Heroes or Antiheroes

My favorite fictional characters are the expendable foot soldiers of villainy. Their genre is action-adventure. Their part to play is to be easily and readily slain by heroes.

Action-adventure is not about my favorite characters. It is about heroes. The villains are supporting characters, even if main characters. If the villains are the protagonists, they are still the heroes, though as antiheroes.

Despite my fancy, I acknowledge that an action-adventure is not very good unless its heroes are interesting. The villains may be uninteresting, and often are, but if we love the protagonists, we love their story.

Of course it is a good idea to make the villains interesting, but such is a secondary concern. The heroes come first, and rightly so. The story is their story. It is immersive through their perspective.

Making the villains the protagonists does not change the basics of an action-adventure. It merely darkens the story, especially if the antagonists are virtuous. The nameless baddies are instead droves of policemen or legitimate soldiers.

The triumph of evil can gratify. We are shocked or grimly amused. It cannot satisfy, however. It is innately uninspiring. We are spiritual creatures, regardless of our sinful nature. We are numbed by the triumph of evil. We become bored of the cheap thrill.

There are three ways to make an action-adventure about the villains morally satisfying. The easiest is to vilify the heroes. This turns the story into the usual fare in the guise of something different. A harder way is to punish the protagonists for their villainy. The bias against them is obvious, however, making the story less believable. The hardest is to redeem the villains without changing them. Something about them must be good despite their evil. It must come naturally or else their story is the usual fare in the guise of something different.

My favorite characters are what they are whether baddies or good guys. They are the ordinary against the extraordinary. They are easily and readily slaughtered in droves. What to do if they are not baddies? Keep them anonymous: They are expendable as strangers. To make things easier for us, cover their eyes or faces. Focus on the perspective of the antiheroes.

An action-adventure is about heroes. It is a story about excellence. The morality of the heroes is irrelevant, so long as they are excellent. Their common victims are the common folk, whether as goons or not. These hapless characters set the standard of ordinary by which the extraordinary protagonists are measured.