Talk:Antagonist

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Definitions[edit]

Harri Honey- villian or some one that is jasmine:: basically it's simply greek for opponent or etymologically more precisely: ant-agonistis, anti-fighter. it's the opposing fighter or generally the opponent.

An antagonist is someone that opposes the protagonist-someone who all of the action in a story is centered around. NOT someone who is evil or villian neccesarily. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.17.153.108 (talk) 03:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that the in-game world that I encountered is the Glitch Droid. He is the antagonist, he can posses the AIs and the rest of it. Best Gamer 4 August 2006

The Moby-Dick part is right to say that the protagonist and antagonist are ambiguous, so it should not definitively say that Captain Ahab is not the protagonist. 65.184.47.233 01:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Literary term?[edit]

The Chambers Dictionary makes no reference to narrative in its definition of 'antagonist'. The word simply means something (or someone) that acts in opposition to something else. Whereas 'protagonist' (meaning 'first actor' or 'leading character') is a dramatic or literary term that has moved into general use (often to mean something completely different), 'antagonist' is an everyday word that seems to have been pressed into literary service – presumably owing to a mistaken belief that it is somehow the 'opposite' of 'protagonist'. It isn't.

It's questionable whether the literary sense deserves an article at all. To make it the eponymous article, leaving the acknowledged biological and chemical senses two (or even three) clicks away, seems, frankly, ridiculous. Grant 03:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Antagonist" is a literary term, but it does not necessarily mean the "opposite" of a protagonist. It is, however, a legitimate literary term that refers to some kind of force that acts against the protagonist, which must always exist in order for there to be conflict in a story. 65.184.47.233 01:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've always understood the literary "Antagonist" to be one who is attempting to stop the action of the inciting incident. Whereas the "Protagonist" either causes the inciting incident or continues the momentum of that incident. Thus the "AntagonistProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0

is not necessarily the "villain" or "hero" but just the stopping force of the protagonist. The antagonist wants to stop the agent of change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IamaMuncho (talk • contribs) 03:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Antagonist" derives from the Greek word "anti", meaning "against". The problem seems to be that people imagine that "protagonist" derives from the Latin word "pro" (meaning "for"). It doesn't. It derives from the Greek word "protos" (meaning "first"). It's got nothing to do with whose side he's on; the protagonist can be the bad guy. The use of "antagonist" as a literary term is essentially a mistake. Grant (talk) 13:55, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion of terms[edit]

This is the first page which comes up when searching for antagonists, and although it is accurate it bears no mention to chemical antagonists. A seperate page or paragraph should be included to link the two pages. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.11.218.36 (talk) 14:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Not necessarily evil...[edit]

The antagonist is defined as one who opposes the protagonist in a story, and is usually represented as a character causing trouble. The protagonist is just the main character who must overcome obstacles to reach a goal, not necessarily a "good guy." Elfred 21:42, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's true!24.148.26.74 (talk) 16:15, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Macbeth is an example to this, the antagonists (Malcolm and Macduff) are the good guys while Macbeth is really the villain of the story. --Dark paladin x (talk) 04:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most of Wall E is another example. Though the villain Auto is an antagonist as well, the main antagonist of that film is EVE, since the film's main conflict is WALL E trying to win EVE's affections while she keeps pushing him away to focus on finding the plant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Web wonder (talk • contribs) 01:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Frigied?[edit]

In the last line, it talks of Frigied. Wikipedia doesn't really explain what it is, so can someone shed some light? hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.16.88 (talk) 20:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And u no what else is cool about these guys they r antis idk i was just taking a guess —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.8.140.194 (talk) 17:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Poorly defined dualistic thinking?[edit]

While the third paragraph at the bottom tries to illustrate the blurring of these classic terms, and is essentially included it is worded in a way that seems as if it could be improved. Or perhaps it is my own bias... as i just could not help but laugh while reading it 72.204.92.107 (talk) 11:03, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Examples[edit]

I suggest that the entire "Modern Examples" section be scrapped. A few basic well-known examples might be helpful for the purposes of illustration, but having a list that could conceivably contain literally millions of valid examples doesn't seem to serve any purpose.--71.196.109.196 (talk) 20:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i'll edit it, leaving in popular franchise, high grossing stuff, and then some comedy ones so people can see antagonists in non dramatic work.IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 06:47, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

i edited it. tried leaving the big ones in, harry potter, etc. I'd really like to see two things added to this article. Couple of examples from Shakespeare, and then examples from an older large series, like Godfather or something like that. Shakespeare I think is a given, but i don't know enough about either of these so I cant. I suggest someone else to tho.IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 06:57, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My worry is that people will just come in behind you and add another hundred new examples. If there's going to be examples, I suggest it be few (2 to 4) and placed within the prose. Otherwise, we're just going to have to keep pruning the list every few months as people add back their personal favorite characters.--71.196.109.196 (talk) 02:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I vandalized the page. I thought it would be funny to show that the universe is your antagonist. I thought better of it moments later and undid the change. First, last, and only edit of the sort on the wiki. Sorry folks. I also agree that the unending list of modern examples is desired to be avoided. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.92.135.56 (talk) 17:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

always a character?[edit]

