"Villain Protagonist"

#breakingbad #infinitywar #villain #writingtips
I have a villain I have a protagonist UGH Villain Protagonist. The popularity of the term villain protagonist has exploded on the modern internet as characters like Harley Quinn, Joker, Walter White, and Thanos continue to enjoy the spotlight. But is this label all it's cracked up to be?
Thanks to Ruthie Hanson for the concept and writing behind this video!
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[@sharkjumpingwalrus6744]

Thing that people forget is that the phase "Everyone is the hero of their own story." denies the idea that people can be willfully malicious and rebel against the idea of being a hero. "There are no such things as hero's." is a mindset that such characters can take, seeing acts of kindness as just as selfish as acts of petty vindictive behavior. The idea that good and evil are abstract concepts does not mean that you can not define them. Perspectives can add up to a greater whole, and the narrative that takes into account every perspective will always have a better understanding of what is right and wrong in a given situation.

[@alexcat6685]

I see that, the thing about everyone sees themselves as the hero is well how they justify they actions, they see themselves as justifed in what they do. Doesn't matter if they're as they don't see it that way, thanos believed he was the hero in his justification he's not ingori sacrafice he's causing, but if he's mind he thinks he's saving the world he's gonna be driven by it.

[@BolasMinion]

​​@@alexcat6685Joker blows "everyone's the hero in their own story" out of the water being self aware enough to know he's evil but apathetic enough to enjoy doing it anyway, and the same is true of Norman Osborn, Sheev Palpatine, and Jack Horner

[@alexcat6685]

​ yeah though they feel so inhuman since why would they consintely destroy things that could help them. I mean moving past his grand comedy and seeing he was stupid enough to noe value his team enough to where they could help him because he was that evil. His hole purpose is to show what happens when you treat life as just for you and ingore everyone else. They can work, they can just lack in varity as they well aren't really complex.

[@sharkjumpingwalrus6744]

@@alexcat6685 It's because you don't bother exploring the villains beyond their desire to be the bad guy. Jack Horner for instance embodies the idea of entitlement, a very human flaw. In his mind there is no reason he can't have what he wants, even if it hurts other people in the process. He does not want to be the "Hero" because he knows he would have to waste his time making petty justifications for his actions that would bring him joy regardless. In a sense, he understands what a hero is and why he doesn't want to be one. What is more human than a person who spends time doing what he wants because every second he doesn't he misses out on doing what he wants to do?

[@fieuline2536]

Even if you're the Bojack Horseman of your life, you're still the protagonist.

[@ryanratchford2530]

My definitions are: I think you’re conflating hero/protagonist & villian/antagonist. I think Hero/Villian should be a moral description according to the books themes. Whereas Pro/antagonist should be a writing PoV description. The active agent Vs the person in their way. Protagonist: The PoV character leading the story. Usually the main character (most PoVs) & usually proactively driving the plot towards achieving their goals. Antagonist: Anyone who gets in the way of the protagonist achieving their goals. These are morally neutral terms. Unlike hero / Villain. Hero: The character in the right (a “good guy”) in the framing of the story & its themes. Usually the protagonist &/or main character but not always. Vilian: The character who the story & themes frame as in the wrong. So I see no reason why you can’t have Villian Protagonists & Hero Antagonists. If you have multiple PoVs in the story then each PoV will usually be their own protagonist fighting with their own antagonist depending on their goals. And these are all different from sympathetic or non-sympathetic. You can have a sympathetic villian (a sad boy who does evil things for sad reasons) & an unsympathetic hero (a jerk who does the moral thing-anti-hero) But these words are all so muddled in their definitions. Just like anti-hero (a hero with traditionally unheroic resists)

[@travelerofstars]

Part of the issue is that people conflate protagonist with hero or the moral center of a story when as you said a protagonist is just the POV character. The protagonist doesn't even have to be the main character necessarily, just the one we experience the story from. Villain protagonist feels like an oxymoron because in a way it kind of is. Being the protagonist doesn't exclude a character from BEING a villain, they're just the eyes used to experience the story. The person behind those eyes can be anything, which I think is what Gus was trying to get at. I think Gus's issue is that people are treating this as the only way to be a villain is to oppose the protagonist. Which isn't even necessarily true either because a character can be a villain without being the antagonist i.e opposing the protagonist.

[@blakchristianbale]

Antihero and antivillain already cover those

[@seanmckibben3912]

"Villain, simply put, is a word we use for othering people. Think of the classic Disney villain ... ultimately, we are meant to see them as responsible for evil. There is always a possibility that we relate to these characters, but the intent to differentiate them from *the baseline morality of the audience takes precedent.*" "But here's the thing: a well written immoral protagonist will still invite the audience to empathize, in some way or another, with their point of view. And that is a position that a *proper villain* will never be able to occupy, for reasons both literary and practical." I think most people here seem to have the appropriate understanding of what a protagonist *is* and what an antagonist *is.* And, further, they understand what a villain is, somewhat, as well as what a hero is. The antagonist/protagonist roles are narrative roles, structural to the story; the villain/hero labels, however, are not narrative roles. At least, not directly. If one is called a hero, there is the *expectation* that one is also a protagonist, and if one is a villain, there is the *expectation* that one is an antagonist. But hero and villain have more do to with the virtues and vices, the ethics and ethos, of a character. Or at least, that is how they *can* and often *are* used, *at the same time* as they are used to imply protagonist/antagonist roles. I think what we have here is just a historically-derived semantic disgruntlement. We can see a clear logical space for the idea of a character which is a protagonist and is *at the same time* differentiated, distinguished, and outside of "the baseline morality of the audience." A character which is a point-of-view character, a main character, playing a decisive role in the story, influencing its outcomes, making difficult decisions which intrigue and delight and dismay us, and as well still *a character who we believe to be evil, immoral, amoral, vicious, or unrepentant.* Now, as to the "practicality" and literary merit of constructing such a character, I won't profess. On the face of it, I'm sure this idea of a "villain protagonist" can doubtlessly be made to work, and it can offer some interesting possibilities. What sorts of things might we be able to see if we take a long look from behind the eyes of the vile old sorcerer lofted in his obsidian tower, working his arcane arts to subdue the heroes of the story. Whether or not what is called a "villain protagonist" in popular parlance is *this* sort of thing described, I can't easily say, but if anything, people may be making their "villain protagonists" *insufficiently* beyond the pale, such that calling them "villain protagonists" feels unjustified because they are still too... Sympathetic? Understandable? Maybe the balking at "villain protagonists" comes not from the inability to see the logical space they can be situated in, but in the refusal to accept the given examples of "villain protagonists" as sufficiently "villainous."

[@Mewobiba]

@@blakchristianbale So, is Mr. C. of Twin Peaks: The Return an antihero or antivillain? He is a completely static protagonist who doesn't learn or grow, who is awful at every turn, who literally says explicitly "I don't need anything, I want; if there's one thing you should know about me it's that I don't need anything". There are no redeeming features in him, nothing to relate to. And yet he is very obviously the protagonist of several episodes. Now, I'm fine with the take that such characters are unusual enough that it's fine to say there's no need for a generalized term for them, but I don't think it can be said that 'antihero' and 'antivillain' cover them at all.

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

@@seanmckibben3912 I mean we have not the team poison medicine, it's just called bad medicine. If we want to break the concept of hero and villain, we lose these words in the end and they mean nothing, all because of a site made by people who know little of literature.

