All stories need an antagonist, but not all stories have a villain.
The word antagonist usually conjures an image of a "bad guy," but that's not always the case. The antagonist in a story is simply the opposition to whatever the protagonist is trying to accomplish.
A mother trying her best to stop a willful child from going down a destructive path is the antagonist to that child, same as a terrible storm is an antagonist to a hiker trying to reach safety on a mountain.
An antagonist can come from any of the four basic conflict types, and they each focus on a different type of conflict opposition. We've discussed the person vs. self antagonists, and person vs. nature conflicts, so let's continue with the person vs. society conflicts.
