: Re: Is a lawful good "antagonist" effective? In my post-apocalyptic novel, my protagonist is not necessarily "good", and although the antagonist is an honest and kind person, my protagonist perceives

@Sue2132873

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Antagonists are not necessarily bad guys. They prevent your protagonist from achieving her goals.

Free yourself of the labels and write your characters true to themselves. What you seem to have in your protagonist is something of an antihero in that she has killed her entire family and anyone else who ventured near enough to reach her.

The reader need not fully identify with your protag - a young girl who kills is not the most endearing sort. Show why she does it.

You might find, as I did once, that my original hero turned out to be an inadvertent and unaware villain, flipping the man he thought of as the arch villain into the hero. I stopped thinking of them as good vs evil and saw that the purported villain was striving to preserve the world from the consequences of the actions of the hero. I just considered them by their names and the plot developed itself.

Readers having sympathy for a victim of your protag’s earlier evil is not a problem. One thing I wonder, you say she thought she was alone and the last human alive. Why then would she not have felt relieved to see other humans? Was she frightened? Did she think People! I am not the last. Wait, why are they here? No, can’t let them find mom and dad. Need to kill them and run.

If she killed them to cover up her earlier crime, she might be a bit too dark to engage the reader completely. The reader might be curious regarding what other havoc young Eris will wreak, but feeling as Eris feels might be a bit of a stretch.

Let them understand why Eris hates this good woman who stands in her way but don’t expect them to detest her too. They might see her as Eris’ only hope of redemption.

If your characters are engaging enough and fully realized, the reader will probably be intrigued.

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