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It's not too bad honestly (we've all seen so much worse), all it needs is a fine-tuning after you're done getting everything down (and getting everything down is the hard part, after all). Not like you won't have help for the fine-tuning either.

Also, you know, if you need any help making an evil character seem more evil, well, I'm here for you Tan. 

You've done enough XD (No way would I even had included being evil as a path for the protagonist if I hadn't conversed with you about evil chars. Definitely wasn't in me a year ago.)

Oof, yeah, that's a good idea, Quiller.

What did I say about evil chars?

I've used a lot of arguments as to why they're my favs, I can't remember which I used (and which ever registered with you) XD

I think something inherently entertaining about watching bad people do bad things in a fictional universe where we can actually sit back and appreciate the delicious evil without suffering any of the consequences. xD

I don't remember the exact debate, but Drak was basically arguing at the time that the less morally stable a hero is the more interesting he could be, since a hero who's just a pinnacle of goodness can't be interesting. All the more-so evil characters are plain more interesting since they have more flexibility. Which is why Drak plays evil chars in most, if not all, RPs. Something like that.

While I didn't agree at the time, and still don't (still a fan of superman and captain america), it kinda got me thinking of writing an actual, evil character, and having him cool at the same time. Because evil can be badass, even if I, myself, aren't a huge fan of the dark and gritty that are villains (or heroes nowadays.)

Oh, that was when I was arguing that Roy was a boring-ass char in Order of the Stick because he's basically what you get (which he toats is) with Aman arguing against me.

I don't think that really conveys what I meant though - I like evil characters because their motivations, their reactions, their natures - they make far more sense to me than a lot of the heroes. Heroes are usually meant to be pinnacles of human nature, of the greatest things that we can achieve through self-restraint or perseverance. Villains are what usually happen when we give in to our own urges, when we let our desires dominate our actions.

You get a hero (and i'm talking an actual hero, not a D&D type hero who kills for the lootz) then you basically get someone whose life is terrible because he strives to put himself in the worst situations constantly for the good of other people, and when they finally do something for themselves, it's usually something boring and unrewarding that is meant to further show off their virtue.

You get a villain, though?

A villain, a good villain, is forced into their role. They aren't just evil because they like being evil, not at first. They were wronged, always, something terrible happened to them and it affected them somehow. It turned them dark. This is necessary because your villain can't just be a one-dimensional reckless asshole who punches people for kicks because those people (outside of annoying little children) do not exist, and having a villain like that just to make your hero seem nicer is transparent and aggravating as hell.

That villain sinks into their darkness, or they embrace it. They let it take them over, and they do everything they can to fulfill the desire that this darkness has instilled in them. You get villains like Dolarhyde in the Red Dragon, who was abused his entire life by everyone he loved, including the woman he loved the most - his grandmother - for his cleft lip. You see what drives him to kill, what makes him become the Dragon; you see his struggle when he does not wish to fall completely to the Dragon but goes into it at the end because he has nothing else, he is weak without it.

The good villains are good because their strength is their pain, their darkness, their suffering. They wield it like a weapon, hold it like a shield, they embrace it because its all they can do. 

That's why I think the evil character personalities, backstories and such are just so much more interesting than any hero's backstory - because i've never heard a hero backstory that I love, but you give me a villain like this, like what I describe above, and i'll take him over your nicest hero any day.

Then we get to the actual practical factors - heroes usually just suck at getting what needs to be done done, villains do what they need to. Virtue makes you do stupid-ass things, the smart villains will be far more efficient and will, if they're well done, make you not want to constantly yell "What the fuck are you doing you challenged child?!" at the screen/page/etc.

Villains, when they accrue great power through their darkness (see: Dracula) can also become among the most absolute badass things ever - because while a powerful hero is nigh-typical, when a villain gets that power through sacrifice of themselves - usually their past selves, their humanity, their goodness (as is usually the case) it gets a result a hero can't ever match, because a hero can never sacrifice what the villain does to not have to be weak - it's what makes the hero the hero.

