Guild Wars 2

Humanoid antagonists, are a big problem for many a franchise.

Many stories set up the hero to be the most significant character in the story, or, they do the same with the antagonist.

This, in itself, can be the defining fall of any good story.

Scarlets plot demonstrated that an entire audience can be split in two as to where they stand be it that they enjoyed her raving lunacy, or that they found it highly irritating.

I myself believe Scarlet was a lesson to be learned from.

What do I think A-net needs to do when making future humanoid villains?

Start with the Humanoid

There are a few tropes one can go for when creating an ultimate villain but lets not even start with the bad guy/girl yet, and instead focus on the players interaction with them and what makes that significant.

The protagonist, first of all, does not necessarily have to be the GOOD GUY.

The protagonist literally means, the main character, the defining person of the story, and at times, we can be faced against enemies that may actually try to hinder us, because our actions may create worse through our ignorance, hubris, or simply ambitious goals.

The Hero can be flawed.

We make the immediate assumption the major antagonist isn’t you, but the thing is, the antagonist, by definition, is the obstacle, the problem that the protagonist must overcome, personified.

So we have several options as to what that obstacle can be:

The Lunatic
Scarlet Briar in a nutshell, a Lunatic is someone that has either no obvious goal or creates a reason out of chaos. Their actions cause terror and anarchy everywhere they go and they leave a trail of unpatterned devastation anywhere they please.
The strength of a character like this lies however, heavily in their presence. They must convey a heavy sense of raw brutality, mixed with anarchistic cunning, allowing them to seem utterly unstable, even giving a few chills to you.
The weakness of the lunatic is reason, their actions don’t require logic, defining points, they are mad, their origin story tells the tale of who they were, what they are doing, why they are doing it. We know what they are now, and who they were then, that’s what defines the Lunatic, they are mad, or driven to madness, in order to make sense of their cruel lives.

The Monster
There is a crucial difference between the above personality and this one, the method in which they achieve their goals and the level of sanity in their actions.
You see, unlike the Lunatic, the Monster HAS a plan, even if they are touched or a little mad, they are an utter sociopath and void of any empathy for their foe.
They take a cruel, unnecessarily ruthless pleasure in hurting people, because they can.
This is the character, when written well, the audience loves to hate, such as Joffrey Baratheon in GoT, who’s personality is the rotten child that takes sadistic pleasure in using his subjects like playthings without any regard for their lives.
The Monster is either powerful or powerless, but ultimately ascends the ladder of power by murdering his or her way there without a care for anyone caught in the crossfire.

The Tyrant
Unlike the Monster the Tyrant has a degree of reasoning behind his cruelty, his actions justify the greater good or at least his perception of this in his reign as king or lord or her reign in power of something greater.
Tyrants are respected, feared, and revered by their subjects, their strength is in their personality, they must be authoritarian, ruthless, and willing to murder thousands that the few may live.
Some Tyrants are worse than others, but Tyrants strength lies in their motivation, they seek power, to enforce it, weather to rule independently and establish an empire that will last their name a thousand years, or because they have seen the weak failures of lesser races and believe they can achieve better with more questionable methods.
The Tyrant is not without mercy, depending on how close to the Monster he is, but his actions define him as a man hated by his people.
Weather it is for questionable good, or simply a desire for power, he will do anything to hold what he has gained, no matter how many lives perish in the process.

The Anti-Villain
She had motives you can sympathize with, but her methods could do more harm than good. She’s a person whose tragedy inspires you to feel remorse for what you do to them, you do not take any pleasure in fighting this person, but your views and theirs are polar opposites.
Anti-Villains have a great respect for the protagonist, traditionally, be it because of their methods or simply their morals. But they also have their own way of achieving the greater good, and this often involves sacrifices and using unholy rituals to kill thousands that a few might survive.
Much like the Tyrant, this trope shares the desire to achieve something, but the goal is more altruistic, and tragic, the player can feel a sense of remorse to their enemy this way, and hopefully, maybe even save them from themselves before its too late.
If, they can be saved.

