Anti-Hero
Having recently finished The Ax by Donald Westlake, and Hit Man by Lawrence Block I’ve been thinking a lot about anti-heroes. It’s interesting to me that such amoral characters as murderers can make strong protagonists.
Marv, and many of the other protagonists of the Sin City graphic novels (and movie) would definitely qualify. Of course all of this goes back to the hard drinking, hard boiled detective. A few others worth mention: Gully Foyle from Alfred Bester’s Stars My Destination, Clint Eastwood’s William Munny in Unforgiven. I could go on…
Who are some of your favorite anti-heroes?
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December 7th, 2006 at 6:48 am
My favorite anti-hero of the moment is Riddick. I also enjoy some of the anti-heroes from HBO’s Deadwood.
But when it comes to fiction, I haven’t read much that has featured anti’s.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Riddick is a good one. Hannibal Lecter is another — even though he’s not really the ‘hero’ he is often not the villain, and is in some ways sympathetic to the hero in his own frightening way.