# Name some stories where the protagonist and antagonist never meet **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 13, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112 "2017-03-13T19:49:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2017, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/21 "2017-03-13T23:48:41Z")
Lolita: Humbert Humbert never meets Quilty. Which one is the protagonist is conjectural. Quilty tries to hide his identity from HH through a series of masquerades. Quilty succeeds. I’m going by very old memory here, not sure if I remember it correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/22 "2017-03-14T00:00:39Z")
Video game example: Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Conker only meets the ostensible arch villain, the Panther King, long enough to inadvertently insult him by calling him a “faery tale”, as in made-up, only for the Panther King die from the machinations of a henchman immediately thereafter. The Panther King never had anything against Conker per se, but desired a member of his species to function as an ad hoc table leg. It’s very silly. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/23 "2017-03-14T00:33:04Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > A general tip: when trying to find media with a similar concept, I often check the TV Tropes entry for that piece of media for an entry for the concept. Digging through the _The Firth Element_ page, I found “[Unknown Rival](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnknownRival).” > > (Trying to think of my own example, I want to count _Star Wars_, for Luke Skywalker and Grand Moff Tarkin. They never met, LS defeated GMT, and while it is possible that GMT’s name was dropped at The Big Briefing, LS would have probably known nothing more about him.) [The Unfought](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheUnfought). Interesting they don’t link to each other despite the overlap ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/24 "2017-03-14T00:51:59Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > Which we thought was cool, but couldn’t think of any other examples of this pattern. Star Wars IV meets #1 and #3 (gray area: Luke sees Vader, but doesn’t interact with him) , but not #2. Vader’s TIE fighter interacts with Luke’s X-Wing. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/25 "2017-03-14T01:26:44Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Vader’s TIE fighter interacts with Luke’s X-Wing. And, specifically, R2-D2. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/26 "2017-03-14T01:38:10Z")
Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail never meet in [The Stand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand). ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/27 "2017-03-14T02:21:25Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > Over the weekend, we were discussing the movie _The Fifth Element_ Funny, this is the first thing I thought of! ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/28 "2017-03-14T03:52:44Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > Memento, kinda? > > I’ve only seen it once and I went “HUH?” , but possibly, depending on your definition of “Protagonist” and “Antagonist” and “Meet”. Eh, I don’t think so. The Guy Pearce character, Leonard, is clearly the protagonist. He’s arguably not the _hero_, but he’s the main character and the movie is about his pursuit of his goals. There’s room to debate who the true antagonist is, but Leonard has met or knows about every other significant character in the movie. Most of them he can’t remember for more than a few minutes, but they all know that _he_ exists. There’s a case to be made that Leonard is his own antagonist and doesn’t even realize it, but he doesn’t defeat himself so that fails the OP’s #3. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/29 "2017-03-14T23:57:23Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > There’s a case to be made that Leonard is his own antagonist and doesn’t even realize it, but he doesn’t defeat himself so that fails the OP’s #3. The antagonist is Leonard when he writes down the license plate. Leonard the protagonist starts when Leonard the antagonist ceases to exist due to the dispersion of Leonard’s memory. The protagonist then sets in motion the antagonist’s plot that leads to the antagonist’s victory. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112/30 "2017-03-15T01:02:14Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > The antagonist is Leonard when he writes down the license plate. Leonard the protagonist starts when Leonard the antagonist ceases to exist due to the dispersion of Leonard’s memory. The protagonist then sets in motion the antagonist’s plot that leads to the antagonist’s victory. That still doesn’t meet the OP’s rules, though. #3 requires the protagonist to defeat the antagonist, not the antagonist getting what he wanted while the protagonist carries on without realizing what has happened. I don’t think it’s accurate to call the version of Leonard who writes down the license plate number (I’ll call him Leonard A) the antagonist, as he’s not really working against the later version of himself (Leonard B). If Leonard B could remember what he briefly knew as Leonard A, he presumably would have agreed with Leonard A (they’re the same person, after all) that Teddy needed killin’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-some-stories-where-the-protagonist-and-antagonist-never-meet/782112.md?page=1)