The Fallen Hero
This is the opposite of the previous trope, this character WAS on your side, and may have even stood by you once. But circumstances have turned them into a bitter, cruel, husk of a shell of their former self. They have lost everything that ever mattered to them, all that remains now is revenge.
That is one way to approach it, the other is the fallibility of temptation, and that all heroes can fall if the prospect of something greater awakens a latent desire for greed. It is so very easy for a heroes ambition to help others to become one that helps themselves.
Either way, this character is someone you know, someone you may have cared about, someone that’s personality, directly opposes you because once, you were friends, allies.
Their betrayal of everything they stand for wounds you the most, they have become the embodiment of the very thing they were fighting against, and this is the worst possible fall a hero can have.
It is even harder to pull them back out of it, since many who fall that far, generally never come back, and some may not even want to.

The Traitor/Manipulator
This person is on your side, for now, but you always did suspect something wasn’t quite right about them. They seem to easily willing to do things that would make most stomachs turn, they don’t seem to care about life the way you do, worst of all, they are only using you, for their own ends.
Sometimes, you even know its going to happen, but its the when that gives the suspense, knowing that this unholy alliance is never meant to last, or that the person you suspect is probably going to strike you may in fact have accomplices you did “Not” expect.
No, that clever kitten managed to manipulate you perfectly, she got you to even think one of your other friends was the one trying to betray you, but all along, she stole the gem right in front of your eyes at the moment you suspected it’d be the other guy.
Foolish little hero, you should have just realized, you’ve been played.
And now she gets to do what ever she wants with you.

Those are a few of the tropes I feel A-net should consider following in future, reading more deeply into them than I do of course, and perhaps mixing them to create more original individuals with goals.

But ultimately, what we need is antagonists that we can get to know, personally, their personalities, their involvement with us, their reason for hating us.

The protagonist needs an obstacle, the obstacle needs to put its way into the protagonists path.

That, is the cycle of the bad guys role.

Thanks for reading, also, if anyone else has opinions as to what kind of antagonist we should encounter next, on the humanoid front, please throw down some ideas, it’d be interesting to see what discussions we can create.

What does a person who believes “what they are doing is right” fall under. This could be tricked into believing something, or experience that has made them believe something. I figured that villain would be the anti-hero but you describe him as someone who has “motives you can sympathize with, but her methods could do more harm than good”. Either way, this is really nice and I would like to see all of them tbh. There is never just ‘one’ major villain. There may be others who have similar ideals and goals. But Seeing all the villains you mentioned above would be great, and they don’t even have to be on the same side. Having multiple villains with different ideals and goals would be an epic story. But if I had to choose one, it would be the anti-hero or the one I said would “believe what they are doing is right”.

I want a villain that’s actually doing bad things based on his beliefs and his past, it can create some intense scenes, with some kind of Mass Effect 3 dialogue and the endings can vary.

Oliver:
A person that believes they are doing right falls under the anti-villain category, but can become an anti-hero if they are redeemed from their questionable path’s darker conclusion.
I do admit, having more than one big bad would be even more interesting, that way you could have ongoing antagonists just as you have ongoing companions.
It also gives them a lot more character development.

Avascar:

Y’know honestly ME3 was a love-hate for me but I do admit there were times it had stand out moments. Yes, it can be quite moving though to have a big bad that you can actually relate to or see exactly who they are from their past deeds or present ones.

I myself hope to see A-net’s focus on the antagonist of the story shift less from “I am evil MUAHAHAHA” to what controversial elements of evil a person can go through.

Again, there is also one trope I missed from the list before I feel should be added:

You

The main antagonist can in fact BE the protagonist, the most unexpected twist of all is that the hero may unknowingly be doing greater evil than greater good because of their actions, which they believe to be righteous, but may in fact, have much more lasting long term consequences.

This leads to the most interesting kind of antagonist, the hero antagonist, who is in fact a good person trying to stop “you” from doing bad things, even if you believe your actions are right.

It certainly gives you a fun experience being the bad guy even if inadvertently because it explores every aspect of the heroes qualities, their willingness to save the world, be it for themselves, or for others, their fallibility into the insight of a situation, or simply their arrogance to listen.

It can also be the most impact driven twist of all to know your actions have worsened a situation significantly, because then it falls directly onto the player to correct the mistake.

Its “your” fault.