The logline is, at its core, a description of the central conflict in a story. The central conflict will be defined through the struggle between the main character and their opposition. No opposition, no conflict. No conflict, no story. Understanding how the different types of opposition are used in a story will be necessary to accurately describe the story’s central conflict in a logline.
In the previous article, we explored the six types of main characters and how they interact differently with the other elements of a story. Just as the term “protagonist” is a dramatically incomplete description of the main character, so too would it be insufficient to refer to their opposition simply as an antagonist.
In this article we will review the key characteristics and descriptions for all seven types of opposition. The first three types are opposition characters: the antagonist, the villain, and the monster. The final four types are the oppositional forces of culture, technology, nature, and supernatural. But first, let’s lay the foundation for all opposition by asking a simple question, who, or what, is the opposition?
To activate a story’s conflict, one character must want something, while another character (or force) doesn’t want them to have it. However, these wants themselves do not define who the main character is, or their opposition. At its core, opposition stands in the way of the desires of the main character.
On the surface, the opposition might be obvious, but taking a moment to review the specifics of the opposition may help the writer to clarify their conflict. This will be a tremendous help in writing the logline, or diagnosing any issues with a story.
The writer must first determine whether a character in the central conflict is the opposition or the main character. This depends on how they interact with the other story elements. While the story provides details of some elements for an opposition character, they will always be to a lesser degree than the main character.
For instance, the opposition will always have a less predominant POV compared to the main character. It will have a less established status quo. The story will likely not focus on the opposition’s triggering events and stakes. Goals, however, are a different story altogether. And this is where things get really interesting.
From the previous article on the main character, we understand that not all main character types are required to have a proactive goal. In some stories, an opposition character’s goal drives the narrative. This can be seen in most superhero movies. The villain’s goal forces the superhero to react, with the stakes often belonging to the hero on behalf of society. Stopping the villain would be the superhero’s reactive goal.
Joker (Heath Ledger) & Batman (Christian Bale) Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.
Imagine a logline that simply says that Batman must stop the Joker. This describes Batman’s goal in pretty much all stories between the two characters. Stopping the Joker is at best, the promise of conflict. The audience needs the specifics of the central conflict. Therefore, the logline for a superhero flick would describe the specifics of the villain’s plan.
The Central Conflict Isn’t Always With The Enemy
The opposition character will not always wear a black hat. They aren’t always a bad guy. The main character and their opposition may both be relatable and decent. The central conflict may simply be that they have different ways of approaching how to solve a mutual problem. This conflict dynamic can be seen in war movies where two characters fighting for the same side disagree on how to defeat their common enemy. The central conflict wouldn’t be the need to defeat the enemy, but how to defeat them. Oppenheimer provides an example. The central conflict is not the defeat of Germany or Japan, but rather how Oppenheimer reconciles his involvement in the development of the A-Bomb, which pitted him against very powerful men in the US government.
Conversely, an evil person isn’t always a villain in the conflict. If a story strongly establishes its elements for a character whose ethics are antithetical to the audience, they may in fact be a kind of protagonist. Martin Scorsese has made a career out of portraying well-developed black hat anti-protagonist main characters with white hat opposition characters. Killers of the Flower Moon is just the most recent example.
Reviewing the Three Opposition Characters
1) The Antagonist
Key Characteristic: Opposes the protagonist’s proactive goal.
Description: The antagonist must appear much stronger than the protagonist. An overpowering antagonist is the promise of tension and suspense within the story and of a well-earned resolution for the protagonist. However, brute force isn’t always necessary to defeat the antagonist. They are the most reasonable of all opposition types. In the climax, the antagonist may acquiesce to the protagonist for logical or emotional reasons.
Charlie (Brendan Fraser) in The Whale. Photo courtesy of A24
Example: In The Whale, Charlie’s daughter Ellie is the antagonist. His need is to find redemption reconnecting with her before he dies. She is in a much stronger position than Charlie as she doesn’t need to accept him. Ellie is also one of several characters that represent his fear of judgment, the oppositional force of culture. Just as Charlie abandoned Ellie for years, he also hides from his students and the pizza delivery person for fear of being judged.
