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The first time I ever read the word "anti-hero," it was in an article about science fiction, and it's always seemed a very science fictional type of word — like anti-matter, or anti-gravity. Science fiction has its share of one-dimensional white hats, but the characters who capture our imagination are usually the morally blurred rascals, who have their own best interests at heart. You never quite know what an anti-hero will do next. Here's our guide to the roots of science fiction's greatest anti-heroes.
The "anti-hero" comes to science fiction from a variety of sources, including noir and Westerns... but she also has her own uniquely science fictional avatars, that spring out of science fiction's tradition of skepticism and social criticism. The anti-hero is where science fiction's pulpy roots meet its most intellectual aspirations. Plus, he/she totally rocks on ice.
Noir:
My favorite noir hero is Dashiell Hammett's nameless Continental Op, who spends more time orchestrating convenient murders than he does investigating crimes. In the novel Red Harvest, the Op arrives in a town called Poisonville which is run by organized crime, and he systematically tricks the town's ruling gangsters into killing each other, first a few at a time and eventually in a full-on massacre. By the end, he's one of the few people left standing. In noir, nobody's morally pure.
The classic science fiction noir movie is Blade Runner, featuring Harrison Ford's hardboiled and conflicted cop, who's hunting the Replicants without being sure if he's doing the right thing. And of course Blade Runner is based on a Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, and a lot of Dick's best work has a particularly noir flavor of pulpiness. Dick's protagonists are never sure if they're doing the right thing, and often are just out for themselves. That could be one reason why Dick is the author of choice for movie adaptations — his work is very close to a genre that movie people understand.
Another great science fiction noir author is Richard K. Morgan (no clue if the middle initial "K" is a requirement), whose first novel Altered Carbon is like a fusion of Chandler with Doctorow's Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom: hard-as-nails gumshoe Takeshi Lev Kovacs dies in a shootout, and then is restored from a backup and "resleeved" in a new body so he can investigate the murder of a rich guy (who's also been restored and "resleeved.") And then Kovacs promptly sleeps with the rich guy's wife.
And then of course, there's always Jim diGriz, hero of the Stainless Steel Rat novels, who starts out as an amoral trickster — before eventually devolving into a bit of a pussycat. And there's Gully Foyle, dubious hero of Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. (And Alfred Bester becomes the name of a morally gray psy-corps agent on Babylon 5, who becomes more of a sympathetic anti-hero in Gregory Keyes' novels.)
Westerns:
The archetypal Western anti-hero is out for himself, and only incidentally ends up helping others. Often, he (and it's usually a "he," except for Sharon Stone in Sam Raimi's underrated The Quick And The Dead) is only a "good guy" in comparison to the really really shitty bad guys. Think Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name from the spaghetti westerns. Cowboy-influenced anti-heroes in science fiction are usually pretty easy to spot: Han Solo in Star Wars and Mal in Firefly have everything except the Ennio Morricone whistle/trumpet score playing in the background.
I'm also going to peg Vin Diesel's Riddick from Pitch Black as a Western-style anti-hero — he's basically a convicted murderer being transported across the prairie in a wagon train, and then the wagons break down. Will he help save his captors, or let the elements and the hostile natives take care of them?
The Mad Scientist:
Unlike the noir and Western anti-heroes, the mad scientist has always belonged to science fiction, as far back as Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. As the name implies, the mad scientist doesn't always have the greatest grip on reality, unleashing forces he cannot blah blah blah. The mad scientist is often just a foil for the hero in space opera and action-adventure stories — but he's also a protagonist a surprising amount of the time.
On TV, Doctor Who features a mad-scientist archetype as the hero, and the early episodes of the series in the 1960s made a conscious effort to portray the Doctor as an anti-hero rather than a more uncomplicated good guy. Over time, the Doctor became purer and more motivated by compassion for other sentients, but he still gravitates back to the anti-hero side of the fence occasionally, most notably in the late 1980s. 
