Sunday Sunrise 5.18 - The Anti-Hero Equation

[Head Mutant]

Today's question, I think, is fairly simple. As much as we love to root for our favorite underdog anti-heroes in movies, there's a discernible line that they can cross to become unlikable, repugnant and unsympathetic.

So what is that line for you? When does a movie anti-hero go from being cool to a jerk?

[StarOpal]

Generally, for me where that line is heavily depends on the tone of the movie and when it was made.

The always there line is rape. That's it, I'm done. This anti-"hero" and movie (because seriously, what the hell, dude?) are both dead to me.

[TheOogieBoogieMan]

I agree with StarOpal, a lot of it has to do with the tone of the movie. But it also has to do with what, if anything, happens to the character that can still make me sympathize with him/her, despite whatever it is they've done.

A Clockwork Orange is a perfect example. Alex DeLarge is a violent thug (and rapist, which crosses Star's line), and a double-plus-ungood person all around. And yet, because he is so badly abused by a system that doesn't want to rehabilitate him so much as it wants to shut him up, I can still empathize with him because he's a victim as much as he's a criminal.

[Rett Mikhal]

I instantly think to the manga series Berserk. The main hero, Guts, is a cocky jerk to be sure... but his backstory and horrible life up to when he is introduced give him the right to be more than a little bit anti-hero. Besides, he still fights to defend his allies and friends, which he does have though he doesn't like to admit it.... Until he loses them. Then he becomes hellbent on revenge.

That's when he's no longer likable, unless you just like it when he swings his sword and makes so much red the kool-aid man would be afraid to shout out anything monosyllabic. When he's not in battle, he has absolute tunnel vision. He doesn't care about anyone, or anything. He doesn't want food. He doesn't want sleep. He doesn't want love. He doesn't want friends. He doesn't want to help anyone. The only thing he can think about is revenge for one person. While it's a perfectly legitimate reason for revenge (I seriously doubt anyone puts 'genocide' on their forgiveness list), he turns into such an anti-hero he's become everything he hated before and doesn't ever seem to care. Several times in the story he tells children or crippled people to kill themselves because they are weak and whine too much.

He's lost at that point. He's become obsessed with only doing hurt. Hedonism at its finest. Who cares how many people he steps on, if only to get that one thing. A few thousand lives aren't worth as much as his own fantasy at getting back at that one person.

But I think that's why the story is so interesting. The author obviously realized no one can love Guts through and through for the entire story, so there are other characters along the way that you can like instead.

So, that's the long of my argument. The short would be: The point when they go from being an anti-hero for a reason, to just hedonism and obsession. They could very well have a reason for falling into obsession, but it doesn't change the fact they have tunnel vision so bad that they can't see the people around them.

I'm aware of the irony that I am more than likely 99% of what I just said I hate.

[penguinslovedw]

To me the difference between hero and anti-hero is method. Heroes will want to do good, and they'll want to use good means to do it. Whereas with an anti-hero, they might want to do good (however reluctantly), and they're willing to anything to get it. The ends justify the means.
For example: An orphanage needs money right away, or they will close down and several adorable, large-eyed waifs will be thrown into the street.
Hero's solution: bring publicity to the cause, write to a congressperson, ask various charities for help, hold a bake sale, and anything else you can think of. But keep it legal.
Anti-hero's solution: Go to rich dude's house and steal some jewelry. It's not like he can't get anymore, he's rich right?
This is one of the reasons anti-heroes are so much more fun to watch is because they break the rules, but for a cause. I mean what would you rather watch in a movie/TV show, a dude writing to his congressperson, or a dude setting up an elaborate heist and robbing a bank? I know what I'd pick.

[sarahbot]

May 18, 2008 21:56:30 GMT -5 StarOpal said:

Generally, for me where that line is heavily depends on the tone of the movie and when it was made.

The always there line is rape. That's it, I'm done. This anti-"hero" and movie (because seriously, what the hell, dude?) are both dead to me.

As much as I love Blade Runner, both for its content and its influence, that astounded me. I only saw it for the first time about three months ago and was blown away by the rape scene, and that I'd never heard of it in discussion of the film, and that it was never touched upon again in the film. Granted, Blade Runner is a complicated film to discuss morality in, but just the same, rape is never acceptable.

Also, I've never really understood some of Who fandom's approach to the Master. The man killed a tenth of Earth's population. Not. Cool.

