Hero or Antihero? Which do You Have a Taste For?

 

Huck Finn is commonly accepted as the first literary antihero. Of course that theory ignores five-plus-hundred years of literature, other cultures, aka the bedrock of western civilization. What is Achilles, (refuses to fight while Greeks all around him die, until Patroclus falls to man-killing Hector) if not an antihero? Don’t even get me started on Kauro in The Tale of the Genji.

Also, I would argue, most of Shakespeare’s protagonists are antiheroes. 

The antihero is often the most reluctant of heroes. Just as often, she/he is curmudgeonly, unpleasant, even arrogant. His/her appeal is in her/his expertise and action.

If not readily apparent, genre is beside the point. The antihero is subject to pop up in any story. Boromir is the good-baddie in Tolkien’s jewelry caper, with an agenda all his own. Han does a successful “face turn,” as does Lando but make no mistake, they’re not nice men. They are, in fact, scoundrels.

The antihero is the malcontent, the nonconformist. They do what they want, (or what their compulsions drive them to do) as often as they do what they should.

“Peanuts, you say. Well, every cargo has its own kind of trouble. Peanuts means rats. What’s your real cargo?” Captain Lockhart asked.

“Nothing but trouble,” Cat Shannon replied.

In Frederick Forsyth’s military thriller, mercenary commander Cat Shannon brings all the baddies to the yard.

In his western masterpiece, Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey mints the archetype antihero. Master gunfighter Jim Lassiter is on a mission of justice. However, Jim’s idea of justice looks an awful lot like revenge. Lassiter would be the wellspring for countless antiheroes from Clint Eastwood’s “man with no name,” to Kevin Kline’s Paden, to Toby and Tanner Howard, the new-west ranchers battling bankers and insurance companies in Hell or High Water.

“Nick loved a girl who doesn’t exist. I was pretending, the way I often did, pretending to have a personality. I can’t help it, it’s what I’ve always done: The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. What persona feels good, what’s coveted, what’s au courant? I think most people do this, they just don’t admit it, or else they settle on one persona because they are too lazy or stupid to pull a switch.” Amy Dunne, from Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl

Still, crime is the antihero’s logical wheelhouse. If Tom Ripley wasn't the first murderous antihero, he was Amy Dunne's spiritual father.

"Somebody owes me money..."

Donald Westlake struck gold with a rogues' gallery of bad men but his master heister and high-functioning psychopath, Parker is iconic. "How iconic?" you ask. In multiple movies, Parker has been played by Lee Marvin, Jim Brown, and (tragically) Jason Statham. Even Westlake’s contemporary, Elmore Leonard took notes from Parker for his gentleman bandit, Jack Foley, in Out of Sight, (book and movie).

Though perhaps the most infamous literary antihero is Thomas Harris’ esteemed Doctor Hannibal Lecter. Doctor Lecter is a murderer. Indeed, a pathological killer. A cannibal, even. But he is driven by madness and profound abuse. He also has a code, albeit as fractured and twisted as his psyche. Barney, a long-time psychiatric nurse at the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane understands Lecter’s code and never forgets it. Which is one of the reasons Dr. Lecter never turns his deadly attention and appetites to Barney.

“All things being equal, Doctor Lecter would rather eat the rude.”

Is he horrifying? Absolutely. Is he sadistic, manipulative, and petty? Check, check, and check. But what he does—at first for his own ends/entertainment and then out of genuine respect for Clarice—is what elevates him above simply monster. 

By the end of Silence of the Lambs, we’re rooting for Doctor Lector’s blood-soaked escape.

That’s the appeal of the antihero: the baddie who’s on our side. We cheer their redemption in action if not attitude. Their feet of clay make Boromir and Han much closer to us than we ever will be to Aragorn or Luke.

The image at the top, Hannibal Title Card, is the property of NBC/Sony Television. It is used here for illustrative/educational purposes and covered under the Fair Use Doctrine.