How to Create Compelling Antagonists/Villians in Otome Sims

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Mammon
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Re: How to Create Compelling Antagonists/Villians in Otome Sims

#16 Post by Mammon »

JupiterMercury wrote: The naturalist has themes of rejecting the supernatural but also against authority under it. In its place is a pro-science bent that the universe is random and self-determining with nature stronger than the supernatural or divine. What also bolsters this is his view that the sea creature's existence disproves a benevolent god or that god is dead.
Naturalist ending= deproves the existence of the gods, the antagonist fades away and MC becomes a normal woman? :lol:
JupiterMercury wrote:Perhaps the LI you don't choose that loves the demigod could be a supporting antagonist? Although I'm not sure how that'd work. Maybe through jealousy or romantic intrigue with the MC's LI?
Well, the soldier and pirate already seem opposites of one another's morality, and if the fisherman is religious and traditional he too would be the opposite of the naturalist. If they already don't like one another that much, but enough to stand the other's presence, a petty jealousy plot can indeed make the one the antagonist to the route of the other. The soldier angry that the raiding pirate gets all the adventure and Romantic appeal (as in the novel style of romantism) while he is seen as a suppressor and square. The pirate who sees the soldier as the law that keeps encroaching further on the free world, now taking the girl? The fisherman who lived his entire life believing in the wrathful gods, only for some brat to proclaim it's all folly despite all the misery that's upon them with these sea monsters? The naturalist, who is scorned and excluded for not blindly believing in fairy tales, seeing even MC fall for the mass dillusion because it's a simpler and more convenient truth?
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Re: How to Create Compelling Antagonists/Villians in Otome Sims

#17 Post by JupiterMercury »

Mammon wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:42 pm
JupiterMercury wrote: The naturalist has themes of rejecting the supernatural but also against authority under it. In its place is a pro-science bent that the universe is random and self-determining with nature stronger than the supernatural or divine. What also bolsters this is his view that the sea creature's existence disproves a benevolent god or that god is dead.
Naturalist ending= deproves the existence of the gods, the antagonist fades away and MC becomes a normal woman? :lol:
That's a good idea. Although I thought of having a verbal showdown with the demigod like WW and Hank in Breaking Bad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxiOQ2tvS80 or Skyler and Walt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Voz1H40zI . Having any of the LI go straight into combat would look like dumb move as shooting bullets to an invulnerable superhero. Unless the heroine has some power or knowledge she can give them, they fight through wit and trickery to defeat demigod. As for the sea creature, they'd fight it. But I think the MC is just a normal woman in the end and basically loses her divinity along with the rest of them. Which to some characters could be an optimistic time or a pessimistic to those faithful. Kinda adds a moral dilemma that motivates the antagonist: Do you follow eternal love by going back to your original spouse and keep the world sustainable or have a new life, another romance, and leave the world in anxiety over its fate without divinity?
Mammon wrote: Thu Jan 11, 2018 6:42 pm
JupiterMercury wrote:Perhaps the LI you don't choose that loves the demigod could be a supporting antagonist? Although I'm not sure how that'd work. Maybe through jealousy or romantic intrigue with the MC's LI?
Well, the soldier and pirate already seem opposites of one another's morality, and if the fisherman is religious and traditional he too would be the opposite of the naturalist. If they already don't like one another that much, but enough to stand the other's presence, a petty jealousy plot can indeed make the one the antagonist to the route of the other. The soldier angry that the raiding pirate gets all the adventure and Romantic appeal (as in the novel style of romantism) while he is seen as a suppressor and square. The pirate who sees the soldier as the law that keeps encroaching further on the free world, now taking the girl? The fisherman who lived his entire life believing in the wrathful gods, only for some brat to proclaim it's all folly despite all the misery that's upon them with these sea monsters? The naturalist, who is scorned and excluded for not blindly believing in fairy tales, seeing even MC fall for the mass dillusion because it's a simpler and more convenient truth?
So mirror or counterpart conflicts then. It's a good idea. It can add more bad endings alongside the main antagonist ones. Aside from petty jealously, they all can get along well but there are clear differences in characterization. I've thought of having each LI be deconstructed examples of their types but how to do so is another challenge. The work itself isn't a deconstruction of otome but I think the technique can be a tool in character creation. Even the antagonist could be an internal deconstruction of the world's mythology. I wonder if it can help in creating better antagonists because from the deconstructed works I've seen(Watchman, Madoka Magica, NGE, Berserk, and the Tales series of JRPGS) they usually display brutally extreme subversion that make them super-effective without looking contrived.

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Re: How to Create Compelling Antagonists/Villians in Otome Sims

#18 Post by Katy133 »

Another thing to consider is making the antagonist the anti-thesis of your protagonist.

For example, if the theme of your visual novel is about the power of friendship, the antagonist could be someone who is friendless, doesn't believe friendship to be a good thing, or takes advantage of other character's offers of friendship (making the relationship unbalanced or abusive).

You can make the villain similar to your main character. Remember: It's not what makes them similar that's truly important--it's how they're different.

Have the villain be the personification of the visual novel's anti-thesis.
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