why always protagonist/antagonist?

If we really think about what we really are, inside our heads, in the most elementary sense of how our minds work - we are Hunters/gatherers. That's how our brain works. If we hear a scream from somewhere we immediately became frightened. Why? Because we are programmed that way, because in our genetic code it says that we should afraid from sharp sounds because it may indicates about some danger hidden in the jungle. Although our ways of life have changed from those glorious days, the psychology of our brain still works in the same basic way. Instead of hunters, we have become consumers, service providers, and career builders.

If we think of a story, and its most basic structures throughout infinite of generations, its the dichotomy between a protogonist and an antagonist. even if there isnt a villian, that there must be some kind of a purpose. But life does not work like that right? We do not have one basic desire. We have no villain dedicated to destroying us and what we believe in. but that not the complete truth is it. we do always feel that way. That there is a a narrative to our life, the brain builds a story in a way that it believes it should be...if we go back to those essential ways of how our psychology, we find that there too is the same dichotomy. There's a hunter, and there's a pray. There is a clear goal, there is a success, or a failure.

From the time we draw on caves to the big Hollywood movies, one basic thing remains, that the most effective way - no, more that that, it's probably the only effective way to share ideas , is to make them feel about the idea, A certain journey, a certain conflict, and almost always a certain evil. It describes exactly the same basic instinct that every hunter has in his nature. In the most essential sense of being human, of being alive, we experience reality in the eyes hunters, or as prays. So when a story manages to put us in a similar situation, in a similar mental process, it works. It activates a someting deep within our imagination, within our nature.

An interesting philosophy about one of the basic tenets of storytelling (English lit 101) . Which is: whether it's literature or film, the underpinning that drives any narrative forward is : conflict.

We have one thing but want another. We are with one person but want another.

The overindulged privilege of Scarlett is about to be destroyed by war.

Dorothy yearns to escape to a place where there isn't any trouble. Then wishes to escape back home.

The whole town, the whole conquered confederacy, wishes to lynch an innocent black man, but Atticus wants something more in line with justice.

Conflict is how a story moves forward. If I am understanding the OP, the appeal in this device of story telling derives from our own primitive history. Hunter/gatherer. Predator/prey. A dichotomy as old as human kind.

New concept to me, but it makes sense.

Not entirely sure what the question actually is here, but going by the thread's title... Lenslady has pretty much got it: Conflict drives narrative.


Not every single movie relies on that, there's a few movies that rely on disasters like Emmerich's movies 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow, and some others like Volcano and Dante's Peak from the 1990s.


Hell, even Jurassic Park could be considered an antagonist-free movie.
Ok, Dennis Nedry was kinda the bad guy in the film, as it's his initial actions that cause the problems faced by the rest of the characters... but, in reality, he was just a careless, greedy ass-hat who had been basically ripped-off by Hammond.




I think the question "why is there always a protagonist and antagonist", should be changed... "What is the ultimate goal of the person we think is the antagonist?"
Look at Thanos in the MCU.
He actually has quite a valid reason for his "villainy"... and going by what we all think will happen in Endgame, you could possibly even see the Avengers as the antagonists of the story.


As too did Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park. He'd been screwed over by Hammond, so, Nedry took steps in stealing and selling data to another company. In the process he endangered innocent lives by switching fences off and looking at how the story plays out he never actually switched the fences off with the purpose of killing anyone. He did it simply to escape the island with the stolen DNA/data, with all other considerations secondary.


John Doe in Se7en as well.
He genuinely believes that his actions are warranted, and that they'll make a difference.
Sure, the guy is mad as a hatter... but, his goal, his ultimate reason for doing what he's doing, is something he genuinely believes in.


Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs, or The Tooth Fairy in Red Dragon... again, both can't be considered a genuine antagonist.


As Lens said, conflict drives narrative, but in many movies there's no real genuine antagonist... all there is, are two parties with conflicting ideals.
It's up to the filmmakers, and to an extent the audience, to decide which is which.

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Not all antagonists are evil. Apollo Creed, in the first Rocky film. was not evil, though he was brash and overconfident. Sometimes the antagonist has traits opposite the protagonist, sometimes he or she is a barrier to the protagonist's goals, sometimes both. (You could argue that Rocky had become more like Creed in "Rocky III" before he learned his lesson.)

Often in romances, differing personalities or circumstances, not necessarily an antagonist, prevent a couple from coming together. There are no villains keeping Danny and Sandy apart in "Grease."

I think it comes down to the fact that we're always aware we're watching a story. People are not driven by one thing, and we know that, which is why we like our characters to have depth (to suggest a broader life). But we're not actually interested in just watching a fully three-dimensional character walk around. Stories are told to make a point, so we want them to have one. The storyteller is conveying a feeling and/or an idea to us. Stories are heightened and isolated versions of real life, which is why the protagonist tends to have a clearer drive than a real person might.

Or, as the semi-fictionalized Robert McKee put it in Adaptation.: "why the hell are you wasting my time with your movie?" The mere act of telling a story implies that you have a thing to say, which in turn necessitates that you respect the viewer's time by having a point, and making that point semi-judiciously. Things to the side of that point may still be included, but only to help the viewer immerse themselves, and to care about the pretend person, so that the point itself has an impact. Even the things aside from the moral of the story, then. ultimately exist to serve it.

What @Yoda said:

"Stories are heightened and isolated versions of real life"

Insightful and concise. And when you think of it, can be applicable to almost all forms of art - music, painting, poetry.


Btw today's story of lenslady is wrapped around the narrative of "Why can't I get this d$&{%#}n device to copy and paste when I want it to ?!?" 😕
(Definitely R rated -lots of cussin')

Lenslady, you must have the same tablet as I. I've sworn off the Baker's Dozen thread because of it.

If conflict if the most common driver for a story then the simplest form of conflict tends to be "good vs evil".

But why, tough? i'm not not agreeing. conflict definitely drives narrative. but there has to be a reason why we search for conflict.

eveything we feel we feel for a reason. every feel you can get, that your brain can generate, have to come from a need related to the essence of the DNA. why do man like big buts and ****? Because the wider the groin of the woman the more chance she got to successfully execute birth. The bigger the woman's ****, the more milk she’ll have there.

sorry if anyone is offended by the language. not my intention.

this is true for stories as well. whatever we like: in the layer of aesthetics, has roots in the instincts layer.

you can say: but travis bickle goal is not to survive.
but his goal is to find redemption within violence. trough the most elemntal tool of survival. even if it is a sensless, pointless violence. it's a movie about an age when what the DNA needs and our needs takes different routes.

you can take this formula and tap in on every story ever made, it will stick!