[@JeevesAnthrozaurUS]

Waltuh Put your apologetics away Waltuh I'm not having a conversation about whether you're redeemable right now, Waltuh

[@koshavinka2995]

I personally disagree with this video. In a lot of points you treated things that a villain, hero or protagonist can/often tends to be as things they need to be to earn the denomination, and at points were inconsistent with it (Saying protagonists are nevertheless people we should emphasize and root for at least at the start, and then talking about Cautionary protagonists, who are meant to be disliked from the getgo), and then there are minor instances like claiming it defeats the purpose to see Alex from Clockwork Orange as a villain, because the point is the society is corrupt, when in reality, both Alex and the politicians are villains (One is the corrupt system, the other is the evil that will take advantage of that system), it's not a role only one of the two sides can have (There are Marvel stories where Thanos and Mephisto fight, and they're both garbage people). I will admit, I disagree with this video mostly because, in my head, "Protagonist" and "Villain" will have two set meanings Protagonist: "The character the story spends most of the time with, focuses on and may be in the POV of, regardless of their morality" Villain: "a character filling any role on the Protagonist-antagonist scale that is either (almost) completely evil or overall more dangerous and selfish than they are sympathetic." While the definition of "Villain" may change from person to person, I am confident in my definition of protagonist, and in that definition a "Villain Protagonist" can be a thing. I know he is a meme more than anything and I'll look harder to take seriously for this, but Patrick Bateman from American Psycho is the Protagonist (he is telling the story, every scene focuses on him, he's the Primary (Protos) actor (agonistes)) and he's not sympathetic at all, he is a danger to everyone around him and he's barely even cautionary or someone we may become, he's just a rich, delusional murderer who is both deplorable and pathetic and meant to be a laughingstock for us. He's a moral villain who is in the narrative role of protagonist. I also disagree with how MCU Thanos is not a villain because we delve into just how determined he is to reach his goal and how he justifies it, leading to us being connected with him, which makes him not a villain in your opinion. To disprove this, we can look at Funny Valentine from Stell Ball Run, whose main concept is that he's delusional, xenophobic, powerhungry, vengeful, predatory and despicable, yet with his great speeches, the framing, the fact his grand ideals get more screen time than his more unforgivable moments etc, the story ends up being propaganda that makes us seriously think he may be a good guy, when he isn't. The point of Steel Ball Run isn't that Valentine is a hero because he managed to convince us he was right, it's that Valentine is a VILLAIN WHO IS VERY GOOD AT MANIPULATION because he managed to convince us he's right, when he isn't. Thanos is a protagonist who is morally abominable BUT very charismatic, but none of that makes him moral, a good person, a hero. And while I'm inevitably going to be morally bias, because im a human, I made an attempt to project the WRITERS' morality onto these characters, and all the people behind these films absolutely saw Alex, Thanos, Valentine , etc as a villain. Endgame made Thanos dying for good the Happy Ending. He is a villain. As someone who is admittedly gonna take a while to detoxify from all the ways TVTropes can ruin media consumption for you if you're impressionable, I am saying this less based on what TVT tells me a villain protagonist is and more based on what I see as evil and what I strongly believe the writers intended to be seen as evil. Media can be interpreted in a million ways according to you, so accept that I see Villain Protagonists as something that very much can exist.

[@pinxelated2799]

Well said!

[@socksinsoda9517]

Couldn't have put it better myself

[@MalzraAirwynn]

It's always seemed pretty clear to me that the terms hero protagonist and villain antagonist are just to showcase the contrast between their role in the narrative structure, on the protagonist/antagonist side of things with the perspective of the story, and their morality, the hero/villainous side which aren't as explicitly tied to story structure in common usage the way protagonist and antagonist are. Rather than sounding like a contradiction it sounds pretty intuitive and straight forward to me and only sounds like it muddies the water if you conflate protagonist/hero and villain/antagonist as being one and the same.

[@blakchristianbale]

That’s already what antihero and antivillain mean

[@MalzraAirwynn]

@@blakchristianbale An antihero isn't necessarily outright villainous and antivillain doesn't suggest that they're the protagonist. There's definitely some overlap though.

[@stephensmith7327]

​@@blakchristianbalenot really, a Anti Hero/Villain is basically a character who believes the Ends justify the means, weather the story agrees with them determines which they are. The Punisher believes War Tactics are necessary to stop criminal organizations and the story agrees with him. Magneto believes Mutants must kill the non mutants before they are genocided first and the story disagrees with him. Walt starts as the Anti Hero but over the corse of the series becomes an Anti Villain.

[@blakchristianbale]

@@stephensmith7327 no an antihero is a morally complex protagonist in a story that follows a structure resembling the hero’s journey (and an antivillain is a morally complex antagonist in this type of story). They don’t have to have any specific beliefs, they just have to subvert expectations about the heroic archetype

[@Abyzz_Knight]

​​​@@blakchristianbaleur argument is conflicting. What do you call a protagonist who does not fit your definition of anti-hero yet still can't be called good? What if they aren't meant to be heroic? What if they don't have anything resembling the hero's journey? It can't be an anti-hero because you just defined that as a morally complex character who follows a structure similar to the hero's journey What about an antagonist who's just a good person yet still opposes the protagonist? What if they're simply heroic? It can't be antivillain because you just defined that as a morally complex antagonist. But then you contradict yourself by saying they simply have to subvert expectations about the heroic archetype, which would mean that antiheroes don't need to be protagonists and antivillains don't need to be antagonists because like you said "they just have to subvert expectations about the heroic archetype," that says nothing about their role within the story You're really showing why hero should not be equated protagonist and villain should not be equated with antagonist. You can't be consistent with it, because a character's role in the story and moral character are two different things that don't always neatly line up. Edit: even Diregentlemen doesn't categorize every morally dubious protagonist as an antihero.

[@ReeseL.H]

Back in school, a protagonist was always defined as "a person with a goal" and typically the main perspective of the story. Because of this, I've always been confused as to why 'villain protagonist' is so contentious. Thanks for breaking it down, Gus & Ruthie! I love learning more about the technical parts of writing. Love your guys' content

[@jessealonso5413]

The problem with the video is, protagonist doesn't mean hero. Protagonist isn't a moral term. What you learned in school IS true. Villain protagonist IS a valid term and it predates tv tropes by a hot minute. Gus fundamentally misunderstood that protagonist and The Hero are not the same thing and never addresses this.

[@ReeseL.H]

@@jessealonso5413 Sure, you're right that protagonist and antagonists aren't inherent moral terms. However, I think Ruthie (the scriptwriter) made strong enough arguments as to why the term 'villain protagonist' isn't typically used in most professional writings - particularly in discussion of society's wider view of villains and the nuance that ultimately should come with this type of protagonist. I don't think it's necessary to 100% agree with someone if one still thinks the argument was well-made (which is typically the camp I'm in most of the time). I'm very much happy with "agreeing to disagree" in opinionated subjects like this one.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

@@jessealonso5413Yeah. My understanding of the hero/villain and protagonist/antagonist dichotomies are that the former hinges entirely on how a character's *position* is framed morally whereas the latter is a morality-neutral dichotomy. I also didn't see anything on the subject of the "Hero Antagonist", where a character opposing the protagonist is still framed as morally correct.

[@Aeirion]

Diregentleman absolutely advocates for the snap. How cruel...

[@trutyatces8699]

Imagine thinking that Protagonists (literally just meaning the people you're following) have to be heroes. And that only one of the definitions of villains is correct.

[@blakchristianbale]

No one said protagonists have to be heroes. This video is about definitions, not what types of stories you’re allowed to write

[@trutyatces8699]

@@blakchristianbale definitions that are being ignored clearly... He literally asserts that Villain-Protagonist is a stupid, self-contradicting term in the first two minutes and most of the video is built to present that argument.

[@midoriasakusa]

probably a sign of too much children's media where the protagonist has to be morally correct. and if not (regardless of what age the media is made for) i guess the viewer is too stupid to figure out morals themselves😢

[@blakchristianbale]

@@trutyatces8699 yeah, and if you watched the video you’d know it’s because calling morally dubious protagonists “villains” is reductive and misleading, not because they don’t exist

[@trutyatces8699]

@@blakchristianbale *he literally says that villains being protagonists is a contradiction.* This man is so stubborn about denying that they exist that he calls Walter White an Anti-Hero. What more is there to say?

[@uraynuke]

"becomes Heisenberg" Walter White was ALWAYS Heisenberg, he just leapt out of hiding at the first chance he got also, Diregentleman advocates The Snap?! APPALING!

