Writer's Workshop: Round One, Fight! · 6:02pm Sep 18th, 2017
I've talked previously about bookends: two scenes at the beginning and the end of your story that demonstrate the change (or lack thereof) within the main character. This is a related principle, but somewhat more restrictive in its execution: the First Encounter. Let me dig into it to explain what I'm talking about.
The First Encounter is a semi-optional step in the Hero's Journey. It refers to moment early in the story where the hero and the central antagonist cross paths for the first time. The idea here is to signal to the hero (and the reader) that the hero is not fully equipped to defeat the antagonist right now; they'll need to grow and improve before they stand a chance. For example, at the end of the first pilot episode, Night Mare Moon struts and gloats, completely impervious to attack, thanks to her... tentacles? We see how powerful she is, how powerless Twilight is, and how dire the situation is with Night Mare Moon in power.
I'd like to talk about two variations on this idea. The first is the classic, as I just described. The important aspect of this is that the Main Character loses against the antagonist, or at the very least can't directly face the baddie and instead runs away. With this sort of scene, the goal isn't to win, because it should be clear fairly early into the encounter that there's no stopping the villain at full power. Instead, the goal is to stall the villain long enough to allow escape--which often means one or more characters will die for the cause. There's nothing for making the main party feel hopeless quite like losing a team member.
Another possibility within this variant is that the villain isn't here at this encounter specifically to make the main characters be dead. (Actually, this is a great notion to keep in mind for every fight scene and conflict in your stories.) Let's say the big bad needs the four elemental crystals to power his death ray, so he visits the town where the first crystal is kept and stomps over everything. The Main Character is just one of the guardians of the crystal, or just a child among the townspeople. The MC may put up a good fight, but the villain just laughs and throws them to the side. The villain has bigger things to worry about than killing this one insignificant rebel--but that arrogance will lead to their undoing. The MC will learn from this experience, grow slowly over time, and eventually defeat the villain at the height of the conflict.
All right, so that's one version of the First Encounter. The other has one key difference: the main characters actually defeat the antagonist, temporarily. With this variation, the encounter will usually involve the villain's general or right-hand man, or any similar model where the heroes get a small taste of the final conflict. Again, even though the heroes win, it should still be a difficult or Pyrrhic victory, just to remind them that the bad guy isn't going to be a pushover. By setting up this two-tier system, however, you allow the characters a moment of victory while still allowing for a greater challenge just beyond the horizon.
You can actually get a great subversion out of this by making the true antagonist weaker than their earlier manifestation. As a (borderline) example, consider The Wizard of Oz. The Wicked Witch of the West is not a servant of the Wizard, true, but the story is set up in this way. The horrible Witch is defeated, but when the Wizard reneges on his promise, his great and powerful form is thrust away, and we're shown his true, meager self. Thus, the final conflict of the story is not that the Wizard is vastly stronger than the Witch, but that he is so much weaker than her that he can't actually get Dorothy back home like he promised.
I may be jumping the gun here, but from what we've seen and heard of the movie coming out in October, we may be seeing a story structure just like this, with Tempest as the trusted second-in-command and the Storm Lord as the real power behind the invaders. I'll be curious to see how the story handles this power dynamic. ...Actually, thinking about this, I realize that MLP has done this dynamic before, and it reminds me of a yet another subversion of this model. In "Rescue at Midnight Castle," Scorpan, Tirek's general, does the majority of the heavy lifting, but rather than a climactic showdown, the ponies actually give Scorpan a change of heart, leading to him helping the ponies escape and defeat Tirek. This version of the two-tier antagonist is best when your story is about redemption and the power of friendship, obviously.
You don't have to stick to just two encounters, of course. You can have as many conflicts as you want between the First Encounter and the final confrontation. But I think there's something very special about that moment when the hero and the villain size each other up for the first time. Win or lose, the hero now has an idea of just how powerful his opponent truly is. By contrast, the antagonist is now deluded about the hero's true strength. Like the tortoise and the hare, while the antagonist sits back in their strength, the hero continues to grow and improve, eventually overtaking the antagonist and taking them completely by surprise. (Well, in the Hero's Journey model, anyway. Feel free to subvert and modify that concept.) The opposite to this idea would be, say, the Mystery Antagonist, unknown until the very end of the story. Whichever you prefer is up to you.
My favorite bit of bookending is from A Knight's Tale. In the beginning, William thinks to take the place of his deceased master so his fellows can eat (if he wins). Roland, being the pragmatic one, knows they'll catch hell if they're caught, so he asks him, "What's your name, William? It's not sir William, or count or duke or earl William."
Fast forward to the penultimate scene, and there's Roland at William's side, with a crowd chanting his name. "That's your name. Sir William Thatcher. Your father heard that."
So we get a parallel opening and closing from the same character, summing up William's arc in a few impactful sentences.
TVTropes refers to this as the Final Boss Preview. This is a very common trope in video games (hence the name), where it often takes the form of a Hopeless Boss Fight.
This is a tricky scenario to make believable. There needs to be a reasonable justification both for the appearance of the villain, and for them sparing the heroes. It can be a tricky balancing act; the villain needs to pay enough attention to the hero to justify this early appearance, but whatever factor prevents the hero's demise also needs to justify the villain not pursuing them. The entire thing can come off as contrived very easily.
An interesting variant was used in two of the Final Fantasy games (VII and X); the final boss appears, but as an ally of the heroes. They briefly join your party, and proceed to wreck everything for as long as they are around. The player still gets a sense of their power and menace, but from a different perspective.
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I wanted to find an organic way to bring this up, but as I was thinking of that exact question, I had a recollection. In the tabletop RPG Fellowship, there are special rules for the person playing the bad guy, called the Overlord. It has three "foibles" that the Overlord must have in order for the conflict to grow naturally and to prevent the Overlord from simply stomping the fellowship (the team of good guys) at any time:
I don't think every Big Bad in fiction needs to have these three particular weaknesses, but these are a pretty decent sample. "I could kill you now, but [I'm going to spare you for a half-decent challenge!|I have more important things to worry about right now.|it would be beneath me to do so.]"
And yeah, if you honestly can't think of a way for the hero and the villain to meet and not come to blows, have the villain send a trusted general instead, someone who can be dissuaded/beaten. [Why send a general and not just go themselves? See foibles above.
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4672482 The first weakness/variant is the one I see most often, and I'll be honest, it's also the one that's easiest to fumble. If the villain sees the hero as Not Worth Killing, then why is he even bothering to smack him around? The other two can work well, but don't fit in with every villain or story.
One variant of this that I like can be seen in the anime version of Tales of Zestiria. The final boss intentionally doesn't kill the heroes, because he wants them to become stronger. But it's not because he is arrogant, or is thirsting for a good challenge. Rather, it's heavily implied that he is a Death Seeker, and he thinks the heroes might be able to do him in.
Ultimately, there's a huge number of variations of this; both your explanation and the TVTropes page list a few, but even that doesn't cover them all. The key--like with any technique or trope--is to find a variant that fits the tone and world of the story. And as you already said, sometimes that means ignoring this plot point entirely, and making the antagonist unseen or seemingly harmless.