What is the difference between an agonist and an antagonist?
In literary contexts, an agonist is a character who takes part in the central conflict or struggle of a story and is sometimes used as another term for the protagonist.
An antagonist, by contrast, is the character or force that opposes the protagonist and creates obstacles for them.
The terms come from the Greek agon, meaning “struggle” or “contest,” but they describe different roles in storytelling. An agonist is involved in pursuing the story’s central goals, while an antagonist works against those goals. However, agonist is less commonly used as a literary term than protagonist or antagonist.
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