10 Best American Horror Story Characters
3. Tate Langdon
A sympathetic school shooter is a bold character to lead the opening season, but it set the tone for American Horror Story’s more shocking storylines. Back when the show was brand new, they created one of their most layered and effective characters ever.
Though Murder House aired before Sandy Hook and Parkland reignited the debate over gun control in the USA, having a school shooter as a protagonist was still a huge risk. The shooters of Columbine and Virginia Tech were demons, monsters, villains; their faces splattered on newspapers around the globe, just as their classmates blood had been on the walls of their school. Trying to make us feel sorry for one was an incredibly risky arc.
What makes it most effective is that they don’t try too hard. Tate is not a nice young boy who simply got bullied too much and took misguided revenge. He’s a violent, angry young man, often feeling entitled despite his lack of self esteem, and prone to fits of rage. His bittersweet ending of always been near to Violet yet never able to have her love seemed a fitting purgatory. A shame Apocalypse rewrote this to give him closure.