It just now dawned on me -- oi! -- that complaining about a lack of bad guys in stories is going about it all wrong. It’s not that stories need more bad guys, so much as stories simply need more obstacles -- and what is an obstacle other than just “a character with different goals than the protagonist”? Those obstacles don’t have to be bad by whatever moral or social standard we’re using to define “the bad guy”, so much as honest human goals that just happen to be in opposition to the main character. For that matter, obstacles may even arise from a difference in ends but not means, or vice versa: the protagonist who believes the ends justifies the means, versus his best friend who believes changes comes from within the system... despite having the same goal (changing the world), they’re going to clash because their methods are diametrically opposed.
That reminded me of Wicked, which remains a brilliant example (IMO) of at least one facet of what I mean: that of taking a story and flipping it over. Reverse everything: the good guy, the former protagonist, is now the obstacle, and the opposition is now the protagonist. ( Can you tell the same story from the opposite side, and have characters see the behaviors and actions and outcomes as believeable? )
So with that said, I finally found the last piece of the puzzle falling into place, on my own writing. Ah-hah, I knew there was one crucial thing I’d yet to figure out, and I think I just might’ve gotten it.
That reminded me of Wicked, which remains a brilliant example (IMO) of at least one facet of what I mean: that of taking a story and flipping it over. Reverse everything: the good guy, the former protagonist, is now the obstacle, and the opposition is now the protagonist. ( Can you tell the same story from the opposite side, and have characters see the behaviors and actions and outcomes as believeable? )
So with that said, I finally found the last piece of the puzzle falling into place, on my own writing. Ah-hah, I knew there was one crucial thing I’d yet to figure out, and I think I just might’ve gotten it.