How to make good anti-heroes?

I don't think I would count Han Solo as an antihero. He may take a little longer to cross the threshold, he may resist the call to adventure a little longer, but in the end he becomes a traditional hero, even to the point of getting a medal in that absurd final scene.

To me, at least, the anti-hero is the character we cheer for not because they represent the virtues we want to see in others but because they justify the vices we see in ourselves. They choose selfishness over generosity, their own happiness over that of others, and we cheer them (if we are so moved) because they give us license to choose selfishness and our own happiness ourselves.

The tension between the role of anti-hero and hero is, of course, a rich vein of story. It is the chief appeal of Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly, for instance. But that tension always resolves to the hero side. The true anti hero in Firefly is Jayne. (Do you want to run this ship? Yes! Well…you can’t!) In Andromeda, it is Tyr. Don Draper is a classic anti-hero in Mad Men. He is never redeemed, but there is a part in all of us that wants to be him. Ditto Tony Soprano.

Even House fails this test. In the end he is redeemed.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Mark Baker‭

4351 reputation 12 1104 742 58

What makes anti-heroes interesting characters to read about?

To find that out, let's compare the morally flawed anti-hero with the cliché of the perfectly virtuous hero.

• They do things the audience wouldn't dare to do. Be mean to people who annoy you. Disrespect authority figures. Indulge in guilty pleasures like casual sex and recreational drugs. Give bad people the punishment they deserve. Ignore the traffic rules. These are things many people in your audience would like to do, but can't because they are nice and civilized people and society tells them it's wrong to do these things. Living out these fantasies through a sympathetic viewpoint character can be an enjoyable experience.
• They are in danger of moral failure. Offer Hero an immoral temptation, and he will laugh at you. It would be a gross violation of his moral code, so he won't be tempted for a second. The audience knows it, so this situation isn't exciting at all. Offer Anti-Hero a temptation, and she might seriously consider taking it. She will have an actual internal conflict and the audience can't be sure how she will resolve it.
• They have to live with the immoral decisions they make. The hero doesn't take moral missteps, so she can sleep at night. The only thing she can possibly be held accountable for is not being competent enough. But such critique can be easily dismissed as unreasonable, because after all she was doing as best as she could, and you really can't demand more of her. But because Anti-Hero is allowed to make morally wrong decisions, he also has to experience the consequences. He has to face the people he wronged. His critics can not be dismissed that easily, because they have a point. And even worse, the anti-hero has to face his own conscience.
• They have more room for character development. The hero is already a perfectly virtuous person. There is nothing he could learn or experience which would make him even better. Not so the anti-hero. Over the course of the story, she can overcome her vices and learn to be a better person.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Philipp‭

105 reputation 0 12 21 0

One writer's opinion:

Heroes:

Begin here: They engage in altruistic risk and sometimes sacrifice; and the audience sees that. Many Germans that hid Jews from the Nazis did not get caught, so they lost nothing, and in material terms sacrificed nothing. Well, peace of mind, personal terror, etc, perhaps food and fuel and space in the root cellar, but they lost nothing of major consequence.

Nevertheless they were heroes, they saved the lives of others. A man that dives off a 30 foot high bridge into a raging river to save a child he spotted (really happened, saved the kid) risks ending his own life for a child he never met. He didn't lose his life. He may have lost his iPhone and ruined a good pair of shoes, but those are minor material sacrifices that vanish in the light of how much altruistic risk was taken. One might nitpick that getting famous is a self-interest reward, but in this case there wasn't even a thought of fame; bystanders saw a man watching the flooding river, that suddenly vaulted the rail and dove in: Nobody else saw the kid; so had he failed, it would have just been an apparent suicide.)

There is a borderline case worthy of its own debate: Does doing something altruistically nice make somebody a hero? If Superman raises a hand to stop a [standard lead] bullet that would have struck a man in the head: Is he a hero for expending the energy, even though he personally risked absolutely nothing in the process?

I think most people reflexively think "Yes," but I tend to think "No." I like to be careful with words; and to me this is an act of kindness, not an act of heroism. The same goes for giving a homeless person five dollars: No personal risk is involved.

That said, such altruistic acts are important in the development of the hero, because they demonstrate altruism is an inherent part of their nature; an inclination toward expending time and effort to help others is obviously a prerequisite to adding personal risk and turning that altruism into heroism.

Thus in writing, for plausibility, it is best to establish first that the character will indeed expend time and effort to help other people, even if that is just steadying them after a slip or pointing out they dropped their wallet. So later, when risk is added, they do not seem out of character for doing something altruistic.

On to Anti-Hero:

In much early fiction, heroes are relentlessly altruistic to the point of boredom, or what becomes boring wish fulfillment fiction like (again, IMO) Superman.

Introducing flaws and actual criminal behavior into a character that will BE a hero makes them interesting and puzzling. A better Superman, for example, is Hancock (played by Will Smith); in the opening scene he looks like a crusty homeless man sleeping off a drunk on a city bench, being irritated by a kid. But one sees very quickly that Hancock is an irritated and disdainful superman that does fight crime and save people, with zero regard for property or infrastructure or the cost of repairing it, and with zero skill in personal relationships, politics, or public relations. He's an asshole; but he saves people's lives.

Then when risk to himself does develop, he keeps going; and this is no longer just kindness, it becomes heroism.

The key to the anti-hero is balancing their bad side with enough personal altruistic risk to compensate several times over. Otherwise, you just have a villain, or an incoherent character.

Or your anti-hero may be an anti-villain: Somebody clearly causing more harm than good in the world, but the audience can also sympathize and understand why. For example, a man using actual missiles to blow up crowded public areas, like restaurants or stores, to kill mobsters he knows are in there: regardless of the collateral damage in deaths of innocents. His argument is that the collateral damage is far less than what he knows the future damage would be, so society is ahead whether they know it or not, the mourning and losses of today would be tenfold as much if he hadn't punched the button.

But that is not a hero, despite the risk he takes (the mobsters are full tilt in trying to kill him), despite his truly altruistic motives, because it is not clear that this character is actually saving anybody (the writer makes it clear this is true in the character's mind; but it will never be clear to the audience unless it is a time-travel flick where the alternative future with the mobster alive is made certain).

Anti-Heroes must voluntarily take enough altruistic risk to be heroes. It will help in your writing to demonstrate to the audience that this risk is very real; they can be hurt, injured, and suffer losses for taking such risks, they could really be killed or destroyed.

Then just be aware that the more of an insufferable asshole you make them (always fun), the bigger their ultimate risk and sacrifices must be to outweigh that.

posted over 6 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37