Antiheroes

The antihero, the edgy counterpart to the goody-two-shoes paragon and frequently everyone’s favourite character. We can all see them in our head. They’ve got a leather jacket, they drink heavily and/or chainsmoke, they help everyone but complain about it and unlike their paragon counterpart they will do whatever it takes to save the day, even if it isn’t pretty or palatable. They’re just so damn cool. 

But what is an antihero really? And why do we like them so much?

As it turns out, despite the clear picture that is certainly in your head, the definition of an antihero is surprisingly vague. In the simplest terms, an antihero is an unheroic hero. You may note that this is both paradoxical and tells us absolutely nothing. Antiheroes are defined entirely in opposition to heroes. 

So define an antihero, we must first define the characters they stand counter to, heroes. Heroes are characters who are admired for their courage and noble qualities and achieve great things. Antiheroes certainly also achieve great things and even the most cowardly of them still must display courage in doing so. I would argue that even if they are more gruff or underhanded in their methods, an antihero is still doing heroic things in their goals. They are ultimately still fighting for good and trying to help people. They have to be unheroic, but they are still heroes. That means the only thing left to separate an antihero from a paragon hero is that they are, in some way, not admired or admirable. 

Which begs the question, if the sole defining trait of an antihero is that they are not admirable despite their hero status, why the hell do we like them so much? Well, there’s a few reasons that come to mind.

The first is the in-universe, diegetic reasoning. An antihero does not exist in our world, but in the world of the story, regardless of how much the fictional world resembles our own. That means they are defined by the standards of that world, not by our own. They are not admired by the other characters that populate the world they inhabit. They are an antihero because the other characters in the story see them primarily in the context of their less likeable traits - cowardice, an angry or gruff personality, underhanded or violent methodology, substance abuse, indifference to collateral damage - whatever those less desirable traits are. Even if we as an audience see the antihero in terms of their goals, intentions and inner thoughts, other characters are not necessarily privy to this information. 

This is important to keep in mind though, because this wasn’t necessarily the intent. Originally, antiheroes were not intended to be perceived as heroic by the audience either. They were intended to be subversive. They offered a critique of unrealistic heroic ideals and portrayed the world through a much more morally grey lens. By virtue of their existence, they forced the audience to ask questions about their own morality and priorities and those of the society they lived in.

That was what made antiheroes so intriguing, they stood out because of their subversive nature and the questions they asked. Over the years, antiheroes went in and out of fashion, but they have always appealed to us in how they stood out from the crowd. In more recent times though, antiheroes have become the norm. They aren’t subversive anymore. 

That is why it is important to remember the diegetic definition of an antihero. Because the lack of subversiveness implies to me that we are finding more to admire in antiheroes than we once did. Modern antiheroes are less cautionary tales and more heroes with edge. They are trying to ultimately do the right thing while struggling with personal demons. They are people who are willing to sacrifice the few - themselves included - for the good of the many. They feel layered and more nuanced than a paragon typically does. But because we now view antiheroes in such a positive light and our media has been so heavily saturated by them, they are only antiheroes because of their in-universe perception. Which is a very interesting turn of events.

With antiheroes having become so popular and common, it is almost more subversive now to write a story around a paragon hero. We have reached a very strange point where antiheroes are more common than the archetype they exist in opposition to and are defined entirely in contrast to. I don’t mean to imply that this is a problem. I personally love antiheroes and nine out of ten times I am one of those people who finds them more nuanced and compelling than the alternative. But I am already seeing people talking about missing true heroes in their stories. Hardly a majority, but it makes me wonder if this will become an ever more common refrain. Are we reaching a point where there might be a reversal in definitions? Or as storytellers seek new ways to stand out from their peers, is there a resurgence of paragons on the horizon?

Personally, I’m not going to change the stories I tell. I will continue to just write what I want to write. Sometimes that will mean antiheroes, sometimes paragons and sometimes neither. I’m sure other writers are saying much the same. But as trends that can be objectively observed, I am curious to see how things change going forwards.