So, Why Do Writers Suck at Antiheroes?

 

Don't let the hair fool you. He's NOT a hero.

Over the weekend, I read an article on the ill-fated Disney television show, The Book of Boba Fett. The story of an bounty hunter first introduced in the movie The Empire Strikes Back, TBoB picks up where we last saw Boba—in the sarlacc that ate him. 

The article addressed the character’s arc and why Boba had to change as well as what the writers got wrong yet somehow missed the point. What those writers got wrong—what is all-too commonly wrong in many anti-hero stories—is simple: conviction and fun. The writers lack conviction then they lose the fun of writing an antihero and bleeds it into their story.

An antihero (AH) must have conviction to follow their determination or to survive their circumstances or avenge their wounds. The AH (that acronym can be read a couple of ways and both are correct) is usually way past societal mores and norms by the time the reader/view meets them or they get that way real fast. Otherwise, they are not antiheroes—they are dead, or broken, or flotsam of some variety. 

Let’s define terms

He·ro

/ˈhirō,ˈhērō/

noun

1. a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities—the main character of most stories.

"a war hero"

Similar: champion, savior, man of principle 

We all know this do-right man or woman. They populate 90-95% of most stories. Their swell, if a little vanilla. They’re fine, we’re fine, everything’s ~yawn~ fine.

Vil·lain

/ˈvilən/

noun

1. The antagonist of most stories, e.g. a bad-guy or bad-woman.

These busters are in EVERY STORY—and not just because they have good agents. True, they look a lot like our AH and may have similar backstories and motivations. The difference is as much “means” as “ends.”

See, whatever else Shakespeare’s Richard III may be, he is ultimately ambitious. Like, “lock children in a tower from which they never emerge” ambitious. There is nothing to root for with RIII. You stick with the play, (or Ian McKellan’s EXCELLENT film) to see him get his. 

Also, not our guy/gal.

An·ti·he·ro

/ˈanˌtīˌhērō,ˈan(t)ēˌhērō/

noun

1. a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.

Now we're talking.

Means and ends…

Ends, or motivations are at the heart of the antihero dynamic.

Vito Andolini didn’t choose the thug life, the village boss chose it for him. Mostly by slaughtered all the men in Vito’s family and then ordering Vito's mother shot when she comes calling to beg for Vito’s life. Did I mention that Vito was like ten-years-old when all this went down?

This is not a quiet life.

A new country, new name, new start as a grocery clerk—Vito just wants to support his family and live a quiet life. But when the local Mustache Pete (gangster) makes it clear that you have to pay for a quiet life in his neighborhood, Vito refuses to bend. Once ignited, Vito’s passion to protect his family turns to a raging inferno of justice for his dead parents and siblings.

“I don’t invite this trouble. It just comes to me.” -Carlito Brigante, After Hours  

For most of his life, Carlito Brigante was the circumstance that other people fell victim to. But nearly a decade in prison has changed him. Carlito does NOT want revenge. He does not want to get rich or die trying. After a reprieve, (due to prosecutor malfeasance) from a life sentence, Carlito mostly does NOT want to go back to prison. 

But the streets have a memory longer than human life. To get away, Carlito must play dangerous games with deadly people.

“It’s not evil. Just pain, that’s all.” -Sethe, Beloved

Jean Valjean was an honest laborer unable to provide for his family and unwilling to see a child starve to death so he steals a loaf of bread. And he loses 19 years of his life for it. In Valjean’s story, author Victor Hugo shows us just how close we all are to the one bad day that turns our morals out like empty pockets.

“…I made a wrong turn and I just kept going…” Bruce Springsteen, Hungry Heart

The same is true for William Foster. He’s a veteran. A skilled technician, who designs components for missiles. He’s also been laid off. On the heels of his unemployment, William’s wife left him and filed for divorce. Truly, he’s in a bad place when he’s pushed an inch too far, one-too-many times.

“Monsters are not born, Clarice. They are made…”

Then there are the wounded. They’re not evil. They are hurt and their journey is in defiance of the wounds they suffered and the world that would inflict more injury to bow them or break them. Their crimes are being, their defiance is in their refusal to stop being.

Sethe is haunted. The specter of slavery lurks in the deep shadows of Sethe’s dangerous freedom. The phantom of barbarity and inhumanity rides Sethe’s back like the “tree” of whip scars the dutiful mother carries. But the greatest haunting that Sethe suffers is the survivor’s terror. The certainty of death escaped, especially after a terrible decision that no one should have to make. 

