Voici la réponse de Mark Chadbourn.
Like most writers, I'm inherently rebellious (indeed, kicking against the accepted structures of society and the often sclerotic thought processes that accompany them may be one of the main functions of writing). For me, the most interesting and memorable characters, particularly in the imaginative genres, have been the outsider, the Machiavellian schemer. Give me Steerpike over Frodo any day. But the one anti-hero who has always stayed with me from childhood, has been Number Six, The Prisoner. As played by Patrick McGoohan on TV, he is a man filled with unfocused rage. He appears to loathe everything, and always appears to be on the point of exploding a blood vessel or two in his quietly seething hatred of the Village, Number Two and the world in general (which is what the Village represents). I saw the series in the UK on one of its many reruns, long after it had sixties viewers apoplectic about its oblique, troubling resolution, which went so against the TV norms of the time.
The Prisoner is the most purely allegorical series ever shown, and Number Six is the everyman (indeed, also the name of McGoohan's production company), raging against politics, education, healthcare, business, espionage, warfare and just about every other way that society supports an unchanging elite and keeps the hard-working man and woman trapped in endless spirals of meaninglessness. In the end, he's prepared to bring everything crashing down around his ears rather than succumb to another moment of oppression - even if that means the innocent get crushed along with the guilty.
On another reading, Number Six rails against life itself. He dies in the opening credits - gassed by the death symbol of the undertakers - and spends the rest of the series in purgatory, in the Village, trying to come to terms with his life, and eventually, in the final two episodes, undergoing the full-life review and moving on to a place that looks suspiciously like the hell of his regular life.
Which leads nicely in to my other favourite anti-hero, Harry Angel from William Hjortsberg's supernatural noir, Falling Angel, which was filmed by Alan Parker as Angel Heart. Angel is a gone-to-seed PI in fifties New York hired to hunt down a missing jazz musician, Johnny Favorite, who allegedly signed away his soul. In the movie, Favorite's daughter, Epiphany Proudfoot, played by Lisa Bonet, says, "There's nothing like a badass to make a girl's heart beat faster", which nicely sums up the enduring appeal of the anti-hero: an air of danger, of unpredictability, someone you would love to have a beer with, but who could just as easily slip a knife in your back. Falling Angel reveals all Harry's many flaws, but also shows his laconic charm and dogged, unflinching attention to the case he's on - even if he torments a few people along the way.
Patrick Bateman, Elric, Jerry Cornelius (in fact all of Moorcock's heroes) Spike, Conan, Jack Torrance, they all make the heart beat faster. And I think in this day and age we need them more than ever.