Your favourite Anti-Hero

[Zach H]

Caine, Covenant, Karsa definitely. Steerpike too, although ultimately he's more of an antagonist it's easy to sympathize with than an anti-hero.

[Radical Turtle]

Gwynn from the etched city

Tyrion

I've just finished The Bonehunters and I dearly hope that Karsa will die quickly in Reaper's Gate

This is my first post so hai everyone

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Board law #57 - every discussion of anti-heroes will invariably and immediately dissolve into arguments about what a REAL anti-hero is. Because the term couldn't possibly have more than one meaning.

I'd love to say Glokta, but I have trouble sticking most of Abercrombie's characters into any kind of hero/villain/whatever box, and he might possibly be a favourite villain instead. Or both. Or neither. So I'll go with Flashman. Great anti-hero or greatest anti-hero?

:lol: Greatest, obviously. I saw this title, and he immediately cowered to the forefront.

[Peadar]

Another vote for Harry Flashman: cowardly, vain, charming, racist -- all crimes in my view.

[Grack21]

Cnaiur? Really. I mean....just...no. Ick. Icky board.

[manmiles]

I'm probably going to go with Elric. Even though he wasn't my favourite Incarnation of the Eternal Champion when I first started reading Michael Moorcock, he's grown on me in recent years.

[aschwiig]

It's been a while since I read The Stars My Destination, but I'd still suggest Gully Foyle. In fact, most if not all of Bester's novels has good ant-heroes, but Foyle is the best(er).

I'll second Zakalwe, Rorschach,* and Karsa Orlong who's vaguely anarchist in much the same way as the sun is vaguely hot :-)

*I'm ashamed to admit that his line on compromise has become a regular expression with me. Most people sadly don't get that it's a quote.

[Grack21]

Bill Clinton

[Happy Ent]

I'm ashamed to admit that his line on compromise has become a regular expression with me.

Why would you do that? Unless you do much better than

\(No\).\s$1t\seven\sin\sthe\sface\sof\sArmaged^{2}on.

I don’t see the point

[aschwiig]

Why would you do that? Unless you do much better than

\(No\).\s$1t\seven\sin\sthe\sface\sof\sArmaged^{2}on.

I don’t see the point

Maybe because making compromises is something a great many people frown upon and avoid to the point of absurdity, and this is a great line for bringing perspective? Something like that, anyway.

[Maltaran]

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.

I'll second Aiken Drum, but Marc seemed to me more of an out-and-out villain, who later/earlier* got redemption.

*Stupid time-travel-tense problems.

On a side note, I recall having this exact same argument in a previous iteration of this thread a few years back, and I think it was with Hereward.

[Whiskeyjak]

I'd be inclined to say Covenant if the series hadn't bored me to tears. So...

The Bloody Nine

[BookWyrm]

Harkening back to some of the classics, Macbeth is superb. Lucifer from Paradise Lost.

/thread.

[Grack21]

Didn't Milton not intendt for Lucifer to be as popular as it became?

I'm not snarking, that's an actual question, I swear I read that somewhere. Not that he isn't an anti-hero, I just don't think he was intended to be one.

[nickg]

Caine / Hari Michaelson

[Datepalm]

I'll second Aiken Drum, but Marc seemed to me more of an out-and-out villain, who later/earlier* got redemption.

I'm sure i;ve heard Marc Remilliad mentioned in these threads before, and Google informs me he's from Julian May's books. Are they generally recommended? Where to start?

[emberling]

I'll second Aiken Drum, but Marc seemed to me more of an out-and-out villain, who later/earlier* got redemption.

I'd say Marc is an anti-hero viewed overall through both series (but not including AU). If you're just including Pliocene he's probably an antagonist.

As for my earlier quibbles - if you read carefully, I acknowledged that the dictionary definition of the term anti-hero doesn't agree with mine. My contention is merely that there's nothing inherently interesting about the hero-who-we-hate, no reason for it to be included in this discussion when we could be talking about interesting stuff, like anything but Thomas Covenant. Or semantics. Semantics is always interesting.

Datepalm: They're kind of up and down. The pacing is often glacial but there are some absolutely stellar characters (and a bunch of boring people nobody cares about that you have to slog through). I haven't managed a re-read since I discovered GoT. Start with either Intervention or The Many-Colored Land.

[williamjm]

I'll second Aiken Drum, but Marc seemed to me more of an out-and-out villain, who later/earlier* got redemption.

*Stupid time-travel-tense problems.

On a side note, I recall having this exact same argument in a previous iteration of this thread a few years back, and I think it was with Hereward.

I think I also remember Hereward nominating Marc in each of the "Best Hero", "Best Villain" and "Best Antihero" threads.

I think he does take on the role of Hero, Villain and Anti-hero at various points in the two series. The rebels in the second trilogy do have arguably a worthy cause despite some of their methods, so I wouldn't say they were simplistic villains, even though some of their actions are enough to make them the villains of the story. Admittedly, many of the negative aspects of the rebellion are largely Marc's fault.

I'm sure i;ve heard Marc Remilliad mentioned in these threads before, and Google informs me he's from Julian May's books. Are they generally recommended? Where to start?

It's been a long time since I read them, but I did like May's series a lot. It isn't without a few flaws (I'm not a big fan of the ending of the last book) but at its best it was great and it did have a lot of memorable characters, including Marc Remillard and Aiken Drum who were mentioned earlier in the thread. I like the ambition of the series, May doesn't do thing by half measures in terms of concepts, managing to combine time travel to 2 million years BC, space opera, first contact with aliens, seven different alien races, a complex system of psychic powers, Celtic epic fantasy and the struggles involved in running a second-hand bookshop into one story.

There are two linked series. The first features characters from the early 22nd century time travelling back to the Pliocene Era. The second group of four books cover the time period from the "present day" (since it was written in the mid-80s it almost works as alternate history now, since the first book didn't anticipate the Soviet Union was going to fall about a third of the way through the book's timeline) to the late 21st Century and are both a prequel and sequel to the other series.

First book to read is The Many Coloured Land followed by The Golden Torc, The Nonborn King and The Adversary. Marc doesn't appear until the third book, incidentally.

[Kanathan]

Waylander by David Gemmell is my favorite Anti-Hero.

[Greywolf2375]

How can this thread have gone three pages all ready and no one has mentioned Raistlin?