruing is when theists say "evolution is just a theory", this ACTUALLY conflates and misuses the word "theory", since theory has the COLLOQUIAL meaning of just meaning a possibility based on observations, but scientific theories means something else.
Villain and protagonist have a COLLOQUIAL and INFORMAL definitions of meaning "really bad guy" and "POV character" respectively, villain-protagonist is a perfectly okay word informally.
No one is pushing the idea that villain protagonist is a serious and professional word that everyone should use, nor do they conflate anything since they arent used in professional contexts, villain-protagonist is usually used informally by non-professionals making essays, it is used by people INFORMALLY and COLOQUIALLY, yet diregent here seems to be treating like villain protagonist falls under the same problem as scientific vs informal theory which is just dumb.
Also, please don't tell me that "villain" and "protagonist" are exclusively pro writing words that can't be used informally, thats just stupid.
The people who are not professional writers are using the terms in the not professional ways, I wonder why.
Also, blah blah words have multiple meaning language is fluid socially constructed and evolves and so on, this all helps my point too.
This video is not _just_ semantics, its petty linguistic prescriptivism that conflates informal and formal language and is basically asking people to know everything and be hyper formal.
Imagine criticizing Game Theory because their videos are not scientific theories and for infecting the minds of the populus with an "unprofessional" definition of theory, this video is doing exactly that but for villain/protagonist instead of theories.
Also, just copy and pasting my comment here because i think its relevant:
@nykcarnsew2238 why do you insist on language being some sort of absolute and objective law?
Villain-Protagonist uses its own definifition of villain and protagonist, or is just a completely separate term.
Like how Powerscaling is not literally any measurement of power ever, despite being just Power + Scaling, both words even having significantly separated defintions from Powerscaling.
There. The end. Its a completely valid term non-professionally, which is how its used 99.9999% of the time.
Silence, linguistic prescriptivist!
Wait a minute, your point on Thanos, you mean to tell me you were able to look at that movie, completely disagree with the themes and messages it was trying to convey, and yet acknowledge that it was a well put together story and that it should be judged on its own terms rather than be judged by how well it fits into your own personal ethics?
I'm both saddened by how rare that kind of media analysis is and laughing at the image of some critics I know having their brains short circuit at the thought of trying to look at art that way.
Yeah, I think what you criticized and the fact that hero antagonist/villain protagonist as terms exists, shows that people can stop to project their views on stuff that doesn't have them and thus helps us NOT understand them at all.
The funny thing is that Thanos is actually the perfect example of a villain protagonist. In terms of MCU framing, he is the focused-upon character. He is the character wanting something and focusing his goal. The actual heroes, while doing heroic stuff, are indecisive for many reasons, and therefore look bad in their convictions, framing them as the villains in a typical MCU movie. But obviously, Thanos wants to do the Snap, and this is not even some hard decision, but more so a weird grudge against being incorrect about managing his species. In Endgame, it’s even more of an excuse.
Diregentlemen Advocates the Snap. Smh.
Also, I'm kind of surprised you made no mention of Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss
Of course Diregentleman Advocates The Snap. ;)