Hero vs Antihero
Ann Aguirre on Feb 10 2010 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I recently read a post wherein people discuss the idea of characters needing to be “worthy” of happiness and/or love. In other words, some folks don’t want to read about people who don’t always walk the straight and narrow, or who have had to make some tough (possibly terrible?) choices. I feel uncomfortable with the notion that my characters have to be in some sense morally superior before I can permit them to enjoy any measure of contentment. To me, that feels judgmental. I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. Who then decides if I’m good enough to be loved or to be happy?
Jax is not a sweet person. She can be selfish. She can act impulsively and speak from a place of pain in order to hurt others. She screws up. For me, the best thing about her, however, is that she learns. She changes. She grows. But she will never be perfect. She will never be wholly selfless. Even when she acts to protect others, it’s not because she lacks the instinct to put herself first. She is simply ignoring that impulse, sometimes not without difficulty. I find that much more interesting than when a character seems to experience no inner conflict whatsoever. The perfect, worthy heroine saves kittens, volunteers in soup kitchens, gives blood, goes to church every Sunday, never swears, knits mittens for soldiers, and can paint and/or play a musical instrument. Oh, and small birds and rodents help her clean her house on the weekends. This person also bores me to death.
Obviously I don’t embrace the idea of the heroic ideal. I am interested in exploring the psyches of damaged and broken people. I love the antihero. I adore protagonists who have visited their own personal versions of hell and come out on the other side, perhaps twisted, but still here. The quintessential survivor is the archetype who speaks to me. If nothing more, Jax and Corine share that in common. They are both survivors. They each will do what it takes to live, even if it’s tough or ugly or if other people disapprove. It doesn’t matter; the alternative is unthinkable. And that is the core of their strength.
What archetypes speak to you? What characters do you find most attractive? Do they need to be “worthy” to hold your interest? I invite y’all to share some of your favorite antiheroes in comments. I’ll be back later to do the same.
Kathleen Bolton
Therese Walsh
Ann Aguirre
Porter Anderson
Brunonia Barry
Carleen Brice
Sarah Callender
Keith Cronin
Anna Elliott
Jane Friedman
Robin LaFevers
Donald Maass
Juliet Marillier
Sophie Masson
Jael McHenry
Jan O'Hara
Debbie Ohi
Barbara O'Neal
Crystal Patriarche
Ray Rhamey
M.J. Rose
Chuck Sambuchino
John Vorhaus
Yuvi Zalkow
Sharon Bially
Anne Greenwood Brown
Tracy Hahn-Burkett
Suzannah Windsor Freeman
Kristan Hoffman
Jeanne Kisacky
Erika Robuck
Lydia Sharp
Anne Civitano on 
I absolutely do need characters to be “worthy” to hold my interest. But it does help if I am pulling for them in some way. I am very much drawn to the complex and deranged – the antihero I supposed. I think you very clearly described what it is that I like about them. They may do things that are abhorrent but if it was they need to do to get them through the crisis they are facing, I am fine with it.
.-= Rebecca @ Diary of a Virgin Novelist´s last blog ..I’m famous! =-.
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I do believe the hero must, in some way, be worthy of my respect. I don’t have to like them, but if there is no hope for their redemption then I lose interest. A bad person doing bad things for bad reasons does not appeal to me at all. I like Jax because she (like you said) grows and learns. That gives her redemption. I don’t like Scarlett O’Hara or Catherine Earnshaw because they never stay true to themselves, instead they act so selfishly that they hurt all around them.
I like characters who are realistically flawed, but who desire to be a better person, then change in some way to become the person they want to be.
One antihero that comes to mind is Snape, from Harry Potter.
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I am cringing there are so many typos in my comment above. Sorry about that! I will try to slow down next time.
.-= Rebecca @ Diary of a Virgin Novelist´s last blog ..I’m famous! =-.
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“I find that much more interesting than when a character seems to experience no inner conflict whatsoever.”
Precisely. I agree that those who live in the shades of grey are far more interesting than the pure white — but I don’t think I could enjoy a book whose “hero” was pure black, either.
Like you said, I like imperfect characters, ones who make you think, who make you laugh, who make you hurt. For them, and/or because of them. They do things you wish you could stop them from doing — but they also learn from their actions. Just like any of us (I would hope, haha). Even if they’re imperfect, there’s something *redeeming* about them. I think that’s the key.
Fortunately I think we’re seeing a lot more of these types of characters taking center stage. Look at Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, pretty much any Jodi Picoult book, etc. These stories are all about exploring the shades of grey that we live in, and that make us human. So I don’t think you’re alone in wanting these types of characters, and I imagine that’s part of what so many readers enjoy about your books. :)
.-= Kristan´s last blog ..Happiness is… =-.
