Needs a good pic: Hero Antagonist

...Not really.

I think that is more Villain Protagonist.

No, Hans von Hammer isn't a villain at all. He's a good man, just on the "wrong side" of the war. A hero, but on the "enemy" side - i.e., Hero Antagonist.

edited 20th Jan '11 7:52:50 PM by suedenim

^I'm not familiar; is he the perspective character? If so, he's a Villain Protagonist. That or a hero protagonist under a villain's control.

edited 20th Jan '11 7:55:36 PM by INUH

He is the perspective character, but Villain Protagonist is described in the Laconic as "The main character is more villainous than heroic." That definitely does NOT describe von Hammer. Hero Antagonist does (if you make allowances for WWI equivalents): "The Lawful Good guys oppose the main characters." His opponents are French, British, and American fliers - the "good guys" in WWI, at least to the American readership.

The issue here is that the antagonist isn't the main character. If he's heroic and the protagonist, he's neither trope.

edited 20th Jan '11 8:03:32 PM by INUH

Yes, the above exactly. Protagonist is the main character, antagonists oppose the protagonist... regardless of good/evil/etc. The "villain" bit was just meant as from the perspective of the (American) comic authors, did not intend a value judgement. Should have said, instead, that isn't an example of an antagonist.

I get what you're saying, but protagonist doesn't always equal "main character." Or at least not by the classic definition, where "protagonist" is the one who sets the plot in motion. For instance, John McClane isn't the protagonist in Die Hard. He's actually the antagonist to Hans Gruber, who's the protagonist by this definition. A lot of people don't use those definitions, though.

That said, I'm coming around to Enemy Ace not being a great example, mainly because "protagonist/antagonist" doesn't translate all that well to the typical war story. (Kaiser Wilhelm would be the protagonist or antagonist of WWI, not The Red Baron....)

^You're right, but I don't think the tropes use the correct definitions of "protagonist" and "antagonist."

Yeah, I think The Protagonist and The Antagonist experienced massive Real Life Trope Decay decades ago, at least.

edited 21st Jan '11 7:51:15 AM by suedenim

While it's not cut and dry, think of it like this.

The protagonist is the character the story mostly follows, good or bad.

The antagonist is the enemy of said character, good or bad.

Giving this a bump...I'm really not sold on any of the mentioned examples so far.

Would Dib work?

I'm voting this un-picturable.

I think it needs a first-person perspective. If we got that FPS style with a crosshair-thingy trained on, like, a policeman, that could do it, maybe.

[1]◊

Found a nice one for the hero vs hero conflict that's the primary thing (villain protagonist is a variant, not the main thing) the trope is about. Normally in anime, games with an anime art style, and in western animation, you can identify a villain or a shifty character through either his mannerisms or his appearance raising some "red flags" that indicate that something is not right about them. A hero will typically lack these things unless he has a dark origin. Neither character in the pic raises any red flags and in the source material are both heroic (at heart anyways) individuals.

Looks like Just A Face And A Caption to me.

Anyway, if all we needed were two heroes fighting, we could easily find a Let's You and Him Fight picture from any one of the bajillion or so comic book crossovers.

edited 23rd Mar '11 6:48:48 PM by troacctid

Well, what we really need is someone who we normally think of as a protagonist in an antagonistic role, right? Maybe we can find something on Superdickery.com.

I was thinking of this. Jimmy's name is on the cover, so he's got to be the protagonist, but Superman is opposing him, so...

edited 15th Apr '11 8:44:58 PM by SemiCasualObserver

What would happen if we were to sidestep "Who would best represent this trope" and instead go with an image *not* of a person? Say, an infographic. I see a sort of checkmark list with all sorts of entries on it. Noble, check, valiant, check, upholds the law, check, protects the innocent, check, et cetera until you get to the last of the list which is Focus Character, which is scratched out.

edited 17th May '11 7:25:36 PM by RussGreene

That could work. Is there an image you had in mind, or could you make one?

what about artie fron concession?

Um, I think i found a good pic, but it's too big. How do i decrease it's dimensions?

Open in an art program, such as MS Paint or MS Picture Manager and go to "scale image".

Do keep in mind, that simply being an example isn't enough to be worthy of the page picture.

Ninja'd.

edited 25th Jun '11 8:44:33 PM by Willbyr

You could also crop some of the sides off if they're unnecessary.