My Favorite Antagonists

I love a good antagonist. Most stories would be quite boring if there wasn’t some form of conflict. And some of my favorite antagonists are more complicated than just being the bad guy. So let’s talk about a few of them.

And just a heads up, I’m going to be talking about The Cruel Prince, Mistborn, and A Game of Thrones. If you haven’t read them, you might want to skip this post. I don’t want to spoil anything.

The Cruel Prince

Honestly, I could pick any character in The Cruel Prince series as the antagonist. Seriously, these are the most morally gray characters I’ve ever seen. But for all intents and purposes, I’m going to pick Cardan as the antagonist in this one. He’s horrible. I hate him, but at the same time he makes the book so interesting. And later on in the series it explores his back story a little more, so we find out why he’s so cruel.

Mistborn

There was a lot of mystery behind the identity of The Lord Ruler in Mistborn. The story behind how he became The Lord Ruler was interesting as well. But I think the most intriguing part was that maybe he shouldn’t have been defeated. The world was a mess, but he was keeping it safe in his own destructive way.

A Game of Thrones

Lastly, we have Cersei Lannister from A Game of Thrones. She is seriously the worst, but she’s a genius. She kept the book interesting. Plus, I love how George R. R. Martin rationalized her actions. She was so convinced that she was doing the right thing that I almost believed her. Other times she was just flat out nasty, but she was still a really interesting character.

So those are a few of my favorite antagonists. Let me know in the comments if you have any characters that you love to hate.