How to create an antagonist for your webtoon and webcomic story
This post will go through what makes an antagonist great and how to make a great antagonist for your webcomic. An antagonist doesn't have to be human. For example, a natural disaster or even the protagonist's mental state can be an antagonist. However I will be focusing on character based antagonists in this post.
A good antagonist needs only two things – a goal that links them with the protagonist, and to make the protagonist grow. A great antagonist however is memorable. They have their own moral compass, personality, character growth, compelling backstory, and drive.
Many famous and great antagonists do bad things for reasons that to them are good. They do horrible things to the protagonist to save their child, country, or even to save the world. Interestingly, antagonists don't have to be morally evil, they just have a goal that puts them against the protagonist.
What is an antagonist?
The antagonist is the direct force opposing your protagonist. They are the one your main character must defeat to achieve their goal.
Why the antagonist of your story is important
[I do not own the rights to any of the images in this post or post cover.]
A webtoon is only ever as interesting as the antagonist makes it. This is because the antagonist creates the main drama and conflict which readers desire. The antagonist should either be equal to the main character or stronger than them, to make the challenges harder for the protagonist
For example, Death Note would not be as entertaining if L was not as intelligent as Light. Their similar level of intelligence creates uncertainty about who will win between them.
Your protagonist changes through the challenges your antagonist creates for them. The change can be physical, mental, emotional, or through power and abilities. This change is sometimes what readers look forward to, they want to see what the characters will become.
For example, readers of My Hero Academy anticipate how Midoriya will grow stronger. What type of hero will he become? And how will he utilize All For One? Each enemy he faces pushes him to grow and become accustomed to his new power.
Quick tip
The changes the protagonist goes through can be small. It can also be changes to their environment or country. For example, Light Yagami changes from an intelligent kind student to a manipulative killer early on in Death Note. However, it is highly recommended to have some character growth at some point.
Can you have more than one antagonist?
Yes, and it is quite common.
A character can have smaller goals to achieve a larger goal. For this reason, a webtoon can also have smaller antagonists preventing your protagonist from achieving that goal. Each antagonist will force your character to grow in some way before they move on to the next goal.
Another popular practice is to have a different main antagonist in every arc. Each antagonist is like the final boss of that arc. The arc will also have minor antagonists for characters to overcome as well as the main antagonist.
A popular example is One Piece. Luffy’s goal is to find One Piece and become the Pirate King. To achieve this, he needs to grow stronger and find clues about where One Piece is. Each island he travels to has a main antagonist which he must fight. In the Dressrosa arc, Luffy had to fight Doflamingo. Meanwhile, his crew fought off the lesser antagonists – Doflamingo's crew.
Power Dynamics
The antagonist should have more power than the protagonist. However, there are different kinds of power that they can have. The typical power balance is based on physical strength. Other examples include magical abilities and superpowers. The antagonist might have a polarizing power compared to the protagonist, for example, fire and ice. Or the antagonist could have a higher number of abilities, more spells in their book, more mana, or a better affinity to magic.
Moving away from the physical and supernatural, the power dynamic could be around intelligence like in Death Note.
In the webtoon, The Remarried Empress, the antagonist, Rashta, is a former slave. The Empress, Navier, is the protagonist here. However, the reason Rashta has more power over the Empress is because she is manipulative and has The Emperor’s favor. Rashta uses these two things to climb up the social ladder and take over the Empress’ life. The power dynamic here is in who can be the most cunning and who has the most social influence.
Other examples are:
The antagonist can do the cruel things the protagonist can’t. The antagonist has more money. The antagonist has more weapons, a larger army, or more allies and resources.
Back story
Giving your antagonist a backstory makes them more believable. It helps readers understand their actions or personality. The backstory doesn’t have to be tragic for the antagonist. The backstory, for example, could show readers that the antagonist was cold-hearted since childhood. The backstory can help readers understand where these personality traits and desires came from.
It is up to the webtoon creator how they use the backstory in their webcomic/webtoon. Some use it to make readers side with the antagonist and doubt their own morality. Most use it to flesh out the antagonist and make them believable.
The backstory can show how the antagonist became the way they are, Who the antagonist’s family are, and where they are. When the antagonist became ‘evil’. Why the antagonist has that particular goal?
Quick tip
Some webtoon creators bring the antagonist’s past back to haunt them. If they overcome this, they are able to grow.
Character growth
Similar to the protagonist, the antagonist can experience character growth. On one hand, the antagonist can become more wicked as a result of their character growth. On the other hand, they might join your protagonist because of their character growth. The later usually applies to manga or webcomics with multiple antagonists.
In Fairy Tail, Gajeel was first introduced as an antagonistic force. However, after being defeated by Natsu, he joined Fairy Tail where he continued to grow as a character with Natsu.
Quick tip -
It is better to focus on one antagonist at a time. This is to stay on track and avoid confusing readers. However, there are some rare exceptions
Ideals
Ideals are the beliefs and morals which your characters hold. A great antagonist will have their own ideals and react to situations based on them. This is a good way to make the antagonist realistic. It also gives readers a sense that the antagonist is independent of the writer.