Anti-heroes are basically just heroes with slightly grayer moral codes to try to tag along onto the far more easy-to-emphasize with, more efficient villain train. 

Anyway, that's my view on everything - do with it what you will.

Damn.

I wish there was a way to feature posts like featuring comments.

Thanks Quillster :)

(First paragraph): He's basically what you get when you look up goody-two shoes (forgot to edit that in).

Another thing I forgot to add - just because someone is a villain doesn't mean they can't be heroic, just like a hero can sometimes do villainous things. It gets aggravating when you just make a villain do every single atrocious thing you can think of and give them no redeeming qualities because, as I mentioned above - those kind of people don't exist.

The villain might be in solitude, the villain might be alone, have little to no friends or family - and it doesn't matter, because even the most solitary person will have one other person - at least one, or maybe not even a person maybe a pet, or a memory attached to a person, that they care about. Something that they love and cherish, something that they embrace their darkness- something or someone that they want to be strong for, because without that - without anyone or anything to care for - you have nothing.

It doesn't matter if the feelings are reciprocated or not, this person's well being would be everything to the villain, because it's all the villain has - all it can attach itself to. 

In fact, a little bit of heroism is necessary - because everybody, even the most twisted souls, have something or someone they would risk everything for. It's not about showing off that the villain isn't all that bad, it's about showing off that the villain has emotion, that it is a character, that it is at least partly human. It's about showing that the character isn't a mindless emotionless brute.

It's nice to pretend that all the bad guys are nothing but pure, undiluted evil - but all evil is tinged with some good, no matter how twisted, and that's a good deal of what makes a villain realistic (and more importantly, interesting).

(really?  Adam?)

Anyway, my unasked for, poorly structured opinion:  it's got nothing to do with good or evil.  It's making complex characters who face complex choices.  Almost never in a game do you get the chance for your character to actually develop or change. Almost never is there any reason to play a "gray" character- either full lightside or full darkside is the only thing that gives you a benefit. 

(Witcher 2: No goodguys/badguys dichotomy.  Two sets of people (both mostlybad/littlegood) opposed to one another and you have to pick sides.)

(DA:O- it didn't "matter" at all to the plot of the game, but I appreciated the fact that lack of a karma meter let me play an elf who was a complete jerk to humans, but went out of this way to help other elves.)

I've never once played a game that was about a "good" person falling into despair, or an "evil" person seeking to redeem themselves.  (I've seen games/stories that stipulated that as part of the villain/hero backstory, but never one that let you make those decision in-game.)

Most of the time, the "evil path" in games involves killing random people, or being a jerk for no reason.   Very very rarely does the darkside option have a coherent viewpoint, or quests that make sense.  In most games you end up defaulting to hero because being "good" is what gets you the XP.

(Order of the Stick: Xykon trumps Roy for "boring character."  Belkar was boring (funny, but a flat character) until he got the cat. )

All that stuff Drak is saying about having a little bit of humanity in the villain sounds good- but if none of it actually affects the character, it's worthless.   Instead of a boring invincible hero, you've got a boring invincible villain with a dubiously sympathetic backstory.

Xykon is funnier than Roy though. Also, Redcloak rules (and he's the real villain of the story, Xykon may be the "end boss" but everything went wrong because of Redcloak).

Adam cares about his father and his mentor, even if you don't believe it XD

Oh, I absolutely agree if you're saying Redcloak is the best character in oots.  But notice how he's actually changed and developed over the course of the story. 

Re Adam: See "dubiously sympathetic backstory."  Also, he's static.  His storyarc is just his endless string of conquest.
 

He's changed? If you mean he's become more important to the story, sure, but he hasn't really changed (if you've ever read the prequels) - he was just recovering from the death of his brother and fulfilling "the plan", as he always was and always intended to do. His character is the same.

He's static if you ignore all the interactions with the Sabbat, sure. Of course it's a string of conquest, it's the goal of the game.

