heroes, anti-heroes, and ensemble casts

[cellio]

Generally when I'm reading/watching fiction that revolves around a main character, I want that character to be a hero -- someone I'm sympathetic to and whose actions, in context, I can more or less agree with. I said "more or less" -- nothing's perfect, after all, and following only characters like me would be boring. On the flip side, I can sometimes get into the right "anti-hero" as a character study if presented well.

This doesn't come up in all fiction, of course. A TV show with an ensemble cast, by definition, doesn't call out one character as "the main guy", and I find I both tolerate and relish many shades of gray there. B5's Londo is a fascinating character to me, for instance. I actually prefer ensemble shows, by the way, because they seem to allow for richer characters.

Jack Bauer on 24 tries to be a hero, but as this season goes on I'm becoming convinced that he is pretty much completely amoral, and there's nothing heroic about that. The character and the show do not fit any of the molds I've described as liking -- he's not a hero I identify with, he's not a fascinating character study, and 24 certainly is not an ensemble show. And yet I find myself watching it every week, and wanting to watch it on the broadcast night. I don't know why.

This ramble was inspired in particular by the last five minutes of this week's episode. There darn well better be consequences.

Edit: A cleaner way of saying this might be: if there is a main character then I want to either like or be fascinated by him; this is not true of Jack Bauer; yet I still watch.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Having just seen this past Monday's 24, I have to say that the last five minutes remind me of a famous quote from the Vietnam War: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

CTU's philosophy this season seems to be one of desperation. Suspend the freedoms and rights of any and all suspects to protect those of everyone else.

[cellio]

Not just suspects. (That was last week. :-) ) If he has to kill an innocent bystander in cold blood in order to get the information he needs from a suspect, Bauer doesn't even blink. At least last season he did some navel-gazing before murdering a CTU agent to placate the terrorists.

If there aren't consequences from this, I might not be back next season. That would mean the show's just about bravado and gun-slinging.