Poll: Hero or Anti-Hero?

[cutecuddely]

After finishing Metal Gear Rising: Revengance and quite enjoying it in the process I wondered who do I prefer Heroes or Anti-Heroes?
Raiden is a wonderful anti-hero, he fills the role of an anti-hero perfectly and I quite liked him as a character. As you can probably tell I quite like Anti-Heros because they are usually much better characters and have more off a story behind them than your usual hero. But what do you think?

 

[Vegosiux]

It all depends on how they're written, both can be done poorly, ergo, being a Mary Sue, or existing solely for being aloof and brooding with no other qualities to relate to respectively.

If done well, I don't mind either way, actually. I also don't mind playing villains (Evil Genius, Overlord, Dungeon Keeper), but that's of course usually played for giggles. Still, a serious game in which I'd play a protagonist along the lines of David Xanatos? Yes, sign me up for that.

 

[AT God]

I like all of them, however I think Anti-Heros are more fun. I really playing a middleman. Someone who has to do both good and bad to survive. Jackie from the Darkness was good at this, he has the evil Darkness with him, making him do horrible things, he is a mob boss so he kills people, but he has noble intentions, he wants to stop the darkness and save his girlfriend. The fact that he does so but eating hearts, tearing people in half, and shooting religious fanatics makes it interesting.

Also, I love the Postal Dude. Haven't played Postal 3 but the Postal Guy from P2 was a classic character, like an Army of Darkness Ash for video games.

 

[Rickin10]

Anti-heroes are usually more interesting and fun simply because of their complexity and moral ambiguity, thus seem more 'real' where people can relate to them. Whereas heroes are much more difficult to write well without making them nauseatingly pious or 2-demensional. I find 'good' heroes usually blur the line between the two definitions.

 

[AgentLampshade]

I often find myself routing for the bad guy in videogames. Done right, they're just so much more interesting than the hero, and drive the plot along perfectly. I love villains.

 

[Doom972]

I like all three, but my favorite is the ever-vague anti-hero. It allows the character to be flexible and change goals as the story progresses, which usually creates a great story. The best example of my favorite kind of anti-hero is Kain from Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Blood Omen 2.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Personally, I like heroes, mostly because I'm a goody two-shoes in real life and I guess that just transfers over.
But other than that, I really like it when I see a hero using so much of his energy to do something, well, HEROIC.
Like when you see a hero go rescue some kids out of the way of an oncoming car, stop a bank robbery, save a derailing train, feed the cat, etc. ALL AT THE SAME TIME, it just make them look ever stronger in my eyes, that their not willing to compromise their convictions even if it would make things easier for them, you know?
I find that just plain ADMIRABLE.

 

[Lieju]

I guess I prefer anti-heroes? Depends on your definitions, I guess.

It's not that a more morally ambiguous character can't do heroic things, or be a good person, but real life isn't black-and-white, and everyone is the hero of their own story anyway, and for your enemies you'll be a villain. I guess I like characters where you can debate on whether they did the right thing or not.

Or where they go through character-development, grow to see the things in a different light and end up doing something really selfhless they thought they'd never do.

As for villains, no-one thinks of themselves as a villain, so a character who is outright evil is not interesting in a serious story, because they're one-dimensional. they might work, but only because they serve as the opposition for more interesting characters.

However, for comedic stuff, I prefer antiheroes or outright villains. (I mean, Iznogoud is one of my all-time favourite comedic characters)

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

I generally prefer anti-heroes or neutral characters because white knight characters bore me a great deal. In fiction, I enjoy a lot of things that I do not/would not enjoy or support in reality, things such as war, revenge, conquest and other questionable things of that ilk. So I prefer protagonists that do not fall strictly into good or evil, but contain a bit of both. They may have flaws (moral or otherwise), may do things we as modern people disagree with or may simply have a bastard of a personality, but this makes them interesting to me. Rather than a heroic knight of God who crusades against evil and brings light to where ever there is darkness, and such things like that.

