Protagonist vs Hero

I think in fiction the protagonist should not be synonymous with the main character or the hero.  I believe I was taught that the protagonist is the one who initiates the action.   In most science fiction I think the person who initiates the action is the Villain.   Even though the villain may not be the hero or even the main character he is the protagonist in that he is the one who with motivation to accomplish some goal such as taking over the world.   The Antagonist then is the one who opposes the purpose of the protagonist.  Again in many science fiction novels the person who tries to stop the Villain from his goal is the Hero.  The hero has no goal other than to stop a person from finishing what he started.   In this case then the hero would be the Antagonist.   Stories where the Hero is the Protagonist are hard for me to come up with by this definition.   Superman The Quest For Peace comes to mind though I'm probably wrong there too.  I remember though he decided to rid the world of nuclear weapons.   I really am not sure though since I hardly remember it.   Another story might be King Kong.   Where the goal is to make a movie.  I guess in modern versions of King Kong Denham is more the Villain but in the first one he wasn't seen as the villain.  King Kong was the Villain.   I guess in different parts there are different Goals.  Denham starts the whole thing so he's the Protagonist in the beginning.    Later though the Natives kidnap Anne so they become Protagonists.  Then King Kong sort of is the Antagonist because he really didn't attempt anything except keeping Anne.  In a way he is because he carries her away  but the main goal is to get Anne back so again it seems more like Driscoll is the Protagonist because he's trying to rescue Anne.  King Kong is the antagonist because he is trying to stop anyone from taking Anne away, including the Dinosaurs.  I guess these different situations in King Kong would be sub plots.  Each plot would then have a protagonist and an antagonist who may or may not be the main character.     I'm not claiming that's what it currently means though but by coming up with more exact definitions of words we can come up with better solutions to problems.     It's funny though because It bugs me how people use both arrogance and confidence as though they meant different things and yet I think no one thinks about the fact that they are essentially the same thing.   They are so close in meaning and yet no one ever questions how important it is to be confident and no one ever questions whether it is a serious character flaw to be arrogant.   Without a clear understanding of the difference then I think it would be easy for someone attempting to be confident to end up arrogant.   I mean all we know is that confidence is good and arrogance is bad but we don't know why arrogance is worse than confidence.  We don't know what the line is between them.   People could say that arrogance is too much confidence.  if it's confidence gone overboard but how can we define where that point is.  For one person it's one thing and for another it's something else.   Who decides which is which?

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