We're not very far apart, ultimately. I don't disagree that Loghain is the most featured antagonist. I'm just not sure I'd describe him as "main" because, ultimately, I don't think DA:O has a very good or coherent central plot or central conflict.
Coherent plot yes, but central conflict no. The initial conflict is pushed aside by the treaty quests and dealt with later.
Eh...
<.<
Not every Antagonist fails.
More importantly, not every protagonist succeeds.
More importantly, not every protagonist succeeds.
Oh absolutely.
Perhaps the most defining instance of this is me a media where the protagonists absolutely fail in their overall goal, only succeeding in ending the threat long after they needed to. Hellsing Ultimate to my eye is the proactive approach to a antagonist, they are bested, defeated, killed but it occurs only in the antagonist's own time frame, when it came the time for him to die according to his own plan.
The antagonist is victorious in each of his aims, his promise is fulfilled, his own personal ambition is fulfilled and he gave the world a spectacle it will never forget. London is obliterated, its population of five million nearly all dead, the British capital the target of his operation was defeated, humbled just as his men had wished (in accordance with the 1,000 wishes) they had reignited the war of their youth for a single evening. His personal foil was humbled, no longer the container of the fearsome powers that allowed him to skirt the line between the living and the dead.
The protagonist ultimately labels this 'success' as not a war as the antagonist claimed it was but as a mere terrorist act, even so that title rings hollow when you level it at the sheer scope of the carnage that even three decades has yet to ease.
Video relevant to the topic.
Of course you could argue that ultimately all of the antagonist's success will eventually be erased by time but that is something unavoidable, eventually people rebuild, new settlers move where the fallen lay years prior, new members join organizations that were depleted during the attack, the British government continues to operate, the Zepplin Affair as the attack would be known in its aftermath is labeled as a simple terrorist incident, abet the most successful one in terms of taking life in history. Ultimately however in terms of narrative portrayal? The bad guy wins here, he had got the mass death he sought, he gave his men their war, it took decades for Dracula to revive and his new form is absent from its other incarnation's fearsome power, in death, in what would be construed as defeat in a conventional story the Major has changed what was immutable, has followed through with his own objectives and in hindsight despite the revival of the Protagonist, the rebuilding of what was destroyed it does not change the fact that thirty years prior it wasn't the protagonist smiling, it was a pudgy war crazed Major.
@Master Warder Z: I don't watch anime so I'm not familiar with it, but protagonist does not mean "the good guy". It's the main character.
If the villain's goals were obtained and all other characters were wiped aside... then the villain was the protagonist.
I'm not sure why you would consider a bunch of bit failure characters the "protagonists" of the story.
EDIT: You said the villain's foil was humbled. It's possible, if this foil was the protagonist, that you're mistaking the event that defines the protagonist (again, I didn't see the show).
Even in failure... a protagonist will always "learn something" and thereby succeed in his/her story arc.
NOTE: Yes, there are a few trendy flat "everyone fails" films out there that's true - mostly in the horror genre. But, especially given that they dominate in the genre of horror... it would be easy to label "failure" as the protagonist.
If anyone reading Death Note, they would know that Light is the bad guy that not only kill criminals but also polices and his own family. He's the protagonist, and the antagonists are the polices and detectives who put their life on the line to stop him. Protagonist is not always have to be the good guy. They're just usually the one the story focuses on or story is told from their point of view.
If the villain's goals were obtained and all other characters were wiped aside... then the villain was the protagonist.
I'm not going to debate narrative framing especially on a media that hasn't even been witnessed by the other party, but rest assured the Major was the foil to the cast, he just happened to win. The protagonist is arguably Seras or Alucard with far more import placed upon Seras then reverse Dracula, that said what do you call achieving EVERYTHING you set out to accomplish except victory?
In spirit if not practice I guess is the matter of debate. The weight of Pyrrhic victory is always something debated after all, but 1,000 for upwards of 5,000,000 sounds like a fair trade at least in terms in of mathematics. But yes do not worry the antagonist fits the definition, he is in direct opposition to the main protagonists 
@Master Warder Z: We don't have to debate at all. Any well written protagonist follows painfully simple guidelines. There's no magically avante guarde protagonists that break the mold.
If the story is about the protagonist learning humility... the vector by which that humility is learned is not the point of the story. So - if the antagonists goal is to "win at chess" and he does.. that doesn't mean the protagonist lost his own storyline. It means that "winning at chess" was not the point of the story.
