Litany Against the Anti-hero

There is a plague among modern story protagonists.

It has spread across the media zones worse than the pocks, and decidedly more ugly. It infects TV shows you watch and hear about, movies that come out every week, books and games you consume. More grim than Pestilence on his pale horse, we are set about this day by the vainglorious, egocentric machinations of the Anti-hero.

Anti-hero characters (or what some would call Byronic heroes) are characters that appeal because of their prodigious skills, or flashy actions, or humorous attitude, but really could care less about the human condition. They use, lie, cheat, murder and worse in the name of the Almighty Me, and as long as they do so in a clever or comical way, they sell. And they sell very well.

I can understand some of the reasons for the movement. The Noble Hero schtick can get old. People enjoy and believe in characters with noticeable flaws, because they can better relate to them. They like them because they are just like they are--greedy, over ambitious, vain--only better at it.

Heaven forbid there be protagonists that we LOOK UP to. That their example could inspire, I dunno, IMPROVEMENT from our current attitude or behavior. Especially when the protagonist is undergoing this improvement themselves.

This is why in my mind the perfect protagonist is one that moves from selfishness to selflessness, mediocrity to mastery, a flawed nature to, well, if not flawlessness at least something much improved. Even if they start with a selfish desire--fame, revenge, wealth, gratification, etc--if through the course of events they realize that there is a world beyond themselves that just might be a teensy bit more important, and then act on that, you have a winner.

Lets take three somewhat generalized hero archetypes for comparison--the Stalwart Hero, who is good from the beginning and has to struggle against all that isn't; the Anti-hero, who never really is or becomes good but sure looks cool; and the hero that becomes one by improvement--the Redemption Hero.

A lot of the "classic" hero characters are the Stalwarts--Superman, Captain America, James Bond, Son Goku, Prince Charming, Ulysses, Beowulf, Attila the Hun.

Okay, that last one was to check if you were paying attention.

These types are definitive in their stance. The start out as people with a distinct uprightness in character, possessing a strong moral bent instilled on them from their first appearance, and are moved into action by a dichotomy between their mental ideal and the facts of the world they live in. Their opposition mostly arises from the great number of forces that gather against their fool-hearty idea that (if actions are taken in terms of their simplest motivation) selfishness and cruelty should be opposed.

There is nothing overtly wrong with this type. It is simply that they were formerly so common that one needs to try very hard to create one that stands out from the rest. This is partially why American comic books don't attempt to make many new heroes, but simply reinvent the same ones generation after generation.

(Of course, there are also a group of the Stalwarts that, for some reason, start out good and fall. This is a separate Tragic Hero category, or among the best kind of villains if they go that far, and we'll save that for another day.)

Anti-heroes include any number of thief-glorification films like "the Italian Job" and "Oceans Eleven" and its sequels/remakes, characters like Don Juan and the Count of Monte Cristo, shows like "Dexter" and "House" and "Leverage" and (most ironically of the bunch) "Heroes." From there, add just about any reality TV show you could name... and that is a long list.

Today is the age of the Everyman as protagonist, and not just in social position, but whatever flaws, corruptions, and greeds anyone could have. More so, the "common person" has been demeaned to be something basically self-serving, lewd, vain, and incorrigible. These never really improve their character, and their antagonists are always people like themselves only perhaps slightly more nasty, or are presented as deluded idealists. The Anti-hero's motivation is self gratification, via revenge, fame, vulgar living and gain in the most flamboyant and self-glorifying way possible. The good they do is circumstantial, and they remain selfish and vulgar and unrepentant to the end--but in a flashy, cocky, or somehow satisfyingly bestial, under-brain way.

(Contrary to popular belief, I disagree that Batman falls into this hero category. Though grittier and darker than other Stalwarts, his supreme moral dedication and unmoving virtues, coupled with his selfless nature, cannot make him a Byronic hero unless the definition is decidedly more stretched.)

Recently, I began to watch a Japanese anime called "Desert Punk" which falls emphatically into the Byronic, Anti-Hero category. In a post-apocalyptic desert version of the Kanto area of Japan, people eek out their livelihoods by robbery, swindling, murder, and largely think about little but water and sex.

