Follow Your Passion: A Seamless Tumblr Journey
The five types of protagonist as I see them:
hero; the morally sound, loyal, good hearted characters who are normally cinnamon rolls or sunshine children. Normally depicted in media as the goodest of good golden retriever wonderful human being, or sass machine that survives off of spite but is genuinely kind anyways even if they have a rough exterior. Yes, there is an in between.
anti-hero: A person with good intentions/goals/ideals who goes about defending justice in a way that is not socially acceptable. AKA the person who goes "murder is okay with probable cause" or responds to someone kicking puppies by chopping off the leg the person used to kick those puppies. There is a vast set of characterizations for these guys.
Villain: The bastard. Their self awareness is either akin to that of a sponge, or they are extremely self aware and don't really give a shit. They have bad morals, horrid ideals, and achieve their goals commonly through murder. The "I'm doing this for the betterment of humanity!" (they're ending the world because they had a bad childhood) or "I know exactly what I'm doing is wrong and by God I am going to do it in the most fashionably melodramatic way possible."
Anti-villain: Bad ideals, bad morals, hurts/gaslights people often, but does it in a way that actually paints them in a heroic light. These are the people whom you either don't know they're evil until it's too late, or whom can convince you of absolutely anything even if you know the opposite to be true.
Lester/Apollo from toa: I think you know what I'm talking about if you've read the books, this man is in a category of his own.