Redcloak had that part, though, where he realized he was wrong about some of his beliefs, and expanded his idea of what the plan should be.  He changed.

What do you mean about the Sabbat interactions?  He hasn't changed at all as a result of any of that.  He's perfect, right>?

Clarify? It's been a while, I might be getting some stuff wrong.

Seth, are you serious? Again?

This is lovely. It's so lovely. Cuz it makes sense. 

Thumbs up, 1000 points, gold trophy to you.

Oh, here's a quote from Aman's profile:  ".... Evil isn't cool. Which is challenging the narrative-at least the narrative of the last 40 years of pop culture which has told us relentlessly that the character who is more morally questionable is always cooler than the one who is more morally upright"

And I agree!

I'm not sure I do.  At least, I'm not sure I agree with the idea that "morally questionable" is relentlessly presented as "cooler" than "upright."

Have you read books from 40 years ago?  The characters really are bland.  They have no distinguishable personality, because they have no flaws.  It was a good thing when stories decided flawed heroes were okay.

That said- you guys prolly don't remember, but the 90s were a really dark dark time in fiction.  There were a lot of nominal protagonists who again, tipped over into boring, because they were just unpleasant, unappealing people with no redeeming features.

I'm fairly certain that the Giant was exagreating a bit with the whole, '40 years' thing, (I mean, he's 40, I doubt he really read all the books from when he was 0 when he aged), but there has certainly been a trend towards the darker and gritter characters then the heroic. I mean, they are making a dark and gritty Moses, for goodness sake. XD

How come nobody's upset that Moses isn't being played by a Jew?  You'd think more PC people would be arguing that it's historically inaccurate.

Probs since middle eastern people are considered to be white according to the PC police. XD

But it's not like there aren't any Jewish actors. . .

(Don't get me wrong, if I actually cared about PC in movies id probably be pretty annoyed, especially since, as far as I know, there aren't any Jews actually really involved with writing the story either, ha ha, but)

I think it's more of that Jews are white, so who cares if the actor isn't in the Jewish religion. Since, to most, Judaism is a religion, not an ethinicty.

Drak just writes about his own real life and ends up with a paragon of chaotic-evil for his stories  :) 

Naw, Drak just romanticizes evil characters. For some reason he paints every one as being really deep and complex, while disregarding good characters as one dimensional.

Because good ones are almost alway one-dimensional, you get these characters who just want to do everything good all the time because why? They're just inherently good people? 

That's boring as fuck, and it's always the motivation for every hero in every story. They're good, and they want to help.

Always the motivation for every hero in every story?

Yes, it is. I'm talking hero-hero here - always a good guy or girl who's doing what they're doing because it's the right thing to do.

Seriously, find an example where the hero is in it for the money, or for the fame, or for anything other than "in the end, it's what I have to do because it's the right thing" and i'll give you an antihero practically every time.

That's a tautology, isn't it?

You're defining "hero" as "a one-dimensional character motivated solely by the desire to help."  Any other definition/description of hero, you've chosen to call an anti-hero.  It's circular logic.

No, i've defined a hero as an inherently good person motivated by said goodness - because that's what a hero is. It's what our society defines as a hero these days. A hero is defined by their virtue and their achievements (of which one cannot go without the other).

Exactly.  You're claiming that a hero motivated by anything other than goodness isn't a hero- they're an anti-hero. 

Then you're claiming that " It's always the motivation for every hero in every story. They're good, and they want to help." 

By your logic, if they were motivated by anything other than goodness and wanting to help, they wouldn't be a hero.  So of course it's always the motivation for. . . do you get how it's totally circular?

And by the way, you're totally absolutely wrong about the idea that every hero in every story ever is motivated solely by wanting to help.  (Unless you define a hero as being motivated solely by wanting to help.  Which you did.)

I'm saying if a hero isn't a hero but is still a "hero", then its an antihero. Because that's what an antihero is. A hero who's not quite good or virtuous enough to be a hero.

It is the motivation for every hero in every story, because that is what a hero is and does. 