The main character, a man known as Sunabozu, the Ghost of the Desert, is a famous Handyman who is able to accomplish any job for the right amount of money. He thrives in the corruption inherent in the culture, and is the main character because he's more violent, more lewd, more outrageous and more skilled than anybody else. As the story goes on, his main goals continue to be money and large-breasted women, and his antagonists are swindlers, kidnappers, robbers and hunters as maligned as himself--or often, not quite as maligned as himself. There is never an overreaching problem or plot to be solved. It begins, wanders, and ends in a desert of shallow humor and opponents as worthy as him of succeeding, but don't because he happens to be the protagonist. Sometimes, arbitrarily, he loses.

And when it happens, you really don't care.

This story could have had potential. The setup and world created are not actually too bad. The break down of order of a post catastrophic event allows for hero characters to fill in the gaps where law and order cannot reach, to rise up when the general values of the whole sink. But it never is taken advantage of. Sunabozu makes no real difference in his world. He never improves in any way. While his antics were at first amusing, they wore thin. He was immanently shallow, humorous only for the humiliating failure of his pathetic life struggles, and although admittedly occasionally flashy to watch, he never became inspiring. His actions never gave rise that that rush of adrenaline that accompanies the Hero Standing in the Face of Adversity.

This is the problem with most Anti-heroes. They entertain, but nothing else. There is nothing to cheer for, or if there is, its a Cheer to the Self-Centered.

But the protagonist doesn't have to remain in this state. By a change occurring, even if slowly, you get the best of the relatibility of a flawed person and the inspiration of a good one. Redemption Heroes are exemplified by Spider-man, Cloud Strife, Jean Valjean, Himura Kenshin, Spawn, Nicolas D Wolfwood; shows like "Human Target" and movies like Hancock (which wasn't really that good, but is a good example of the archetype).

And, unfortunately, not much else.

I'm willing to bet even among the examples used above, a majority are all but unknown to the greater set of the "main stream", especially in the United States. But there is one Redemption Hero that definitely ventured into the center stage of mass media as a movie blockbuster: Iron Man.

Tony Stark is rich, but incredibly flawed: CEO and chief inventor of a weapons manufacturing giant, he is brilliant and cavalier. His interests chiefly concern making cool toys that kill people under a thin (but ultimately vital) veil of patriotism, and womanizing, which, really, he does more diligently than his job.

But a change happens. He is kidnapped, taken from his riches and position, and thrust into the real world. But the kicker is not what actually, physically happens to him: its what he sees happening as a consequence of his actions.

"I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero-accountability."

This effects a change on him. His guilt, his patriotism, show him that there is a world of suffering he can cause by being callus, overbearing, or just not very careful. He takes a dieing man's last wish to heart: "Don't waste it. Don't waste your life, Stark."

Does this instantly turn him in a paradigm by every moral compass? No. Even those changes that do take place take some time. But the tiny logical and emotional revelation that he might be a small part of a larger world, that he has responsibility to it, is titanic. This IS the movie. Everything else is little but the shiny fluff and filler that rounds out a Hollywood blockbuster.

These three archetypes are just that--types. There are a thousand, thousand more variations on the protagonist. Many are complex and difficult to quantify. But it is sad that we can become so easily satisfied with the flashy, false hero, drowning in sex appeal and machismo, but shallower than a bathroom basin in the good things. There is no thrill in their struggle, no awe like which comes from standing against the night, from fighting against evil in high places. At most, the Anti-hero is comic fodder, and possesses a limited value even in that.

They don't have to be Supermen. We needn't outlaw everything but firefighters and boy scouts. But an ordinary, and yes, at least somewhat flawed person standing up and saying "This will not due--I will no longer allow it to be this way"--a woman or man or child throwing off the chains of the mediocre and the pathetic to roar in the face of the ugly world--that, friends, is a hero. Not merely a protagonist, but beacon, banner, and blinding light.

The final difference is the difference between being selfish and serving. A hero by the definition that I enjoy is one that either stays within the latter, or moves there in the course of the plot.

I could do with one or two more of those, in stories. Those are the ones you can depend on to stand firm when stuff gets rough, to grit their teeth when the crap hits the fan. The kind that make me feel, and believe.

Those are always the best.