[Rett Mikhal]

There's another example that's even more interesting. The borg. Everyone loves the borg. When you sit down and think about it, they've killed more than the Master. Then you really sit down and think about it and realize they're not exactly bad guys. They think they're doing the universe a favor. Personally, I've always rooted for the borg to win, because they are vastly superior to the vastly inferior humans. Why take 20 years of Starfleet and have 1% of the class become officers while 99% the class becomes cannon fodder when you can have 100% of your soldiers be able to solve 100% of all math problems simply by uploading into their skulls? Not to mention they are devoid of vice, which is a plus in my book.

A related example is the Machines in the Matrix. They're just trying to get power, why should we fight back? We lost and besides, I'd rather live in a world with readily accessible showers and linoleum tiles than the caveman world they have. I bet you dimes to dollars the freedom fighters all have Matrix simulation computers in their rooms (read: they do) and probably plug in whatever Matrix-similar fantasy they feel like living. Like flying an F-14. You can't tell me all they do is combat train, and then go back to their dreary rooms thinking their life is great.

[Storm_Rider]

Well Rett, I wouldn't go as far as saying that everyone loves The Borg, I for one don't, however I do find them interesting and in the words of a certain Vulcan, fascinating.

However, despite their vast superiority over humankind, or some other sentient beings in the Star Trek universe, they constantly get their asses whooped.

I can't think of them as anti-heroes either, in my view The Borg are more like a galactic sized form of cancer that targets whole civilizations, and one has to keep in mind that The Borg aren't exactly a civilization, they have no culture to speak of, and even if they have no vices, they also have no feelings, or concepts of individualism, morality, ethics, love, hate, good, evil, things that most humanoid beings hold to be crucial to their existence, their only policy is to grow bigger and stronger by stealing technology that they do not have and assimilating other living beings, much like a cancer that only exists to grow and ultimately consume it's carrier. The Borg are the ultimate evolutionary stage of a disease.

We should make a Star Trek thread and talk about these things.

[CheshireKat]

Well my first thought of course is whether said anti-hero is willing to take a life. The Punisher comes to mind; an ex-soldier/cop who justifies every act of violence and murder based solely on the fact that his family was killed. Very little thought is given to the fact that every jaywalker he pumps full of lead has a family going through exactly the same thing he did.

Of course that being said, being willing to kill when absolutely necessary doesn't make you an unlikeable anti-hero. I clapped and cheered when Malcolm Reynolds shot Dobson in the head, and when he kicked tattoo-face through Serenity's engine I laughed out loud. Not because I was entertained by murder, but because he decisively took care of legitimate threats.

I like a hero who refuses to kill, or at the very least tries to find any other alternative. I absolutely love when The Doctor gets all serious and warns the villain to stop what they're doing or he'll have to stop them. He's giving them one last chance--and even when their is no other alternative he's still shaken by every death, human or otherwise. THAT's the hero I like, someone with empathy.

Blade leaves me cold, because you get the feeling he doesn't care at all about saving innocents from vampires as much as killing vampires. That's what made Faith an anti-hero, and ultimately a villain, her lack of empathy and compassion.

Also for the record, we're talking anti-HERO. This disqualifies the Borg, The Master or any other character that falls solely into the VILLAIN category. Although if we want to get into a discussion of UNlikeable heroes as opposed to strangely likeable villains that would be cool.

[Rett Mikhal]

Technically though the Borg don't know what they're doing or what 'evil' is. They're like ants, or very much so, cancer, as Storm Rider pointed out. Is the lack of morality immoral? What about Lenny from Of Mice and Men. He killed Mice by accidentally petting them too hard. Is he a villain? What about from the perspective of the mice?

There's a similar question in the episode of Star Trek when a doctor kills the Crystalline Entity after it devoured her son and his colony. I, personally, was glad to see that Entity go. It was a mindless eating machine that could not be reasoned with and had only the desire to feed. Picard argued that the Sperm Whale is not evil because it devours millions of plankton to sustain itself. That is a fine argument, but I think it's fundamentally different between eating simple things like plankton, and eating advanced things like humans. And also entire worlds.

Here's another interesting case of morality. 343 Guilty Spark, the Monitor of Halo installation 04, wanted to activate the Halo rings to stop the Flood. The Flood would have infected and zombified all life on a universal scale within a lifetime if they had not been contained. 343 Guilty Spark decided to activate 'containment protocol', as he had been ordered to. Unfortunately the only way to stop the flood is to starve them; by wiping out all sources of infection, namely all sentient beings in the galaxy. That would have cost the lives of trillions upon trillions, but it quite possibly would have saved the entire universe. Could be considered heroic. Was he wrong to want to do that? Also, remember he was not only ordered to do so but programmed to. The Forerunners are the ones who decided that all other strategic options had been exhausted and activated the Halo rings originally.

