antihero

plural antiheroes · alternative anti-hero

1. roleplaying gamesliteratureA protagonist who proceeds in an unheroic manner, such as by criminal means, via cowardly actions, or for mercenary goals.

   The Deadpool fly is a species of Robber fly, which are “assassins of the insect world” – fitting for the mercenary antihero.

   2020 July 29, Jessie Yeung, “Australia names new species after Deadpool, Thor, and other Marvel favorites”, in CNN, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2022

   5 more examples

   Alienation: A stage on the downside of the passage wherein the holdfast and the antihero take actions which bring about a disintegration of personality.

   2006, James Bonnet, Stealing Fire from the Gods: The Complete Guide to Story for Writers and Filmmakers

   JK Rowling says that “girls are very apt to romanticise” the antihero, and reveals that she had been forced to pour “cold common sense” on the startling number of readers who fall for the arrogant, unscrupulous bully Draco Malfoy in her Harry Potter books.

   2014 December 22, Alison Flood, “JK Rowling ‘unnerved’ by girls who fall for Hogwarts bully Draco Malfoy”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2016

   Fictional male antiheroes like television’s crime patriarchs Tony Soprano and Walter White have reigned for some time, but the antiheroine has only more recently had the opportunity to rise up – and become the cause of her own downfall. […] Grayson serves as an archetype for a female antihero not driven by much except for her own ambition, and she’s quite fine with that.

   2021 August 11, Jacqui Palumbo, “Rosamund Pike in ‘I Care a Lot’ and six more recommendations if you love an antiheroine”, in CNN, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2022

   The latest act in the Madness of King Donald drama playing globally on every channel underlined the increasingly delusional world the anti-hero inhabits, his fantasies fed and indulged by a cast of sycophants, lackeys and straight grifters, all in it for what they can get.

   2026 January 24, Michael Pascoe, “America’s mighty economic power has feet of clay”, in Michael West Media, archived from the original on 04 Mar 2026

   Critics, at the time of their release, saw them, collectively, as prestige antihero television. We can now see they all had the same antihero at their core: America itself.

   2026 September 26, Stephen Marche, “The Four TV Shows That Heralded America’s Fall”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: unhero