Thread:Mesektet/@comment-27729149-20160128170019/@comment-3581997-20160508095343

Yes. In general I dislike Draco in Leather Pants heroes; Obvious villains who do obvious evil and who get made into protagonists because they have fan base that calls out for them. It turns complex or well done villains into cookie cutter low hanging fruits, robbing them of their uniqueness and boiling them down. Manga/anime in particular does this a lot. Some fans on deviant art or a writing fiction forum give an unapologetic badly into a poor misunderstood soul, who just so happens to have a really nice ass and shows it off to everyone. The character turns from this really heavy game changer baddy to eye candy who drops all their previous motivations to appease the fanboys/girls. Outside of Price Zuko, who at least took a full season of soul searching, and became physically sick at having to put aside his obsession, I have never seen this done well.

In general I hate when someone tries to pass an extremist nut job off as an "anti-hero" -

*a troubled loner just trying to work through their personal past even if they need to be outside of the rules!


 * assume entire above section is spoken in a fau dramatic movie trailer voice every single fan-girl/fan-boy unironically thinks their fan-fictions should be read in.

It's tired, it's simplistic and it is disingenuous to actual anti-heroes. The notion of Yuri Hyuga (a complex, emotionally well built character trying to seem like a simplistic jockster because he doesn't want to be that sort of buss-kill) and Light Yagami (a spoiled, egocentric, fanatical, smug, single-minded piece of eye candy with no complex emotional background issues of any kind) both being classified as "anti-heroes" fills me with disgust.

Which by the way is why I strongly suggest you not make Harold dark troubled and troubled, but with a good heart, because if he isn't well built or he starts drinking his own coolade about how awesome he is despite going against "The Man" he will wind up just like all those half-baked anime fau anti-heroes. And why I encourage you to make him three dimensional without making him overly complex.