Soaps - Anti-Villians, Do they exist?

[RomeAt50]

I don't see much of a difference between anti-villian and anti-hero.

[Skin]

From the way I understand it

Anti-hero: Does bad things for the greater good. The ends justifies the means. They are still righteous, just not overly straight about their methods. Still seen as primarily good from their community even though they use evil for the greater good standard. A deviation of the hero. Not afraid to get their hands dirty and sully themselves by being immoral or amoral if the good is upheld. They are darker heroes.

Anti-villain: Does bad things but is forced into it. They don't enjoy doing these bad things and often suffer for it in someway internal or externally for their actions. They know what they do maybe wrong, but they rationalize it because they don't have a choice. They are victims of circumstances who are forced into being bad by outside, external sources. If their circumstances were different they could have been "good people". A deviation of the villain.

[MissLlanviewPA]

And it's that difference that may have shifted my view on Gabrielle. I have always thought that she was an anti-heroine, but the definition of anti-villain seems more in line with a lot of her actions (Carlo blackmailing her into trying to kill Megan, for example).

At her core, though, I do think she was actually a good woman--just a deeply misguided one.

[frequentsoapfan]

There is no such thing as anti villian everything you put for anti villian falls under tha anti hero definition

[Skin]

We get it, you don't agree. Please move on.

[Cheap21]

Stephanie Forrester. Now this woman has done some truly awful things but I cant view her as a true villian as I dont think she is evil. Her main acts of malice have been aimed at the Logans, particularly Brooke. At the height of her stories (the 90s), Stephanie was motivated with getting rid of Brooke and that didnt come from a place of evil, but that she genuinely felt she was protecting her family as she viewd Brooke as the force that destroyed it and hurt her sons time and time again. When not threatened, she can be quite a nice person to be around and she has a big heart, but when she hates you, she hates you and it takes ALOT to get off her bad side.

I could argue that Dorian Lord from OLTL is also one

[Skin]

What about Marty Saybrooke?

Kyle Lewis?

Lindsey Rappaport?

Jennifer Rappaport?

OLTL has a lot of multifaceted dark characters who could have fallen into this category. A lot of them didn't seem like bad people and at many times they tried to do the right thing, but just couldn't because of their darker impulses and unhealthy tendencies.

[Cheap21]

No. Marty is a heroine. She was only ever bad when she first joined. I dont really count the end as she was insane and clearly not thinking for herself. She had fairly consistent writing as once she was raped (which was very early in her history, she remained a heroine and didnt go bad until the writers saw it fit to make her a psycho and write her out

[Mathewson]

I try to forget Jen. Jessica Morris was awful.

Stacy was completely batshit, mostly because of everything she did not only to Shane, but to Sky too (drugging him and using him for months while lying to him about being the dad.) And most of it was sugarcoated. I don't think Crystal Hunt was that bad, but Stacy was an unplayable character. I liked her scenes with Clint in the last week though and some of her scenes with Sky.

I agree about Kyle. He did bad things, but he wasn't a bad person. He had motivations and an edge. Brett Claywell made it work too.

Lindsay was horrible to Nora, but I am forever grateful to her for killing Spencer Truman. Cat Hickland was a great actress and the only reason Lindsay ever really worked. Other than that, Lindsay was basically just a villain.

When I first watched Marty, she was an anti heroine/villain, but RC just made her completely batshit in the end. What RC did to Marty was unforgivable. Susan Haskell was an amazing actress, but she got one of the worst exits I've ever seen on television. And I'm not watching GH, but apparently we're supposed to believe Marty was "redeemed" by the love of her precious Patrick after she killed her doctor and tried to kill a lot of other people. What's more, she got away with all of it. And then I heard that her only son and granddaughter were killed off.

[MissLlanviewPA]

Didn't Marty sneak around with Andrew a bit while Cassie was supposedly one of her best friends, though? Not to mention cheating with Patrick while she was with Dylan. That may not make her a villain or anti-villain, but that kind of behavior kind of makes her look like a faux heroine if nothing else.

