Antics of an anti-hero

The trusted readers who worked their way through the manuscript of my newly completed novel were consistent in their response to the antics of my anti-hero. He’s outrageous, despicable, super-devious and egocentric, they told me. So it was interesting to consider why they were always rooting for him.

The anti-hero is rarely a figure that engenders feelings of hate alone. Most draw from the reader or viewer much more complex emotions. Perhaps he or she is to be pitied, or grudgingly admired for their daring or for the odd honourable deed scattered among their many misdeeds. Then we must ask whether the anti-hero only ever does good to further his or her dark ambitions. Is the saving of the child’s life, the retrieval of the bed-bound grandma from the burning building or the sparing of the wounded assassin ever a matter of simple honour? Sometimes. But the motive of currying favour must always be suspected because moral ambiguity is immensely attractive in a protagonist. Think Dorian Gray, Tom Ripley or Pinkie Brown and in film Michael Corleone, Léon or one of my personal favourites, Charley Varrick.

I hope my own anti-hero, Will, might one day draw a complex range of reactions from an expanded readership. Fingers crossed.