Science fiction is filled with heroes and heroines. They defeat the bad guys, and keep us
entertained in the process. However,
many of them do not fall in line with our more traditional idea of what it
means to be a hero. In our culture, we
see heroes as being courageous, selfless, virtuous, and idealistic. They aren’t plagued by vices.
Instead, science fiction is populated by what we would call
anti-heroes. They may be the
protagonists of the story, and they may defeat the enemy, but they don’t
usually do it in the clean way that a more traditional hero would. Anti-heroes might drink too much, or
gamble. They may say crude things and
generally be rough around the edges.
They may in fact be wanted criminals.
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| Image courtesy of verucasalt82/ DeviantArt |
Han Solo from Star
Wars (as if I even need to clarify this) and Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly are two good examples of
anti-heroes. They might have their own
code that they operate by, but it certainly doesn’t take into consideration
what society would like them to be. They
may do some less-than-noble things, but we find ourselves rooting for
them. Why? And why are there so many anti-heroes?
Space is vast. There
is always a frontier, and where there is a frontier, there’s an element of
lawlessness. When you’re away from a
centralized authority, you may have to be a little rough to get things done and
win the day. Or perhaps we have
anti-heroes because we recognize that human beings are imperfect. Sometimes we’re selfish. Sometimes we bend or break the rules because
it suits us to do so. Sometimes we
lie. The anti-hero reflects our own
imperfections. We want to see them win,
because if the little guy who’s made mistakes in the past can triumph, then we
can too. We can relate to them more than
we can to the hero who’s never done a dishonest thing, who puts the needs of
others ahead of their own at all times.
The traditional heroes are perhaps good role models, but they’re not
always realistic ones.
What kind of heroes do you like to see? Do you prefer heroes or anti-heroes? Why do we need heroes in the first place?
