The subject of antiheroes came up on a different thread recently and I wanted to further explore it. In terms of heroes, antiheroes, and villains, how would you classify the following fictional characters, and identify if you feel there are any blurry distinctions among them:
Robin Hood
Shrek
Khan
Sherlock Holmes (as depicted by Doyle)
Professor Snape
William Munny (from the film ‘Unforgiven’)
The Joker
Draco Malfoy
Robin Hood - hero, at least in most film adaptations
Shrek - reluctant hero
Khan - Villain with motivations (at least judging from the events of the films- unsure if the TV series has a different perspective)
Sherlock Holmes - hero (although I haven’t read Doyle’s novels, just based on popular culture)
Professor Snape - villain with redemption arc
William Munny - anti-hero based on past history, although mostly treated as a hero within the events of the film
The Joker - anti-hero in the 2019 film. Villain in most other treatments.
Draco Malfoy - villain with redemption arc
I’m glad you started this thread, because I had kicked around starting a similar one as a result of the thread you mention (posting a link, below, to the place in the thread where the antihero discussion started).
Despite there being plenty of definitions of ‘antihero’ to be found online, I think there is a lot of uncertainty as to what an ‘antihero’ is, and lots of blurry distinctions to be found.
For example, in the thread I linked below, @Lucas_Jackson mentioned Travis Bickle in ‘Taxi Driver’ as an antihero, and when I protested, cited Paul Schrader himself saying he wrote Travis as an antihero as well as numerous other cites considering him the quintessential antihero. I conceded the point, but it still doesn’t feel right to me. I think of an antihero as someone who generally does the right thing, despite using morally or unethically unsound methods to do so. Travis Bickle is a seriously unhinged individual who was about to kill a Presidential candidate when he was scared off by Secret Service agents, and only became a vigilante hero by killing the pimp and other bad guy as kind of a consolation prize. ‘Accidental hero’ maybe, but not quite ‘antihero’.
I think of someone like the Deadpool character, or maybe a Dirty Harry as a classic antihero. The ends justify the means.
I’m currently doing a rewatch of Dexter. Midway through season 2, I’m trying to decide whether he’s an antihero or just flat-out villain. Yes, he’s a sociopath without normal human feelings or emotions who has an urge to kill, but he has the self-reflection and strength of will to stick to his ‘code’ and only kill other serial killers. He’s actually good to his friends, family and coworkers. Sure, it’s an act, at least to some extent, but who among us doesn’t put on an act in life at least a little a bit, at times?
Anyway, to answer the OP’s specific character questions:
Robin Hood
Anti-establishment, ‘fighting the power’ hero, but pretty much unambiguous hero.
Shrek
Sherlock Holmes (as depicted by Doyle)
Reluctant or flawed heroes.
Khan
Don’t remember his backstory very well, but I’d say mostly villain, but with some blurred justifiable motivations.
The Joker
There’s a million iterations of this guy, but not a lot of hard backstory, so I’d say your basic chaotic evil bad guy.
Professor Snape
William Munny (from the film ‘Unforgiven’)
Draco Malfoy
Don’t know enough about these characters to judge.
Classic hero. Upstanding, moral and handsome. Fights evil and tyranny against overwhelming odds. Only steals from bad guys, gives to gold to good guys. Rescues maidens
Classic anti hero. Does the right thing in the end. But is primarily motivated by being left alone. Is grumpy and ugly.
Classic villain. Is motivated by evil. Is scheming and cunning.
This is an interesting one. I think still a hero. He’s pretty much infallible and I think always morally upstanding.
Completely outside the hero-villian spectrum. The moral ambiguity of Unforgiven is one of the things it does best. As I said in the other thread, you can make the case Little Bill is the villain (I did), but there are absolutely no heros and William Munny is definitely 100% not a hero (I guess you could make the case he’s a villain).
Again classic villain. Kind of invented the archetype (for the subset of comic book villain)
Not super into Harry Potter so can’t comment (suggest some Tolkien characters and then we are talking 
)
I included Khan on that list because this character asks the viewer to question who he’s helping and/or harming. Khan was all about helping his people. He used his considerable charisma, strength and intelligence (virtues, no?) to secure the best future possible for his people. Kinda like Don Corleone in that sense. He was all about helping his family and friends. Sure, you might have to terrorize the occasional Hollywood producer along the way, but hey, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. 
Okay, take a crack at Boromir.
A flawed character who ultimately redeems himself (by sacrificing his life) despite doing some bad things. Not a hero or a villain.
An anti-hero isn’t someone who believes “the end justifies the means,” although there’s some overlap. An anti-hero is a protagonist who does not display the traditional heroic qualities expected from a protagonist - generally, bravery and morality. So, right off the bat, Khan, Snape, the Joker, and Draco are out, because they’re not protagonists.