[@iantaakalla8180]

Walter White is so dissatisfied with his life he would have thrown it all away if there was an easier way to be recognized and be “the man”. The fact that he succeeds in being the meth kingpin or that because he is so destructive he took out any competition, then by his collapse removed the drug trade or chance of it to come back, or that he ostensibly cares about his family and Jesse, doesn’t mean anything when he subsumes them under his childish need for recognition. He was basically Heisenberg. He just would have died bitter and seemingly a victimized teacher (which he willingly inflicted on himself when he walked away from Grey Matter).

[@SobiTheRobot]

Can a protagonist not be villainous? Can an antagonist not be heroic?

[@crimsoncowboy7152]

that's not the correct definition of villain being used here though

[@theimplications635]

bro thought he did something here lamo

[@thereccher8746]

The idea that morality is embedded into narrative structure is such a weird precept to accept.

[@SobiTheRobot]

@@crimsoncowboy7152 I disagree that the correct definition is being used at all. Heroes are good, and villains are evil. Protagonists and antagonists are blue and orange.

[@appleboss9742]

Yea. Megamind was a villainous protagonist, and Metro man was heroic antagonist

[@MrFroTW]

How would you categorize a playthrough of a video game where you are evil? Games like Fallout New Vegas and Pathfinder Kingmaker let you play as "villainous protagonists" without the moral complexity expected from other story telling mediums.

[@roberthebert2826]

you are still the protagonist. Protagonist and Antagonist as narrative focal points are not morally tied to good and evil.

[@blakchristianbale]

The character is a blank slate, they’re a different trope entirely

[@cornfield2120]

@@blakchristianbalemy brother in Christ, is a slaver not villainous?

[@blakchristianbale]

@@cornfield2120 no, they’re evil. “Villainous” is way too goofy a way to describe something that awful

[@iamthemouse4483]

The biggest problem with this video is that, wether intentionally or not, it makes the critical mistake of using the dicotomies of "Protagonist/Antagonist" and "Hero/Villain" interchangably. Protagonist and Antagonist are rigid terms that describe the role of a character in the plot, where as Hero and Villain are descriptions of morality. This is actually why I think the term "Villain Protagonist" is a more useful term than "Anti-Hero," because Villain Protagonist tells you exactly what you need to know. The actions of the protagonist of this story cause more suffering than good, making them a villain. Where as Anti-Hero can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, from a morally grey or even evil protagonist, to a secondary character that is an obstacle to both the protagonist and antagonist, to someone helping the protagonist, but is more violent than the protagonist.

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

Wrong. A protagonist within a heroic narrative is always cast as hero, since the audience has to agree with the values they present as good, and as good is something we like, the character has to be the most sympathetic and understandable person in the story we are meant to root for, ergo the hero. The villain is the opposite of good and as something we don't like, usually cast as villain. Villain protagonists destroys heroic narratives and makes people just project their own moral framework onto a story that doesn't support it, hence no one gets that Thanos was correct about sacrifice or why Edelgard was the hero in Crimson Flower and instead delude themselves that they were meant to be seen as wrong, even though they weren't. Also, if the actions of a hero can cause more damage than harm and therefore a villain, is Rigby in the Regular Show Movie NOT the hero, even though he is cast as one and the protagonist? Spoilers, he is the reason why the villain wants to destroy his friendship with Mordecai by revealing a terrible error of Rigby's youth that ruined said Mordecai's academic future and Rigby also made Ross an enemy by ruining his chance accidentally to win the Volleyball cup. Still, Rgiby rectifies his failures and even if he fumbles, he is still the hero. If you meant someone like Light, then no, anti-hero fits. Anti-Hero just means protagonist that is villainous, it is the concept of villain protagonist, but better, because it tells you that this person is not heroic and doesn't break the heroic narrative by projecting values onto a work that it does not have. Your bit about what an Anti-Hero is not only contradicts your point, it also just uses an appeal to the masses, a fallacious tactic, to be honest.

[@yoriavila4308]

​@@basilofgoodwishes4138 I have a question, if we go by how you define these terms, where does Guts from Berserk fall into this? Because I can assure you that he's not a hero and he's definitely not a villain neither.

[@milsthebard1085]

EDIT: Was responding to your intro -You do later address this somewhat. Wait - isn't protagonist just the POV character? And antagonist just whoever gets in their way? Like how in the Music Man, our protagonist is a con artist and the mayor who suspects him of being a con artist is the antagonist, but for most of the show (pesky reforming aside) that doesn't correspond with their moral positions at all. Our protagonist isn't meant to be a hero for stealing and spreading misinformation about pool.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

Moreorless. i see the hero/villain dichotomy as more to describe how a story frames a character's position from a moral sense. Meanwhile, the protagonist/antagonist dichotomy just centers around whose perspective the narrative primarily follows and who is an obstacle in opposition to the protagonist. This second dichotomy is completely detatched from moral framing, to me.

[@yareyare7806]

Honestly I think Brad Armstrong from LISA The Painful is a perfect example of the Antihero you mentioned, he starts very sympathetic as we see his childhood of abuse by parent and peers and being unbale to save his sister from suicide alongside his desire to defend the last woman on earth from the sex starved people of the post apocalyptic world, however throughout the game(or hell, even in the opening cutscenes) we actually see how much Brad trying to "protect" his daughter actually leads him to essentially keep her locked everyday much like his own abusive father did to his sister, by the end of the game Brad has burned every bridge with the people he once called friends, left a bloody trail of destruction and generally has done little to nothing good because he is singlehandedly focused on "saving" his daughter, a excellent tale of how even those who truly love you can hurt you the worst and how much clinging to the past can really fuck up not only someone but also those in contact with them. I know this is a tall order given it's a videogame and all but I would love if you guys ever covered this on your channel, LISA could always use more fans.

[@skep2923]

Well maybe it’ll get more fans anyways considering the definitive edition coming out.

[@yareyare7806]

@@skep2923 I'm hoping for more people but new fans coming has both upsides and downsides.

[@calemr]

"Villain" and "Antagonist" are not synonyms. And you keep using them as if they are, and a lot of your early points seem built upon this mistake. You say people can't use "Villain protagonist" as an easy shorthand for an elevator pitch. 1: There's a lot of terminology that isn't suitable for that, that doesn't mean the terminology should be discarded. and 2: Outside of people who don't know what the word "Antagonist" is, you're the first person I've ever experienced who doesn't immediately understand the term. It is self descriptive. If you know what both words mean, you know what the term means. An immoral main character. A primary lead who is a bad person. You provide three Types of characters who Might be labelled as a villain protagonist, but that doesn't mean Villain Protagonist is a bad term. The word Bird isn't useless because we can specify different creatures as "chickens" and "feathered creatures" and "corvids". But hey, what can we expect from someone who advocates for the snap? Love your content, looking forward to more, but hard disagree on this one.

[@blakchristianbale]

Villain and antagonist aren’t synonyms, but a villain is a type of antagonist. This is how everyone outside TV Tropes uses the term

[@calemr]

@@blakchristianbale You're just incorrect. And I was taught the difference in high school English. A villain is not necessarily an antagonist. You can have villainous protagonists, villainous deuteragonists, all sorts. Villain is just a moral judgement. It has nothing to do with that character's degree of focus within the story.

[@blakchristianbale]

@@calemr no I’m entirely correct. An evil protagonist is a separate type of thing, no non-nerd would call them a villain unless they’re a deliberate genre riff like Megamind

[@calemr]

@@blakchristianbale Oh, well, yeah, I'm a total Nerd, dude, I paid attention in class before my GCSEs. And that... Makes me LESS correct, in your eyes? The fact I know what words mean is why you think those words Don't mean that? Well, damn, I'm sorry I'm not poorly educated enough for you to listen to me.

[@blakchristianbale]

@@calemr do you think I’m calling TV Tropes users nerds because they have a good grasp of literary theory? Because I’m not

[@cerebralisk]

My favorite story with an amoral protagonist is definitely the comics version of Lucifer, you've got a complex storyline where almost everyone sucks in their own ways and a protagonist who has a clearly defined code that does not at all resemble morality as we understand it but is consistent and, appropriately, tempting for the freedom it represents.

