Severus Snape, one of Harry Potter’s teachers is neither real hero nor real villain. He’s not particular likeable, he’s cruel, a bully, riddled with bitterness and insecurity – yet, according to author JK Rowling,  he loved, and, ultimately laid down his life because of it.

Snape is an example of what we call an anti-hero – a protagonist made popular in movies first in film noir – some one who is neither all good nor all bad – Clint Eastwood’s characters in his westerns, or Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean, or even The Dark Knight.

On TV, the BBC has made the modern day Sherlock Holmes something less than a hero. His prime motivation is to relieve boredom by solving cases, he is not out to do the world any kind of good. He says: “I may be on the side of the angels, but don't think for one second that I am one of them.”

North American television these days is well populated with anti-hero’s. Dexter Morgan in Dexter, Walter White in Breaking Bad, Don Draper in Mad Men, Tom Kane in Boss, Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, Jax Teller in Sons of Anarchy, Patty Hewes in Damages, , and Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead – to name a few.

These are all bad guys yet we also see another side of them. Tony Soprano a mob boss faces the every day problems of raising his family in the suburbs,  Don Draper is a fraud but a suave and charming one, Patty Hewes is a lawyer determined to win for her clients but one whose methods include extortion, intimidation and murder.

Even two of Shakespeare’s anti-heroes show up on TV – Tom Kane in Boss is an updated Macbeth while Jax Teller, a member of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle gang, is a contemporary Hamlet.

Two of my favorites are Dexter Morgan, a serial killer with his own moral code and Walter White, in Breaking Bad, the high school chemistry teacher who diagnosed with terminal cancer turns to making and dealing meth in order to leave his family money.

Jamie Poniewozik, TIME’s television critic, thinks the anti hero is an archetype who – like the doctor, the lawyer, the detective – is here to stay but needs to evolve.  I think it already has – the antihero protagonists in two recent shows are a little less anti and a little more hero. I’m thinking of Homeland’s CIA agent Carrie Mathison who definitely has problems but does her best to unmask a traitor and Raylan Givens the lawman in Justified – one of the best show on TV right now.

And just for fun go through a list of the many main characters of Game of Thrones and try to pick out just who is not an anti hero in some way. Good luck with that!