@DarthAsthma:
1. Again simply wrong. You're not actually saying that all story arcs in existence follow this pattern are you? I'll just assume poorly framed again.
(Heck there are arcs within Soma itself where the pattern you describe doesn't apply)
2. All the examples you gave didn't really apply to the situation due the difference in story structure influenced by how the writers chose to handle their villains
3. See point 1, but again it absolutely matters when they're relevant within the same story arc. Usually when there are several antagonist in the same arc, a lot of times you can establish a kind of villain hierarchy by which you can estimate the amount of struggle they give to the protagonist.
I really don't know how you can think that the number of antagonists doesn't influence anything in how a story progresses.
I mean the opposite, the number of protagonists also influences a great deal of things about how a story is told.
4. I read that again and edited it just before you mentioned it cause I had inklings that this might come over mean, it's actually just meant to be really factual. But I'm genuinely sorry if that caused distress/dismay. I'll throw this in just in case you haven't read this from me yet, I really dislike assumptions made about forum tone unless it's overly inherent in the word choice(for example when sentences devolve into pure obscenities). So I'll ask of you to generally try to read everything I write as neutral as possible(If it's too hard just let the google translator read it for you that should hit the right tone), thanks in advance.
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Reading your post again, I think there needs to be clarification about what counts as failing for you. Losing to the antagonist? Or do you also count training struggles under that? I'm very much referring to the former in my posts. You don't need to have the protagonist fail to display struggle and a struggling character does not equal a character failing for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
Of course not ALL stories follow that pattern, but its a very general rule of thumb used in all basic story telling. The hero always falters or struggles before finally overcoming a goal. You can interpret the struggle however you want. Batman gets his back broken by Bane before beating him in the end, Harry loses a bunch of loved ones before getting Voldemort, Cartman gets duped by Scott Tennerman a few times before finally killing his parents and turning them into chili and then feeding it to him.
Yes Alice is there as an antagonist, yes there are other contestants. But the theme of the autumn election is curry, and Hayama is hyped up to be the boss of that. Throw in as many antagonists as you want, the final goal is still the same. In that essence, Hayama is Darth Vader, Alice is Boba Fett, and the other guys are Admiral Tarkin or something. Yes, they will get in Soma's way and will probably challenge him, but from the start of the Autumn election, Soma's goal is to overcome Hayama. Imagine it as Soma kills Darth Vader in Empire to just "get it over with" leaving Boba Fett the final boss in Jedi. Thats dosen't make alot of tension.
Another example. Luke destroyed the Death Star in New Hope, but in Jedi they just brought it back and had to destroy it again. Was it as epic as the first time? No, because it just felt like they were just repeating an obstacle that they had already beat in the first movie. If Soma had blew up the death star right there in the preliminaries, that would of killed the tension for the finals if they just brought back the death star he already blew up before.
Yes, Soma has blown opponents away without really struggling in the past. It isn't an iron clad rule. But the story would get boring if he just continues to beat his opponents one after another without any real effort.
Sorry if this all sounds like gibberish, I'm not trying to be too technical about this