[@talkingtrout3148]

An antihero still has to be heroic, the examples you listed in under “wish fulfillment” are more in line with classic anti-heroes than characters like Walter White and Alex. Unlikable or Unsympathetic protagonist would be much more accurate in describing those characters rather than anti-hero.

[@iantaakalla8180]

Also, in a manner of speaking Alex and Walter White are villains. They are not the worst or overarching villains, but they are certainly going around worsening the world. They are not even incidental heroes, or villains whose goals rely on preserving some part of the world that incidentally serves good goals. The fact that Walter White does actually choose his family and Jesse in the last episode also does not mean anything; in fact, he literally cannot have his goal of helping his family, and he was about to gun Jesse. His last-second decisions of “good” were coin flips.

[@laurelannp7345]

I never sympathized with Thanos at all lol. I was mad at them for not being willing to do what's necessary for sure. But that never made me feel for Thanos. His imagining of Gamora was just mental masturbation. He was making his own reasoning. Gamora was abused by Thanos point blank. Saying he loved her was just a bunch of MCU abuse apologism

[@BlackBirdSweep]

Those things aren't at odds with each other

[@ActuallySatan]

I would argue that this is exactly what makes the movie weak. It presents Thanos as the protagonist, even just implicitly, and at every point reinforces his ideology as the one that brings forth outcomes. As Gus said, the Avengers refuse to sacrifice their own at every turn even if it would theoretically lead to better outcomes (ex. bringing Vision to Wakanda instead of just destroying the Mind Stone, Star-Lord being unwilling to kill Gamora when she asks him to, Dr. Strange giving Thanos the Time Stone because he believes Tony needs to live in order for the worst outcome to be held off, Loki trading the Tesseract for Thor's life, etc.) while Thanos willingly sacrifices and/or accepts the sacrifice of everything he has in order to achieve his goal. As far as Infinity War is concerned, he's in the right. And that's the problem. The moral framework the movie pushes is that death should not only be accepted, but embraced and strived for as the natural outcome. It's a pro-death movie, even if that puts it at odds with most of the other MCU films. That may be what made it stand out when it first premiered, and some elements of it being subverted in Endgame help it feel less morally dubious (like making Thanos more explicitly a narcissist who was more interested in being right than doing the right thing), but it still weakens the film to center it around a goal that is not only reprehensible, but is portrayed, purposefully or not, as the correct thing to do. Everything that surrounds that is just side dressing for the movie, but morally damning for most viewers. Affirming the idea that Thanos loves Gamora as he murders her to get what he wants, framing Thor as more responsible for Thanos' victory by making his desire to see Thanos suffer outweigh his desire to stop him, Thanos applauding Tony for the places in which their views and superiority complexes align; all of it is seemingly minor to the movie, but it all carries a lot of weight. It's a big problem, and the reason I and many others have been incredibly critical of Infinity War as time has gone on.

[@artyom-ovsepyan]

Well, many MCU fans falled for that. That's what happens when the writers want to write complex characters and can't handle the topic. In the end they try to make Thanos look good, even though he is higly stupid and irredeemable.

[@jesterdays]

Dude had all the power in the universe but instead of creating a utopia for everyone or whatever, he decided that killing off half the population was the solution to anything lmao. He was an idiot, I don't know how anyone sympathized with him tbh.

[@mckenzie.latham91]

He can love her and also abuse her at the same time What makes Thanos a more interesting villain is that he did love Gamora as a daughter But in the end his goal was more important than her We see that Thanos is capable of love and caring but what makes him a villain is that he will ignore those feelings and even destroy what he loves for his ultimate goal.

[@mikepotter851]

Diregentleman advocates the snap

[@Mewobiba]

Not all art analysis and commentary is by people looking to be professional writers pitching a work to a publisher, so I don't see what that initial section about writers pitching things to publishers has to do with anything. The terminology used by people buying and selling labor within an industry is often different than the terminology used by people discussing the products made by that industry. I also don't see why tvtropes gets such a major focus here; it's not the origin of the term, and focusing on it just feels a bit like poisoning the well, though I'm not saying you're doing it with that degree of intent. You say that "a well-written immoral protagonist will still still invite the audience to empathize, in some way or another, with their point of view" and I just don't think that's universally true, and I think the circumstances where that isn't true is the heart of what one would call a 'villain protagonist'. I think Mr C in Twin Peaks: The Return is a well-written immoral protagonist that doesn't at all invite the audience to empathize - it's quite the opposite of the purpose of the character. I think Humbert Humbert as the *character* in Lolita wants the reader to empathize, but is deliberately written in a way so that he comes across as unsympathetic and not someone to empathize with. Those are both to me clear examples of a "villain protagonist"; they're protagonists written for the audience to root against, rather than with. They could also well be described as cautionary tales, sure (or at least as allegories for things to be cautious about, in the case of Mr C), but I think that there is a relevant difference between a character and what we are supposed to "learn" from the character. The Tortoise of the fable of the tortoise and the hare is the protagonist in that fable - but it'd feel weird to say that the tortoise *is a fable*. I agree the term is overused at times, but I think it is useful in some contexts. Those contexts might not include sales pitches to publishers - but most people aren't aiming to be professional writers, including most of your audience.

[@xxstaryyxx161]

A villain protagonist has nothing to do with whether you sympathize with them or not, I have no idea why he's even bringing that up, that would be the definition of an antihero

[@Mewobiba]

@@xxstaryyxx161 I agree it's not based on whether you sympathize, but I do think that it is to an extent based on whether it is framed by the text as being sympathetic; in general, an antihero is supposed to be sympathetic, a villain protagonist is not.

[@lml55]

I think your mistaking the term "protagonist" and "hero" Similar to how people mistake "main character" and "protagonist" Protagonists are meant to be the one who we see the journey of, Villain or Hero For example, Crypto Destroy all Humans, we are playing as the Bad Guy, the villain, and bastard. He does grow tho, as overtime he realizes his corrupt government system and realizes he has been cloned numerous times. He also finds out one of his comrades got experimented on by the US military. He has points of growth, but they all point to him wanting to destroy humanity even more. Hell by the 3rd game, he loses his own leadership and just goes back to destroying all humans. He is a Villain, but also the Protagonist... He's a Villain Protagonist

[@xxstaryyxx161]

This whole video is so stupid, if a protagonist can be a hero, then a protagonist can be a villain, and ta antihero is somewhere in-between, is literally all you have to say to debunk this video

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

Bowser in _Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story_ is perfect example of a villain protagonist done right. He has always been the main baddie in Mario games, though there are times when the baddie becomes playable and even teamed up with Mario to face against a bigger threat than himself, especially in RPG games. In BiS, he saved the day only because he wanted to get his castle back and get rid of another villain he faced, but still retaining his villain status and give him a personality that makes him come out of his shell.

[@darkthunder301]

good point and kindly follow the exit signs

[@starmaker75]

He is also a good example of a power fantasy. I mean he is a king of the powerful kingdom, physically powerful, subjects love him, has a good number of kids and a decent dad. I mean if that is not a masculine powerful fantasy, I don't know what is

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

​@@starmaker75 Bowser used black magic to turn every Toads into bricks and horsetails in the original Super Mario Bros. (and the Japanese sequel), and not to mention he used painting canvases to create worlds in SM64, so I wouldn't be surprised if he fits the power fantasy category.

[@starmaker75]

​​@@poweroffriendship2.0 also wanted to point out that Mario and Luigi respents a different type of fantasy and that is the humble fantasy. Where unconventional people are the ones that save the day. I mean Mario and Luigi don't have the heroic build, Luigi get easily scared and more recently Mario's relationship with peach doesn't go romantic(Mario Odyssey) so far. However both of them still fight what is right and take down the villain that is more powerful traditional speaking. Another example would be the hobbits from tolkien works(the hobbit and lord of the rings)

[@poweroffriendship2.0]

​​@@starmaker75Funnily enough, Mario and Luigi are very OP'd in terms of gameplay because not only they can attack with their hammers to hit and shoes to jump on enemies, but they also managed to defend themselves by counterattacking them and not let the enemies beat them up and not to mention that they have powerful items and moves that are aided throughout their journey. After all, they are built different unlike other RPG protagonists because of toon physics. No wonder why they can beat Sephiroth with no problem.

