Jump to content

Your favourite Anti-Hero


Talleyrand

Recommended Posts

So who's your favourite anti hero in literature?

Mine has to be Viruk from Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell. For those who don't know Viruk is a schizophrenic psychopath who serves as a captain/assassin for the Avatar Council. One of his bests points is when he is sent to kill a king, who he brutally slaughters and is about to kill the guards before he is distracted some colourful flowers which he decides would look nice in his garden.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So who's your favourite anti hero in literature?

Mine has to be Viruk from Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell. For those who don't know Viruk is a schizophrenic psychopath who serves as a captain/assassin for the Avatar Council. One of his bests points is when he is sent to kill a king, who he brutally slaughters and is about to kill the guards before he is distracted some colourful flowers which he decides would look nice in his garden.

Other than Tyrion the greatest anti-hero of all time?

Hmm... I'd have to go Glotka from the First Law Trilogy. Although, I'm not sure he's even an anti-hero.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is Gerald Tarrant love a thing of the past? Time was he would be the winner of such threads by a significant margin.

Not that I like Coldfire or Tarrant much myself, but many of Friedman's other works are fantastic and woefully unloved, and 'best antihero?' threads were her one time to shine.

I submit Marc Remillard, Aiken Drum, and Vlad Taltos, though the latter two might not fit all definitions. Tyrion is the best though, in all the worlds that are and ever will be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Joeseph Smith's puckered asshole! Have you cats even read covenant? The motherfucker rapes a teenager within the first hundred pages. You can't top that.

Yeah, but he felt bad after doing it. A REAL badass anti-hero wouldn't have been sorry. ;)

btw, I do love Covenant. I'm just sayin'....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, but he felt bad after doing it. A REAL badass anti-hero wouldn't have been sorry. ;)

btw, I do love Covenant. I'm just sayin'....

And that's what makes Covenant the greatest anti-hero. He's not a bad-ass, he's not a cool assassin who every thinks is an anti-hero, but in reality isn't. He's a weak, whiny, dismissive prick, and he's the only hope for the Land. That's an anti-hero.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See, my definition of anti-hero doesn't encompass Covenant.

Apparently the technical definition of an anti-hero is simply any protagonist that doesn't fit the heroic mold, any protagonist with qualities that aren't idealized and sympathetic.

I call bullshit on that. By that definition every hero who isn't a wooden, inhuman caricature of heroism is an anti-hero.

As far as I'm concerned, 'anti-hero' means a protagonist whose goals, whose mission doesn't fit the heroic mold. What does Covenant do? He saves the fucking Land. It doesn't get more plain-old-heroic than that. He's a hero who is an asshole, not an anti-hero.

The steps for becoming an anti-hero in my book:

1. I must identify with you as a major character; you must be more the protagonist of your own plot than you are the antagonist of someone else's.

2. You must kill the motherfucker who killed your wife (or similar non-heroic goal). This must not also accomplish a heroic goal - the motherfucker should not be the Dark Lord who holds the land in his terrible thrall. He can be a Ringwraith, but there are more Ringwraiths. This must be the end of your story.

3. I must cheer when you do it, or at least have the distinct impression that the author wanted me to cheer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...