2) The Villain
Key Characteristic: Has their own goal that drives the narrative forward.
Description: A villain’s proactive goal drives the narrative forward, forcing the hero to react. Eventually. The villain’s plan is a triggering event for the hero. The villain underestimates the hero’s ability to rise to the occasion. The hero may defeat the villain by either force or reason. The logline would feature both the villain’s goal and the hero’s stakes if the villain were to succeed.
Example: Ken starts off in Barbie as an accessory. He becomes the villain only after he visits the real world with Barbie and discovers the patriarchy. When he returns to Barbieland and transforms it into Kenland, his proactive plan is to make it permanent. This forces Barbie to reactively rise as a hero to stop him.
3) The Monster
Key Characteristic: Cannot be reasoned with, nor will they ever surrender.
Description: The monster is a sociopath or psychopath, a character incapable of reason or being reasoned with. They lack empathy and will never accept their own defeat. It is not in their vocabulary, literally or figuratively. Regardless of the consequences, they will continue their attack… until they are destroyed. Apparently. Make no mistake, the monster isn’t a mindless creation of the writer; they often thematically represent one of the oppositional forces.
Example: Avatar: The Way of Water gives us the relentless Quaritch. In the first Avatar, he was a ruthless villain out to obtain the valuable, obviously-named mineral, unobtanium. This time, however, he’s a monster seeking only revenge. Quaritch is more capable of beating Jake now because he is also an Avatar.
Oppositional Characters vs. Oppositional Forces
While an oppositional character will focus their efforts specifically on the main character, the four oppositional forces are often more indiscriminate. It’s nothing personal. The oppositional force typically acts upon any character who happens to be in the same situation. These other characters often serve to raise the stakes for the main character. While the forces are all seemingly impossible to overcome, the audience must believe the main character has a chance to endure or survive.
When the main character encounters more than one oppositional character along their journey, each character will often represent an escalating aspect of the oppositional force. The oppositional character in the climax may have even arrived late in the story. In the logline for these situations, rather than describing several opposition characters, it may be better to simply describe the oppositional force. An example can be found in our first force.
4) The Force of Culture
Key Characteristic: demands conformity.
Description: The force of culture will very often be represented by several characters. The logline will often describe the opposition character, a leader in the group, community, or family. This character enforces cultural norms. The climax will often result in fight-or-flight for the main character. In the happy ending, the oppositional leader may choose to accept the main character as they are.
Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Example: Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things may describe the oppositional force of culture right in the title. The poor things are the men in Bella’s life, all of which attempt to control her in one way or another. From the first scene, Bella throws off the shackles each man in her life puts her in, both metaphorically and literally. In the logline, it would be too much to include all the men. Instead, the oppositional force of culture can be described as “an ever-pernicious patriarchy.”
5) The Force of Technology
Key Characteristic: demands adaptation.
Description: The oppositional force of technology is common in the sci-fi genre. In an ever-changing world, adaptation is the key to survival. However, when technology supercharges the change, forcing it, some humans will naturally resist. From a story perspective, this new technology interrupts the main character’s status quo, forcing them to resist with higher and higher stakes until they reach a breaking point and they either defeat the technology, escape or adapt. The force of technology may also be repelled, such as in an alien invasion. Like the force of culture, the logline may include a lead oppositional character, often the one who controls the technology, or its assimilation. Examples include Ex Machina, Terminator, and Matrix series.
6) The Force of Nature
Key Characteristic: Shows the insignificance of humankind.
Description: The oppositional force of nature is a perfect pairing for the action genre. These stories typically don’t have a representative oppositional character, although an animated movie might. There is no defeating mother nature. The story question is how the main character will endure her wrath.
7) The Force of the Supernatural
Key Characteristic: Whether spiritual or magical, actions and motives are beyond human understanding.
Description: In our world, the supernatural cannot be explained. In the story, it is very real, with real consequences. Smarts or physical strength will not defeat the supernatural. The supernatural is most often related to the horror genre. Any ghost story or haunted house film fits the bill.
