Contrasting Sequel Antagonists in literature.
- Bazil Broketail: The general of the Padmasan armies in book three — General Lukash — was pointlessly cruel, an incompetent leader, treating the entire campaign as a chance at venting his personal frustrations on the world and killing people for fun. General Kreegsbrok, on the other hand, is a professional who remains focused on his job and never does anything without a purpose.
- The Chronicles of Narnia: Going by publishing order, the first book has a non-human sorceress who bans all humans from Narnia. The second has a human Muggle who bans all magical creatures from Narnia.
- Discworld: The villains in the first two City Watch books both want to restore the Ankh-Morpork monarchy, but the one in Guards! Guards! is an opportunist who just wants to be the trusted advisor to some idiot who looks good in a crown, and the one in Men at Arms is a true believer monarchist who wants to see the rightful king on the throne. Both of them have supernatural help that they discover they don't control, but the dragon is a physically powerful classic monster, while the gonne is an animist mechanical device which can't physically do anything without being operated by a person, but can influence its wielder's mind.
- The Hannibal Lecter series has several examples:
- Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb of The Silence of the Lambs is as much the direct opposite of Francis "the Tooth Fairy" Dolarhyde of Red Dragon as he is his parallel. While both killers seek to transform themselves through their killing, Dolarhyde's goal is to transform himself in spirit and become the culmination of his present state by empowering his "Great Red Dragon" alter, while Gumb's goal is to transform himself in body and become the antithesis of his present state by fashioning a Genuine Human Hide suit that would, in his eyes, enable him to become a completely different person.
- Mason Verger of Hannibal bears this relationship to Gumb. Gumb is a handsome raving lunatic from a lower-class background who kills on impulse, and has only the most tenuous personal connection to Hannibal Lecter; he also spends most of the movie as the target of a nationwide manhunt after kidnapping a US Senator's daughter. By contrast, Verger is a wealthy, cultured psychopath with gruesome facial mutilations who calmly plans his every move, and he's driven by his desire for revenge against Hannibal Lecter, being one of his previous victims; he's also a textbook Villain with Good Publicity who successfully manages to hide his depravities from most of the public, and gets off with community service the one time that he's discovered.
- Grindelwald from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise, contrasts to Voldemort from Harry Potter. Voldemort goes by an alias, while Grindelwald uses his real name. Voldemort was a model student at Hogwarts, and hid his true nature from most people, while Grindelwald was known as a troublemaker and expelled from Durmstrang. The Dark Arts twisted Voldemort's appearance, while Grindelwald looks like his actor. Voldemort kept his reign of terror focused on Britain, while Grindelwald expanded all across Europe, and into America. As a polar opposite of Voldemort, in this regard, Grindelwald studiously avoided attacking Britain out of fear of Dumbledore. Additionally, Grindelwald lacks Voldemort's Fantastic Racism, instead hating Muggles purely for forcing wizards into hiding.
- The various villains in Mistborn tend to contrast.
- The Final Empire and its enforcers were the primary antagonists of the first Mistborn book, and the main characters were thieves trying to take them down. The Empire's main strength was mainly resources: better trained soldiers, weapons, fortified positions, etc. The rebel thieves can't fight them directly due to lack of manpower, and so sabotage by sowing chaos and fostering a mythic reputation. In Alloy Of Law, the first book of the sequel series Wax and Wayne, the antagonistic Vanishers are a group of thieves aiming to take down the nobles of Elendel, which they do by sowing chaos and fostering a mythic reputation. It's most apparent when Wax, Wayne, and Marasi kill and capture around thirty of them during a botched robbery; where the Final Empire could just throw more troops or koloss, the Vanishers lament that it's over for them.
- Redwall:
- Chronologically speaking, Martin the Warrior's first enemy was Badrang the Tyrant (Big Bad of Martin the Warrior) while his second was Tsarmina Greeneyes (Big Bad of Mossflower). They make a solid contrast with one another: where Badrang's a jumped-up corsair who wants to be treated like an aristocrat, and whose fearsome reputation as a fighter is belied by his actual record in combat, Tsarmina's a seemingly prissy princess who degenerates into a slavering berserker and gives Martin the fight of his life.
- Mariel, Dandin, and her father Joseph faced, chronologically, Gabool the Wild and then Urgan Nagru the Foxwolf. Gabool was the rightful King of the Searats, was based out of Terramort, far to the northwest, and never left his island, spending his time killing his captains and losing his mind until the protagonists caught up with him. Foxwolf, conversely, was the usurper king of Southsward, and a far more proactive villain, constantly leading his rats on forays, and trying to put down revolts with his own paws.
- Cluny the Scourge of Redwall was a conquering warlord who moved across the country like a pestilence, eventually attempting to besiege the titular Abbey and make it into his new fortress before being stopped by Matthias. Slagar the Cruel, of Mattimeo, was a thief and a slaver who stole into the Abbey, kidnapped several of their children, and then ran as fast as he could in the other direction, leaving Matthias to pursue him.
