Olivia Pope - The Ultimate Anti-Hero

In the hit television drama Scandal Olivia Pope has wit, intelligence and an intangible power to see how to solve situations that others do not. She is an obvious protagonist and lead female character but there can be quite a controversial debate over whether she is a hero or not.  She is not the picture of morality and yet she is portrayed as a very strong anti-hero.

To the outside world Olivia Pope is a fixer. She solves the problems of her clients, making them disappear and resulting in positive outcomes if possible. It seems that she is indeed a hero, bettering the lives of those around her and yet the audience knows much more about her.  She has an entirely different side to her that she keeps hidden from much of the world. She played a part in rigging an election, has an affair with the president and as later revealed has a very dramatic familial background. She is not purely “good” and she in fact does lots of immoral things.

Yet, the world views Olivia Pope on a pedestal. She is given this innate given this extraordinary gift and yet her biggest flaw comes in the form of love. Many heroes of mythology and modern day are victim to their love and Olivia Pope is no different. As many accomplishments as she has and as much space as she attempts to put between herself and her flaws and background the more it keeps hitting her right in the face. For example, her relationship with the president was supposed to have ended but he maintains monitoring her safety and eventually that leads them back together.

Something else many heroes deal with is family. An example of this hero dealing with something that could tarnish their reputation is Olivia dealing with her family lineage. She attempts to keep a distance from her father who has a very suspicious and devious past and yet he continues to be a presence in her life. He is connected to her job and the people that she works with. No matter how hard she tries she cannot get away from him.

Lastly something many heroes deal with is a shocking revelation. Similar to stories such as Oedipus where he discovers who his true parents are Olivia too discovers the truth about her family, specifically her mother. I don’t want to ruin the plot in case anyone watches the show but Olivia faces the consequences dealing with her family as well. 

Olivia’s journey started off as that of a hero, someone who wanted to make a difference in Washington, specifically in the White House. However, as her journey progressed with the decisions that she had to make that included election rigging, kidnapping and other less than moral things, she slowly changed into an anti-hero.

Scandal is one of my favorite shows because it has these characters that they make you love and root for who are innately flawed. Olivia is not the only anti-hero in the show. In fact it can be argued that any of the main characters can be considered an anti-hero. They are real life heroes because even though they make a difference they still have their problems that they deal with, which make the characters so relatable.