: Re: How could a paragon character be an antagonist? I want to write a story featuring two main characters--Al and Bob. In the beginning, Al, the paragon, will be a kind, friendly, competent and

I think there are two aspects to a character's moral framework. There are the character's goals (what they want achieve) and the character's scruples (what they will refrain from doing in pursuit of these goals).

Now, I think that - pretty much by definition - a paragon character's goals will be perfectly selfless and "good". Usually a paragon character will also have scruples, and will have certain behaviours that they just plain consider too evil for any end to justify.

This doesn't, however, mean that their moral framework is perfect. It's quite possible that such a character can have overlooked something. There may be things that this character is willing to do in pursuit of their (unquestionably noble) goal that are completely unacceptable to the protagonist.

A good example of this, in my view, is in Watchmen, wherein the main villain turns out to be

Ozymandias, a well intentioned superhuman, who believes he can prevent nuclear war and save billions of lives by killing a few million people to fake an alien attack.
Up to (and perhaps, from a certain point of view, including) this point, the character is a paragon of virtue.

The point is that a character doesn't have to stop having virtuous goals, or stop having scruples in order to become a villain. There just has to come a point where (or a situation in which) their scruples are insufficient to stop them doing unpleasant (or for whatever reason, unacceptable) things in pursuit of their virtuous goals.

The character, at least in terms of their intentions, might even be a more noble character than your protagonist, but if the protagonist has scruples that the "virtuous" character doesn't, there will be a reason to oppose them, and if the reader also shares those scruples, there will be a reason for them to get behind the protagonist.

Of course, to take a completely different angle, another option is to simply make the protagonist a bad guy (in which case the antagonist can be utterly wonderful, and simply framed as the bad guy by the perspective of the narrative). I'm assuming, though, that this isn't what you have in mind.

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: Re: How could a paragon character be an antagonist? I want to write a story featuring two main characters--Al and Bob. In the beginning, Al, the paragon, will be a kind, friendly, competent and

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: How can I make the relevance of a story thread more apparent? The story I'm writing has multiple story threads, which relate to each other subtly at first, while gradually converging over the

: What writing process should I use to produce the kind of writing I want? I want to achieve the following: To produce a work that is well-organized and full of substance. To produce a work

: Isn't word-choice important? In one book I read about writing, â€œStyle: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace,â€ the author tries to teach you how to write with clarity and grace, but among the

: What is the correct way to cite a paraphrase of another source? I am trying to cite a paper that paraphrases a quote from another paper by the same authors. However, 1) it is unclear where

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: Re: How could a paragon character be an antagonist? I want to write a story featuring two main characters--Al and Bob. In the beginning, Al, the paragon, will be a kind, friendly, competent and

More posts by @Pierce369

: How can I make the relevance of a story thread more apparent? The story I'm writing has multiple story threads, which relate to each other subtly at first, while gradually converging over the

: What writing process should I use to produce the kind of writing I want? I want to achieve the following: To produce a work that is well-organized and full of substance. To produce a work

: Isn't word-choice important? In one book I read about writing, â€œStyle: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace,â€ the author tries to teach you how to write with clarity and grace, but among the

: What is the correct way to cite a paraphrase of another source? I am trying to cite a paper that paraphrases a quote from another paper by the same authors. However, 1) it is unclear where

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: Isn't word-choice important? In one book I read about writing, â€œStyle: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace,â€ the author tries to teach you how to write with clarity and grace, but among the