Cyberpunk:
Cyberpunk obviously borrowed a lot of themes and styles from noir, but also brought in its own flavor of anti-authoritarianism. The e-zine Computer Underground Digest debated, in 1991, just how anti-heroic the cyberpunk hero actually is. Brad Hicks wrote:
A cyberpunk is to hackers/phreaks/crackers/crashers what a terrorist is to a serial killer; someone who insists that their crimes are in the public interest and for the common good, a computerized "freedom fighter" if you will.One anonymous person responded:
In the works of Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, and others, cyberpunks are not terrorists in the conventional sense of the term, and the analogy to serial killers strikes me as a bit extreme. Cyberpunks are characterized by their resistance to oppressive authority (which makes them a form of freedom fighter), but the resistance tends to be highly individualistic. I wonder if cyberpunks might be based on the anti-hero model of westerns (Shane) or earlier science fiction in which the marginal but basically decent outsider steps in to use marginal skills to save the town, country, or civilization?Cyberpunk heroes like Case from Neuromancer are hard-bitten loners, guns for hire. And Cobb, who stars in much of Rudy Rucker's Ware series, is a conflicted computer scientist who becomes a robot and sides with various factions of the robot "Boppers" at times, but is constantly questioning his loyalties to both humans and robots. And of course there are Warren Ellis' many cyberpunk anti-heroes, epitomized by Spider Jerusalem — they usually have elements of the rock star and the porn star, even as they claim a place as rebel outsiders.
The Skeptic:
The rationalist skeptic, who critiques everyone else's ideals and delusions, is an outgrowth of the mad scientist, and usually has some scientific knowledge. But he's also a nihilistic superhero, who questions human-made belief structures. Avon from Blake's 7 is a bit of a mad scientist and a noir gun for hire, but he's also something else — a foil for rebel leader Blake's idealism who grows into a self-hating amoral hero in his own right. Avon serves as a role model for Horza, the bitter mercenary in Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas, the first Culture novel. The shape-shifting Horza tricks a shipfull of pirates into helping him track down a lost Culture Mind in the middle of a warzone. He's willing to make deals with his worst enemies and double-cross his friends, if the job requires it.
Comments
The antihero also seems to be one of the traits that separates SF from Fantasy. My wife and I were discussing the antihero idea in relation to Harry Potter (having my kids read those books now brings on a new degree of analysis). We ended up concluding that even the characters who initially appear to fit an antihero mold are generally more misunderstood than misguided.
This whole thread brings me around to a new answer from the question of a few days ago, (paraphrasing), what story should get SF-ed up? Unforgiven, with the reformed-then-unreformed antihero icon, could be told in a fascinating way in an SF setting.
Interesting post, CJA. I guess this is kind of a rambling comment to it, but that's because it's elicited rambling thought -- my favorite kind.
In noir, nobody's as morally pure as the Continental Op. Orchestrating the deaths of evil men trying to kill him hardly pollutes the untouchable Op. Now Ned Beaumont or Sam Spade on the other hand...
Is that Kevin Sorbo?
@Goodnightbabytron: Actually fantasy has the uber anti hero of Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books... I haven't read them, but I've heard they're pretty anti.
@Tim Faulkner: It's really Philip Marlowe, from the same mold, who has all the appearance of being an antihero, but actually nearly always acts as a paladin.
@Tim Faulkner: I think the deaths he orchestrates aren't just of people trying to kill him. They're just of people he wants dead.
The Mal photo shopped in there with Solo is awesome! Nice job whoever did that.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Most definitely.
@Goodnightbabytron: And while LOTR doesn't really have anti-heroes, they litter the pages of The Silmarillion.
But neither takes away from the larger point, which I think is true. SF certainly utilizes the type much more often and more effectively.
And I'm sure there is something to be said about nostalgia for the "past" vs. fear/skepticism/cynicism of the future in that division somewhere (although that wouldn't explain the rise of the anti-hero in westerns...)
About 1/2 way thought the movie 'The Blair Witch Project' I started rooting for the Witch to finish those whiny kids off quickly. I wonder if that counts as being an anti-hero.
Also not Sci-Fi is Dexter the serial killer that only kills bad people.
