: Re: How unadvisable is it to flip the protagonist into a villain? Essentially, I have a protagonist who I set up as a 'main' good guy in one of my series. However, in my final series, I intend

@Pope4766717

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I don't think there's any reason not to turn your protagonist into an antagonist, so long as you can do it realistically. People don't change all at once, and the thing to remember is that seeing is believing. As long as the readers can see the change happening (they don't necessarily have to know where it's going, just that something is going somewhere) they can continue to suspend their disbelief.

If you're looking for tips and tricks, the magic words are compromise and rationalisation. I assume that as a protagonist, they start off with a moral schema relatively similar to most of ours. Whether because of difficult positions or conflicting motivations, the protagonist must make a compromise on their ideals. That would be fine if they just admit that they failed to live up to their own expectations and vow to do better next time, while leaving their ideals intact. What's more likely given our current understanding of human nature, especially in stressful situations, is that They'll try to justify their actions. At first this will be in the context of their original moral schema, but eventually their ideals themselves will change. That's how you gradually turn them into an antagonist.

Just my two cents, You know the needs of your story better than I do.

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