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I only have a problem when characters are over-the-top bad, which seems to have been the fad over the past few years. I am always intrigued by HUMAN characters who, by definition, cannot be perfect.
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In my opinion, nobody is perfect. That heroine saving kittens? She used to throw them off the porch when she was a child. The person who seems worthy probably has the darkest or one of the darkest pasts than any other character.
Or maybe that’s just how I write.
Just my 2 cents.
Abbi
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I like characters who really want to do good, but seem to bring chaos regardless. Not only do you root for them, but you kind of feel sorry for them or laugh at them. Then you feel relieved that it’s them experiencing the drama instead of you. Jack, from Stephen King’s “The Shining,” comes to mind. Emma, from Jane Austen’s book of the same name. Rex Walls, from The Glass Castle (although this is a real person so it isn’t so funny).
.-= Sarah´s last blog ..Writing Contest for Middle Grade and Young Adult novels =-.
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All the best heroes are villainous in some way. Think of James Bond. Even Superman turned into Clark Kent.
.-= starvinginhisgarret´s last blog ..Melting ice =-.
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i think i enjoy characters who go their merry way, living unconsciously, until they hit a wall. the scrooge who is so stingy and selfish until discovers he won’t survive until he puts someone else before himself; the good hearted lady who knits mittens for soldiers until she’s told they’re never going to be good enough. when every belief they’ve ever held goes topsy turvy and they have to change.
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I was told by an agent that a main, male character I wrote was “too harsh,” and that I need to tone him down a bit. After doing so, I stepped back and threw up my hands: he looked and sounded just like so many of the other bland, cookie-cutter, politically correct male characters I have read these days. But, according to the agent, he was more marketable after the revisions. I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of tired of reading stories about people who are marketable!
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One example of an antihero who pushed me to the wall was Thomas the Unbeliever. He was a leper in his world, and when he got to this fantasy world, he kind of lost his moral compass. He refused to believe it was real, and when he discovered he wasn’t a leper there, and he wasn’t impotent any longer, he raped the woman who had helped him and saved his life.
For me, that was damn near unforgivable. And yet I kept reading because I found the books so compelling. Now that’s an antihero.
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Personally I like reading about heroes who don’t want to be heroes but rather are just trying to do the right thing. I think it’s interesting to see someone become a hero for reasons that seem inexplicable to that person because he’s just trying to do what his conscience demands. L.E. Modesitt Jr. tends to follow idea quite a bit in his Saga of Recluse.
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Smarminess is boring. Goodness is not.
People assume that they know what a “good” character would do/be: be politically correct, knit mittens, rescue kittens, etc., but the truth of the matter is that it is often really hard to figure out what is actually the right thing to do. We can usually agree on general principles, but agreement often breaks down as particular situations unfold. To me, a good writer is going to bring out that kind of complexity, whether the character they are describing is sympathetic or not.
To me, a “good” character is one who, at some level, wants to do the right thing. A smarmy character just wants everyone to think he or she is doing the right thing (or else the person who wrote the character wants the reader to think they are doing the right thing– but they haven’t stopped to consider how that would play out, in real life). And the best villains are the ones who have a genuine choice (meaning, to me as a reader it seems like a real choice) between doing a good thing or a bad thing, and actively choose to do the not-good thing.
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I think a hero is someone who experiences an arc of growth in any kind of story, regardless of “good” or “bad”. By that definition, an antihero is a flat character, one that is simply a placeholder in a story rather than a true protganist. I am not at all sure that an “antihero” exists. If you define “hero and “antihero” as characters who do or don’t deserve to have good endings, haven’t you oversimplified things?
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I don’t have a problem with the hero who triumphs over impossible odds because “their heart is pure”. But I don’t think you have to go to that point to be “worthy”. If you’re what is sometimes called “good people” and you do your best, then it’s all good.
Somebody once said “Every mnan has two dogs inside him. A good dog and a bad dog. But he can choose which dog to feed”. It would bother me to see anybody rewarded for habitualy choosing to feed the “bad dog”. I don’t like to be around people like that in real life. They tick me off. But somebody who mostly feeds the “good dog” is okay with me, even of the bad dog is still barking sometimes.
-Steve
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I tend to prefer anti-heroes. They usually have one or several points of conflict with the society they live in. The villains usually represent the status quo of society.
Factions within the society concerned in the fiction also help represent multiple viewpoints, helping to strip away some of the idealistic character in a vacuum vs. character in a vacuum.
.-= E.v.R.´s last blog ..Writers Do =-.
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