List of fictional antiheroes

This list is for characters in fictional works who exemplify the qualities of an anti-hero. Characteristics in protagonists that merit such a label can include, but are not limited to:

imperfections that separate them from typically "heroic" characters (selfishness, ignorance, bigotry, etc.);
lack of positive qualities such as "courage, physical prowess, and fortitude," and "generally feel helpless in a world over which they have no control";^[1]
qualities normally belonging to villains (amorality, greed, violent tendencies, etc.) that may be tempered with more human, identifiable traits (confusion, self-hatred, etc.);
noble motives pursued by bending or breaking the law in the belief that "the ends justify the means."

Each of these examples has been identified by a critic as an anti-hero, although the classification is somewhat subjective. Some of the entries may be disputed by other sources and some may contradict all established definitions of anti-hero.

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

1 Literature
2 Film
3 Television
4 Anime/Manga
5 Comic books
6 Video games
7 See also
8 References

Literature

Character	Work	Author	First published	Notes
Lázaro de Tormes ^[2]	Lazarillo de Tormes	anonymous	1554
Winston Smith^[3]	1984	George Orwell	1948
Cal^[4]	East of Eden	John Steinbeck	1952
Redmond Barry^[5]	The Luck of Barry Lyndon	William Makepeace Thackeray	1844
Patrick Bateman^[6]^[7]	American Psycho	Bret Easton Ellis	1991
Leopold Bloom^[8]^[9]	Ulysses	James Joyce	1922
Pinkie Brown^[10]	Brighton Rock	Graham Greene	1938
Holden Caulfield^[11]	Catcher in the Rye	J.D. Salinger	1951
Conan ^[12]^[13]	"The Phoenix on the Sword" and other short stories by Robert E. Howard	Robert E. Howard	1932	The archetypal "amoral swordsman" of the Sword and Sorcery genre.
Stephen Dedalus^[14]	A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man	James Joyce	1914	First serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916.
Arthur Dent^[15]^[16]	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series	Douglas Adams	1979	Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats
Roland Deschain^[17]^[18]	The Dark Tower	Stephen King	1982
Raoul Duke^[19]	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	Hunter S. Thompson	1971
Tyler Durden and the Narrator^[20]^[21]	Fight Club	Chuck Palahniuk	1996
Randall Flagg^[22]^[23]	The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower	Stephen King	1978
Artemis Fowl II^[24]	Artemis Fowl series	Eoin Colfer	2001
Gully Foyle^[25]	The Stars My Destination	Alfred Bester	1956
Victor Frankenstein^[26]	Frankenstein	Mary Shelley	1818
Jay Gatsby^[27]	The Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald	1925
Grendel^[28]	Grendel	John Gardner	1971	Originally the antagonist of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf from between the 8th to the early 11th century.
Humbert Humbert^[29]	Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	1955
Iago^[30]^[31]^[32]	Othello	William Shakespeare	1603
Hannibal Lecter^[33]^[34]	Hannibal Lecter series ('Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Hannibal Rising)	Thomas Harris	1981
Lucifer/Satan^[35]^[36]^[37]	Paradise Lost	John Milton	1667
Macbeth^[38]	Macbeth	William Shakespeare
Randle McMurphy^[39]	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest	Ken Kesey	1962
Philip Marlowe^[40]	The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, The Lady in the Lake, Playback, The Little Sister, and Poodle Springs	Raymond Chandler	1939
Dexter Morgan^[41]^[42]^[43]	Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, and Dexter in the Dark	Jeff Lindsay	2004	Later adapted into a TV series.
Scarlett O'Hara^[44]	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	1936
Parker^[45]^[46]	The Parker series	Donald E. Westlake	1962
Alexander Portnoy^[47]	Portnoy's Complaint	Philip Roth	1969
Raskolnikov^[48]	Crime and Punishment	Fyodor Dostoevsky	1866
Rincewind^[49]^[50]	Discworld novels	Terry Pratchett	1983	First appeared in The Colour of Magic
Mark Renton ^[51]	Trainspotting	Irvine Welsh	1993
Tom Ripley^[52]	Tom Ripley series (the "Ripliad")	Patricia Highsmith	1955
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern^[53]	Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead	Tom Stoppard	1966
Becky Sharp^[54]	Vanity Fair	William Makepeace Thackeray	1847	First serialized in 20 parts.
Shylock^[55]	The Merchant of Venice	William Shakespeare
Tyrone Slothrop^[56]	Gravity's Rainbow	Thomas Pynchon	1973
Severus Snape^[57]	Harry Potter	J. K. Rowling	1997
Sam Spade^[58]	The Maltese Falcon	Dashiell Hammett	1930
Steerpike^[59]	Gormenghast Series	Mervyn Peake	1946
The "Underground Man"^[60]	Notes from Underground	Fyodor Dostoevsky	1864
Woland^[61]	The Master and Margarita	Mikhail Bulgakov	1966
Wei Xiaobao^[62]	The Deer and the Cauldron	Jinyong	1969
Yossarian^[56]^[63]	Catch-22	Joseph Heller	1961
Harry Flashman^[64]	Flashman series	George MacDonald Fraser	1969
Heathcliff^[65]	Wuthering Heights	Emily Brontë	1847
Alex DeLarge^[66]^[67]	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	1962