If it wasn't obvious, there is no real rhyme or reason for the order these chapters find themselves in but I don't really care. Messy desk is the sign of a great mind and all that nonsense. Anyway, let's talk about your heroes and protagonists for this bit. Many of you might see these two words and interchangeable and usually they are, but they don't necessarily have to be. A protagonist is defined as "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text" which I think is more correct than just being the same as a hero. Because what if you are choosing to write a book from the point of view of a villain or, at the very least, someone you wouldn't fit into the general idea of a Hero?
So, for an example, I would like to give you an example of a trilogy where the main protagonist isn't a hero and is, by all common definitions, a villain. Darth Bane of the Star Wars expanded universe takes place from the point of view of the titular Sith Lord, Darth Bane who is credited with creating the Rule of Two which basically states that there should only ever be two Sith in existence at one time. I will not spoil what he does in case some of you want to read the books, I highly recommend them, but I will make some general statements. Bane is a brutal character who is willing to threaten and harm those who stand in his way without a second thought even before he decides to put his Rule of Two into action.
Darth Bane is in no way described as a hero regardless of what technical good he does as his brutality is even applied to fellow Sith, and he feels no remorse or regret for those who he removes from his path. His villainy stretches even before he was taken to become a Dark Lord of the Sith and his teachings at the Sith Academies only seemed to make him worse. Despite this vague detailing I've given you all because I want to avoid major spoilers, Darth Bane is still a primary protagonist of his books...just an evil protagonist.
I want to make a quick little note on my thoughts as to why heroes are the predominant protagonists and I think it's because it's simply easier. Not that it's necessarily hard to make a villain protagonist, I tried to do it with a character who I will be posting the rewrites here, but it's a lot easier to make your main character a hero. I can't think of a ton of media that is good with a villain as the main character much less just in general, and I don't think that's a problem. A seemingly current trend with villains is that they aren't allowed to just be villains, so I don't really think I'd necessarily want a series from a villain's perspective these days...but maybe that could change. Regardless, heroes have been in the spotlight as main characters for longer than stories have been written down which I don't think is really a problem.259Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEMb9aNgrhb
In case you just can't be asked to read the above, which I don't blame you, the short version is that you don't have to make your protagonist a hero and that a protagonist is merely another word for main character. Also, don't think that you shouldn't make your hero a protagonist even if they're not the main one. Feel free to mix and match and try something with this every now and then. Have a day
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