Sethe’s actions, physical and metaphysical, are both born of horror and survival and crushing guilt.

No, I haven't read the book.

Carrie White is a quiet, painfully shy young girl. A bird with a broken wing, Carrie’s mother made the first break in Carrie’s spirit. High school peers did the rest. 

When Carrie lashes out, it is not in revenge or even rage. Her action is a desperate, grasping attempt to save her psyche. To live. When Carrie lashes out, it is the net result of years of torment and abuse. 

Carrie simply vomits that abuse back on the abusers. 

The world said move aside and let me pass and the antihero said, “No. You move.”

Finally, there are the determined antiheroes. They’re not having a bad day, they’re not victims of circumstance or much of anything else. Much like Shakespeare’s doomed prince of Denmark, those antiheroes, those bad fothermuckers, refuse to suffer the slings and arrows of fate. 

Amy Dunne married the man of her dreams, lived in the house of her dreams, and had the life of her dreams. She tells us all of this. But by the time we meet her, Amy has watched her life whittled away, piece by piece. She leaves her dream life, her dream home, in New York to support her dream husband in Missouri. And then she finds that her all-too real husband is cheating on her.

Rather than accept that she was used. Rather than start over with nothing. Rather than let life win. Amy decides to die—and wreck her husband’s shit in the process. 

Hilarity does NOT ensue.

Riddick is the scarier of the two

Richard P. Riddick, (from the film, Pitch Black) is neither shy, nor perfect. Riddick is a killer. It may be during a robbery that goes sideways. It may be to escape the law (for-hire) man who gets a payday for chasing Riddick back to prison. It may be against a species looking to eat everyone alive. Doesn’t matter. Riddick is a killer. 

Even when he makes a face-turn to save others, it’s never going to be at his own expense. He’s a killer. Not a victim and certainly not a meal.

Where it goes wrong

So, mostly when writers get it wrong—e.g. The Book of Boba Fett, every Riddick movie after Pitch Black—is in conviction. They roll out a tough guy but then they lose their nerve. Like a compulsion, those writers must write some “hero” into their AH. They don’t trust the audience to appreciate nuance or to root for the not-so-good-not-so-bad guy. 

Granted, Boba Fett only had two lines in the original Empire Strikes Back. You can’t build a series of any length on that. But The idea that an orphan who witnessed his father’s beheading, who faced the sarlacc's belly, who gunned down Bib Fortuna to take Jabba’s throne only to become Sheriff Andy Taylor is, to use a technical term, “dumb.”

Lecter remains Lecter. As a physician, he does seek to heal. First, Special Agent Will Graham but Graham cannot deal with his own issues. He drowns his history of abuse and poverty in gin. Lecter does heal his favorite guard, Barney, of the bad history he endured in the military. He guides Barney to a truer calling—not as prison guard but as a registered nurse. 

Lecter remains Lecter. When presented with an opportunity to escape, by clumsy and offensive jailers he takes the opportunity and the jailers’ lives. When presented with an opportunity to avenge himself on his own tormentor, Lecter takes an old friend for dinner.

Riddick does NOT become king by his own hand or the Kwisatz Haderach. Just as there is nowhere for Carrie White to go after the cataclysm she throws back on her torturers, just as William Foster has no happily-ever-after waiting at the end of his long-bad day, each antihero is locked into their type: victim, malcontent, wounded, or wrathful, their ends as much as their means dictate their ending.

Amy Dunne is not a killer. She is a survivor and surviving is not alway noble or even pretty. Over the course of her story, we learn that she survived manipulative parents who used Amy like a prop in their profession. We learn that she has survived a stalky-ex-boyfriend. Amy survives worse still in the execution of her plan. 

And like Riddick, if the plan didn’t entirely go “to plan” Amy still survives and, indeed, thrives.

Trust your story. Write your antihero true to their nature. The (most logical) ending will usually present itself. Then you have to trust the reader/viewer to understand who they’ve been hanging out with.

It’s a risk. That risk has paid off for the writers brave enough to do the work and let their AH stand on their own, (neither hero, nor villain but shades of both) following their own path. It’s just that simple and it’s just that hard.

I own none of the photos above. All are used for educational/instructional purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.