In the comments on my post yesterday, I was reminded of the story of King Saul of Israel. And I thought I’d talk a little about him as an example of a story antagonist.

“Antagonist” is the right word for the role played by Saul in the Saga of David. Saul isn’t a villain. In fact, for a large part of the story, he’s a hero. But he fails where David succeeds, and his choices put him on a collision course with his former protégé. Like a character in a Greek tragedy, he’s brought down by his fatal flaw, but throughout the story he continues to have his sympathetic moments.

I believe that it’s fashionable nowadays, among historians, to claim that the David/Saul story is a tremendous example of political spin. The real David, the historians say, was a man on the make who undermined his king at every turn, finally rebelled against him, allied with the Philistines against him, and helped to kill him. Then (according to these historians) he re-wrote the story to make himself the loyal but mistreated soldier.

(It’s also fashionable among historians to say the David and Saul are entirely imaginary characters. I’m not sure how that works. Perhaps it’s not the same historians. Obviously they’re competing to see who can find the most satisfying method of debunking the biblical narrative.)

But even if you believe one of those theories (and I definitely don’t), from the point of view of the story—the saga—you can’t deny the fact that the tale we have in 1 Samuel is one of complex and psychologically compelling drama.

You start out with young Saul, an undistinguished member of an undistinguished clan in an undistinguished tribe. For no reason he can understand, he’s selected by the Prophet Samuel to be king. His response is prudent—he runs away and tries to hide in the baggage. He has (we’re later informed in 1 Samuel 15:17) a bad case of low self-esteem, and is convinced (rightly, as it turns out) that this project isn’t going to turn out well for him.

But he starts well. His first official act (1 Samuel 11) is to rescue the people of Jabesh Gilead from an attack by the Ammonites, who offered them peace at the price of each man having an eye gouged out. Saul rallied the Israelites and won a crushing victory that secured his power base.

But Saul does what guys with low self-esteem almost always do (as I well know). Uncertain within himself, he can’t find his balance point—the right times to be confident and the right times to doubt himself. He learns to bluster. He believes his press clippings. I know it seems unfair that God deposes Saul for merely getting a sacrifice wrong (1 Samuel 13), while letting David off more lightly for adultery and murder. But I think Saul’s actions are a symptom of what’s going on in his heart. The bad sacrifice is just how that works out in practice.

He fails to wage war with the zeal God demands (1 Samuel 15 is a painful chapter for the modern reader, but the issue of God-commanded massacres isn’t one I want to argue about tonight). When David becomes a hero and a celebrity, Saul experiences a mid-life crisis and a critical resurgence of his old self-doubt. Self-doubt becomes paranoia, and “…the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” (1 Samuel 16:14.)

From there it’s downhill. In the end, Saul goes down like a warrior, and his sons die with him. But, in a touching final scene, after the Philistines have beheaded Saul and his sons and hung their bodies in shame on the city wall…

When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their valiant men journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days. (1 Samuel 31:11-13)

So Saul, who’d struggled with inferiority all his life, found a hero’s grave at last among people who remembered him at his best.

Bear in mind—this is the antagonist of the story. Not the protagonist.

Your antagonists don’t always have to be villains. A good person who’s gone the wrong way can be as effective, or more, than a Hannibal Lector or a Sauron.

I read that they’re working on a new Robin Hood movie in which the Sheriff of Nottingham is a decent fellow.

I can see that working.