Why do People think that Iron Will is an antagonist?

All what he was doing is finding a living, he did not force Fluttershy to come to his show. Infact it was not his fault Fluttershy went overboard, I wouldnt have blamed him if he called the police on fluttershy for not paying, but he let it pass implying he is not an antagonist. its like if you went to do self defence lesson to protect yourself from bullies but then you go overboard and become a bully and then blame it on the teacher.

oh no…not this…is there a way to hide forums?

@RIG  
Yes. It’s called ignoring them.

@PaskaNaakka  
you wont belive how much stuff i am already ignoring…

Well he is an antagonist. Just an antagonist though. Being the antagonist doesn’t mean they are evil, it just means they’re the opposing force of the episode.
 
He definitely wasn’t a bad guy though, just an arrogant guy getting by.

He did manhandle Rarity and Pinkie Pie at the end of Putting Your Hoof Down.
 
 
@RIG  
RIG, try this new thing, called “not reading threads you don’t like” and “not posting in threads you don’t like”. I hear it helps.

@The Smiling Pony  
He just wanted to take his money, Pinkie and Rarity where just getting in his way of getting his paycheck. its not like he hit them or anything

All of the episodes are mostly about how to handle in a friendship situation, i would say that he didn’t care for whom he teached out to, but to just get paid for the lessons he have learned out, hence he didn’t contribute or care anything about friendship, bonds or anything related to that

One reason I like this show is because there aren’t many outright evil antagonists, just characters with selfish desires. It’s all a huge gray area, and Iron Will is right in the middle of that. He’s overbearing, a jerk, but then again, so are a lot of us. That doesn’t make us evil. He’s an antagonist in the sense that he’s opposing the “good” characters, but that’s about as far as it goes. This show’s great for turning all characters into caring individuals eventually. Because friendship is magic.

He’s an antagonist, but not a villain. He’s a good guy, it’s just that his way of doing things is at odds with the mane 6, and his teachings ~~while otherwise successful ~~ turn Fluttershy into a brute.

I think it’s because people don’t like saying that Fluttershy was the villain for that episode.
 
She was, and it’s hardly the first time that a mane 6 pony has been the principal source of conflict.

Well, he was successful at making Fluttershy more assertive…until she just ended up being outright aggressive.

@Whatevs  
Yeah, it’d ruin her purity to the 1000s of her fans.

Antagonist does not mean villain. It’s just the group, entity or individual who provides conflict and an obstacle the protagonist must overcome. A lot of people don’t realize you can have an antagonist who isn’t evil or bad at all, it’s just that they exist opposite of the protagonist.

@DudeManGuy  
Except that would still be Fluttershy.

As stated, the important thing to remember is being an antagonist does not make you the “bad guy.” Iron Will becomes the antagonist because he begins the conflict and encourages Fluttershy’s behavior with catch rhymes. Of course, he also later drives her from her self-imposed isolation, thereby creating a climax of conflict that she has to resolve. We were reminded that Iron Will at least had a role because of her quoting rhymes implied to originate from him.
 
However, you do bring up an important point that Fluttershy was arguably her own antagonist because of how poorly she treated everyone for the most mundane reasons; that one scene especially where she deeply insults Pinkie and Rarity does not add up at all with her implied training. That was all her focusing her aggression to a pin point. (Honestly, it sounded to me like when someone hates a person but does not bring it up unless he/she gets in a fight, but more on that in a bit.) Of course, when she hid away in her shack, her fear of becoming overaggressive was the main source of conflict.
 
Let me reiterate an old pet peeve: this was the only episode in the entire series I genuinely disliked (although the Discord episode started to come close merely because of its focus on Fluttershy). It gives the impression that all this time Fluttershy acted not out of kindness but out of social pathology and ultimately does not care for anyone else except maybe her animals. The worst aspect is this episode was intended as character development: if TMMDW had the impact this episode did, we might have lost half the fanbase by now. This episode damaged Fluttershy’s character permanently; her once important moments of sternness and assertiveness have been blunter and even inconsiderate past this point. Later she would threaten Twilight, stampede over Rainbow dash, and ignore Rainbow Dash BEING HIT by utensils to berate her friends for not giving Discord a chance. Note I haven’t even brought up how painfully cliche the entire premise is or how redundant it is given the far more meaningful and in-character moments of assertiveness and strength exhibited by Fluttershy in the past.
 
To summarize and return focus, calling Iron Will an antagonist may sound harsh, but that is at least his nominative role. That does not necessarily mean that he was the only conflicting force at work, however.

“It gives the impression that all this time Fluttershy acted not out of kindness but out of social pathology and ultimately does not care for anyone else except maybe her animals.”
 
I find the biggest issue of this, is that Fluttershy is no longer a pure, 100% innocent pony so many Fluttershy fans wish her to be, and thus flip out. I liked Putting Your Hoof Down, as it definitely was something other than waifu material that keeps being imagined for her.
 
And so what if she did those things in later episodes. The only thing going on with her is cowering behind everything. Oh sure, there was 1 moment where Fluttershy was assertive, and that was with the dragon. But that was only 1 time, and that was because her friends were in peril and until that point, was a giant hindrance.

@Ashdreg  
Wrong. In this scene, she even says she working at being more assertive. Which got effectively RETCONNED by PYHD. Of course, she was not entirely assertive in that scene, but she stood up for Rainbow Dash.
 
PYHD rushed her development way too fast with a half-baked storyline. A character that showed promise beyond the moe archetype you mention was reduced into a more annoying and oversimplified “shy-but-deadly” archetype. Her character development was rushed in S2 and became aggravating in S3.

Iron Will is kind of like PUA artists in the real world, he tries to teach something usful to those who need it, it’s just his methods that are too controversial.

Monkeybutt be trollin’.

Episode calls Fluttershy’s morality into question: it’s a bad episode.
 
Just remember that perspective.

Um, Iron Will is an antagonist. You’re mistaking “antagonist” for “evil”. An antagonist is simply the one who starts or continues a conflict in a work of fiction. Good guys and even main characters can be antagonists of episodes, and so can inanimate things.

@Princess♠Molestia  

@DanielTepesKraus
 
@DanielTepesKraus  
except, again it’s really Fluttershy that does that

Why is he an antagonist?
 
Because he’s not a protagonist.