The logic is circular only if you ignore the fact that one of the statements is found in fact - our society considers (above) to be a hero, therefore any hero who is not motivated by virtue (and that is what I meant, "help" was just a way of expressing it - and i'd think you'd have noted the change) is not a hero. If they still do, for the most part, good things, then they're an antihero.

This is why you don't argue anything with Drak, lol.

Says the master of cherry picking.

Do people pick apples in a cherry tree?

Only when I have my glue that day.

Oh, I know. XD

Saying the same things in different ways make them seem more convincing. 

Not when its just a word (then it seems like a grammar error), but I find that it works in phrases.

Don't mean to butt into this conversation, but I do take this post as a challenge. I use the examples of classic 80s Booster Gold and Sun Wukong. If you know these characters, what do you say about them?

From my limited knowledge I'd say Booster Gold was a pragmatic hero or a very 'light' anti-hero.

I wouldn't say he was an anti-hero at all. (Maybe during his 90s days since everyone was, but I haven't read them, and everyone ignores it.) Oddly enough, I wouldn't say he's exactly the pragmatic type of hero, either. While his intentions and motivations are inherently selfish, on the field, he was closer to the straight and narrow. The worst he'd really do is want to leave when the going gets tough. Then again, there were some... questionable moments he had with Superman, so it's not exactly wrong either.

I'm 16, of course I don't know who the characters in the 80s thing are.

Along with characters whose origins originated in the 16th century, it seems. A shame. It sounds like you would've enjoyed those types of heroes. There's far more variety in heroes than you're giving credit for.

So A Warden in DA:O who wanted to be king/queen as their ultimate goal couldn't help other people to build up good relations and be seen as a heroic and righteous leader without being an Anti-Hero?

Personally I believe every hero is an Anti-Hero if your trying to be realistic. There isn't really a true Evil or true Good person, the only times those situations make sense is when they are 'angel/demon' type characters. (Angel/Demon used loosely)

Here's a good quote I keep around. "Funny thing about black and white. You mix it together and you get grey. And it doesn't matter how much white you try and put back in, you're never gonna get anything but grey."

Why do they want to be king? Is it because they think they can improve everyone's lives and be a better leader? Would you not say their motivation is virtuous then? Because it sure as hell seems like it. You don't ever have a hero who wants to be king for the wrong reasons.

Because if you did, you'd argue that character wasn't really a "hero."

Because they wouldn't be a hero lol. They'd be a protagonist, but if you have a character who wants to be king so that he can have all that nice power over other people (the only other reason to want to be king), you don't have a good person, you have a controlling person who wants to own others. That's not a hero at all.

They would want to be kind to raise their family to royalty and make a mark on the world for themselves. But they also know that a kingdom as young as Ferelden requires support from the nobility. He's thinking about his House's future.

So I'm asking, would that be considered an Anti-Hero with good motives or a Hero with selfish motives?

So what you're saying is, an ambitious person wants to have a ton of power and be super famous and also wants his family to be that too?

What do you think is the answer to this difficult question, Fireplay?

The Hero is already famous for stopping the Blight along with being the only (competent) warden in the kingdom, so power and popularity is not an issue. His family is dead, he's the last heir to the house. 

So I'm just wondering what you guys think about the character, would he be an Anti-Hero or a Hero if he pursued becoming King?

(Future family counts as family fireplay XD)

If he wants more fame and power just for the sake of fame and power, then he's not a hero at all. He's ambitious and wants fame and power.

Of course, I haven't played the game so I don't think I can really give an adequate analysis of the character.

You haven't played Dragon Age? I would have thought you would enjoy playing that game, since being a pragmatic anti-hero is all but required in the first game(in my opinion). lol

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Human_Noble_Origin <-- That's the character I was talking about, you should think about at least reading up on THe Dragon Age Setting. :) There are a lot of 'darker' choices in the game you can take.

But ya, I can accept the hero being ambitious.

A hero being ambitious is fine, a hero being ambitious and wanting for awesomely massive amounts of power to abuse is not really hero material.

