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Actually had a chat with Karel over the weekend, looks like we are going to get a discussion board soon.
True that in A New Hope Vader is an?agent of the emperor, he is motivated to stop the rebellion on orders of his master. However, it is not made clear whether or not he knows Luke is his son – he didn’t even know that Leia was his daughter after being in the same room as her. Point is that we know beyond a doubt that Vader’s goal is to find the rebel base in the first film, and in the second it changes to turning Luke to the dark side.
As with all good antagonists,?his?motivation is made clear, whether it be achieving a strategically advantageous military objective or revenge he?is strongly motivated. More so, it could be said that after the commander of the Death Star humiliates Vader in front of the other officers, Vader wants to prove a point. Therefore compounding his motivation – he needs to defend his reputation and please his master.
The antagonist needs to be on screen actively (i.e taking action not just giving orders from afar) working against the protagonist, the emperor doesn’t do this, yet Vader does.?I’m not sure what a contagonist is, so I can’t answer that question but will say that Vader is the Antagonist in Star Wars; A New Hope or by hero’s journey terms – the Shadow.
As for Gods of Egypt, at this point I have to say that anything I write about this film is my opinion based on my personal tastes. Without delving into the breadth of my full opinion, I think that for the demographic which it was made for I’m sure many found it entertaining. For me however and according to my taste, it suffered from structural flaws as a result of the dual protagonist plot, shifts in points of view between scenes and several conceptual decisions relating to the use of the particular mythological characters in the story.
Contagonist is the term in the complicated [understatement] Dramatica matrix of character and plotting. ?It’s an obtuse, arcane term for the role of the deflector character. ?A deflector character is one who would turn the protagonist/main character/Hero (take your pick) away from heeding “the Call”, pursuing his objective goal. ?In contrast to the antagonist who directly blocks the protagonist with malicious intent.
The deflector character is not trying to defeat the protagonist. ?He usually believes he’s saving the protagonist from trouble, from the consequences of a foolish decision — “it’s for your own good”. ?(Or “for your own good” is the deflector character’s overt reason for?covert intentions,?manipulating the protagonist for his own self-interest.)
In “The New Hope” the deflector character is clearly Luke’s uncle who wants to keep Luke down on the farm and whom Luke uses as his excuse for initially rejecting the Call from Obi-Wan. (Hence, Obi-Wan’s reply: “That’s your uncle talking.”)
In “The Return of the Jedi” I think it’s more complicated. ?Vader’s role as a deflector character is conditional and with overt rather than covert intent: ?”If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally” he tells the Emperor.
The Emperor: “Can it be done?” ?(The dramatic question that frames the rest of the episode.)
Vader: “He will join us or die, Master.”
So, if Vader can’t deflect Luke, then he will kill him. ?He will act as an antagonist. (And spiritually, Vader is always Luke’s antagonist in terms of his attempt to kill ?Luke’s “better self”, ?get him to embrace the dark side.)
And if one wishes to engage in a scholastic debate over who is the one and only, true, unambiguous, certified, must-be antagonist — Vader or the Emperor — knock yourselves out.
Any way you slice and dice the roles, the Obligatory Scene, the High Noon scene is — and must be — a showdown between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. ?And when it happens the Emperor is nowhere in sight.
Why? ?Because the thematic core of the story entails two characters struggling for Luke’s soul — his father and his mentor. ?The Emperor has a big stake in the outcome, but he’s not a hands-on central participant in that struggle. (Vader, as Luke’s father, has more at stake than the fate of the Empire, ?an immeasurably deeper emotional investment in Luke than the Emperor will ever have.)
As Nir Shelter well observed in another thread, definitions are fuzzy and roles can overlap. ?I understand and empathize, but after years of trying to arrive at precision and clarity, I finally realized I was chasing ?a mirage.
My 2.5 cents worth.