[@NonPlayerCactus]

Diregentleman Advocates The Snap Henry Advocates The Crackle and Meg Advocates The Pop

[@MB32904]

the hero doesn’t HAVE to be the protagonist tho, the hero can also be the antagonist, since protagonist just means the main character we follow in the story & the antagonist just means the character that opposes the protagonist

[@cycloneabsol9405]

OK, but here's what you miss: the term Villain Protagonist means significantly more than the term Anti-Hero. The protagonist is the character we follow. A villain is a bad person. Put those together, we know that you mean we follow a bad person. Anti-hero means that someone has some negative traits and some positive traits. This could mean everything from "They murder and cannibalize orphans, but they tip 21% every time they get food" to "They're basically Superman, but they smoke." The only thing the term means is that someone isn't literal Jesus who has done no wrong in his life, or literal Satan who has done no good. Anti-hero doesn't tell you anything about the moral framing, if the character is in the spotlight, or even what they actually do wrong. Saying "The story is about an anti-hero" just says "the story is about a human who isn't as squaky-clean as Superman." Saying "the story is about a villain protagonist" instead tells us "The story is about someone who is fundamentally a bad person, but we still focus on them."

[@jimboanimations4041]

Ngl, I both love and hate the "villain-protagonist"/evil protagonist trope. I do feel it can work out really well if the writer doesn't ignore/downplay the protagonist's immorality and uses it to appropriately show off a specific narrative or moral. However, I feel a lot of media that uses this trope can quickly become pretty distasteful and unenjoyable if they don't properly address said evil, or don't use it to good effect. To me, the original God of War trilogy (mainly in the later half) had the issue where they showed Kratos become a monster as the game progressed, but didn't do a whole lot with it (especially when they make the majority of the people he kills *also* massive assholes later on.) They did at least help fix this issue with the new series however, where Kratos has reflected on his actions and not only realized how fucked up it was, but actively did everything he could to make sure his son never follows the same fate as him. I am fine with an evil protagonist, so long as the evil serves a role beyond making the story darker.

[@Gloomdrake]

They’re gonna make a third dad of boy?

[@jimboanimations4041]

@@Gloomdrake Maybe. I feel the narrative work it already did was amazing and that it could be left as is, but I wouldn't doubt they could've find a way to make it work out.

[@trashmouse94]

Is there a discussion to be had about protagonists advertised to be villains but just end up being anti-heroes at worst? Venom, Black Adam, Morbius. I've already seen people roll their eyes at Kraven having daddy issues being the reason he hunts what are probably gonna be bad guys+spiderman.

[@taylorr2346]

that's because those characters are supervillains and not villains. Villain is a role in a story where our idea of the supervillain is more of a collection of tropes and ideas that emerged from superhero comic villains. In the original comics, the supervillain would be the villain, but you remove them from that context, they're still a supervillain, but they're no longer the villain. Supervillain just became it's own thing

[@trashmouse94]

Have supervillains become their own thing, or are they just turned into the typical hollywood protagonist? What separates super villains like Venom, Black Adam, and Morbius from super heroes like Wolverine, Iron Man, and Blade? All of them are willing to kill bad guys attacking them, all of them are concerned about the well being of innocents, all of them are discriminated against for what they are, and by the end of their movies, they are either redeemed or accepted. The difference is that at the end of super villain films you get a scene of them going "hmmm... I should do something bad... Nah, just kidding... but what if... I don't like that spider guy's face." Trailers saying something along the lines of "no one is born evil" rings hollow when the protagonists are always justified since the people they kill are drug dealers who use orphan blood to resurrect beelzebub in order to increase their colonizing military's profit margins by 2%. The homogeneity is frustrating when Hollywood films write villains to be protagonists instead of creating stories where the protagonists are villains. It's not like stories can't be written with true villain protagonists. Suicide Squad: Assault on Arkham is my favorite and probably best example of an actual villain movie. The protags do form a friendship with each other throughout the film, but by the end they do not hesitate to turn on each other if it meant they can save themselves. Thanos from infinity war is also a pretty good example of what a villain protagonist can be, even if him being the protagonist isn't immediately understood going in or out of the movie. TBH, I think the closest thing a Hollywood-made super villain movie has gotten to what people want from a villain movie is the first deadpool movie. TL;DR super villains aren't really villains, and their movies aren't really super. If someone can make a novel explaining what I'm feeling in much better words or can debunk this entire comment in one sentence of better words, I'd be happy to read it some other day. If Gus didn't advocate for the snap, we would have more diversity of writers and have world peace somehow. IDK, I'm tired.

[@plasmaballin]

I don't understand how you can say that Thanos isn't a villain just because he's the protagonist. I think the whole point of the term "villain protagonist" was to emphasize that there's a difference between the roles a character plays in the narrative structure and whether the character is portrayed as right or wrong, and Thanos fits the term to a T. The video didn't actually give any reason for why he's not a villain other than because he's the protagonist, but that's just saying, "He can't be a villain protagonist because there's no such thing as a villain protagonist." It's trying to make your point into a tautology. Sure, the movie makes us disagree with Cap's philosophy of, "We don't trade lives," but it also makes us disagree with Thanos's philosophy. And any sane person watching it still think Cap is in the right compared to Thanos, even if we also think that Cap should have taken more extreme measures to defeat him. I certainly don't think the movie is trying to portray Thanos as actually being a hero - it just wants us to know why he thinks he's the hero.

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

No he doesn't. He was right in the story. All the tiem the "heroes" tried to proof him wrong on how sacrefices are bad, they fail and just proof that they are incabale of accepting loss even if necessary. He was in the eyes of the story, far from wrong, quite the opposite, he was portrayed as right. That is why you get so many people agreeing with him. The Protagonist is the most sympathetic character on virtue of you seeing their viewpoint and they can't really be villians per definition as Diregentelmen laid out, as this is a form of othering and thus, an antagonistic archetype. You can be the protagonist and evil, but in literature, a Villian is a form of oppostion, not some moral value or lack of, it is not how it works.

[@JDog2656]

In fairness, trying to save Vision by removing the stone safely wasn't a bad idea, they were just pressed for time. Also, Star-lord was willing top shoot Gamora like she asked, just waited too long.

[@joinme5560]

Diregentelmen advocates the snap

[@LiveByTheNumbers]

Re: writing only ending up in a desktop folder. I publish fanfics and I have no desire to join the professional writing industry. So I hone my craft without having to conform to publishers standards. I think it’s a little rude to assume that publishing your work requires a pitch especially with self publishing growing so fast.

[@IkeOkerekeNews]

5:08 You need to define hero first.

[@WeRNotAlive]

Not relevant because “villain” is the word being used to modify the term protagonist - which encompasses typical heroic characters but also morally bankrupt individuals without said modifier.

[@Fat_Tony4224]

TIL I'm the same age as fucking tv tropes. This information will somehow persist in my brain long after I've forgotten loved ones and important events once my brain starts going I guarantee it

[@vicbaez]

I had the true story of the 3 little pigs as a child! Such a classic

[@joshraid1550]

So... I interpret it as him blatantly lying about what happened as an alibi. Do you see it that way? Edit: Oh wait that's obviously the point.

[@enitenit2791]

Everytime I hear the word "Villain Protagonist" I swear that I can hear your screams of rage somewhere in the distance edit: Wow I can't believe that Diregentleman advocates The Snap

[@mcdc700]

Hero/Villain: Moral terms. You won’t always have both of these in a story. Might not have either. Some stories are full of morally grey people. Protagonist/Antagonist: Functional terms. The POV character and the character (or non-character force) that opposes (antagonizes) them.

[@hamizanyunos1502]

Invader Zim is a great comedic villain protagonist

[@iantaakalla8180]

Walter White is also a comedic villain protagonist, and is comedic because he is not a person meant to be a meth kingpin.