I want to play it, but I have no moneys for the game/game system needed and there is no pirate-able version of it that would work on my computer.

The last time we were talking about the choices we made in the game I think it was Fireplay who said to me "So basically you were playing a Warden who was determined to ruin the country before the Darkspawn got the chance to do so." Lol

I remember that thread. xD

Why would wanting power be a bad thing for a hero? Not everybody who has power turns evil you know.

Dragon Age Origins is only about $30 for the ultimate edition(DLC+Expansion with original game)

Why is he not a hero? He wants fame power and money, great, he does good and heroic acts to get it, still a hero.

Motivation for the act doesn't matter as to them being a hero, do the heroic act and they are the hero regardless of the reason. If you wish to redo fine 'hero' then that's fine but your definition then excludes the vast majority of heros in literature

Of course the motivation matters! The act can be heroic but if the personality of the person who does this act is not heroic then he/she is not heroic at all.

Look, if you save a baby falling from an apartment fire because you want to have a bunch of camera time and stuff, and don't actually give a single shit about whether or not that baby had died, are you a hero or not?

If you save people's lives for yourself, and would let them die later if it suited you, are you a hero?

If you do something good but don't care that it was good, only care about what it gets you, are you good?

Yes still a hero because he still did the heroic act. You don't have to be good to be a hero, you just need to do heroic acts. Saving babies and puppies just to get fame so you can self promote and get rich? Jackass, yes but still did the heroic acts and still be called a hero.

Once you reveal your true colours you might be villanized for it later but at the time you would be a hero.

But a heroic act doesn't mean you're a hero, it just means you do a good thing! That's not how heroes work! 

That's not how traditional stereotypes of heros work... But doing good and heroic acts will have you exalted as a hero regardless.

It's all about the perception.

Look at the lord ruler in mist born the guy was a hero but was seen as the ultimate vilan for literally generation upon generation. Then look at the 'Heros' in the book, some in it for money, others purely for revenge on the ruler but pretend to be doing it for the good of the people, yes some are the traditional good but deff not all.

It doesn't matter what he was seen as, what matters is what he actually was. Perception is worthless in deciding character if it is not accurate.

So, anti-heroes? Which I already mentionned?

The Lord ruler as a hero? What? The guy was a power hungry bastard. It just happened to be that his personality wpuld be better for the world then the personality of the hero of ages, since the hero would have [redacted for spolers] while The Lord ruler would not have since he wante power. 

He save the world, certainly, but it wasn't cause he was a hero. 

The Lord Ruler was a Well-Intentioned Extremist.

He honestly believed that he was saving the world in the only possible way and even prepared to save the people with food stores etc.

Spoilers much Feanor?

Doesn't mean he wasn't a bastard. He's still a villain, just one who was more worried about the Big-Bad than anything else and was prepared to make Ruin's victory take as long as possible.

Good point, Seth remove my spoiler comment!

I dunno about that. I mean, yeah he did what forge was talking about, but he was worried about the big bad in so far that it could destroy his ruler ship. 

I mean, the reason he even became The Lord ruler was because he was a bastard. Certainly no hero.

Now Harmony, that's the real hero of the Mistborn series. xD

Oh, and i'm not painting them all as deep and complex - i'm just saying that actual villains, as in characters that are realistically evil, are far more interesting than characters which are realistically good. There are a shit-ton of boring-ass one-dimensional villains out there that are all just evil for kicks. Those people don't exist in real life. You don't get assholes who want to try and hurt everything around them because they feel like it, because no person's motivations work like that. 

I'm not sure if I'm witnessing the tail end of a conversation that didn't need its own thread or an attempt to talk about "villains."

It was split off my Undead Persona thread. 

That explains a lot. I thought I missed a lot of a conversation reading the thread, even if there is some interesting discussion on the preference of villains in later posts.

Speaking of your thread, I've been meaning to check up on those progress threads going around. Hope all the writing is going well.

Wow, that's oddly hostile.  Why the disdain for this thread?
 

