The Age of the Antihero is upon us. It started in the 1990s and nearly 30 years later shows no sign of stopping. We had antiheroes well before then, going back hundreds, even thousands of years, but the ‘90s is when they seemed to start tripping over one another.
For those who need precise definitions, there are no easy ones when it comes to antiheroes. That said, I’ll give it a shot.
An antihero serves as the protagonist of a story, but lacks many of a hero’s traditional qualities, including but not limited to conventional morality, honesty, mercy, honor, selflessness or noble motivations.
An antihero might do the right thing, but not for the right reasons. They might do something wrong, but not for the wrong reasons. Most of all antiheroes are complex.
It is their complexity that makes them so entertaining. We usually know what the good guy will do is such and such a situation. Antiheroes can surprise us. Their erratic path through the light and dark sides of life make it so we are never quite sure what will happen.
Don Draper of Mad Men, Walter White of Breaking Bad, Saul Goodman of Better Call Saul, and at least half of the major characters on Game of Thrones and more than half on its spin-off House of the Dragon, the golden age of television is loaded with these imperfect protagonists.
Is this a problem? Possibly. Antiheroes had a dark appeal because of how they contrasted with the more straightforward heroes around them. So what happens when the entire starting line up are antiheroes?
Aside from losing their uniqueness, it normalizes the flaws that make them what they are. The line between antiheroes and outright villainy gets blurred. When the toxic relationship of two sociopaths like the Joker and Harley Quinn is held up as some kind of love story, well, there’s a problem.
I have no problem with humanizing the villain or a cautionary tale of a character’s gradual descent into madness or corruption. The ultimate messages are good ones: the worst among us are still human, power corrupts and people who have been hurt will hurt others.
This doesn’t excuse the actions of an antihero or even an outright villain, but it does help us understand them. Hopefully it also makes it easier to not produce further monsters.
Even so, after decades of these sorts of characters piling up on every side, I find myself hunting for something different. No, not the hopelessly simple morality of The Andy Griffith Show or Happy Days, but something that is at least both honorable and still aware of the world we live in.
Are there any heroes left who don’t also have to be retired assassins? What happened to the dignity of the man or woman that could not be bought? Where are the creators and inventors that would see their work destroyed rather than let it fall into evil hands?
When was the last time you saw a case full of books instead of a case full of guns be the go-to solution to a problem? I’m ready for the return of people who outwit their enemies instead of outkill them.
If someone knows where all the heroes have gone, please, point me in that direction.
• Greg O’Driscoll is a staff writer for The Blackshear Times.
