Running on Feet of Clay -- How Bad Can a Hero Be and Still Be a Good Guy?

[Sean]

Running on Feet of Clay -- How Bad Can a Hero Be and Still Be a Good Guy?

What makes a hero heroic? Where is the dividing line not just between the heroic and the ordinary, but between the hero and the villain? And how gray is the area between them where lurk the anti-heroes that fill modern action fiction? ...

Since the beginning of pulps and comics, heroes have skirted the line between good an evil actions. The Spider can be as psychotic as those he destroys. Early Batman had no qualms of shooting a villain. And so it goes.

Modern, contemporary fiction is filled with heroes that come in varying shades of gray, from almost black to bordering on silver-white. But with only a few exceptions, they aren't the cookie cutter good guys your grandmother might have taught you to look for in a hero.

To dish the dirt on fleshing the world of heroes and anti-heroes, we once again turned to some of today's working writers in the pulp, genre, and comics fields, including this week's special guest, Devin Grayson!

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[Jim]

In the simplest form, I think that so long as a good guy doesn't intentionally hurt good people, he/she can stay on the hero side of the line. If he does hurt them, it has to devastate him.

[Steven]

I'm in favor of the hero (or antihero) having a code, a la noir fiction. I think if that code is clear to the character, then it IS alright to skirt the law in the pursuit of justice.
To paraphrase Sam Spade, " You don't let your partner's killer go free. Not because he's good man,not because he's kind, but because it's bad for business."

[Charles]

I like anti-heroes in many cases, but there are some things they just can't do if they are to keep my acceptance. Pedophilia. Blatant animal cruelty. Violent rape. The murder of innocents.