I can kind of see Lindsay fitting here.

What about Natalie? Would she fit here?

[Cheap21]

I hated Marty's exit. I thought she needed to go to jail or sent away to a mental facility. I hated how she got away with all that crap and is off living free

[Cheap21]

It makes her flawed. She wasnt malicious and her relationship with Patrick was treated as a love story from the beginning with her not setting out to hurt anyone. Her heart just intervened and fell for Patrick, even though she tried her best to stand by Dylan. It doesnt make her villianous at all.

Id say Lidnsay was a flat out villian. She was redeemed following her stint at St. Anne's (2003m, Mitch story) but when she was bad, she was downright awful and I dont feel she was motivated by any good intentions. Her actions were not justified at all

anti-heroine

[Susan Hunter]

What about John Black during the Roman/Marlena/John Affair storyline?

One could argue that John was the villian of the piece. John is a hero, with heroic goals, and personality traits and virtues.

One could argue that Roman was the hero of the storyline and that John opposed him. John's desired goal was the love of Marlena. While he didn't do anything evil, sleeping with a married woman is supposed to be a no-no.

Was that a stretch?

The anti-villain is definitely an interesting concept.

[Skin]

Yeah I took Stacey back because a lot of what she did was self motivated. She wasn't really forced and she pushed ultimately too much story to be seen as a victim or anti-villain. She could have stopped at any time and she orchestrated too much for her to be anything but a villain. The actress though, oddly made it work and I felt more for Stacey then I did Gigi, even though Gigi was supposed to be the Heroine. Skylar could be a candidate for an anti-villain though. I don't think he wanted to be a bad person persay, but being with Stacey made it impossible for him to be good and true, even if he may have wanted to be.

What's really bad about her? I know she came in kind of tumultuously but I don't really see her as that bad or even that tortured for the most part. She was completely reverted to a heroine quite early, and I never felt much conflict from her in terms of doing bad things that she didn't want to do. She strikes me a bit more of a Kendell, Greenlee, Erica, Carly type anti-heroine then as an anti-villain. Anti-villains are kind of tortured because they don't like doing bad things but they do them because they feel it's their only option. They could be doing it out of love, obligation or loyalty (Amanda, AMC 2005) or they could be doing it because they just don't see any other viable alternative (Babe, AMC 2004). I think Dorian and Stephanie may be great candidates as well for those who do bad things for good reasons with no higher morality at stake for the most part and that's the differences between an anti-hero and anti-villain. Anti-heros have a cause at stake a moral higher ground even if that's bastardized by their actions. Anti-villains usually don't, they know what they do is unquestionably wrong, but they do it anyway because they feel compelled to. It's not right but they still do it threw forceful coercion from the outside.

Dorian tried to kill Victor because she knew that he was an abusive monster. That's evil, she benefited from it, it's not the moral cause according to her oath as a doctor and ultimately she was forced into either abetting his actions and being an accessory to Vicky's rape or letting him die. She was forced into the position of being the bad guy. Yes what she did is wrong, but she was forced into doing the wrong thing. Either way the anti-villain is doing bad things but their actions are in great conflict with who they feel they are - I'm not bad, you made me this way. They are good people forced into doing bad things because of others even though others see them as evil or wrong.

To me Roxy fits the role of anti-villain more then Natalie does. I don't think Roxy means to be a bad mother, she just ended up that way due to her circumstances. Krystal is much the same way. Anti-villains are mostly reactive and they don't start things, the external world forces them to become "bad".

[Cheap21]

Babe was portrayed more as an anti-heroine, not anti-villian. Not once in the Babyswitch story was she written as a villian. She was at her core a good person, who wound up doing something awful, as opposed to a bad person who did something awful for good reasons. She never got any joy or pleasure out of the pain she caused (and she never intended to inflict any). She fell into something which other people put into mtion and she justified her reasons for not coming forward. She didnt really "own" it in terms of the pain she caused. She was written and portrayed more as a heroine, flawed anddigging herself into a hole. They ended up turning JR into the villian and her, his victim