[@gigablast4129]

villain is an archetype of a character meaning a person who has evil motivation,a protagonist is a role in the story where a character is the focal point of it and the story is said through their perspective.the opposite of villain is a hero and the opposite of protagonist is an antagonist.i dont see how the concept of a villain protagonist is contradictory as its just a main characters who is evil in some way

[@fourthmatchflame]

yeah, this has been a particlerly odd opinion of diregentelmen i dont really aggre with? honestly, i agree with a lot if stuff they say but this.

[@blakchristianbale]

Unless you’ve grown up on TV Tropes a villain is *always* an antagonist, that’s just how the term is used. A morally unscrupulous protagonist can fit several other archetypes, like the antihero, but they aren’t a villain. That’s just not what that word means

[@gigablast4129]

@@blakchristianbale when you describe someone as villainous,you mean that they are evil ,when you describe someone as a heroic you mean they are good.they are clearly archetypes

[@blakchristianbale]

@@gigablast4129 I wouldn’t describe someone as villainous, that’s not a thing anyone actually does unless you live in the renaissance. If I were to call a character a villain though that’d mean they’re a capital B Bad Guy, as would anyone else who wasn’t raised by TV Tropes

[@gigablast4129]

@@blakchristianbale i wasnt raised on tvtropes i barely even used the site

[@SLYKM]

Definition 1 can be an antagonist, but doesn't have to be. Defintion doesnt say the hero had to be a protagonist. Defintion 2 and 3 are not inherently protagonist or anragonist, and depending on tone, complextiy and narrative, a villian can be 2 dimensional or round, (just like heroes can be), which means the words arent contradictory bc "hero, villian, ect" are words that describe the narrative's position on morality. Antagonist and protagonist are just POV signifiers.

[@jasonseacord]

I really love it when Diregentleman does scripted content. More please!

[@RockhopperRio]

I can’t believe Guso Milkarella would personally do a Thanos snap

[@pleasekillyoursef]

I think TV-Tropes jargon is kinda like that one animation show (it could really be any one, its the one that comes to mind), by dignifing it with an opinion you are degrading the debate around it cause the debate itself is the problem. No one knew or cared about it before getting exposed by some rando in the internet, if we ignore them, the problem should solve itself, its not like this guys are gonna right stuff, i think. So im a TV Tropes denier, SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE! this is all just a natural phenomenon!! There is no cientific poof!!

[@animefreak8535]

That pitch line about Superman shows me you do not understand the character. My pitch line for Superman is Small town man with small town values fights Big Time Problems

[@blakchristianbale]

The execs are gonna be really confused when they find out during production that he comes from space and has superpowers. They need to know what genre your story is

[@animefreak8535]

@@blakchristianbale true LOL

[@familyguyfeline]

What do you have against catdog?? 😢

[@WeRNotAlive]

Look at them.

[@familyguyfeline]

@@WeRNotAlive you are a cruel and heartless monster

[@colt1903]

I've never heard them referred to as specifically villain protagonists. I've heard villain-OUS protagonists plenty of times, though.

[@larhyperhair]

DIRE GENTLEMAN ADVOCATES THE SNAP?

[@jamieroach3828]

I personally like the idea of an "antagonist protagonist". A protagonist who has extreme problems that make themsleves there own worst enemy. When done right it is often a very interesting character study. However most movies manage to f*** it up by either not going into it enough or going all out on the heros problems, for some reason directors cant get the right ratio.

[@lordfelidae4505]

Man vs Self.

[@taylorr2346]

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf"

[@simoneidson21]

That’s a classical anti-hero

[@selfimprovement5873]

You would love "Malcolm In The Middle"

[@jpickens189]

Protagonist and hero do not mean the same thing, likewise with antagonist and villain. Hero and villain describe the character's relation to the assumed audience's sense of morality, and their opposition to each other, not their position within the perspective of a narrative. Also, I can't believe I had to dig six minutes in to get to that argument. All of your alternative suggestions are just ways to dull the edge when someone is really just trying to say, "the protagonist of this story is just a shitty person." Also, when I say villain protagonist, I am generally not complimenting the story, I am saying their protagonist jumped eagerly off the cliffs of moral ambiguity into moral reprehensibility, and people rooted for them anyway because they aren't good at reading media or secretly enjoy the protagonist's immoral actions.

[@cursedcontent4207]

I knew I didn't hallucinate this. Yall for a better take, watch "Creating a Villain Protagonist" by James Tullos, book guy.

[@titantrainer592]

You conflate “villain” and “antagonist” the protagonist is merely the main figure of which a story is told around. If Vader was the protagonist of A New Hope, it wouldn’t automatically make luke a villain, it would simply make him the antagonist while still occupying a heroic role within the story

[@bluephoenix4241]

Diregentleman "advocates" the snap.

[@TheJadeFist]

You could call them anti-villains but that confuses people. Protagonist is simply the focus of the story, it doesn't require that protagonist to be good or bad, so calling them a villain protagonist is kinda accurate fitting though for a character like Walter White. Antagonist is the opposition to the protagonist, good nor bad isn't required. It's the relative role in story it isn't their morality, even if there is a typical expectation of the protagonist to be the "good guy" that's not what those words mean.

[@iantaakalla8180]

There are probably anti-villainous protagonists as well, people who are, at the end of the day, bad, but have some aspect that the work can agree with and paints them as better than some other degree of villain, and are not just meant to be just an evil person or a cautionary tale. Season 6 Rick Sanchez would be an anti-villainous protagonist - he is still a jerk and only wants to kill one person, but he has had some personal growth enough to care about the Sanchez family he lives with, so he is basically a villain, but he is not the worst villain and is framed as bad but with some positive qualities and not the worst person.

[@TheJadeFist]

@@iantaakalla8180 Man I got like 4 seasons of Rick and Morty to get around to watching.

[@Business_Skeleton]

Man I can't believe this channel is so pro snapping. Making the claim Thanos should have killed seventy-five percent of universe was a wild take I didn't see coming.

[@mathieuleader8601]

catdog is a slice of life anime

[@Swordsmen99]

Diregentlemen Advocates the Snap. Smh. Also, I'm kind of surprised you made no mention of Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss

[@becuaseimbored3481]

What about Patrick Bateman? He isn't an antihero, there isn't really any wish fulfillment (I for one don't daydream about killing hookers and having an existential crisis over a font), and he isn't relatable enough really be a cautionary tale (and those that do relate to him tend to ignore what a horrible person he actually is). Also what about those asshole protagonists from Tales of the Crypt? Their only purpose is to be as horrible as possible so that it's cathartic when they get their just desserts at the end.

[@FMBStudiosOfficial]

My favorite part of this video is when Diregentlemen advocated the snap

[@tankfarter]

Dire gentleman advecats the snap

[@dylanhansen6580]

Me watching this while eating Chef Boyardee🗿

[@Nitragon]

Diregentlemen advocates the snap. Also, very well written video.

[@renaigh]

I like the term 'Anti-Villain' to describe villainous characters who are written to be essentially correct but also bad because the ideology of the story sees their actions in conflict with their motivations.

[@ArbitraryOutcome]

Anticipating any future video responses to this. Would make for an interesting discussion. Also, Gus advocates for the snap kekw

[@Warkipine]

To me, “villain protagonist” only made sense when the character in question was explicitly trading in preestablished conventions of villainy, i.e. supervillains, classic monsters, evil overlords, that sort of thing. They are “a” villain, even if they aren’t “the” villain in this particular story.

[@taylorr2346]

Summary: Villain protagonist is a functionally useless description. Villain is a role within a story that overlaps with antagonist, and for it to be applied to your protagonist it requires such a broad definition of villain it could describe any number of characters. There are other, more specific terms that exist that are much more helpful when actually talking about media and writing.

[@TheAngryLibrarian]

Can't believe Diregentleman condones the snap smh. Legit tho, I loved this video and it even made me laugh several times. xD Good job y'all!!

