Antihero

Definitions

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

Equivalents

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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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⟳.”

CEFR level