An anti-hero is a protagonist who is notably lacking in traditional heroic qualities such as courage, idealism or moral purity.
Where the term comes from
Britannica defines an antihero as a protagonist of a drama or narrative who is notably lacking in heroic qualities. It says the type has appeared in literature since the Greek dramatists and gives Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote and Henry Fielding's Tom Jones among its examples, along with Joe Lampton in John Braine's Room at the Top (1957) as a modern, postwar case. Merriam-Webster gives the same core definition, a protagonist or notable figure conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities, and dates the word's first known use to 1714.
Wikipedia stresses that an antihero is not a villain or antagonist. It describes the antihero as often the focal point of conflict, driven by personal motives first, and often an outsider who is pushed by circumstances into the role usually held by a hero.
An example
Dov Marrin collects debts for a landlord in a flooded port city. He skims a fifth of every payment, lies to the families he squeezes and has never apologised for anything. He is the protagonist, and the reader follows his point of view. One winter night the stairwell of a tenement catches fire, and Dov, who came for rent, carries a child out because nobody else is near. He does not turn good. The next morning he goes back to the same door and asks for the rent. The reader keeps reading because Dov's choices are real, his reasons are clear and the story keeps testing what he will and will not do.
Common mistakes
- Treating an antihero as an edgy hero. If the character never does anything unheroic, they are a hero with a gruff voice.
- Giving them no code at all. Readers follow an antihero because of a consistent line they will not cross.
- Making them cruel without cost, so the story seems to approve of everything they do.
- Confusing the term with a villain. A villain opposes the protagonist, while an antihero is the protagonist.
- Redeeming them all at once in the last chapter.
How to check your manuscript
Write the worst thing your protagonist does and the best thing. Then check that both come from the same set of wants. Find the scene where the reader is asked to hope for them despite what they have done, and ask what the text gives the reader to hold on to. For related terms, see protagonist, antagonist and character arc.
In Musael, world and characters shows where each character is mentioned in the text, so you can read an antihero's scenes together and check the pattern holds.