Story x Story Tip: Creating a “Bad” Protagonist (Birds of Prey)
On Story x Story episode 15 we welcomed Trista Bytes for our discussion on DC’s latest comic book film, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).
The storytelling tip for the episode was about making your protagonist a “bad” person. As in objectively bad person like your garden variety criminal, or a former psychiatrist turned crazed criminal and the Joker’s ex-girlfriend. It’s certainly something that can be done to good effect, but didn’t quite land Birds of Prey.
The film misses the mark in a few ways that I’ll outline by showcasing examples of the “bad” protagonist done really well…
How to Make Your Protagonist Bad
Many of us followed the descent of Walter White as he became a truly evil character. But in the beginning, we saw a very ordinary man in a very difficult situation. Not having the money to treat his newly diagnosed cancer is a problem that many can empathise with.
As he becomes more Heisenberg than Walter, we continue to meet antagonistic characters who force Walter into situations where he needs to take increasingly terrible actions to escape from. Starting with Krazy-8, through to Los Pollos Hermanos proprietor Gus Fring, all the way to the killing of incarcerated gang members to protect against possible retaliation from the DEA.
In the classic anime series Death Note, we understand genius student Light Yagami’s motivation to rid the world of criminals using the demonically powered notebook. Writing the names of those individuals society has judged as being bad people, only to see them die later is a tremendous power that ultimately corrupts. But the fundamental idea is something the viewer can relate to. Light soon has to face up again a formidable antagonist, the enigmatic detective L. Their increasingly cerebral, cat and mouse style conflict makes the story so much more compelling.
And on the subject of formidable antagonists, in the Dreamworks animation Megamind, there is Hal. Even though this story starts off with Megamind as the lone villain, we eventually see Hal become much worse and way more dangerous villain than Megamind. This is not just because of his power, but because Hal doesn’t play by the accepted hero-villain rules laid out in the story. He is willing to go to extremes and cross lines that Megamind will not, which makes Hal the true villain of this animation.
These are all aspects of creating a “bad” protagonist that Birds of Prey fall short on.
Birds of Prey Storytelling Tips
1) Even bad protagonists need to be empathetic. A lack of sufficient characterisation made it hard to really care about the motivation begins some of the leads.
Aside from Harley Quinn herself (though most was carried over from her previous film Suicide Squad) and Detective Renee Montoya, we’re mostly told about the other lead characters rather than shown their experience. Telling us how a character has suffered makes in harder to truly care about there motivation and arc through the story.
2) If your protagonist is bad, your antagonist needs to be much worse. Roman Sionis was a weak villain in the context of this film’s story. Admittedly, a lot of his tone did fit the overall tone of the film…aside from that one uncomfortable scene in which he forces a female patron of his club to dance in her underwear or face death.
In itself, it was an effective moment that showed the madness of the character, but did feel like a hard tonal shift compared to what we see over the rest of the film. That moment aside, Sionis didn’t come off as a character who was clearly worse than the protagonists. Because of this, there was never any great feeling that he needed to be stopped.
3) A bad protagonist still needs a compelling goal. The motivation for much of the film is the retrieval of a diamond embedded with the account numbers to the fortune of the Bertinelli crime family.
According to the plot, this could have made Sionis powerful enough to run the criminal underworld. The problem is that story had already established him as someone with all the money and power he needs to do whatever he wants. Renee Montoya had already stated this and with the Joker out of the picture, Sionis even has no rival that we the audience can see.
This meant getting the diamond doesn’t actually change anything. It makes for a low stakes plot which makes it hard to get too invested in the outcome of the protagonists. Certainly not powerful enough to drive the conflict between protagonists and antagonist.
You can make your protagonists bad people, it can be really engrossing and fun to watch. But if you take that route in your story, make sure you allow the audience to empathise with that protagonist. And be sure to create antagonists who are clearly worse than your protagonist. This will make it apparent that they need to be stopped for reasons that make sense in your narrative.
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