Who do you consider an Anti-Hero in fiction?

[Michael Dean]

You've read Mr American, I take it?

No, I haven't. I've only ever seen it in a bookstore many years ago and unfortunately I didn't buy it at the time. Why? Does it tell how Flashman dies? If so, I must have it.

 

[malladin]

Karl Edward Wagner's Kane the Mystic Swordsman. Nice to see a few shouts for Avon and Cugel

Nigel

 

[Piratecat]

I've always thought that GMF must have at least some pretty extensive notes on what he wanted for a Civil War edition, because he's made quite a few references to events in other books. I don't know if you ever read the Travis McGee books by John D. McDonald...

I finished rereading Dress Her In Indigo (for about the sixth time) just last night. If you tell me you like Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder series, we officially have the same taste in literature. And yes, I believe GMF has the Civil War books roughed out, but that's a long way from published writing. Hell, I have my story hour updates roughed out.

Back on topic, it's interesting to ask whether House on House M.D. is an antihero or not. He's certainly flawed and disagreeable.

 

[diaglo]

Back on topic, it's interesting to ask whether House on House M.D. is an antihero or not. He's certainly flawed and disagreeable.

he is much more agreeable and better looking in a dress.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Karl Edward Wagner's Kane the Mystic Swordsman. Nice to see a few shouts for Avon and Cugel

Nigel

But he's not really an anti-hero.

He's never out to help other people but indeed, is a straight villain with world conquest on his mind in almost all his apperances where he's doing more than surviving no? Heck, in Bloodstone he gets pretty close. Ditto for Dark Crusade.

Just because he's the main character does not make him a 'hero' of any sort.

 

[sckeener]

Why do you think that? He doesnt have any qualities that arent heroic. He devotes himself to protecting the weak. He refuses to kill. He catches criminals.

Now in the early part of the comics he didn't have any remorse for killing or hurting criminals, so it also depends on what era of comics you view Batman from. see the wiki

Perhaps the vengeance obsessed version that certain movies have portrayed him as could be considered an anti-hero, but the actual comic book character is purely heroic man who has carefully crafted a fearsome identity to use to his advantage, and not a crazed lunatic out for revenge.

I think I can sum up why I'd view Batman as an anti-hero. He is Batman and pretends to be Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne isn't who he is. He doesn't have normal human concerns. He doesn't want a normal life. He wants to catch the criminal.

For me he is like the prestige class in Heroes of Horror, the Corrupt Avenger (pg 88.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think I can sum up why I'd view Batman as an anti-hero. He is Batman and pretends to be Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne isn't who he is. He doesn't have normal human concerns. He doesn't want a normal life. He wants to catch the criminal.

For me he is like the prestige class in Heroes of Horror, the Corrupt Avenger (pg 88.)

Oh, I think Batman is Bruce Wayne. I just think Bruce Wayne is a fragment of a personality walking around decades after having a psychotic break when he watched his parents murdered in front of his eyes. Everything he does is an attempt to punish the man who took his parents away, which he can never do.

He's constructed a "Bruce Wayne" mask, but underneath it, the thing people call Batman is all that really exists of Bruce.

Of course, I also think that a non-franchise Batman character would have eaten the gun used to kill his parents years ago, so feel free to ignore my ramblings. :\

 

[JEL]

I've noticed that, at least on the internet, the term 'anti-hero' has developed a new meaning from its original lit crit sense of 'the man who is given the vocation of failure'. The new meaning is a fictional protagonist who is in some way dark. As should be clear from the list above this means everyone except Sir Galahad, Silver Age Superman and Dudley Do-Right.

I think it's because the term "hero" itself has changed. It went from being a competant protagonist to being a morally good person. Guys like Gilgamesh or Heracles fit the former, but not the latter (at least by modern standards).

 

[Iku Rex]

Titus Pullo, from HBO's Rome series.

 

[MarkB]

Ooh, talking of HBO: Al Swearengen from Deadwood. An anti-hero in the traditional sense, and bordering upon it in the modern sense too.

EDIT: Nevermind, cut up beat me to it on that one by some time.