Villians: The "necessary evil" for the Hero archetype?

In all honestly I’ve wanted to come back to these movie archetypes discussions for a bit of a while, just to balance out the discussions with the hero genres. It seemed only fair to do a focus towards the antagonists as well, since they are an equal and necessary part of storytelling, especially in movies.

Think about it, just how far and how good a film would be without the right type of villain or foe to show the endurance of the characters, the characterization of the antagonist, in comparison to the protagonist, and the storyline itself? In my opinion, probably not that far or that great.

Now I know I mentioned this before, but just to set the record straight once again this is not me glamorizing evil or its ideology, etc. This is just a discussion on the role of the antagonist in storytelling, and more specifically why we have them.

Anti-heroes, the Good? the Bad? or something in between?

We all know in the majority of all storytelling, there are protagonists (whom are typically the archetypal heroes and focal characters of the story), and the antagonists (whom are usually the ‘villains’ or main opposition to the protagonists). Both are prevalent and are usually included in most story genres, including movies. At time however, those typical archetypal roles, can be blurred and not as clear as to whom the ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ is. This is epically true with more complex storylines and the likeness of the characters within genres of storytelling, movies, being no exception. Some do not carry the typical morals of the atypical hero. Some are deeply flawed in personality or by interaction. Some do not always take the moral high road, yet might pick certain heroic traits here and there (though not all of them). As you’re probably aware by now, this it what we refer to as Anti-heroes.