- Star Wars Legends:
- The Thrawn Trilogy notably frames Grand Admiral Thrawn and Joruus C'baoth as Foils of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, respectively, making it clear that the series wouldn't simply be a retread of the Original Trilogy. While Palpatine was an ominous black-cloaked card-carrying human villain known for his sadism and his mastery of the Dark Side, Thrawn is an impeccably cultured Officer and a Gentleman known for his tactical brilliance and his love of art, as well as a Human Alien who habitually dresses in well-tailored white military regalia. Likewise, while Vader was a tragically corrupted Dark Jedi known for his stoicism and physical discipline, and he ultimately turned against Palpatine in a Heel–Face Turn, C'baoth is the insane clone of a legendary Jedi Master who's brought down by his own mental instability, and Thrawn turns against him when it becomes clear that he can't be controlled.
- The New Jedi Order series frames the Yuuzhan Vong as the antithesis of the Galactic Empire, since it was one of the first series that took place after the New Republic and the Empire signed a peace treaty. The Empire was a technologically advanced human supremacist military juggernaut that wanted to impose order on the Galaxy, but was largely staffed by Punch Clock Villains, despite being (initially) led by a powerful Sith Lord and his apprentice. By contrast, the Yuuzhan Vong are a race of violent, xenophobic aliens from outside the Galaxy who view technology as an abomination, preferring to use genetically engineered organic weapons of war; rather than wanting to impose order on the Galaxy, they actively want to slaughter all non-Vong lifeforms and terraform the Galaxy's planets to make new colonies. Rather than being aligned with the Dark Side, they're said to exist outside the Force entirely. And while the Imperials prided themselves on their stoicism and strict military discipline, the Vong are a species of wild-eyed religious fanatics who traditionally practice gruesome self-mutilation as an act of devotion.
- The Vong's leader, Supreme Overlord Shimrra, also contrasts with Palpatine, as is explicitly pointed out by Luke when he and Shimrra meet. Palpatine is a withered old man, while Shimrra is a towering warrior in his physical prime; Palpatine has a darkness motif while Shimrra has a rainbow motif; Palpatine was the ruler of the Galaxy Far Far Away while Shimrra rules an outside force trying to take it over; Palpatine came to power by guile, while Shimrra came to power via military coup; Palpatine subverted the Republic to create the Empire, while Shimrra is merely the latest in a thousand-year dynasty of tyrannical Supreme Overlords; Palpatine chiefly relies on his cunning and the power of the Dark Side, while Shimrra is a physically powerful warrior whose enhanced powers come from Bio-Augmentation rather than the Force and has no problem getting his own hands dirty; Palpatine is well-known to the people of the galaxy as ruler of the Empire, while most non-Vong have barely heard of Shimrra until relatively late in the war; Palpatine spends most of his encounter with Luke trying to turn him to his side, while Shimrra and Luke just duel. Oh, and Palpatine's actually the Big Bad of the original trilogy, while Shimrra's just a decoy for the real Big Bad of the New Jedi Order.
- In Legacy of the Force, Darth Caedus (formerly Jacen Solo) and the Galactic Alliance Guard are deliberately designed to contrast Darth Vader and the Imperial military in the Original Trilogy. Most obviously, Jacen is the hero's son rather than his father, and the final confrontation is between brother and sister instead of father and son. Caedus also falls to the Dark Side after a Civil War splits the Galactic Alliance in half, whereas Darth Vader declared war on the Rebels after he became a Sith Lord. Caedus' private military force, the GAG, are an elite Black Ops squad who do morally questionable work behind the scenes for an otherwise benevolent government; they're more akin to the American NSA than the Nazi military, which served as the Empire's primary inspiration. Unlike Emperor Palpatine, Caedus' Evil Mentor (Lumiya) is a lone Sith warrior who remains separate from the Galactic Alliance, and she is killed off midway through the series while Caedus' power continues to grow. And unlike in the Original Trilogy, Caedus' defeat signals the salvation—not the downfall—of the corrupted Galactic Alliance.
- Iron Lady Natasi Daala was part of the Big Bad Ensemble of the Jedi Academy Trilogy and the secondary antagonist of Fate of the Jedi who was designed to serve as this trope to Thrawn. Both were former Imperial admirals with Galactic Conquerer ambitions, but while Thrawn was a cold, calculating chessmaster, Daala was emotional and hot-headed with a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. Ironically, despite this she ultimately came closer than Thrawn did to complete dominance over the galaxy as she briefly became a President Evil.
- Star Wars: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi: The Nihil are entirely different from any other major enemies in Star Wars to date. They're not Force-wielders like the various Darksiders, they're not religious fanatics like the Sith cultists, they're not an enemy nation, and they're not even high-level criminals like the Hutts or the Shadow Collective. They are basically just a random band of marauders who lucked into a huge technological advantage. Even then, it's repeatedly made clear that the only reason they are a real threat to the Republic is because it's an unprecedented era of peace and there's barely any military presence in the Galaxy. By the end of Phase I, they've destroyed Starlight Beacon, walled off the Republic from the Outer Rim with a wall of a hyperspace mines and taken it over, and have Nameless creatures that prey on Jedi at their disposal.