I can think of far more anti-hero's outside of Sci-Fi than in it.
I think it's the fact that anti-heros are easier to relate to. They have flaws like anybody else. Its also because people are attracted to the idea of a hero that breaks the rules from time to time.
Really, how many people can relate to Superman, or Luke Skywalker? People want a bit of dirt under the nails. They want to see conflict and amorality. ...Media of any kind thrives on that.
It's true that most people don't always know if they're always doing right...but I think SF often questions whether technology itself is inherently good or evil, and that forces the characters to have to answer the same questions.
@Goodnightbabytron:
Dear me, but there are plenty examples of anti-heroes in fantasy. They may not be as prevalent as they are in science-fiction, but they are there.
..Vlad Taltos from Stephan Brusts "Jerheg" series comes to mind...
@Charlie Jane Anders: I don't remember a single character that dies that wasn't in with the mob, trying to kill the Op, trying to kill someone else, or just simply evil and on a path to a quick death anyway and posed a substantial threat... and I don't remember anyone dying because the Op "wanted" them dead for merely personal reasons. Anyway, it's been a while, but from all the stories, the worse thing I remember the Op indulging in is an all-night bout of poker and whiskey.
@Goodnightbabytron: actually, I'd say it's the fact that the two come from different traditions. Fantasy, especially something like LOTR and Narnia, are from the romantic tradition where the hero is just about superhuman (in Aragorn's case at least suprahuman, although the elfin heritage plays a part) they simply cannot do wrong.
SciFi obviously has romantic heroes (Luke Skywalker), but tends to draw from pulp on the one side or realism on the other. Neither lends itself to perfection.
Any, hey, as long as we're talking about noir infulenced sci fi movie antiheroes, no love for Alphaville's Lemmy Caution?
Anti-heroes are more interesting to adults because they've obviously made the wrong choice in the past and are now making up for it in their own complex way. Adults look at their life and realize they've made mistooks and the anti-hero lets them think that they can make up for it.
With kids, it's more that they see someone that doesn't have to follow the rules and they don't want to follow the rules, so they're drawn to them.
@Miranda Kali:
Or duh...John Constantine. How did I not think of him first.
...('course now, I'm going to be thinking of fantasy anti-heroes all day)
consider also: anti-heroes originate in the post-world war collapse of shared value systems (include in this of course religion/mythology): heroes represent shared community values, and act in an essentially moral orientation. Anti-heroes are often simply survivors, or like your example of the western, those who show up to essentially "do a job" and then leave w/out any staying power, influence, or roots. It makes sense that sci-fi has loads of these characters-- Mad Max, Deckard (film version), Case, Ripley, etc-- b/c sci-fi rose to prominence after WWII and the consolidation of global market forces. So our sci-fi heroes don't act in a shared code of morals or values; they act in the gaping maw of unregulated market forces, exchanging themselves and their deeds for gasoline, a paycheck, or just plain old survival. and of course they remain outsiders b/c the "gobal market" no longer values centralized organization or authority.
organisms succeed when their organizational structure reflects the organizational structure of their environment; hence, the rise of a rootless, amoral "antihero" trying simply to survive in a decentralized, market-oriented and labor-alienated world.
[i'm sure you can and will identify exceptions, but keep in mind that those exceptions may be operating in a commodified kind of nostalgia for "old" heroes aimed at aging fanboys, cultural conservatives, and fascists-- i'm thinking here of the torrent of Marvel-Movie-Garbage that has run out of Hollywood of late. for the true 'children of the revolution,' there are no heroes--only survivors].
@Goodnightbabytron: Fantasy has plenty of anti-heros, although traditional Tolkien-esque high fantasy doesn't tend to. It tends to have more conventional White Hat / Black Hat roles.
If you define "anti-hero" as "he-who-looks-out-for-himself-first" then even Bilbo becomes a bit of an anti-hero archetype through the Lord of the Rings. He's at various points adamant about keep the ring for himself, and reluctant to allow those who wish to destroy it do so.
