Ok, I get it. People like stories. How do you make a story appealing? By giving your audience a character they can project themselves onto, so they can feel immersed in your storytelling. There needs to be that one character, the protagonist, that the story revolves around, so it becomes one story and not just an incoherent tangle of sentences. If you read my comics frequently, you might have noticed that there is no such character. I don't think that is necessary for a web comic. I'm not trying to tell a coherent story. I just create chaos and watch it unfold. An incoherent tangle of story arcs is fine by me.
But let's, for a moment, get back to the classical story, which has a protagonist. Stories live from tension, otherwise they're boring. You could have your protagonist face lot's of different, disconnected, challenges which can be fun and some stories are like that. But more often than not, it's more fun to assign these challenges to another character, the antagonist. They are the evil master mind behind all that troubles the protagonist and the world they are trying to save. Tucan't is clearly inspired by this concept.
But does this make sense? How do you even define a villain without a hero? Try it! You'll notice that it's impossible. As soon as you're telling a story about them, they become the protagonist. You can give them all the traits of a villain and use all the tropes, similar to how I'm doing it with Tucan't: being an evil genius, living in an evil lair, following evil plans to do evil things.
But what even is "evil"? For things to be regarded as evil, other things need to be regarded as good. That's usually the job of the protagonist. Without that, you can appeal to the moral code of the audience. After all, there are quite a few things that are considered immoral in any culture. Inflicting pain on others, stealing, killing people etc.
Or is it? It depends on whom you inflict pain upon, whom you steal from and whom you kill. Audiences are willing to tolerate some pretty bad behavior of their heroes, as long as they resonate with the feelings that led to it. People are fine if the hero tortures the terrorist who captured their cute little daughter. People love it when the hero steals from the selfish billionaire and gives the money to an orphanage. And people applaud when their hero finally kills the emperor of giant totalitarian regime that was about to turn the whole universe into a fascist dystopia. You don't have to approve of these actions yourself, but you have to admit that a lot of people will.
These stories work because people understand the motifs of the main character. Out of context, their actions could be regarded as evil, but since the audience feels like they would have done the same thing in these situations, they would condemn themselves, so they see the hero's actions as justified. The antagonist's actions can be condemned easily, because the audience does not feel their feelings. Many stories really enforce that, so people don't accidentally sympathize with the bad guy. They design the bad guy in a way that is almost implausible. Often, when you stop to think about it, their actions cannot be explained at all. The authors think: What's the most disturbing thing this character could do now, to cause the most trouble for the protagonist. They do not think of any motivation for the antagonist, or if it is even a sensible cause of action. Neither does the audience, if they are sufficiently pulled into the protagonist's story.
This often leaves the bad guy as a pretty unrealistic character. In a way, Tucan't is an homage to that. They are evil, for the sake of being evil. Their motivation is just as unclear and their actions just as unjustified as so many other villains. But you can only drive this joke so far. I feel like it is getting old. There needs to be a change for this character to be kept alive.
The thought occurred to me that I might introduce a classical "hero" character. Someone for Tucan't to fight. Since Tucan't is the protagonist, this hero would then need to fill the role of the antagonist, resulting in some kind of "roles reversed" situation. But I feel like I've seen this one before. It's been done so many times that I'm tired of it, and you probably are, too. Sometimes it's fun to adhere to some well proven tropes, just to put my own spin on them. I don't see that here.
Instead, I thought, why not something completely different? So, Tucan't will now go looking for love. After all, they have huge sexy beak and an evil AI as a wingman. Will they succeed? What challenges will they face along the way? Is true love and true evil mutually exclusive? I'm just as curious to find out as you are.
