Anti Heroes

Anti-Heroes are somewhat the opposite of Anti-Villains; while an anti-villain plays a villain's game and does bad things for noble causes, anti-heroes fight for good with selfish or questionable motives. They lack conventional and important qualities compared to regular heroes as they can be rude, selfish, obnoxious or violent in nature but still fight on the side of good whether they are willing or forced to. They are not as kind, noble or heroic as other heroes but ultimately the heroes of their stories in spite of their attitudes and unpleasant tactics. Simply put anti-heroes are heroes with bad qualities who never stop functioning as such. Due to the ambiguity of morality, anti-heroes may be viewed as anti-villains by some individuals and vice versa.

However, they do not have to be selfish, rude or criminal all the time; they can be more polite due to not being good or evil but everywhere in between. Another case is that they treat enemies with equality and without hostility which is obviously an unusual trait in heroes. They also can be in the Grey Zone depending on their alignments (though anti-heroes are not necessarily in the Grey Zone). Alternatively, characters meant to be seen as heroes but not really all good such as Heroes by Proxy are usually this.

One thing most anti-heroes have in common is that they live by the philosophy "the ends justify the means", meaning they employ harsh or villainous methods to reach their goals. Due to these characteristics anti-heroes sometimes have been classified as villains as well.