I think Gandalf the Grey could be seen as an anti-hero, gradually transitioning to Gandalf the White.
Orcs have rights too, after all, and thousands are slaughtered in the quest to end Sauron's rule.
Still, you're fundamental point is probably true: anti-heroes have more of a place in dystopias and we tend to view the future as possibly distopian and the past in a utopian manner. Since the fundamental divide between "science fiction" and "fantasy" *tends* to be "future" vs. "past", it seems there'll always be more anti-heroes in SciFi.
@Tim Faulkner: He's hired to "clean up" the town... and so he goes in and makes sure all the mobsters are dead. They're bad people, sure... but he's pretty calculating about making them kill each other.
@learned_hands: Almost threw Alphaville in there, but the "noir" section of this post was getting to be an essay in its own right... and I can barely remember anything about Alphaville off the top of my head. It definitely is a SF noir classic though.
"Sergio Leone whistle/trumpet score playing in the background."
Let's give credit to Ennio Morricone for those scores.
I find Alex from A Clockwork Orange to be the perfect Anti Hero.
@darcymcgee:
Tehee. You said "orcs have rights too", made me think of "GRUNTS"...great book.
Talk about anti-heroes...
@AlfaCharger: I think an anti-hero is somebody who does the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. Where as Alex from Clockwork Orange is just a psychopath.
Remember the typical Heinlein ethically ambiguous elder mentor figure who later turns out to have a heart of gold and/or redeems himself?
I like the 'mad scientist' anti-hero category. It is truly all about 'them'. Almost like it is their way or the highway. It seems to question the simple good-bad spectrum - it is the third alternative. Everything else just seems to react to that character and their actions.
The other categories seem just to be good people surviving in bad/dysfunctional circumstances/societies. There is a certain predictability to them. They are the white hats with complexity. Even the ultra-selfish ones who happen to 'tally more bad guys than good' is just a reflection of the morally-grey situation/civilization they found themselves in.
If you take the dysfunctionality out of the setting (which may not be realistic), all these characters are 'Sgt. Joe Friday' - straight and narrow. Mad Scientists on the other hand are mad no matter wear you put them - hurrah for Jekyll.
Well -> my barely-educated, semi-well-read two cents.
Unless you're reading the extended ending in the book, Alex was nothing more than a rapist-murderer. At no point was he trying to do the right thing. The neat thing is that the fact that he was brainwashed in such a way to make him helpless in the real world makes you feel sympathy for such an utter bastard of a character.
--though, i suppose you could argue that society was dysfunctional first in order to make the 'mad scientists' mad. How many mad people grow up in USA 1960s Maple Streets?
@AlfaCharger: Whoops. Fixing that.
@daveNYC: An anti-hero doesn't need to be trying to do the right thing.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Exactly. This is pretty tangential to your post, but it just seems odd to hear the Op cast as an antihero. The whole "gimmick" of Red Harvest and Nightmare Town (the short story it's based on) is everyone is evil and gets what they deserve. The Op is the arbiter of that morality. Killing is not perceived as immoral in the Op stories when it's deserved. The Op kills lots of people. Being hired isn't ambiguous either. The Op's ethics of being a hired gun are impeccably explored throughout the short stories.
Anyway, I debate the point because antihero actually encapsulates to very different forms, and I think it's worth avoiding further muddying of the waters. One is flawed, weak, ambiguous, immoral to start but ultimately does the right thing, becomes a true hero. Or wins/succeeds even within immoral or ambiguous circumstances. This is the bizarro hero and the term antihero fits naturally. But this, in most ways, is antithetical to the "original" antihero concept. The original antihero that emerged in the late Victorian/early 20th Century loses in the end, or does nothing, achieves no moral (or even immoral) victory throughout their trajectory while still managing to elicit our empathy.
I much prefer the antihero of the Joyce, Beckett, Dostoevsky mold to the Bruce Willis Die Hard/Han Solo/Mal variety. Both entertain, but they're really very different beasts using the same name.
That's a problem with film and tv anti-heroes. They wind up doing a good thing.