[@diamando7932]

I really don't think you can call walter white an anti-hero. Just because he fights other villainous characters doesn't make him a good guy. You calling him an anti-hero shows you don't really understand what protagonist means and think the protagonist must be some degree of hero as opposed to just the person the story follows

[@blakchristianbale]

Antihero doesn’t mean good guy, like that’s the whole point of the term

[@diamando7932]

@@blakchristianbale An anti-hero is typically someone who does good things but often has questionable methods or means to do them. But even so, what about Walter White is heroic? To be an anti-"hero" you must have some heroic aspects.

[@basilofgoodwishes4138]

​@@diamando7932No an Anti-Hero is someone cast into the role of hero despite not being heroic, kinda like a Cat that plays a dog. Walter wanted to save his life and had sympathetic motives and would not be seen as a villain had he stopped once he got what he wanted. An Anti-Hero does not do always things good, they are heroes who are evil and pretty much what people would call "villain protagonists". Light Yagami is also an anti-hero, since he prevents crimes by killing people, while sympathetic, he is still evil and our main anti-hero.

[@blakchristianbale]

@@diamando7932 the heroic quality he possesses is that he occupies the role of a hero in traditional narrative structure. What makes him an antihero is that he subverts the expectations of that role by being evil

[@diamando7932]

@@blakchristianbale no, he occupies the role of protagonist. Never has there been a rule that the story following you makes you a hero, or at all heroic. The protagonist can be an awful person, and the antagonist can be a saint. The only thing that defines their role in the story is the protagonist being the primary focus, and the antagonist opposing them

[@TheAnimationStationTAS]

I'm more of a villain supporting-character, personally.

[@whovo3059]

Diregentlemem advocate the smap

[@SLYKM]

I would never call Abuela or the volcano lady "hero antagonists," bc the protagonists of those stories are the heroes of their stories. (Sure a story can have heroes with different solutions and oppose each other, but I wouldnt say that Moana or Encanto are good exanples or even bad examples of your point, just different story structures all together). Abuela is a misguided matriarch, and Mirable is trying to find a way to save her family deepite her place as the family scapegoat, while Abuela is trying to do good, but doesnt know shes the problem. That makes Abuela a sympathetic antagonist, not a heroic one. And volcano lady is angry she lost her treasure (or something like that), and even tho it was wrong for it to be stolen, Moana isnt a villian for trying to oppose the volcano, again, the volcano is a synpathetic antagonist, not "hero antagonist." Niether of these stories fit the "hero antagonist" definitions and examples that are shown on the screenshot of TV tropes, which the entry does show reasonable examples for when such a term can be useful. I find it odd that it was included as if it would help co-sign this point in the video when it doss the opposite.

[@not_a_day_job]

Diregentleman Advocates The Snap.

[@jameshardy3181]

Like another comment said, you really seem to be complicating this when it's actually very straightforward. A protagonist is the character where the story revolves around, and who's pov we see most. A villain is an individual, real or fictional, who commits actions that are morally and ethically wrong. A villain protagonist is the story's primary pov character who, instead of doing good, does things that are bad and is portrayed as in the wrong. Examples are: Walter White: People who say he's an anti-hero are just wrong. An anti-hero does morally questionable things for the right reasons. While Walt might seem to be this at first, it's clear as soon as season 1 that this isn't the case. He was offered an opportunity to get his family out of their financial situation with help from his former partners, but he refused due to his ego. As the series goes on, it's clear Walt became a meth kingpin to live up to the type of guy his ego says he is. Walter's character arc was not about change. It was about him letting his true self out. Walter White and Heisenberg are ine in the same: that of an envious and entitled narcissist who wants to fuel his self-image. Heck, Vince Gilligan himself said Walter was the show's villain in the end. Light Yagami: Similar to Walt, though he ironically started off a bit more noble, yet by the end Light has no redeeming qualities anymore. Just an unhinged, hypocritical narcissist with delusions of godhood who is willing to kill innocents and even his own family to get his way. Patrick Bateman: This guy's very existence invalidates this video. Bateman is the protagonist of American Psycho, yet he's an utterly revolting monster with no redeeming qualities. He brutally murders, rapes, and defiles many innocents throughput the story, and is ultimately nothing more than a pathetic sociopath fueling his twisted urges. Palpatine(Darth Plagueis): The Star Wars novel Darth Plagueis is essentially Palpatine's origin story. And shows that he was a spoiled, violent, manipulative, sociopathic sadist since he was born. This guy murdered his entire family and enjoyed it. He ran over pedestrians while recklessly driving his speeder, and burned a senator and his family alive for kicks. Lou Bloom: The movie Nightcrawler has the main protagonist be a skittish man named Lou Bloom. Lou is also an utter sociopath who will do anything to advance himself. He kills a security guard to steal his watch, becomes a Nightcrawler, basically a reporter that intrudes on crime scenes, just to advance himself, gets his own rivals killed to get rid of competition, and at the climax of the film, literally orchestrates a shootout between the police and criminals just to get the footage his network needs to fund himself. He even has his own apprentice killed when he asked for a fucking raise.

[@blixer8384]

Direfentleman Advocates the Snap

[@GreaterSeraph]

#DiregentlemanAvocadosTheSlimJim

[@veridan2582]

Can't believe that Diregentleman advocates The Snap 🤨

[@cycloneabsol9405]

Wow, I can't believe that this channel so wholeheartedly agrees with the snap /s

[@josephcittadino6541]

I think the biggest reason the label "villain protagonist" gets used, BTW, is because there is a very specific protagonist type that the term "anti-hero" just dosen;t do justice, and for which there is no other fitting term to use outside of "villain protagonist".....and this protagonist type is *unsympathetic, self-serving protagonist.* Thing about the term "anti-hero" is it often has the connotation of a character who does evil things for benevolent, selfless reasons..I.E. characters like the MCU Thanos you mentioned, who does extremely evil things but, in his eyes, does them to help the common good and in service to others. Or the Punisher, who goes outside the law to ruthlessly murder evil people who get away with their evil deeds that, in the audience's eyes, easily deserve whats coming to them. When I see the term "villain protagonist" used, its often (though admittedly not always) used to label a protagonist who not only has evil means of achieving their goals, but also goals that are self-serving, petty, and anything but selfless, noble, or aulturistic. Somebody like Regina George or Gordon Geko, but cast as the protagonist rather than the antagonist. Selfish, often (though not always) privileged characters, who chase after self-serving goals like further riches, social status, fame, power, or humiliating or tearing down somebody for a personal, petty reason, rather than fighting for some noble goal that, in their eyes, benefits the common person or the world. The decadent, hedonistic, scheming nobles, slimy profit above all else corporate executives, ruthless high school queen bees, and cackling, dark side-drunk necromancer lords or mad scientists who wish to rule not so they can better the world, but simply because they lust after absolute power. The characters who could care less about the greater good, making the world a better place, or the common people, and are solely in it for themselves, or perhaps themselves + a very small circle of people they care about, the masses of common people and the world be damned. Probably the best examples of these kinds of protagonists that I can think of are the infamous internet icon that is Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, and Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Grey. Both are decadent, hedonistic, privileged/rich assholes who are completely self-absorbed and could care less about making the world better or helping the little guy. Thats what I think the label "villain protagonist" was invented for.....protagonists who are not only evil in deeds, but also of selfish intent rather than noble in intent. For some other examples of protagonists that fall into this "both evil means and selfish, unsympathetic goals" territory, see: Darth Plagueis (From the Star Wars Legends novel Darth Plagueis), Lou Bloom (Nightcrawler), Ainz Ooal Gown (Overlord), and any given protagonist of the majority of Xianxia webnovels. These kinds of protagonists absolutely can, and do, exist, and since people often tend to think (maybe wrongly,. but thats besides the point) that "anti-hero = protagonist who does evil things in the name of noble and selfless/unselfish I.E. traditionally "heroic" goals," a different term was needed to let people know that the protagonist of a work does evil things AND is a self-serving SOB who could care less about the common people or bettering the world....and so "villain protagonist" as a label was born. That being said, is "villain protagonist" semantically the best term for these kinds of characters? No, probably not. However, no other term exists that is as quick to get people to understand what your talking about, so people continue to use the label despite. Ironically, you did actually cover these types in your video a bit, as when they do show up, they pretty always show up as either a wish fulfillment or cautionary protagonist, or some combination of those two archetypes, with them most commonly being cautionary protagonists for obvious reasons. You just didn't take the leap to say that "villain protagonist" exsists as a lable, as faulty as it may be, because of how the "anti-hero" lable has been corrupted by popular discourse to mean one, specific kind of anti-hero (the kind who does evil things in the name of selfless, noble, traditionally heroic goals) in the eyes of most who use the term, rather than what the term "anti-hero" actually is means by hard dictionary definitions.