 

[piinyouri]

While I do tend to enjoy both, I'd say anti-hero is my preference as I hate Paladins and find them fairly dull and one sided.

 

[maninahat]

Anti heroes tend to be a much of a muchness, in that "not being a proper hero" tends to become their most defining trait. Heroes, I feel, tend to have a much broader scope. Most people think of a hero as a goody two shoes, but that really doesn't have to be the case at all. It requires a little more nuance to produce a hero as enjoyable as an anti-hero, but once its done well, I feel it beats "maverick, jerkass who doesn't play by the rules" every time. Not that an anti-hero has to be one of those, they just tend to be.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

In most videogames you basically have to have an antihero protagonist, otherwise its kinda hard to justify murdering hordes of mooks.
But in other media? There are plenty of good heroes and good antiheroes. Both of them are easy to write badly. Antiheroes tend to slide into irritating angst, heroes tend to be mary sues. But in he right hands? Either is awesome.

Villains win hands down though.

 

[lacktheknack]

It depends how story-driven the game is.

If it's very story-based and wants me to make decisions, make it an anti-hero (except Fable, because forcing heroism there makes me happy for some reason).

If we're talking "BLOW UP ALL THE THINGS", then being a big damn hero is always fun.

 

[BlindTom]

Your typical rake hero tends to just be a glorification of something that's traditionally held to be repugnant for one reason or another. Old fashioned ones can be quite interesting because of the glimpse at the culture that created them but the vast majority can be put in the "trying to be edgy" box. They are much more one note than simply "protagonists" and that's okay; they are after all an ofshooot of the protagonist role.

Actual heroes who aren't trying too hard to shock the reader are almost always superior. They get to have flaws that the narrative isn't desperately trying to portray as endearing or in some nauseating way "cool" whilst also acting like genuine human beings with good intentions.

We are each the hero of our own story. Unless we are emotionally stunted and insecure, in which case we might describe ourselves as "anti heroes" because so grimdark edgy alternative right?

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Anti heroes tend to be a much of a muchness, in that "not being a proper hero" tends to become their most defining trait. Heroes, I feel, tend to have a much broader scope. Most people think of a hero as a goody two shoes, but that really doesn't have to be the case at all. It requires a little more nuance to produce a hero as enjoyable as an anti-hero, but once its done well, I feel it beats "maverick, jerkass who doesn't play by the rules" every time. Not that an anti-hero has to be one of those, they just tend to be.

This, so much. You can have heroes as varied as Link, Spider-Man, and Luke Skywalker, which have great personality, depth and varied reasons for being heroic. Unlike what most people here have been saying, very few heroes are perfect white knights or Mary Sues.

While anti-heroes can be just as varied, I think they tend to contrariness and Mary Sue-ishness more often than not: Sure, they're often rude and disrespectful, but they're always right about both their ideas and their methods in the end.

 

[Zombie Sodomy]

Anti-hero of course. Because of Snake motherfucking Plissken! Fuck Yeah!

 

[AngloDoom]

In my eyes, it goes like so:

Interesting villain > Interesting hero > interesting anti-hero > boring anti-hero > boring hero > boring villain.

- A villain you can somewhat sympathise with, who you understand and really can see how they have become how they are is an amazing character.
- A hero who has genuine flaws and motivation for stopping the hero outside of clichés is a rarity and can win your love and respect.
- An interesting anti-hero has the audience's sympathy even when they do things that should really lose such love. They're not as interesting in my eyes are pure heroes/villains because anti-heroes are somewhat 'easy' compared to the other two.

- A boring anti-hero has the benefit of audience sympathy as well as usually a badass.
- A boring hero can still occasionally do something spectacular or cool, or spout a one-liner that makes you like them.
- A boring villain monologues as to why you should hate them and just wants to blow stuff up because they're ugly and the plot demands something to make the hero shine.

Feel free to disagree, but that's my view.

 

[bug_of_war]

Interesting hero = Interesting anti-hero > interesting villain > boring villain > boring hero > boring anti-hero.

