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What are traits and characteristics of Antiheroes? I'm having a hard time grasping what really defines them. Could you also give me examples of Antiheroes?

DEADPOOL FTW!!!!!

Deadpool is overrated and he's not the best example of an Anti-Hero. :)

Deadpool will kill you for that

Bring it on. I can take his soul and feed upon your sorrow little mortal when you learn of his defeat.

Damn female ginger.

BRING IT ON MOTHERFUCKER

*Proceeds to "BRING IT ON"*

*Farts in your face* WHAT NOW!?!?!?

*Eats your soul*

Nuff Said.

stupid... fucking... gingers....

>.>

*Shoots and eats Aman's soul*

Bitch

Deadpool is like a 2 on a pair of six-sided die of anti-heroes.  Rarely you'll get any good characters that are like him, and if you do, you'll probably end up not enjoying said character because they just amount to so little for the reader to take from.

Hero or Anti-Hero: For your story

TV.Tropes: Anti-Hero

TV.Tropes Ideal Hero

Some sites to help you understand the difference.

Basically a 'standard' hero is the typical good-guy hero, knight in shiny armor, righteous and just vigilante, ect...                                                                                                                                                 While the 'Anti-Hero' has something that ruins their 'perfection' but lets them still be the hero. A knight with a bloody past or a vigilante who doesn't always follow justice and obeys revenge sometimes, someone who will put their own interests or let their flaws get in the way of an 'ideal hero' image.

As a quote I found on TVTropes puts it:   

So the Antihero could be defined by character flaws?

Basically an Anti-Hero is any hero who has an imperfection or a 'bad/evil' thing they do.

 Iron-Man could be considered an Anti-Hero for example.

No, he's a hero. An anti-hero is portrayed as both a hero and a villain.

Not... necessarily... it's more someone who possesses the traits of both and doesn't necessarily side with either.

From Mythic Nippon RP:

Rai (Would kill good people to further his goal)

Miya (Will break the law and kill leaders)

Roka (Womanizer)

-

O.o ... ... >.> so there are already RP characters established here with the same names as mine. Ah, well, just proves that they have good names, lol.

So would someone who fights for the simply joy of fighting be considered an Antihero, or would it depend on other motivations?

Both in my opinion, but the former depends on the hero's personality.

Being a hero = doing something that'll do good. He's not a hero, not even an anti-hero. 

Any protagonist that doesn't fit the usual selection of "Protagonist" traits.  Think about Kratos compared to the others gods in God of War; he could care less about humanity and power, and he only wants all the gods dead for the death of his family.  Deadpool in comparison to many superheroes isn't bound by any oath, code of honor, or any other chivalrous reason to go around killing villains other than that he gets paid for it, and he has fun in killing.  The Eternal from Endmaster is not really doing anything besides mindlessly serving the Empire, and in the endings where he does free himself from those bonds, he's not really going to be going into heroics besides doing what he wants for himself, with grateful people as a bonus.

Now, an Anti-Hero isn't always going to be similar to a villain, though they do have the capacity to do some pretty bad things.  However, their role isn't to deter / antagonize the protagonists (if there are any) for the whole of the story, unlike the antagonist.  They just want to complete a goal, like any other protagonist will do.

You're sort of into Greek mythology aren't you? 

Most of the ancient Greek Heroes in those stories were anti-heroes. A lot of their deeds were for personal glory or just to fulfill some quest the gods sent them on rather than it being the "right thing" to do. Most of them had several flaws like short temper, arrogance, womanizing, greedy, killing people just for looking at them funny, etc.

If I was going to set out the guidelines, I'd say that to be an antihero, the character would either have to be a good guy who does bad things or a bad guy who does good things.

I don't think you can get away with little character flaws or perks, they sort of have to flit back and forth between doing what's right and doing what's wrong. For instance, no offense to Fireplay, but I'd say that being a womanizer, partier and basic ego-maniac don't really make Ironman an anti-hero. If you're looking for a superhero anti-hero I'd say Rorschach's the best example, because even though he fights crime and saves the world from the bad guys, he also kills the criminals, tortures random people for information and doesn't have any problems hurting or killing any policemen that get in his way.

Some more examples of anti-heroes:

Fagin from Oliver Twist: He's a shameless thief who exploits young boys and works for one of the nastiest guys in London... But then he also looks after the boys and is just generally a nice guy.

Phantom from Phantom of the Opera: Yeah, he kills people and shit, but he really, really loves that Christine, and in the end he lets her leave him to be with another man because ultimately, he values her happiness over his own.

Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights: You could argue that he's a villain, but he actually starts off the book as quite likeable, and at the beginning, the readers really want him to marry the girl he loves and have a good life. Of course, that doesn't happen, and Heathcliff becomes more and more of a jerk as the book goes on, pretty much crossing the line into full-blown villain. I suppose the only thing that makes him an antihero is that all the bad things he does, he does out of crazy, mad, obsessive love, so... I guess that makes it okay? 

