A. Protagonist
The main actor, the hero in a story is called a protagonist. A protagonist is one who has the onus of overcoming the difficulties in life, fighting evil, saving other people around him, struggling, and suffering to finally become victorious.
Every story is a Hero’s journey from a hard and undesirable situation of struggle and suffering to a more acceptable, victorious life situation of happiness, relief, and safety.
So a protagonist is the hero in the story who takes the story from the negative feelings to the positive feelings.
In the Samskrit Epic of Mahabharata, Lord Krishna is the main protagonist, who guides Dharma(Virtue) to win over Adharma(immorality), by helping Pandavas to defeat the Kauravas, the practitioners of immorality.
The first ever story recorded in written form is the story of Gilgamesh, which was written in Sumerian language in clay cuneiform around 3500 BCE, the notorious king Gilgamesh is the protagonist. The story of Gilgamesh revolves around the king getting a friend Enkidu, and traveling in the jungle with the Enkidu to defeat evil Humbaba, losing his friend Enkidu, and at the end of the journey becoming a kind-hearted caring king.
The epic of Mahabharata navigates the audience(or listener, or reader) from the suffering and pain of adharma to a more virtuous world of honesty, truth, justice, kindness, and prosperity. On the other hand, the story of Gilgamesh navigates the audience from the feeling of anger due to misdeeds and torture of Gilgamesh to the feelings of relief and satisfaction of the king becoming kind-hearted.