[CheshireKat]

May 21, 2008 21:18:45 GMT -5 Rett Mikhal said:

Is the lack of morality immoral?

Yes.

As it turns out that's the definition of immorality.

Once again we're talking anti-heroes, NOT villains who think they're in the right. The Borg do NOT fall into the Anti-hero category. Neither does the Monitor, although I'll argue that Master Chief is fair game.

Superfluous tangents aside, lets PLEASE stay on topic.

[Rett Mikhal]

I thought morality was the topic? Morality of heroes and anti-heroes. In my opinion, ignorance of concept of morality, like the Borg, the reprogrammed T-800 Terminator, or Edward Scissorhands, doesn't equal an immoral character. A character who knows what morality is but refuses to care is far more sinister. Master Chief and several VG characters don't fall into either because you are controlling them. Yeah you can take a bazooka and nuke a small area with good guys and bad guys because there's more bad guys, but it's you doing it. I can hardly blame the Chief for that.

That aside, characters like Guts, Ulic Qel-Droma, or basically every Romulan ever born are significantly more sinister because they only seem to do 'heroic' things when it benefits them the most and the fact it even is heroic, is just a total coincidence. They all know what hurt is what they're doing, they just don't care about (seemingly) anyone but themselves or their motives. Whether it's Guts' quest for vengeance, Ulic's hubris, or the Romulans' mistake of being born Romulan, they all seem to either turn off their moral radar or let their obsessions completely block it.

Even more traditional anti-heroes like the Man with No Name know what morals are and choose to ignore them. Blonde must have killed 30 people in each movie, and for what? Money. Then another movie and MORE MONEY. You wonder what he's saving for. That also reminds me of everyone's FAVORITE anti-hero: Boba Fett. Completely ignoring his stupid retconned 'I saw my father die' story and instead focusing on his much cooler 'I was betrayed by the law on Concord Dawn' story, Boba Fett seems to have no emotions whatsoever. He's like a Spartan in Space, always deploying his shield and never letting down his defense for a moment. One wonders if he's really saving up for anything, considering he probably has enough to live the rest of his life in comfort, or if he's just trying to put the hurt back into the universe after a life of constant betrayals.

Obviously, you'd be hard pressed to convince Boba Fett, Guts or The Man with No Name to change their evil ways and live right by you. However, all three of the characters I mentioned with no previous morals, Borg, T-800, Ed Scissor, managed to come about in the end at least once (Hue for the Borg).

[TheLuckyOne]

May 20, 2008 15:23:23 GMT -5 Rett Mikhal said:

Not to mention they are devoid of vice, which is a plus in my book.

Now that's just not true. The Borg stole Mego Spidey's grill and car and hacked into his satellite reception. Eventually he had to put "Ty" tags on them and auction the little buggers off as beanie babies to end their vice-filled rampage.

However, the Man with No Name does have morals. He's certainly not a gallant hero and he's definitely a killer, but he does protect the innocent at times and shows compassion toward a dying Civil War soldier.

Of course, a large part of it also depends on your particular society's definition of "moral." The Knights of the Round Table killed tons of people and, chivalry aside, were not known for their progressive attitudes toward women, but we still think of them as heroes, generally. Lancelot slept with his best friend and king's wife and contributed to the downfall of the greatest society the world had ever seen... was he still a hero? Arthur accidentally fathered a child with his half-sister... gross, but is he still a hero? My ancestors, the vikings, classified a "hero" as someone who was fearsome in battle, regardless of morality; these days, I think most Scandinavian "heroes" could justifiably be prosecuted for mass murder.

Of course, that's also one of the funniest things about how popular Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean movies have become... given that real pirates regularly engaged in mass theft, murder, and rape, it's slightly ironic how much we've romanticized them. (And I include myself in that, I was fascinated by pirates as a kid.) Captain Jack Sparrow probably wouldn't have been quite as popular of an anti-hero if he'd killed Orlando Bloom and had his way with Kiera Knightly against her will, I suppose.

-D

[CheshireKat]

May 25, 2008 11:46:11 GMT -5 Rett Mikhal said:

One wonders if he's really saving up for anything,

He bounty-hunts for Jabba Hutt to finance his Vette.

[Head Mutant]

He's chillin' in deep space, a mask is over his face