A theme of my story is finding one's place in the world and where or even if you belong. My protagonists feel like the world would always reject them, a part of them feel like it's justified.

That said, what would be a better antagonist for them? Someone who fully rejects them and insists that they have no place in the world or someone more sympathetic to them who offers them a somewhere to belong but in a bad way or through ways they don't approve of?

The latter, definitely. Manipulative villains are always great, for one. A villain that offers the protagonist a form of very conditional love sounds like it would lead to a great dynamic. Your protagonist would have to overcome their own insecurities to stand up to the antagonist. That's just kino.

For two, a villain that rejects them is extra boring in this context; they're just one of many ponies who turn their backs to your protag. They'd need to me cartoonishly evil just to stand out.

7823768 In my novel

TSweetie Belle Gains a Soul

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Drama
• Slice of Life

In her darkest hour, Sweetie Belle finds salvation, but it comes with a terrible curse.

• Twilight
• Rarity
• Sweetie Belle
• CMCs

Bad Dragon · 132k words  ·  178  45 · 6.7k views

my protagonist fights against everypony and the world.

Ironically, the biggest antagonist in the story is she herself. She's her worst enemy.

The other antagonist is somepony who actually tries to help her.

If some of your protagonists feel that the world rejecting them is justified, then I think an ideal antagonist will play into that. The antagonist will use that to drive a wedge between them. Maybe you'll even have a protagonist side with the antagonist for a time, and only come to their senses when they realize that the antagonist is ultimately wrong in some key way.

That's actually a rarely done story idea - to the point that I'm struggling to think of an example off the top of my head. A sort-of-the-idea example is Jet from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who manages to convince Katara and Aang to help him, while Sokka remains skeptical. But the difference there with what I'm talking about is that Jet actually hides his true plan from Katara, and she turns on him when she realizes what he's actually doing. In your case, I'm envisioning a character who at first agrees with what the antagonist is doing, even knowing the whole plan, but then realizes what they are doing and stops.

Usually, the villain in this type of story has to do some sort of brainwashing or coercion to turn someone to the Dark Side, like Murtagh in the Inheritance Cycle. But it can be more dramatic if the character isn't forced into this, but chooses willingly. It can create a tension in the reader, as they wish that the otherwise protagonist would just see reason, but they can empathize with their perspective on things.

Again, going back to ATLA - think Zuko. By season 2, the audience has seen his struggle and recognizes how much he wants to rejoin his nation, but the audience also wants him to join the Avatar. When he sides with Azula, it's devastating, but also completely understandable.

This is a tough balance to strike, but if you pull it off, the result will be great.

A very cool question to ask indeed.

I'd say the latter option just because I think it can succeed in accomplishing the former's goal as well, but with added drama. An antagonist who, say, insists that the protag doesn't belong anywhere exept with them (or somewhere bad), would really speak to both that character's potentially internalized ostracization of themself while also poking at the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that stem from it, tempting that character to slip up in a narratively clear and even satisfying way.

For the record, you could still successfully do the former option if you wanted. It may be slightly more difficult to make it as compelling, but I think it can definitely be done. You'd have to make sure that they are clearly adding stakes besides what's always there (i.e the protag already being rejected by everyone.) Some methods of doing this that pop into my head include:

The antag is so passionate about the protag not belonging anywhere that their hatred towards them manifests in

A. hunting them down to kill them

B. Forcibly taking away any places or people that the protag finds belonging in (perhaps via relational aggression, blackmail, murder, physical destruction like explosions, etc)

C. both (and there's probably more ways, I just can't think of them right now)

If you go with the antag completely rejecting them, I think you should definitely try and make them as violent, aggressive and terrifying as possible. If you go with the antag offering conditional love on the other hand, you should definitely make them as inviting and tempting as you can but keep the uneasiness of it all.

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The best antagonists are those that are a foil for your characters; that is, the character echoes the protagonist's journey. Namely the antagonist should be a character who went on the same journey as the protagonists, but when confronted with the abyss they blinked. They became the very kind of monster that they were fighting.

For your story, I would recommend a character who was similarly rejected as your protagonists and let that rejection make them bitter and hateful towards society. Bonus points for if the antagonist genuinely cares for the protagonists but that care manifests in horrific ways toward innocent ponies (Magneto is a good example).

I would avoid the first idea like the plague though, the cartoonishly evil turbo-bigot was never a compelling villain archetype, and it's been done to death.