Khan and the Joker are further disqualified because they’re just out-and-out villains. They use evil means to attain evil ends. Neither of them are interested in any sort of “greater good.” Khan was a would-be dictator and racial supremacist in his original appearance, and a revenge-obsessed terrorist in the movie. The Joker is a literal serial killer, with the express goal of spreading fear and madness. Neither of them are “ends justify the means” types, because their “ends” are just as horrible as their “means.”
Of the rest, only Bill Munny counts as an anti-hero. Robin Hood is motivated by compassion for the poor and fealty to the proper King. Shrek is feared and hated because he looks ugly, but nothing he does (at least in the first film) is evil or especially selfish, and he has immense personal bravery. Holmes is, likewise, a straightforward hero, who is motivated by a desire to help people in distress, and a disgust of evil. He’s sometimes portrayed as kind of an asshole, but that’s not the same as being an anti-hero.
Bill Munny is motivated by wanting to save his farm and provide for his children, which is a laudable goal, but the only way he knows how to do that is by killing people for money, which is definitely evil. He’s a pretty classic anti-hero. No one else on this list even comes close.
Had Khan been more established as a POV / main character, I think anti-hero may have been a better option, but Khan exists mostly to be a foil for the unambiguous heroes of the story, so I think his character status is biased through that lens. The audience doesn’t cheer when Khan overcomes an obstacle or resolves a conflict.
This is true but they still do heroic “good” things even if they are not through and through moral upstanding “heroes” motivated purely by wanting to see good triumph of evil. So Shrek is a classic anti-hero IMO
I disagree. Bill Munny is 100% not a hero, anti or otherwise. He does flat out bad things, he has some sympathetic motivations (and definitely has us rooting for him) but he’s not a hero. There are no heroes in Unforgiven, that’s one of the best things about it
Not a protagonist, so struck off right from the bat. But he also displays all the classic heroic virtues, and is engaged on a genuinely noble quest. His only failing is an inability to perfectly resist a powerful magical artifact, and even then, he only slips momentarily before coming to his senses and going out like a proper good guy.
Robin Hood - Straight up hero
Shrek - Straight up hero, although not totally willing
Khan - Straight up villain. He wanted to be left on that planet, so he reasoning for revenge in the movie is still evil
Sherlock Holmes (as depicted by Doyle) - Never read it
Professor Snape - Straight up hero in the books, was a villain before the first book started, I guess (ETA: He was a jerk to Harry, but all of Harry, etc., beliefs about Snape, his actions, and motivations were just wrong)
William Munny (from the film ‘Unforgiven’) - Never saw it
The Joker - Straight up villain
Draco Malfoy - bully and pawn, not significant enough to be any of those. If I had to choose, it would be villain with a last-minute conversion
I think of Deadpool and Punisher as anti-heroes, but none of those characters above (that I know about) qualify.
I’m moving this to Cafe society, as it might get a better audience there.
These terms are just words to insert into plot summaries.
The morality of despots is defined by what they think is beneficial to themselves. They’re in a position to control the narrative, and will portray those who oppose them as enemies and evil. Even if their followers disagree, they will still largely side with the despot because of strength in numbers.
To the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood and his Merry Men are outlaws who threaten the order of his jurisdiction. If he cannot or chooses not to oppose them, he will be seen as weak by his constituents and have his authority stripped. He may realize this casts him as a villain, but the alternative is worse.
Lord Farquaad is a stunted gremlin who stands to gain power if he marries a princess. Why should he rescue the princess when he can command somebody stronger and more capable like Shrek to do it? He grew up in a life of privilege, and it’s not like he had any incentive to say “Wait, you’re raising me wrong. I need to experience hard work and loss so I can appreciate the plight of my subjects better.”
Batman and Sherlock Holmes have to have stronger or at least equivalent opposing forces to make their stories interesting. The Joker and Moriarity are effectively mob bosses who gathered followings of lawbreakers to consolidate power. Batman and Holmes are defined by their willingness to go outside the limits of the law to stop them. The citizens just want to walk the streets safely. Either they’re not going to split hairs over moral ambiguities, or they’re going to rebel against whoever appointed themselves their overlords. Batman and Holmes are unlikely to rough them up, so they can demonstrate strength without using force.
My point is, it’s all subjective. One man’s meat is another man’s poison and all that.
