Will changing a protagonist into an antagonist alienate readers?

Question

It's really hard for me to write questions here without giving a complete info dump on my story. Every time I start to explain my problem, I find myself writing an entire synopsis. This is my third attempt.

Basically, I have someone who starts out as a protagonist. In the first part of the story, she saves the day by force of personality. The villain did something horrible at the end and completely deserves punishment, but he escapes at the last moment.

In the second part of the story, the villain comes to terms with his crimes and redeems himself. He changes his ways and starts a new life.

In the third part of the story, the original protagonist has spent her time obsessed with bringing him to justice. She fears people won't see how evil he is, so she decides that the ends justifies the means. She ends up doing some very questionable and possibly evil things to make sure he's caught, arrested and executed. She eventually ends up doing things worse than he ever did, but feels justified because she needed to do those things to get him caught. It works exactly as planned. And everyone around her sees her as a hero, but she knows that she's not. Her victory is hollow and she's not happy at all.

Anyway, I like the story myself. But I thought it might be off putting for readers to invest love for a character in the beginning who ends up going bad in the end. I am afraid people want clear lines between good and evil. Would they feel cheated if I slowly turned it all around?

Answer 1

Your protagonist will still be the girl. She's the "main character". A protagonist doesn't have be a hero. They can be a reluctant anti-hero, amoral, or even a villain. You could write a book with Satan as the protagonist if you wanted.

As long as the readers have built an attachment to the character, and her actions make sense from her point of view, your readers should be okay with her getting dark or making mistakes. Note that's in general. Some people will be turned off (they don't like grey) but there's nothing you can do for them given your storyline.

Being a "puppet" (for long) isn't a great idea, as you're taking away her agency. She isn't driving the plot anymore AND her actions don't really matter. The villain can drive the plot for a while and the story can be fine (think of the Joker in Dark Knight).

You say that you're worried about turning a "good" character "evil". But I'm sure she does not so good things at the beginning, and has flaws. And the "evilness" of her actions can be justified by her motivations. Everything turns a bit grey.

As I said before, as long as your character is relatable, and her choices and actions match her characterization and situation, your readers will be fine. Now stop worrying about this and go write! If you're hesitant, put your mental effort into making her relatable and her actions understandable.

Good luck.

Answer 2

Your story has only one protagonist, the "she" whose story drives the plot from the beginning of the story to the end. That the protagonist becomes evil means that this story is a tragedy. The antagonist is a character (or characters?) who oppose or frustrate your protagonist from achieving her goals.

In the story structure you describe, the villain's redemption in part II seems like it would eliminate him as the antagonist for the remainder of the story. Without an antagonist, part III might be less engaging. If you address this structural problem by inserting a different antagonist, there's no reason for your readers to dislike the story. Tragedies, such as "Gone Girl", can do well at the bookstore and the box-office.

Answer 3

I think your protagonist and antagonist have a complex and very interesting relationship; could you have the original antagonist confront the protagonist at the end and participate in her redemption? Teaming up to defeat the EVIL ORGANIZATION could be a part of the motivation, but the obsession and history between those two is enough to build a captivating story on.

This mixing of good and evil has hundreds of examples both classical and modern. You're not being weird, you're playing on storytelling expectations to keep it interesting.

Answer 4

I hate it when people answer a question with, "Well, it all depends". But that seems like the right answer here.

Personally, it really annoys me when Hollywood does a remake of some old and well-loved story, but turns the hero of the original story into a villain or an idiot. An example that comes to mind is "Mission: Impossible", where the Tom Cruise remake turned Mr Phelps into a villain. As a viewer, I saw that as something of a betrayal: You took everything that was good about the original story and threw it out the window.

Not to say that you can never turn a hero into an anti-hero. (Not really "antagonist", as others have pointed out, as this person is still the main character.) If you write it in a way that makes sense and in general if you do it well, it can certainly be an interesting and involving story. The reader may be drawn in to the tragic tale of this formerly good person being overcome by the situation in which she finds herself and gradually turning evil.

But I think it's relatively hard to pull off. In general, readers want to like the main character. I have very often decided that I don't like a story because the main character was so unlikable, and so I ultimately don't care if he succeeds or fails. That is not to say that the hero can't be flawed. A hero who is perfect in every way tends to be boring and unbelievable. But -- again, in general -- you want your hero to be someone that the readers like and want to see succeed.

So I certainly would not say to not write the story this way. It can be made to work. But it's relatively difficult.

Answer 5

I think it depends on how you write it and who your audience is.

There are real life stories like that. For example, think of Napoleon. As a youngster, he used to read Jean Jacques Rousseau and probably dreamed of being a champion of freedom. After he became powerful, it took him quite a while to become infatuated with his power, but eventually, he succumbed to that infatuation and became emperor. And he ended up disappointing Beethoven.

There is the Star Wars prequels story of Anakin Skywalker who starts out as a nice kid and becomes the evil Vader. That was poorly done and annoyed me. Nonetheless, there are plenty of people who loved it for whatever reason -- I think they are under the sway of the Dark Side of the Force if you ask me.

There is also Citizen Kane, in which Kane starts out as an idealist, then becomes as corrupt as the people who brought him up. That story was well done and it worked.

The conclusion is, if you built your character right, the story will work. If your target audience is teenagers and you have explosions and vampires, it will also work, even if you failed at building the character.

Answer 6

It would not alienate your readers to make a protagonist an antagonist. Whether it's a character's learning curve or it inspires a different character to rise up and become the new protagonist, as long as the plot is good, it shouldn't alienate readers.

Answer 7

While some readers would be feel uncertain about the role shift of the protagonist, I think they would still be really curious about the future development of the character as long as you make a good job at the execution of the story.

After all, is true that anyone would be dismayed if the genki positive and innocent protagonist were to sudenly turn into an immoral killing machine... But that wouldnt be the case, if from the start you put little (or not so little) hints that said character actually had a hidden darkness. So as the story progresses, the situation forces to commit despicable actions... Or maybe she uses her circumstances as an excuse, and she is doing what she is doing for her own gain or pleasure, who knows?

Your question makes me thing on the Movie True Grit, a western about vengeance. Where the the romantization of the original dissapeared in the remake so it became the story of how a young girl wasted her life for vengeance.

In any case, if you make a good execution, it will be brilliant.