Darth Vader from Starwars: Again, arguably a villain since he's a bad guy for most of the first 3 films (and just a whiny little bitch in the prequels) but then he redeems himself at the end of the third film by killing the bad guy and saving his son, so I'd that that makes him anti-villain worthy.

Jack Sparrow from POTC: Well, he's a bloody pirate. He's greedy and selfish and he has one of my favorite anti-hero quotes. "There will come a moment when you have the chance to do the right thing." "I love those moments... I like to wave at them as they pass by." And in the end, he usually does do the right thing... But not before running away, leaving all his friends to die and taking a decent while to think it over.

Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones: George R. R. Martin is probably the only writer in the world who can take a character who starts the book by committing incest with his sister and then pushing a small child out of a window to die, and make him likeable. Despite the whole incest/child murder thing, he's actually a pretty honorable guy... No, really! He fights to protect his family, he defends women's honor, he doesn't like to see pointless injustice and he actually acknowledges what a jerk he is... Which kind of makes him less of a jerk? I dunno, my logic.

Alucard from Hellsing/Hellsing Ultimate: This guy would be the cruellest, most heartless, sadistic, blood-thirtsy, irredeemably evil villain you could possibly imagine. Except for one thing... He just happens to be fighting for the good guys. Funny, the guy's not a hero at all, he's actually pure evil, but despite his love of fighting and killing and blood splattering everywhere and shit, the fact that he's fighting for the good guys means that he's not a villain. I suppose his only redeeming quality is that he seems to care about a handful of people, but that's not enough to make him an anti-hero. It's really just the fact that he fights for the good guys. So there's a really easy way to make an anti-hero. You can make them as sick, twisted and evil as you possibly want, but if they work for the good guys... Instant anti-hero 

I think Darth Vader is more of a fallen hero/death equals redemption trope rather than any sort of anti-hero. Han Solo starting out would be slightly more of an anti-hero since he originally was just helping out for money. (Granted he turns outright hero fairly quickly)

I thought Han Solo at first, but then I figured he's just a straight up hero in the second two, so he doesn't really count. I dunno, different people think different things. I've heard lots of people say that Robin Hood and Batman are antiheroes, and I have no idea why, since you can't really get more heroic than that 

Depending on who is writing him, (especially if it's Frank Miller) Batman can sometimes fall into anti-hero territory. He used guns and killed people when he was first created for example.

Conan is another good example of an anti-hero.

Very good one. Trying to think of some more classic ones... Long John Silver! Can't believe I forgot him 

Snake Plisken.

Someone's who's good but then turned evil because of some forced circumstances, or vice versa. 

I hope this doesn't go to the bottom of the thread. Danaos, are you a Mortal Kombat fan?. If your not then you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.

Remember when Raiden started killing people that threatened Earthrealm, he became a anti-hero when he started doing that. That's a perfect example of a anti-hero.......I think.

EDIT: Oh look, this went to the bottom of the thread.

Obviously... Where else would it go?

Here, think of it this way...

There's a woman dressed up like a guy to blend in with the army since it has a big NO GURLZ ALLOWED policy.

Nobody seems to notice except the protagonist and that's only because he keeps staring at her ass all the time thinking "That ass just can't belong to a guy...it just can't..."

A hero just continues to think this way until the right time presents itself like her uniform coming undone during battle or something similar. He then vows to keep her secret and they develop a relationship.

An anti-hero just takes a chance and grabs her ass right away. Then when the truth comes out he smugly quips "I knew it." and just starts kissing on her which immediately leads to sex.

And the villain just rapes her regardless of whether he thought she was female or not.

Are you therefore saying that homosexual people are villains?

Did you have any doubts?

Lol.

The villain in this scenario rapes her because he was attracted to her in some way. He probably had his suspicions just like the hero and the anti-hero, he just didn't care if she happened to be a boy or a girl. He was going to get DAT ASS no matter what.

So obviously, I'm saying that bi-sexuals are all villains.

Endmaster my furry mind can't understand this.

Explain this to me like you would a furry/mentally challenged four year old.

It's really simple Jihelu... A furry sees an adorable fluffy kitten that he suspects of being a shape changing neko thingy in disguise. He doesn't know for sure it's a neko, so of course the only logical solution is to boink the kitty. If the kitty transforms into a neko during the boinking, the guy's suspicions are confirmed. If not... You get more kitty porn! Either way, everyone's a winner 

YAY

Wait, WTF? Why would you want to boink a baka-neko anyway. It would likely eat you or just kill you then resurrect your corpse as a play toy. Now a kitsune? 'nother story entirely. Ignore that last part.