We all think we know what we mean when we talk about protagonists and antagonists, but do we actually? Let’s dive deeper into the words’ origins…
Ross’ Notes
- First up, as I hope I made clear, I am not using these two words in their conventional meaning. The accepted usage of “protagonist” today is simply “main character”. I think that this loses an important nuance, however, and one that we would have to invent terminology to redefine both protagonists and antagonists. Why go to that hassle when we can just use the old word in a new way?
- From Wiktionary: PROTAGONST – from Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής (prōtagōnistḗs, “a chief actor”), from πρῶτος (prôtos, “first”) + ἀγωνιστής (agōnistḗs, “a combatant, pleader, actor”).
- From Wiktionary: ANTAGONIST – From Ancient Greek ἀνταγωνιστής (antagōnistḗs, “opponent”) (ἀντί (antí, “against”) + ἀγωνιστής (agōnistḗs, “a combatant, pleader, actor”)), from ἀνταγωνίζεσθαι (antagōnízesthai, “antagonize”).
- My explanation of Greek Tragedy is very brief and mostly inaccurate. But it will do for now as a simple understanding until we can explore it more later. A certain amount of Classics scholarship is guesswork, supposition, or hearsay anyway.
- Important to understand about Predator (1987), the actual story being told changes. This is a comprehensive flip–all story objectives are exchanged for completely new objectives. Thus the protagonists’ and antagonists’ roles flip.
- Anagnorisis is my new favourite word. Might be worth an episode. Write in if you’d like to hear that.
- That’s me, still bringing up Star Wars…
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was written by Robert Bolt, who certainly knew what he was about. He won two Oscars and wrote the screenplays for Doctor Zhivago (1965), A Man For All Seasons (1966), which is another personal favourite, and The Mission (1988).
- Definitely check out Changing Lanes (2002). Very interesting when discussing protagonists and antagonists.
- Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is certainly one of the more spirited and violent fish-out-of-water stories you’ll come across.