You know the analogy of 3-act structure as: one, put your hero up a tree; two, throw stones at him/her, and three, allow your hero a way down?? Well, I think about the Nemesis as "throwing stones". Showing up at those inopportune moments to hurl boulders. The hero wants something, has a goal, a desire? The Nemesis gets in the way of that. Main, outward goal or inward/secondary, matters not. The nemesis is the foil, the deterrent, the bodily representative of "challenge" for our hero in meeting his or her goal. Or, at the very least, in dampening our hero's hopes at achieving something .. and making him or her think hard to make sure they truly want what they're going after. If things were easy, there'd be no story. The Nemesis is important in that he/she ensures things aren't easy.

I'm getting really interested in the idea that the nemesis represents all the choices you don't want the protagonist to make, all the things you don't want them to become. So as well as providing conflict and obstacles, they're a living warning of how things might go bad here...

The nemesis is the other part of the pair: yin/yang or light and dark. No light without darkness and no good without bad. The nemesis opposes the goal of the protagonist and delivers therefore conflict in the story. The protagonist has to overcome the obstacles to reach his goal and to grow as a person. A good or interesting nemesis makes the protagonist rise more and makes his journey much more interesting.

Just thinking about stories of natural disaster or even more "unpeopled" stories like "127 Hours" where there is no obvious nemesis "character." Sometimes, there is what I always think of as a "tripper-upper," that character that simply is too dumb, greedy, or pig-headed, or whatever to listen when the brilliant scientist/everyman/environmentalist/whatever gives good advice. They don't want the asteroid to hit, or the volcano to eat Los Angeles, or the tsunami to wash away the eastern seaboard, but, for whatever reason, they simply aren't getting on board either. Moriarty they are not. Given that sort of situation, where there is absolutely no sensible reason anyone would actively make life difficult for the protagonist, what's the better set-up? To ignore the nemesis character altogether and let the disaster, or the rock, just be so overwhelming, the protagonist is clearly up the creek even without human interference? To create some subversion within the ranks for truly petty-by-comparison reason, like professional jealousy? Or, to bash at it until a suitably awesome opposition arises that can be rightly judged a worthy nemesis? I've seen them all play out, with varying degrees of success. How far do we stretch to get the nemesis character in human form? Or do we always need to find one?

A good antagonist makes the journey of the protagonist really stand out - and show's the growth of the hero, as well as what could happen if the protagonist is not successful in her journey. A good antagonist keeps the story interesting and keeps the audience what is going to happen next, i.e.suspense!

[...] this week’s discussions, protagonist and antagonist (or a nemesis) were discussed in two different articles. I felt this topic deserved  separate posts [...]