Characters: Antagonists

So what makes an antagonist?  Well, simply put, an antagonist is the character who stands in the way of the protagonist's goal.  So, once again, the antagonist can be either good, bad, or somewhere in between, depending on the story's protagonist. Thus, antagonists can have a wide variety of goals, but they must always in some way make life more inconvenient for the protagonist. Antagonists come in many shapes and sizes, from the large and mysterious such as Darth Vader to the more basic, such as Agent Smith from the Matrix.

Watch this clip from the Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  Luke, our protagonist, finally has a chance to fight the man who has made his life so inconvenient and destructive.  This is the man whose actions killed his aunt and uncle, blew up Leia's home world, killed Obi-Wan and would soon chop of his hand.  In this clip, Darth Vader is displayed as one of the most essential of all antagonists ever made.