My fifth or sixth grade english teacher defined an antagonist as whatever opposed the protagonist, even if that opposition was nature or a mindless machine. By that definition, an antagonist isn't always a character; even the weather could be an antagonist. Was my teacher simply mistaken, or is wikipedia simply going with a different definition?Web wonder (talk) 22:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scrapping some[edit]

I am cutting away the entire "modern" section in the middle. Not only is this almost certainly OR, it is not accurate either. Old posts on the talk pages call this into question, and I see no defense happening after - apparently - years. So, off ye go. DigitalHoodoo (talk) 13:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Need more content[edit]

Yawn, found some additional content for antagonist? I don't feel this article seems complete. I need some more help for more content. I have found more citations though. Qwertyxp2000 (talk) 00:09, 27 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

hf Slike rot (talk) 17:11, 22 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Semi-protected edit request on 20 February 2020[edit]

Category:Antagonists by role needs to be removed as it is a container category. 212.135.65.247 (talk) 16:17, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done JTP (talk • contribs) 18:53, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Examples[edit]

There should be Examples about Antagonists. 107.119.45.5 (talk) 06:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then you ought to be content because there are examples. Largoplazo (talk) 08:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 27 August 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 07:32, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

– Not the primary topic. While this topic probably gets the plurality of pageviews compared to other topics listed on the dab page, in reliable sources the primary topic is overwhelmingly receptor antagonist (which is rarely called anything but just "antagonist"; see Google Scholar or Taylor and Francis results). Despite this page being listed at the primary topic, receptor antagonist actually has more incoming wikilinks [1][2]. Also, there are other relevant topics on the dab page such as muscle antagonist. (t · c) buidhe 07:09, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose When I think of antagonist, I think of the theatrical term. I'm not sure a WP:GHITS argument is the most convincing argument for a need for change. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 12:18, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This comment should be disregarded by the closer because the primary topic rules explicitly state that a primary topic is not "what first comes to (your) mind", and google scholar is not the same as google web search. What is the evidence that this is the primary topic? Comparing long term significance across such diverse fields as biology and literature is difficult, which argues against there being a primary topic in my view. (t · c) buidhe 14:19, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Regarding the search-based arguments given: Google Scholar returns search results from the corpus of scientific literature and Taylor & Francis returns results from its own publications, the domains of which are scientific and technical, so of course resources identified by those engines containing the word "antagonists" are overwhelmingly slanted toward scientific and technical uses of the term and are pretty much exclusive of literary and dramatic uses of the term. Searches of these corpuses can be relevant in cases where the candidate topics are all from technical domains, but not in comparing technical candidates with non-technical candidates.
Regarding the internal linking arguments given: I don't see that counting internal links is relevant. What I believe is relevant, in terms of user interaction, are the following observations: Looking at https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Antagonist, which today gives July results, we find 133 instances of a user navigating from Antagonist to Receptor antagonist (via the hatnote link). That represents 2.01% of total views of Receptor antagonist and 0.7% of the approximately 19,400 total views of Antagonist during that month. There were a total of about 3,200 outgoing page views from Antagonist, of which about 1,400 were to Protagonist, and both Villain (319) and King Claudius (245) came out ahead of Receptor antagonist. There were only 78 outgoing navigations to Antagonist (disambiguation). Finally, over 16,000 out of the 19,400 views of Antagonist led no further. So the overwhelming majority of visits to Antagonist appear to have satisfied users who wound up there. It's clear that, if we are to measure by internal links and user interaction, the literary topic is the primary topic for the term, and Receptor antagonist falls short by over 99%. Largoplazo (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I honestly can't say that strongly enough. Primary topic is determined by long-term educational significance as well as pageviews, and both point in the same direction. This isn't even close. The proposer's unbacked, unsupported assertion that "in reliable sources the primary topic is overwhelmingly receptor antagonist" is............ one of the statements of all time. An antagonist is the second-most-important type of character in fiction, and the wealth of educational significance that such a vital component of fiction has vastly dwarfs that of a key component of an esoteric chemical process. Red Slash 18:23, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose mainly per Largoplazo (except that Google Scholar isn't just scientific literature but includes other academic articles). Also, I wouldn't say that a receptor antagonist is rarely called anything but just "antagonist". Rather, the GScholar search shows that "receptor" is frequently left off when the type of receptor blocked is mentioned, such as a GABA antagonist (which should probably be moved from GABA receptor antagonist). SilverLocust 💬 07:20, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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