The Original StorytellerSample

ANTAGONIST

BIG IDEA: Antagonists stand in the way of the protagonist, driving conflict in the story.

There was once an angel considered the most beautiful in Heaven. He was a shining light and called the morning star. His name meant “bringer of dawn.” This singular angel was charismatic, cunning and mighty.

Lucifer was also jealous of God’s glory. He argued that God was a tyrant and that the other angels should share in ruling Heaven. He persuaded a third of his fellow angels to join him in a rebellion against God.

When this revolt failed, Lucifer rallied the fallen angels to follow him into Hell. There, he established his rule under the name Satan. As he laments in John Milton’s Paradise Lost:

It’s better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Satan makes many appearances in stories. He’s in everything from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (the original story about making a deal with the devil) to the Rolling Stone’s Sympathy for the Devil (pleased to meet you…).

In the classic comedy Animal House, Donald Sutherland plays an English professor who addresses his class about Paradise Lost. The word Satan has been scrawled on the chalkboard behind him.

Now, what can we say of John Milton’s Paradise Lost? It’s a long poem, written a long time ago, and I’m sure a lot of you have difficulty understanding exactly what Milton was trying to say.

Certainly we know that he was trying to describe the struggle between good and evil, right? Okay. The most intriguing character, as we all know from our reading, was… Satan. Now was Milton trying to tell us that being bad was more fun than being good?

In many ways, our culture is fascinated by the devil. But we have to remember the role that he plays in the Biblical story—that of the antagonist.

The role of any (in)decent arch-nemesis is to thwart the good guy. The antagonist is the opposite of the protagonist—a villain, an adversary, an enemy.

Not all antagonists are necessarily evil or a prototypical bad guy. (For example: Inspector Javert in Les Miserables. The man was just trying to do his job.) But their one consistent characteristic is to oppose the efforts of the protagonist.

They represent the other end of the duality of man. The relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist drives the story’s conflict. Antagonist comes from Greek, meaning to “struggle against.” Their explicit purpose in the story is to serve as an obstacle for the protagonist to overcome.

Satan is the ultimate antagonist—the Big Bad, to borrow a term from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The devil makes only a few direct appearances in scripture. But he’s always lurking in the background, trying to cause trouble. He tests Job’s patience, tempts Jesus in the wilderness and rears his ugly head quite a few times in Revelation.

Lucifer’s purposes contradict those of God. Where God expects humility, Satan embodies arrogance. Where God calls for honesty, Satan is the great deceiver. Where God demanded submission, Satan gathered an army and tried to conquer Heaven.

The biggest difference between the devil and any other storybook antagonists is that Satan is real. He plays a role in our lives whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, Satan falls victim to one common story trope—that evil eventually loses to good.

PRAYER

God, thank You for saving us from the power of the Devil. He works in direct opposition to everything good in the world, including in our own lives. Help us to see his presence so that we may avoid falling into his trap. Thank You for the redeeming power of Jesus’ love that helps us to overcome the evil in this world. Amen.

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