Basic Trope: The story does not have a villain as most of the conflict is internal.
- Straight: The conflict of Alice and Bob is Bob dealing with trying to pay his mortgage and managing his money due to his own decisions and arguing with Alice over it. The closest thing to an antagonist there is Alice, and even then she's more of a deuteragonist if anything.
- Exaggerated:
- Downplayed:
- The story has an antagonist in the mortgage lender, but they aren't evil or a bad person and are only the antagonist because of the plot, and are a perfectly reasonable person.
- There is a Greater-Scope Villain who is indirectly responsible for the plot that the characters go through, but they never appear or personally antagonize the main characters- their villainy is in the background.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain
- Justified:
- The story is about characters doing an everyday activity which does not involve villains.
- The story takes place in Real Life and most people do not face open villains.
- Bob is based on someone in Real Life who dealt with a conflict internally.
- Bob lives on a deserted island where there is no one except himself.
- Inverted:
- Big Bad
- There's no hero in the story. No Protagonist is impossible; We only have Villain Protagonist.
- Subverted
- The reason why Bob struggles with finance is because the mortgage lender is openly antagonistic and wants to evict Bob For the Evulz.
- Bob's mortgage lender starts off as just a cranky man doing his job, but frustration with Bob drives the mortgage lender into becoming more antagonistic towards Bob.
- Bob Took a Level in Jerkass and is openly evil and commits horrific crimes to pay his expenses.
- Double Subverted
- But the mortgage lender was fired years ago and despite that Bob still struggles with his expenses.
- The lender only seems antagonistic because we are initially shown them from Bob's biased viewpoint. When we see the lender outside of that lens, they are shown to be a Reasonable Authority Figure trying to pressure the Lazy Bum Bob to pay back the mortgage he was supposed to pay already.
- Bob's crime spree is actually a flashback and the rest of the film explore's Bob struggle to pay expenses and being a former criminal.
- Parodied: Bob literally fights himself and views himself as a villain despite not doing anything evil.
- Zig Zagged: Bob stars in a show where some episodes have a villain and some don't
- Averted: The story has a villain that is openly against Bob and Alice and forms a conflict.
- Enforced
- The author wants to show that not every problem in the world has a villain causing it.
- Lampshaded: "There's no villain to fight except within."
- Defied: The characters, either Bob or Alice, suffer Face–Heel Turn, as the show lacks any villains.
- Deconstructed: Bob and Alice became bored as there is no villains to fight with.
Back to No Antagonist.