I'm not going to debate narrative framing especially on a media that hasn't even been witnessed by the other party, but rest assured the Major was the foil to the cast, he just happened to win. The protagonist is arguably Seras or Alucard with far more import placed upon Seras then reverse Dracula, that said what do you call achieving EVERYTHING you set out to accomplish except victory?
Yeah, the protagonist may be advertised as Alucard but I would say the actual protagonist is Seras. Of all the characters, she's really the only one that goes through a journey. One of the main themes is the difference between being a human and being a monster, and Seras managed to be something none of the others could do: she managed to retain her humanity while being in the trappings of a monster. Alucard was more of a mentor role, since while he despised humans who turned themselves or agreed to be turned into monsters, himself included, he saw how she could achieve that balance that everyone else had failed to achieve. Multiple other characters comment on this throughout the series, and even the writer says such things about her, like her being "the light that stands out from the darkness".
I feel like there needs to be an invested interest into developing villains. This is something that is often lacking in Western RPG in general, it's mostly just doing a bunch of sidequests then suddenly fight the big bad, but the big bad is just appeared so suddenly and has no real tie to the protagonist that it doesn't really make me feel anything when fighting them. It would be cool to have some ties or personal reasons for why the protagonist wants to stop the villain asides from plunging the world into 1000 years of darkness. Maybe the villain kicked the protagonist's puppy or something, I want more interactions with the villains and more developing arc and story of some sort related to the protagonist and the villain.
Oh dude. Then you gotta play Dragon Age 4! No matter if Inquisitor will be a protagonist, second protagonist or w/e, he/she will have to stop Solas (a companion from DAI) from destroying the world. And if Solas was ur love interest then it gets sooo personal.
As long as I never see someone like the illusive man again... giving you stupid orders with his condescending attitude, throwing you into traps where all you companions can die, no really I wish he died from a lung cancer in the end of ME2.
Irritating antagonist ever....
I don't know how it would work in a game, but it's entirely possible for a story to follow one character but be about another character. The Great Gatsby is told from the perspective of Nick but is about Jay Gatsby. The Sandlot follows Smalls, but it's really about Benny Rodriguez. Don't believe me on the latter? Look at the film's cover photo.
I just want to throw in something concerning villains: The importance of their appearance and voice of a villain(because everyone is so focused on their deepness and personaility), and how he is portrayed and "staged" by the game
For me, a villain has to be enjoyable and "hateable" both. And I just had to think of this wonderful badguy - who by all means is not really "deep" or two-dimensional by any means. He just wants to kill, be mean, sit on his pile of gold and have a good day with that...but damn, the way his voice sounds, how he looks, and how full of himself he is, arrogance and this feel of superiority he has. That's just fun, and you still feel good if he dies, because he is damn evil ^^
He is the most enjoyable thing of that entire trilogy . And damn, if they could get a voice of THAT calibre for MEA than ...well...writing becomes second on the agenda ^^
Another point - can the Council/politicians/guys in charge/Alliance not be a bunch of dumbasses who can't see the big problems? Can we NOT be the only one who truly understands the terrible threat, fighting the authorities who all want to look the other way? ME1 is super bad for that.
That was DA:O, and all of ME1 and ME2 as well as a bit of DA:I. I'm tired of it. Hows about they actually be competent ppl who acknowledge the threat, respect your abilities, talk to you all nice like, and entrust you to do the right thing whilst they try super hard from their end as well?
This so much, even my Paragon would've totally killed the Council in ME2 for being such dumbasses, I proved myself right again and again in ME1, singlehandedly stopped Saren while everyone was sitting on their asses, sacrificed humans to save them and they still treat my opinion like that of a child. One of the worse moments of ME that completely broke the "your choices matter" illusion, it's like yeah you saved the council? Too bad, killing the council is the canon choice, have a couple of dialogues that mention you saved the council and get out of here.
That aside, I'd say the best kind of villain is the kind that you can root for while watching the events unfold from his perspective. Light from Death Note comes as an example, though I suppose some here might not be on well terms with anime. Or Walter from Breaking Bad to some extent though the context is obviously very different. Saren and Tim were pretty good on their respective games (not a fan of ME3 TIM), though I wish they'd have been developed more.
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