A random thought I had · 12:00am Jul 8th, 2021
One of the problems I notice writers have is establishing threats in a fight, specifically in larger engagements. I realize this is because you want to show off how cool your new antagonists are but I thought I would put down a metric to judge if you did a good job or not.
The main problem that I see is that the new antagonists especially in larger engagements such as an army setting generally come off as literally invincible, like no matter how many of the protagonists there were and how few of the antagonists there were, the protagonists would still lose. In case it isn't obvious this is for stories where there is a big bad that needs to be defeated by the end and in the author's mind there isn't going to be a, I dunno, big door to crush the Rancor.
To give the most basic idea of what I'm talking about you have two armies they fight on what looks like to the audience decently even terms except one of the armies just gets SMASHED INTO THE DIRT like the bad guys were trying to bully a paper towel. Not only are they getting DESTROYED it doesn't even feel like they get a decent hit in or ANYTHING. Because a chapter like that is completely skippable by the audience, it's actually more disappointing than "we received a report that our army was wiped out" because at least that would build some intrigue for the audience(for them to eventually be disappointed by the actual explanation if what I'm talking about is what you wrote).
The metric I came up with is this:
Would the protagonists be in a better position if they were replaced with the three stooges doing unintentional slapstick at the enemies?
Because if the protagonists would be better off if they just sat and dropped a banana peel on the floor or they did a slapstick board gag and got a hit in by accidentally turning around at the right time, then you need to write a better scene.
Edit: Just to clarify I'm not saying they have to win, I'm saying that the extent to which they lose can be clear, large, and paint the situation as bad without painting the protagonists as less threatening than the three stooges doing a slapstick routine.
