posted on May 12, 2021 by Magan Vernon

Loving the Anti-Hero and a $10 Amazon gift card giveaway!

Everyone who reads romance will freely admit that there is something they love about the alpha, the jerk, the man who does everything he can to claim the heroine, even if some of it can be sketchy.

But what about the anti-hero?

You know the one.

He or she may be a main character but they lack some of those heroic attributes and may or may not have a questionable moral code.

Some may say he’s the villain, but as to quote my own self in Heirly Ever After, ‘The only difference between a hero and a villain is what they do with their power’.

Thus why I was quite compelled with the idea to make my hero an anti-hero, or some might say a villain, to the hero in the companion novel, Heired Lines.

The Webley family in Heired Lines has it all. A manor in the gorgeous English countryside, wealth, and a bunch of adopted dogs. So obviously Gavin Webley is a hero and anyone who would want to ruin that is a villain, right?

Eh…

But what if his outcast cousin, Gavin MacWebley from Scotland shows up and claims he’s the rightful heir to the manor and needs to help his struggling family?

SEE NOT SO EASY.

Though my husband and I seem to disagree with this and what it all comes down to is that he doesn’t believe in anti-heroes.

Exhibit A is our discussion of Black Panther, a movie we have watched at least twenty million times since my youngest is obsessed with it.

Killmonger came to Wakanda as a rightful heir and wanted to help the people who were suffering back home. My husband says that it wasn’t noble of Killmonger because he wanted it for chaos. I say he was still trying to do what he thought was right and it doesn’t make him a villain.

We both know I’m right on this.

The anti-hero isn’t limited to Blockbuster movies, though, literature has constantly fed us the anti-hero and I eat those characters up like Nana’s Sunday pasta dinner.

Classic anti-heroes such as Jay Gatsby have captured the imagination and intrigue of readers who claim they didn’t enjoy reading the book in English class, but really did you just not enjoy the supposed hero of the book and wished it were more about Gatsby?

Then we get into more current anti-heroes like Severus Snape and basically the entire Slytherin house in Harry Potter. Maybe Snape did some wrong things and we all know Draco and the Malfoy’s definitely did, but when we looked at their reasonings, were they REALLY all that bad? (Okay so maybe Draco was kind of a jerk, but shhhhh).

Now that I’ve shared my love of fictional anti-heroes, I want to hear yours!

Comment on this post with your favorite fictional anti-hero to be entered to win a $10 Amazon gift card!

 

Magan Vernon

Magan Vernon

Magan Vernon has been living off of reader tears since she wrote her first short story in 2004. She now spends her time killing off fictional characters, pretending to plot while she really just watches Netflix, and she tries to do this all while her two young children run amok around her Texas ranch.

http://www.maganvernon.com/

10 thoughts on “Loving the Anti-Hero and a $10 Amazon gift card giveaway!”

  1. Rachel Flesher (aka Raonaid Luckwell) says:

    The first comes to mind is from an anime: Vegeta. He starts out being a villain. Then he kinda gets reformed further into the series. He still keeps that broody, snarky uncertainty.

    Sebastian from Lisa Kleypas’s Devil in Winter.
    Heck, any hero from Kerrigan Byrne’s books! Especially Gabriel from her newest book!

    1. Heck yes to anything Kerrigan Byrne!

  2. Donna Antonio says:

    Snape, Loki, I love the bad guy with just enough room for redemption

    1. Oh, Loki! How did I forget him for this post????!!!!

  3. bn100 says:

    no fav

  4. Vicki says:

    I love SO many anti-heroes LOL I tend to always love the villains. I love The Darkling in Shadow and Bone and Loki, Hades. Just basicallly any anti-hero is going to steal my heart and get all my attention. Fictionally anyway. My man in real life is true blue, good as you can be.

    1. Same, love the anti-hero in fiction, but have the true blue to come home to!

  5. Jessie A Confer says:

    like

  6. Cherryl says:

    I have been reading the Good Guys and Bad Guys series by Eric Ugland. Montana Coggeshall from Good Guys and Clyde Hatchett from Bad Guys are slightly scummy guys who are given a chance to redeem themselves when they are given the chance to play the game iNcarn8 when they have hit rock bottom. They are given the ability to become a better person and make their new world a better place for all, using the abilities they nurtured during their lives of crime.

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