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[ed boy]

I have a bit of a problem. Let us imagine that I'd reading a book, or watching a film. During the process of the plot, there is a hero/group of heroes and an antagonist/group of antagonists. At the end of the plot, the hero(s) defeat the antagonist(s). The problem I have is that I find it very hard to dislike the antagonists. If they have believable, rational motives, I tend to sympathise with them and find it hard to dislike them. If they do not, I do not find them believable, and thus I do not dislike them. I realise that my enjoyment from these things is limited by my lack of dislike for the antagonist.

I therefore have come here with two requests from the community.

The first one is to know if anybody else is in the same predicament as me.

The second one is if anybody can give me examples of good, hateable antagonists, and what they do to become so.

[ToonyMan]

Gurren Lagann.

The bad guys have very good reason for what they do.

[Ampersand]

All that really means is that you've matured beyond the point where you can just accept 'this person is evil' out of hand in literature. Have you ever thought that you may prefer different genres of stories where the struggle between good and evil isn't so much the focus of the stories as the development of the characters involved?

Try All Quiet on the Western Front.

Alternatively, perhaps the more realistically things are played, the less willing you are to suspend your disbelief. Go the opposite route in that case; Terry Pratchett is a good start.

There's another thread around here revolving around book recommendations, check that out.

[kilakan]

You want a good hate-able antagonist?  Well history books are a good place to read, WWII, Battle of Red Indian Lake, Red River, The Manifest destiny, they all contain real-life people who had no real motive for wanting and commiting the slaughter of hundreds of people.

[Itnetlolor]

I've grown sympathetic for antagonists after having been one a few times myself, in cases where I thought I was being the protagonist, but after a bit of recollection, my methods of doing things were far different from the ideal due to ideals I have been raised or learned, or gave up on as time passes; in contrast to either the social, or political norm. So to put it, I think my -tagonism polarity flips in all different directions constantly. Reason I like to remain a freelance independent person at all times. I side with nobody, unless they pay better and treat me like a person and not a drone. Kinda how I feel about places I work at. I'm a regular Jayne Cobb.

I have sympathy for the bad guy sometimes and sometimes would think that there should be some alternative solution so the bad guy can come out content, and the good guys can be happy without feeling betrayed. Of course, once you toss politics into the whole mess, as grey things seem, look closer. It's half-tone. There is no grey; only really tiny black and whites. Some parts are dense, other parts, not so much; but there is seldom any common ground to count as a grey zone unless looked upon from afar.

[ein]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackAndWhiteMorality
That should help a bit.

[bjlong]

Really, this is common. However, if you accept that the antagonist could have been a good person, but has ended up doing these bad things by his own choice, then the story becomes better for it--a chance given by the protagonist to change spurned becomes compelling, and a lot of antagonists seem like actual people for it.

But! This requires good writers. One example, the Big Bad of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is "evil" because he fell down a slippery slope--not because he swan-dove off of a pinnacle of morality, kicking puppies all the way down.

[ToonyMan]

That Disney movie Treasure Planet has a sympathetic villain.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Near the end HE'S the one that actually makes the choice whether the main protagonist lives or he gets his life long dream (a lot of gold).  Guess what he does.

[Strife26]

The sympathetic antagonist is the hallmark of really good and really bad writing.

If you want antagonists with a clear point of becoming evil and no longer remediable, the page on Moral Event Horizon is especially helpful.

To answer your first question, resounding yes. Look at some parts of the Avatar thread, for a good example.

Specific examples of a fall to darkness are pretty tough. In most cases the villain will either be evil, and evil all the way through, or will have a backstory big enough to let the character become evil. The problem becomes, once you know enough of a character's backstory, it's very nearly impossible not to have some semblance of understanding them.

Historical figures work okay for that, like Hitler.


TLDR:
If you know enough about a villain, and/or his fall to darkness, it becomes very tough to hate him. Realistic characters almost always generate sympathy.

[Realmfighter]

Just twist your fingers and hope for a spin off having the villains as main character.

[ToonyMan]

Just twist your fingers and hope for a spin off having the villains as main character.

Shadow the Hedgehog!

[Aqizzar]

Just twist your fingers and hope for a spin off having the villains as main character.

Shadow the Hedgehog!

Let's not and say we did.  Would that Betelgeuse cartoon count?

I'm trying to think of villains that I had a lot of sympathy for, but mostly I'm just remembering villains who were intriguing and fun to watch, but not exactly likable.

[Strife26]

Colonel Q, Aqizzar?


I just thought of a good example for request 2. Red Storm Rising. Awesome book anyway.

[cganya]

not a book, but a game. one of the pre-FF7 final fantasies had Kefka. Kefka was pretty damn good at being a villain.

[Leafsnail]

I suppose a "protagonist" doesn't actually have to be good - just the main character.  If the main character is evil, that'd make the good guys "antagonists".

Now I just need to think of an example where this is the case...