Why We Gravitate to Antihero Characters(an analysis written by me)

I first noticed this whole thing while watching Avatar: The Last Airbender(also known as one of the best written shows I've ever seen). Specifically, I noticed something about Prince Zuko, the antiheroic, morally ambiguous ex-prince who is chasing down for Aang most of the show. Granted, Zuko is AngstBoi extraordinaire, but something about him was just. . . different. Better. Even the way the artists made him move and pose seemed somehow more true to life than the other characters. And that's when I first started noticing all the stuff that I'm going to talk about today.

I think he definitely looked his best when he had hair like this.

Antiheroes are written to be attractive. Deep in our minds, we already know that antiheroes are the cool ones, the favorites, so when we write our own, that's how they come out on the page. But there's even more than that.

Antiheroes are also written in a more realistic light than most of the other characters, especially if the antihero is meant to be part of the larger cast. They contrast with the other characters, who are likely to have more of a cut-and-dry lawful good morality, which is something that's in unfortunately small supply in our culture these days. We can all identify easier with knowing what the right thing is to do and not doing it.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (Romans 7:19, ESV)

On top of that, antihero characters tend to have difficult backstories(the age-old 'tragic backstory' thing), and we can all relate to having difficult things in our pasts and things we have to carry around with us. They have difficulties they need to work through and things they carry around with them. Who exists on this earth that doesn't carry around difficult memories with them? Who doesn't struggle with hardships? We relate more to the antihero because they have a more realistic level of hardship, and(more unfortunately), we identify with them because they wallow in more self-pity than the protagonists.

On a similar note, antiheroes are more relatable to us because they react more like we want them to. Where the heroes frequently just take the insult and gracefully keep moving, the antihero does not. When someone hurts them, they get angry and want revenge. They yell at people who do them wrong. They have bad moods and like being alone sometimes. Even the way they dress is more of something we would want. I mean, who would want to cosplay as any other character when the antihero costume is leather, covered in spikes, and has big boots that go clunk? Not to mention the 85 swords strapped to their back. They just look so much cooler.

Case in point.

In a way, you could say that the 'antihero' character is almost more true to life than the other characters. They don't have the idealistic perfection that the other characters are likely to have, and we want to identify with them more because we can see more relatable characteristics.

However, let's take a closer look. Yes, everything I've said before is also true: they dress cooler, they act more like we'd want them to act, they're able to wallow in their own pain like we'd want to, but where does this come from? Why do we want to be this character so much more than any of the others?

Simple.

Because the antihero, for all his imperfections and wild ways, is exactly who we want to be. For better or for worse, we envy him because he has everything we wish we could have. The antihero is ourselves, gone feral and fearsome. We wish we could lash out at our enemies. We wish we could walk with the confidence they do. We wish that people would look at us with that fear in our eyes. We want to have the presence that they have.

I didn't intend for this post to go this deep when I first planned to write it, but I'm glad we got here. Once you notice that the general public tends to relate more to the morally askew, you have to ask what that says about people today. Where we've landed. What we want. If you think about it, this has been going on for a long time. The antiheroes of every storytelling era have been the people the writers wished they could be. During the gothic era, they were dark and wealthy. During the fifties they were brazen and cool. Every era has had the same idealized antihero, just with different characteristics.

Anyway, that's why antiheroes are attractive. Here's a picture of Loki.