I would not argue here with you, instead I would say that you have to read latest research from 2015-2017 on psychoanalysis. There are concepts which are backed up scientifically. I could provide studies if you like.
Yeah, I would really like to read these. Either link them here or send them to me on Discord :)
Granted, it's been a few years since I dug into psychoanalysis, so I'm not familiar with the current state of research.
Reading your comment I feel that you are not a supporter of the "Anti-hero admiration theory". Could you please tell me what you do not like about such concepts? If I am wrong, could you tell me what you do like ?
I'm not against the theory as a theory but as a moral justification for certain actions. I can understand, why people are attracted to such kind of behavior - because most people don't follow a strict moral code but a flexible set of rules, which can be bound depending on the circumstances. Anti-heroes make us aware of this flexibility.
Morality depends so much on its context, but the resulting actions of anti-heroes and villains are often the same - which leads to the same outcome, only justified by some kind of arbitrary flexible morality. I would not agree with you, that their intentions are admirable - or at least, they don't matter at all.
For example:
The NGO-crusade vs. GMOs is (probably) driven by good intentions - but its actions and results are terrible. I would not admire this. I despise it. Or to put it more peotically:
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Thank you for the clarification. Although I must say that you misunderstood me
I don't say that their intentions should be admired. It's just what differs them from the villain protagonist.
People overall admire the anti-heroes, because of the feeling of empathy.
While heroes and villains are the extreme examples of good and evil, the anti-hero remains somewhere in between, shifting between right and wrong. This is what makes them related to us as viewers, and in some sense admired.
I will provide the studies later !
Well, you wrote:
This seemed pretty clear to me ;)
This makes more sense in my opinion. It's mainly based on the potential of identification between the ordinary viewer and the displayed actions of the anti-hero. As you said, they are able to relate.
But I still remain with my argument, that I don't think, that's a good idea in general. Severing the connection between actions and intentions to justify the first, can bear heavy consequences.
Thanks for pointing this out, maybe I got lost in the context. I will think about how to clear this out.