[@MG-mh8xp]

Diregentlemam advocates the snap

[@marocat4749]

There are already anti villain, characters that pretty much ar villains but can have good reasons ad its for the best, but also clear , that this are villenous actions. its rare, thou. or lord ruler, scorpius rom farscape is hatable, but yeah he is anally at times too, and has reasos, good reasons even, but also he is awful . And evil protagonists, like ovrlor who gts more evil or walter, who ok always was but reveals, and even griffith at points or tanya the evil. Macbeth Are just evil protagonists. and the last clockwork orange that shows alex isnt evil, he grew pup to an average citizen. and his exfriends, are police. that darkness really should have in the movie, as context, what that sayd about society and ifhe i an avrage citize, what got him tere, and why is that not adressed and the grap of his mom liklely. Also i cat beliece dire gentlman wants to snap halpf of litraturee from existence :P

[@tatters8236]

Watching this has left me wondering how to classify one of my favorite 'villain protagonist' characters, Tanya from The Saga of Tanya The Evil. I'm not 100% certain where to place a self admitted fascist who lies, cheats, emotionally manipulates her superiors and works to force a new world's WW1 to end differently purely to spite god.

[@Shadowfan5371]

Diregentlemen advocates the snap. Another banger video that I'll replay for a while 😊

[@dorkmoonblade4315]

Good video but I very much disagree with the idea that the term "villain protagonist" is nonsensical. I think a good example of a character villain protagonist character would be Arthas from the Undead Campaign of Warcraft 3. The "villain" part of villain protagonist means that the character is in the wrong to some capacity, often in a moral sense. Villain is just a synonym for "bad guy" in this context. Arthas by this point is clearly evil but we follow him around, and a lot of the fun just comes in watching what's the next evil act he will do now that he has fully committed himself to being evil. Kerrigan from Starcraft Brood War might actually be another example, they are very similar characters, and much of the fun with Kerrigan simply just involves watching her be the "queen bitch of the universe(her words)" as she kills and betrays everyone and ultimately comes out winning. But technically Kerrigan is not the protagonist like Arthas is because in Starcraft you technically play as a Cerebrate, just a nameless, faceless servant of Kerrigan who follows her every command, and being part of the Zerg hivemind doesn't even have free will.

[@NonPlayerCactus]

So god forbid I'm seen just as an average human being. I mean, imagine if antagonists lacked any evil scheme. I'm the gap between a tragedy and comedy, don't come at me, *I'm a Villain Protagonist and you have to like me.*

[@DarkExcalibur42]

Diregentleman advocates the snap?! D: I can't believe I got this far in the video.

[@micromints1735]

I would distinguish an anti-hero more in terms of an overall well-intentioned or heroic figure with questionable behavior like Guts or Lelouch. Walter White descends into psychotic lunacy and villainy and is firmly the bad guy by the end.

[@MrocnyZbik]

Darth Vader comic books, 2015, 2017 and current one. Vader is Vader and main character slaughtering Rebel Alliance and it is glorious. Diregentlemen advocate the Snap

[@stefonrogers5980]

I agree with the whole video I will say I do believe scar would’ve done a better job had he not been driven to fulfill promises he’s made as well as having more awareness of the mechanics behind governing ( but he was wasn’t raised to be the king since mufasa was heir) But no we don’t agree with fratricide no matter the circumstances lml

[@alexddragame]

Neat video. Also I'm sick to death of people who think that Thanos had the point. No he didn't, stop being stupid. Anyway, Diregentleman Advocates The Snap

[@xxstaryyxx161]

It's so incredibly creepy, because Eco fascist genocide is a real ideology advocated by people like Elon musk, there is no scientific basics to the idea that the world has an overpopulation problem, and people like Thanos you think it does a very different reasons for why they actually believe that

[@henriquemedranosilva7142]

5:28 I mean, kinda ? Like, would bojack from bojack horseman be his own antagonist, since he is everything wrong with him self?

[@mikaelvirji5807]

Wuzza wooza buzza booza returns!

[@TheNightmareRider]

Diregentlemen advocates the Snap! I think Nimona is the closest thing to a literal villain protagonist, because the story is about what makes someone a villain in the eyes of society. It's about systemic prejudices, making monsters out of people purely for their status as other. It's a film that asks us to consider who the villains are and why, deconstructing the classic fairytail story beats in the process.

[@crazyinvaderfangirl1]

Me sitting here waiting for him to mention Invader Zim 🤡

[@jaystylez6123]

I did not end up loving, and empathizing with Thanos, but I understand what you mean

[@AtomicFire41]

Dire Gentleman does not support the snap. But I sure do

[@colt1903]

**British accent** Read all about it! Read all about it! Random KZbinr And Writer "Diregentleman" SUPPORTS The Thanos Snap!😂

[@Nissim1795]

My cat loves this video for some reason

[@mahrinui18]

Is the channel going to take guest submissions from now on or is this a Ruthie-specific privilege?

[@WadeTheWilsonTV]

Scar might've been a shitty ruler... _but he was the guy who ousted a bigoted tyrant_ who treated him like shit and oppressed the species he hated. Scar literally just promised his army _they wouldn't starve_ and gained instant loyalty. Any other movie, he'd be the hero. _(Also to a lesser extent so would Gaston... I mean, he was a sexist dirtbag, don't get me wrong. BUT, from the entire village's perspective, he wasn't exactly wrong when he assumed Belle's father was insane, and when he learned the monster WAS real, he didn't hesitate to rally a posse to hunt it down and save the day. He was legitimately trying to save both Belle and the village at large from a literal monster. A monster that kidnapped and extorted Belle into being with him. I mean... at least Gaston was waiting for her consent)._

[@XanderTuron]

A bit late to the party, but here is my opinion anyways. In my opinion, Villain Protagonist is a trope that originated to describe something very specific in video games that then got misused by being forced into being a broader media trope. It's whole thing is when in a video game, the player character is the straight up bad guy of the story. For example, the Dungeon Keeper series, where the premise is essentially the player is running a dungeon that the heroes are trying to raid. The way Villain Protagonist gets misused would be like if people took the trope You Require More Vespene Gas, which pertains to resource collection in RTS games and then started trying to shoehorn it in as a broader media trope for when characters needs to collect stuff.

[@blakchristianbale]

I suspect there’s a similar disconnect with the term antihero. It seems like a lot of people learned the term from superhero discourse, and missed that the reason antiheroes in that genre are usually still broadly good people is because that genre requires the protagonist to want to help people (barring outright deconstruction). Antiheroes in other genres have never had the same constraints

[@nicholasmahoney7820]

May I civilly, truthfully ask what is so terrible about TV Tropes?

[@xxstaryyxx161]

The dude had a couple bad arguments with people on Reddit and is taking it out on the world, does even have an actual point he's just yelling at a straw man

[@nicholasmahoney7820]

@@xxstaryyxx161 Who is the straw man in this scenario, to be clear?

[@ilovenierreplicant2983]

you dislike the term villain protagonist because you have very detailed and well thought out reasons for it, i dislike it because it sounds stupid. We are not the same.

[@krissybaglin9206]

The Clockwork Orange is a story that you can some up perfectly with: Alex, a teenager who saw no humanity in a system, he was a dismissive roughian until he became a prisoner until he became a test subject and then a tool for political propaganda. And in the end of it all he was the same as he was at the beginning ready for the cycle to continue.