An antihero isn’t “a hero with one or more flaws.” It definitely isn’t “a hero who overcomes a flaw by the end of the story.” Shrek starts off motivated by wanting to just be left alone in his swamp, but ends up fighting a tyrant for the freedom of the country and the hand of the woman he’s come to love. That’s not being an antihero, that’s a standard hero’s journey starting with a Refusal of the Call at the beginning. Notably, by the end, his original selfish goal - “being alone in his swamp” - has been almost completely abandoned. His happy ending is living with Fiona as part of a community that respects and values him, which is about as bog-standard an ending as you can get from a hero’s journey.
“He does bad things but we root for him anyway,” is pretty much an antihero in a nutshell. It’s not, “hero who is sometimes a bit of a jerk,” it’s “protagonist who does bad things, but we root for him anyway because the story is structured to focus on their journey.” This can be “hero who does bad things for a good cause,” but it can just as easily be, “hero is presented as evil, and who is pursuing evil ends.” Darth Vader acting as the Emperor’s right hand in the original Star Wars is a villain antagonist. Darth Vader acting as the Emperor’s right hand in the Darth Vader comic book published by Marvel is an antihero, because he’s the protagonist of the story (the “-hero” part) and is engaging in evil acts in furtherance of an evil goal (the “anti-” part).
So, Deadpool or Punisher is an anti-hero by your first definition, and the latest Joker is one by your second?
Sure, but that’s not really what we’re talking about. If Lord Farquaad were a real person, and you showed him Shrek, he’d (probably) offer up a bunch of reasons why his actions were justified and acceptable. But he’d also (probably) recognize that the movie doesn’t agree with that, and that his character in the film is meant to be seen as villainous.
But it does bring up an important aspect, which is that an antihero is defined by the values promoted by the story in which they appear. A movie set in WWII with a Nazi protagonist, made in the US in 2020, would almost certainly be a movie with an antihero. A movie set in WWII with a Nazi protagonist, made in 1939 in Nazi Germany, would likely not be an antihero, even if they portrayed exactly the same events, because the film made by actual Nazis would be presenting those actions as virtuous, while the one made in 2020 would be presenting them as villainous.
Someone mentioned Dirty Harry as an antihero, and I’d argue that he doesn’t count, because the Dirty Harry movies expect the audience to agree with his tactics. In the fiction of those movies, criminals are incredibly dangerous scumbags that need to be put down lethally for the good of society. The story doesn’t regard him as an antihero, even if I, personally, disagree strongly with the values the story is promoting.
Sherlock as depicted by Doyle is a bit different than how he is generally portrayed in popular culture. He’s more Victorian “British”, being very polite and socially reserved. He is also much more intellectual in his approach to everything that he does, and I think a bit more eccentric but also significantly less emotional. Book Holmes is tall and gaunt with a hawk-like nose. Popular culture Holmes has more of a heroic build.
Think more “autistic but brilliant eccentric dude” rather than “dashing brilliant action hero”.
I think @solost’s description of “reluctant or flawed hero” is a good description for book Holmes.
This is an interesting one. From the townfolk’s point of view, William Munny is a ruthless murdering gunslinger who was hired by a bunch of whores. He refuses to obey the town’s gun laws, and really the only reason he has come to Big Whiskey is to murder two local cowboys. Not only does he succeed in his murder for hire, he ends up killing the local Sheriff, several of the Sheriff’s men, and even murders the local barkeep who was unarmed at the time.
So depending on how you look at it, William Munny is the villain and Little Bill is the hero who was just trying to maintain law and order in his town.
Or you can look at it from the way it’s portrayed in the movie, where Little Bill is the villain and William Munny is the hero (of sorts) who brings justice to the oppressed prostitutes.
That’s what is great about the movie (in my opinion). There’s no good guys and no bad guys. Everything is shades of gray.
Definitely flawed - considering how Doyle presents Holmes as a despondent cocaine junkie when business is slow, being in the game for intellectual stimulation rather than say, justice.
~Max
Punisher, almost always yes. Deadpool is a bit more debatable, and depends a lot on when in his publishing history you read him - in some eras he’s more of a flawed hero trying to improve himself than an antihero.
I haven’t seen the Joachim Phoenix Joker films, but from what I understand about them, yes, they’d count.
Doyle never wrote Holmes as a junkie. He wrote him as an occasional user, but at the time Doyle was writing, cocaine was widely available as an over-the-counter medicine, and Holmes’ usage was not written to be problematical, no more than his drinking wine or smoking cigarettes was intended to be a moral flaw. Holmes being an addict was invented by Nicholas Myer in his 1974 novel (and later film) The Seven Percent Solution. It’s not part of his original characterization.
I wouldn’t describe him as a reluctant or flawed hero, as Doyle wrote him - he offers his services as a detective in part because of the intellectual challenge of crime solving, but also because he has a strong moral sense and a disgust of evil.
In Doyle? No, not at all. Doyle wrote him as athletic, physically quite strong, and a skilled fighter.