One of the core things I’ve learned is that creating well written characters is hard. There’s a lot that goes into each of them regarding their backgrounds, personalities, relationships, motivations, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Naturally writers think of the protagonist first and how to fully develop them which makes sense. We want the reader to feel attached to this character and feel invested in their story. This naturally extends to the supporting cast of characters as their relationship to the protagonist ultimately plays a large role in the story. One of the most important characters that’s often not fleshed out or thought out as well, however, is the antagonist.
For the majority of stories, especially character vs character plot lines, the antagonist is an incredibly vital character to the story. They are or should be the main opposition to the protagonist fulfilling their goals. But what happens when said antagonist doesn’t show up for the majority of the story? What happens when the reader is simply told “this is the main perpetrator of the protagonist(s)’ problems and they need to be dealt with”? Naturally, at first, it doesn’t necessarily matter as the reader is still getting to know the protagonist and the supporting cast of characters. But eventually the inevitable confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist will have to happen and if the antagonist is missing for the majority of the story, there is a lot of emotional weight lost from that confrontation.
But what makes an antagonist absent from the story? Is that necessarily a bad thing? There is a degree of nuance to the question as it depends how the story is written. A lot of it will depend on what is the primary reason the protagonist goes on their journey and how the antagonist is involved. Did they hurt someone the protagonist care about? Are they withholding something that would solve the main conflict of the story? Regardless of what the structure of the relationship is, to create a satisfying climax that the story is building up to, the antagonist needs some kind of development. This can be directly done with the antagonist playing an active role in the character conflict or indirectly done with the antagonist making life harder for the protagonist by affecting the world around them. The former is often better as it allows the reader to get an idea of who the antagonist is and understand their motivation through showing rather than telling. That is the greatest weakness of an absentee antagonist.
An absentee antagonist can work in certain circumstances, building up mystery and anticipation for their inevitable reveal but this can be a bit risky. The obvious risk is that, as the buildup for the confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist grows, the expectation on the antagonist and their characterization becomes that much higher. This puts a lot of pressure on the writer to make the antagonist live up to this expectation and can go quite wrong if the readers begin to expect something else the writer likely didn’t intend. Alvar Kitsune from the Age of Legends series is a good example of an antagonist that ended up feeling more inconsequential as a character in the story. For a pivotal character and driver of the story, it’s odd that he barely showed up in the story and has little direct interaction with the protagonists. It ended up creating a rather anti-climactic ending to the series and a moment that felt more convenient than reasonable given the story since, as a reader, we were shown barely anything of him as a character.
But how does one write an absentee antagonist well? A lot of what the reader will know of said antagonist would be through their indirect interactions with the protagonist. A very common example would be that the antagonist maybe orchestrated a devastating event that thrusts the protagonists on their journey to stop them. They weren’t necessarily there, but they were responsible for that tragedy. The thing is though, if that antagonist doesn’t make any other subsequent appearances until the very end, there’s not a lot of depth to them as characters outside of being a static and flat character. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as they’re not often the focus of the story. More emphasis can be placed on developing the protagonist and the supporting cast of characters. Some really good examples of this are Avatar: The Last Airbender and Steelheart from The Reckoners series. Both stories are fantastic but their final antagonists were only one dimensional characters without much depth. They didn’t pull any last minute change of heart out of character moment like Alvar Kitsune did. They were simple because that’s all they needed to be.
If the character of whoever the antagonist is doesn’t matter, if they’re just a generic villain for the heroes to face off against, than it’s totally fine for them to just be that simple of a character. The problem is when the villain is meant to be more complex and nuanced but the writer doesn’t take time to show that to the reader. Simply telling or heavily implying things about the antagonist without ever showing those qualities in them is often not enough for them to be dynamic and rounded characters, especially during the climax. It can be done but it’s very hard to make it feel believable to the reader.
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 