No hate was meant. Sorry, it wasn't meant to sound hostile. I really must watch my online tone. I was just confused, since the beginning looked liked a direct response to a reply for another thread. I almost thought Drak meant to make a reply but made a new thread, instead. Judging by Tanstaafl response, it looks like I wasn't far off.

Ah, okay.  Yes, it was originally part of Tan's story motivation thread, but I split it off since it wasn't about his story anymore, but about villains and character motivations in general.

Oh, thanks for that explanation. That explains the unusual first post. I didn't know threads could even be split off like this. Good to know.

What I think is the least interesting kind of character is the ultimate pragmatist. The kind of character who, if given a choice between betraying his beliefs to further his goals and not betraying his beliefs to further his goals, instantly, without any remorse or guilt, does the pragmatic action. This applies both to heroes and villains. A villains needs a creed, and a hero needs a foil. Like, if Roy was asked to kill Diarmid for the Black Hand, and he did it without hesitation. That would be a shitty character. Or if Adam, I dunno, was given the choice to destroy his father's/sire's soul and rule london or not, and did it without hesitation. *using examples from a roleplay

Good and Evil can be done, and played fantastically. And both can be deep characters with massive personality quirks and such. But the problem occurs when a Hero does "Good**" with no hesitation, or a villain does "Evil***" with no hesitation

(** When good is defined as in a situation where the good choice is harder)
(*** When evil is defined as in a situation which would go against a villain's creed)

The problem with some good characters is that they have no vices. That is a garbage character that I see waaaaaaay too often. And the problem with some evil characters is that they have no good in them ever. They don't have anything that makes them anything but a sociopath (which can be good, but, in Battle Royal for example, the sociopathic killer wasn't a character until the end when he got characterization. He was originally more of a monster, like Godzilla or a hazard like a approaching Hurricane. Something the main characters needed to survive from.)

Not just talking chars in a game, stories too here.

Yeah, I just used chars in a game as an easy example. 

Like, for example, in most games I do the "helping everyone" quests-- because I want the xp.  But the game behaves as though my character was just the kind of person who helps people for no reason.

Because your char does do it for no reason - you, the player, are doing it for exp, but to your char exp does not exist.

Yes, I know that.  what's your point?

Your char is totally doing it because he's the type of person to help people for no reason.

And those people can't ever be interesting?

What the hell happened in a person's life to make them the sort of person who's okay with running all over the world solving other people's problems>?  XD

It's the same thing as those people who kill others for no reason. Their not very interesting if that's all they do.

Maybe that person is trying to repent for a past sin and does it by helping other people with their random problems?

They get mind controlled by strange people who speak of mystical things called "exp"

That reminds me of a Sim story. One of the characters was self-aware in the game, it's a short story but entertaining.

What I am seeing it basically Drak thinks traditional 'good' heros are boring in everything and it's not possible for them to be interesting but traditional 'evil' characters are able to be super interesting and deep due to innate flaws and choices.

Which doesn't make sense to me, every good hero who helps people does not do it for traditional paladin type reasons, there are just many of them and they are held up as the traditional type. Anyone who decides to do what they believe to be right can be interesting quirky and adaptable making them fascinating, it's all in their personal motivation and portrayal. Yes if they have no backstory and no real reason for doing good all the time they will be one dimensional and boring but not nearly as one directional and boring as I always find traditional evil guys who can be summed up as 'hahaha I am evil and make evil choice, I do bad cos I am evil hahaha'

I only see your arguments holding up if applied exclusively to characters who are tightly controlled within the Lawful-good category and specifically played to be a paladin type 'everything for the greater good' as a way of getting around real backstory or char development. The second you step outside of this minority of heros you get all sorts who range from nearly lawful good but with other motivations as to why they act that way right through to anti-heros who usually do the right thing but for vastly different reasons from money to fun to being drunk the entire time and their Bose being threatened. There is such a huge wealth of options for a hero to be strongly good but with interesting characterization and flaws and reasons to be morally torn by choices.