Here's an example of the opposite:
Let's take a look at Chandler's Long Goodbye where Marlowe winds up acting the paladin, even if his intentions are to not.
Altman's The Long Goodbye, with Elliot Gould as Marlowe acts from more identifiable reasoning- the cat, the girl, getting assaulted, and confusion. Yet what he winds up doing in the end, is not the act of a paladin, but it's also not evil. It's very, very grey. And it's wonderful.
The film was set in the 70s as opposed to Marlowe's 50s, and perhaps the changing world can help explain part of it. It's a great adaptation and a great film, and yet another reason to love anti-heroes.
What I love about BladeRunner's anti-hero is that he's not an action hero badass like most modern ones are. He barely kills most of the replicants and when he faces up against the last. He doesn't do shit except get beat up.
He doesn't win, he doesn't save the day, and he winds up getting the fuck out of dodge as soon as possible.
@AlfaCharger: Yeah, I'm gonna have to error with psychopath. But he's one that we like. Kubrick's filmed portrayed him as more an anti-hero, this is true, but the book drives home his psychopathic nature.
The reason we don't get this driven home in the film is because we don't see his victims for long enough to identify with them. In the book, when they beat the old man to death in the street, we know that the young people of the 80s are the same as that old man in the future.
That's the fucked up shit.
@Charlie Jane Anders: You know at first I was with dave on this one. Alex doesn't make for much of an anti-hero so much as a story from the viewpoint of a villian made sympathetic thought is situation. He really does lack any sort of redeeming qualities.
But then I looked up wikipedia's entry on anti-heroes and I saw " a persona characterized by a lack of "traditional" heroic qualities," which is pretty much Alex.
However, the other guys you mention in the article at least have a goal in mind, and Han Solo and Mal WILL do the right thing in the end, even if it's against his best interests, so I'm not sure if that fits the tone of the article.
Can we call Alex a protagonist and call it even?
@Tim Faulkner: Yes. Frankenstein and Caleb Williams strike me as strong anti-heroes. The modern anti-hero is mostly another name for an unrepentent badass, which... can also be a great character.
Because while the hero is hand wringing over the Prime Directive, getting the vapors worrying about people's feelings and filing an environmental impact report, the anti-hero is getting the job done.
Speaking of antiheroes, Gizmodo has Drunken Darth video up! My hero!
@The_Real_Quiet_Desperation:
ahh yes: the ends justify the means... i can't think of any event in history that came out ass-backwards because someone thought the rules were just for losers - hollywood, of course, knows best.
We identify with the anti-hero, because s/he is just out doing their thing, trying to make their way through world, has just enough scruples to be considered "a decent person" but not too many that it gets in the way of making a living. They aren't always the strongest or the fastest or the smartest, but they have gritty determination mixed with guile and a healthy instinct for self-preservation. No matter how tight the jam they get in, they may get singed but never scorched. They are the average, everyday person writ large.
@NefariousNewt: That's not really true. They get burnt all the time, and quite often end up doing really shitty things to get out of a jam.
Anti-heroes aren't at all good people. They're just fundamentally good people who do really shitty, selfish angry things a lot.
Woooo! Gully Foyle! That is all it takes for me to like an article. Briefly mention a character from a 50 year old sci-fi story. ... that story is twice as old as I am. Disturbing. I still have the two book anthology of sci-fi stories that my dad gave me. I might have to go back and read it again.
Spider Jeruselam, I've heard of him, but never read any of the comics. Love the grin. Really do. It just says "You should sweat."
There's also Michael Moorcock's Elric of Menibone, who, despite being a fantasy character, is part of the Eternal Champion series and therefore also sci-fi, to a point. :P
@designguybrown: oh god... does that mean bush is an anti-hero?
Actually... he would be more accurately what an anti-hero is. I mean, he's only looking out for his own ends, and he's 'getting the job done' in an assbackwards way.
The theory that an anti-hero is ultimately decent is one I find very flawed. He's just likable.
@Pope John Peeps II: Also it's helpful to distinguish between the anti-hero, who r