I think interesting heros and ant-heros are equal to each other in the sense that they are technically fighting for the same thing, but have different reasons/interests which is what makes them interesting. For example, you have characters like John Marston from Red Dead Redemption whom are technically on a righteous path and intent on being good, but they're still an anti hero seeing as how they are only doing good for selfish reasons (his family/his criminal history). Then you have characters like Leon from the Resident Evil Franchise, he's constantly been shown as being the generic always do good guy character, but he's not your regular do gooder. He is willing to kill (it is kind of part of his job description after all), he's got a personality and is generally an interesting heroic character. As for villains I rarely care about whether they are good or bad, but I always prefer an interesting one over a dull villain. A good villain in my opinion is one similar to Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2, he sees the player as nothing more than an insect and has some great sections where you can tell he is not focusing entirely on what you're doing. As the game further progresses (such as when you start actually fucking up his plans and kill his girlfriend) he begins to take you more seriously. When he talks to you, you can tell that while he still thinks you're not a big deal, he is starting to get annoyed at you. Then once you

Spoiler

kill his daughter

he is pissed. But even during that fight you can see him pleading/begging for you not to do it, while also throwing in threats.

Now onto the bad side, while a bad villain wont ruin the game for me, it can effect my perception on how much I can care for beating him. The Arishock in Dragon Age 2 kind of falls under this category, but not because he is poorly developed, but because everything he does and says makes sense. Instead of seeing him as a villain who has some points but is still wrong, I see him as a guy who has been stuck in a forign land for years, watching all this crap happening and being blamed for most of it. I agreed with almost everything he said and saw him as someone who was at their breaking point because of all these spineless douchebags. DA2 made me think the villain was the hero, and that my character was just someone who wanted everything to stay neutral. A bad hero is worse than a bad villain for obvious reasons, you're generally playing the hero. Personally I thought Jason Brody in Far Cry 3 was a bad hero because his actions seemed inconsistant. For example, you run away from the camp, see your brother die, get attacked by dogs and mercanaries, then get saved and told to do all this other shit. His priorities seem to change instantly from finding his friends to helping a tribe of Maori/South African god worshipers take over an island. I get that they were trying to suggest that your character is acting that way because of the drugs he's been givin, but I rarely took the 'optional' drugs, so technically my Jason Brody should have been sober enough to realise how crazy it all was. Then also the ending, introducing the choice of taking one path or the other was stupid and I really haven't been to keen on re-playing that section, let alone the whole game because I seriously though that the protagonist was poorly developed. The reason why I dislike bad anti heros more than the others is because generally a bad anti-hero comes off as being an angsty douchebag. Dante from the latest DMC fills that category for a majority of the game (I prefer him in some of the later bits, but he starts of like such a wanker), instead of looking/acting like a badass he looks and acts like a teenager with a superiority complex. Also, when he explains about how he tried to cut out his heart, the immagery and dialogue make him look like the biggest angst ridden emo. Later on he becomes a bit better, but for a majority of the game he was a terrible anti-hero.

 

[The Madman]

I'm starting to get pretty sick of brooding anti-hero in games truth be told. Sure if done well it can be fun, but let's be honest; the vast majority of 'anti-hero' in games tend to be angsty annoying twits who's entire purpose in life seem to be acting contrary to everyone else around them and often even common sense itself.

 

[sanquin]

Well or badly written hero's don't do it for me usually. They're very one-dimensional and hard to relate to most of the time.

A badly written anti-hero becomes lame or cliché very quickly. Can very quickly become even worse than a badly written hero. A well written anti-hero though, is awesome. They're far more relate-able and more complex than most hero's I've seen.

I'm starting to get pretty sick of brooding anti-hero in games truth be told. Sure if done well it can be fun, but let's be honest; the vast majority of 'anti-hero' in games tend to be angsty annoying twits who's entire purpose in life seem to be acting contrary to everyone else around them and often even common sense itself.

An anti-hero like this would fall under the 'badly written ones.' It's harder to write a good anti-hero than a good hero, so you'll see more badly written anti-hero's than well written ones I think. Which is a shame.