Since you wanted an example I'll use my good play through of dishonoured as Corvo. Motivation for the character was revenge and rescuing a family member but I did good choices and the lawful good routine the whole way through, killing only a couple of people the entire game in self defence. He was by no means boring with those choices and it made sense as to why to do it that with with the story that came with it, all to do with the little girl he was rescuing. You could equally choose my second play through as the mass murdering psychopath in revenge and to rescue her but that path and the story bits were no more interesting than the good ones, I'd say a little worse even.

It's all in the characters story, motivation and portrayal. It makes no difference if they are good, evil or neutral, the only important difference is how the writer handles that aspect and why.

"Oh, and i'm not painting them all as deep and complex - i'm just saying that actual villains, as in characters that are realistically evil, are far more interesting than characters which are realistically good. There are a shit-ton of boring-ass one-dimensional villains out there that are all just evil for kicks. Those people don't exist in real life. You don't get assholes who want to try and hurt everything around them because they feel like it, because no person's motivations work like that."

Just so that you don't mistake me as thinking all evil guys are awesome just because they're vil (that's not what I was saying, and it seemed to be part of your point).

Vengeance is hardly a non-heroic theme in the least, hell, vengeance is encouraged for a lot of heroes I think. 

He still wanted to help them because he was a genuinely good person who cared about the empress' daughter and the empress in your play-through, no? He wasn't helping them because he wanted power or money or fame, wasn't doing it because he wanted to take a bath in the blood of the people he hated, right?

Yeh he did, look at the good ending, he basically ruled the kingdom with her as his trusting puppet and all those strong enough to oppose him dead or 'vanished' so he got fame, power and a legitimized reason. He never once said he was doing it cos he was nice...

Point being that it wouldn't matter, if the motivation was in the end to be rich and powerful and rule, only caring about your own family then he would have still been a hero.

Your a hired killer who loves bathing in his enemies blood and keeps their ears as trophies but your daughter is kidnapped so you leave your trophies at home and go on a killing spree to rescue her and wipe out everyone related to the gang that kidnapped her? You still take down an evil slavery ring and all those involved and are held up as a hero since you just did so much good. You just don't tell people you only did it cos you like killing so much and had to send a message to OTHER gangs not to mess with you. Doesn't matter why you did it but you are held up as a hero.

Heroic act does not equal hero.

Why not? Define hero then other than someone who does heroic acts.

Virtue + Heroic acts = Hero, basically.

You're saying it's just Heroic acts, which I obviously can't agree with.

Too the only heros possible are virtuous people who do heroic acts? 

This I can't agree with since then we indeed go back to the anti-heros, accidental heros etc. They are all still heros and dam interesting but are not virtuous.

If you want to define Hero as only virtuous-heroic then subdivide all the other types etc then that works but they are all just different types of hero

Antiheroes are not heroes. It's right there in the name. "Antihero". Not hero. There is an extra word added in there, and it's not for shits and giggles.

People who accidentally do it have no obligation to continue, when they do continue they show themselves to be heroic because they're being virtuous.

Anti heros are called that simply to differentiate them from the traditional stereotype of heros, not because of a severe and separating intrinsic difference but to make them seem cooler. It's a writer saying hey look my hero isn't a boring normal hero he is erm special cos erm he is gruff and doesn't like puppies!

Most Anti-Hero's I see are just hero's with flaws.

Hmm... I wonder if some of Drak's characters would fit as an Anti-Villain instead of a Villain.

That kinda my point worded better, anti heros are just heros with flaws or different motivations that make them more believeable or interesting to a holy jaded public who no longer believe in things like honour and chivalry for its own sake.

And yes... The villains drak is describing do seem awfully like anti villans

They're people who do heroic things without being heroes. Hence the anti hero.

An antivillain is someone who still intends to do good, just while being evil as all fuck. That is definitely nothing like what I described.

I didn't mean the villain you were describing, I meant the one's you use in Roleplays.

Some yes, some not.