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Old 11-12-2009, 02:24 PM   #76
MelC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe View Post
There were no heroes in that series, anti- or straight-up. The closest folks to heroes in those books were the Vogons, who, without complaint, worked to clear local neighborhoods of slums and improve traffic flow.
Your post made me think about what definition I was using for anti-hero - I had a vague idea that it meant a bad or seriously flawed character that we like despite ourselves and that the story may involve some sort of reluctant redemption moment for that character. On looking it up, the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms defines it as:
anti-hero or anti-heroine , a central character in a dramatic or narrative work who lacks the qualities of nobility and magnanimity expected of traditional heroes and heroines in romances and epics .
Interestingly it doesn't seem to matter whether we like the character or not or whether the character ever does anything we would view as "heroic" in the course of the book. Hmmm. I think I can still maintain my opinion though that Zaphod definitely lacks the qualities of a traditional hero and is therefore an anti-hero

Mel
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