The antagonist's beliefs or ideals help to explain their behaviour.
An antagonist will generally have opposing ideals to the protagonist. This is one of the things that makes them enemies to each other.
Gekko Moria
In One Piece, Luffy believes friends are important and he wants to achieve his goal with his friends. However, readers are later introduced to Gekko Moria who holds opposing views. Moria believes friends (crew mates) are better when they’re undead. He holds this belief because he lost his crew when he fought Kaido. He is afraid of losing his friends again so he commands a crew of undead who have no will of their own.
Both Gekko Moria and Luffy have the goal of finding One Piece. Their opposing ideals make them do things differently to reach that goal. Because of this, they conflict with each other. In comparison, Trafalgar Law who also wants to reach One Piece has similar ideals to Luffy. Unlike Gekko Moria, Trafalgar Law is working with Luffy to overcome their opponents.
What to avoid when creating an antagonist
Antagonists are not purely evil. I’ve seen some antagonists that have an evil laugh, wear dark colors and create mayhem for the sake of creating mayhem, or for world domination. Antagonists like this are 2 dimensional and predictable.
We want to bring readers into the world of our stories and the lives of our characters, including the antagonist. This means making our antagonists original, and interesting and giving them depth.
Not all antagonists have evil motivations. Some antagonists want a better life for themselves or their people. They are willing to go as far as they need to reach their goal. Similarly, not all antagonists have to look evil.
The cute antagonist
A good example of an antagonist character is Kyubey from Puella Madoka Magica.
[Spoilers ahead]
In the story of Madoka Magica, Kyubey is a cute rabbit-like species from space. It recruits young teenage girls and promises to grant them a wish. In return, the girls are given magical powers and must fight witches.
However, the witches are actually magical girls who turned evil due to overusing their powers. Moreover, Kyubey has been using the girls it recruits to reduce the rate of entropy and save the world.
While Kyubey’s goal is to save the universe from death by entropy, it is sacrificing young girls’ lives to do so. Kyubey is far from the traditional antagonist. It is neither good nor evil and looks super cute.
How to make stereotypes interesting
One Piece Antagonists
In One Piece the antagonists are stereotypically evil. However, they are still interesting and memorable. This is because of their goals, personality quirks, back story, and character design. One Piece is a good example of following the norm while staying unique.
Doflamingo vs Gekko Moria
Doflamingo is a great antagonist from One Piece. Although he is stereotypically vicious and evil, he looks different from the usual antagonist. He dresses in bright clothes, has bright hair, and looks a bit like he’s going on vacation. The same thing can be said about Big Mom’s character design and even Captain Buggy.
In comparison, Gekko Moria, Crocodile, and Kaido are all examples of stereotypical antagonists. They look evil, sound evil, and act evil. But they are still memorable and interesting to watch. They each have a different back story, character design, and fighting style.
Another unique trait about One Piece antagonists is their laughs. Almost every antagonist in One Piece has their unique way of laughing.
Other examples of interesting yet stereotypical antagonists are Naraku from Inuyasha and Muzan from Demon Slayer.
Quick tip -
The antagonist is not always the villain, they are the obstacle in the way of your protagonist. But giving your antagonist villain-like traits makes readers dislike them. As a result, readers will root against the antagonist.
Goal
The antagonist and protagonist’s goals must lead them to clash.
At times the antagonist and protagonist have the same goal which leads them to conflict with each other. An example is the webtoon The Remarried Empress, both the antagonist and protagonist want to be the Empress. Another example is sports manga where both opposing teams want to win.
Other times the characters’ goals are opposing. For example, if the protagonist wanted to save their friend, but the antagonist wanted to kill the friend.
Exploring a theme
A key aspect of an intriguing and captivating story is the theme. The theme is the universal concept that a story explores. Stories can have multiple themes but there is usually one core theme. The core theme in One Piece is friendship however Eiichiro Oda also explores ambition, family, adventure, good vs evil, and more.
The theme is explored through the characters in your story, especially the protagonist and antagonist.
Sometimes the antagonist and protagonist hold opposite beliefs around a theme. The protagonist will represent one side of the argument and the antagonist will represent another. As the antagonist and protagonist clash, the two arguments are debated.
Other times the antagonist represents the extreme version of your protagonist or a warning that shows what your protagonist could become.
Quick tip
Keep the theme subtle. The key to exploring a theme well is to not make it obvious that you are exploring that theme. Instead, show two characters with different views and lifestyles battling each other. Through their battle, readers see different sides of the theme.
The great antagonist
Your story can have many types of antagonists and conflicts. The best antagonists force your protagonist to grow. They expose your character’s weaknesses and make them struggle to achieve their goal. Sometimes the antagonist brings out another side to your main character or simply changes their life permanently.
[I do not own the rights to any of the images in this post or post cover.]
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