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Books where protagonist is the most morally vile character


IFR

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This may be a little niche, but as the title states, I'm not looking for works centered on an antihero. Antiheroes engage in morally dubious activities, but generally their antagonist is made even more morally questionable so the antihero is palatable to the audience.

I'm looking for books that unapologetically have a protagonist who is the villain of the story. Not a sympathetic villain, but a straight up force of harm. Hopefully the character has complexity, but the requirement is that the character is clearly someone who one typically roots against in conventional stories.

This sort of thing is very easy to find in nonfiction. It's surprisingly scarce in fiction, though. Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, and Irvine Welsh have written books along this line, but I can't think of much else.

Even though this is a lit thread, I welcome movie suggestions too.

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I'd say The Poppy War trilogy that I read recently counts. Starting from the end of book 1, I found the main character to be really, really, really, morally repugnant. So much so that the rest of the trilogy was unpleasant to read, because they were the only POV character.

 

 

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This is quite tricky coz there are a few series where the lead character is, looked at objectively, obviously a villain, but the story presents them, narratively, as the hero of the piece - Acts of Caine is like this, as is Broken Empire. Not sure that quite fits what you want (though worth noting that Stover initially deliberately wrote Caine trying to see what the most villainous person he could get readers to like was, so that might make it fit better).


The Sad Tales of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington is a more straight-up example, which has a generally good reputation though I found it too unrelentingly grim the first time I tried it.




It's a bit easier film-wise, assuming you mean just anything and not SFF. Obviously things like Scarface, Nightcrawler, Godfather, quite a lot of Scorsese's work, Clockwork Orange come to mind, but for a lower-key one you might not have seen, have a look at The Family Friend by Paolo Sorrentino, a comedy-drama in the vein of a very murky Cohen film about a truly vile moneylender type. 

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He's not the protagonist, but Hugo Lamb in The Bone Clocks gets some point-of-view chapters, plus appearances elsewhere in the narrative, plus a guest appearance in another of Mitchell's books, and he's fairly villainous. 

It's tricky with fantasy because the traditions of the genre are built around having sympathetic hero(es). Authors do play with that, but they don't tend to get rid of the sympathetic hero - they just change who it is. e.g. Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones; Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky. 

I think computer games may be trailblazers in this respect in the fantasy genre. A lot of the Bioware/Obsidian output give you the chance to play a complete arsehole. Sometimes a raving psychopath.

Sorry I can't be more help with recommendations. Interesting question. 

 

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That's a very hard one. Even things like Bakker's Second Apocalypse, Lawrence's Broken Empire and Abercrombie's books, where the main characters are reprehensible, have much worse threats waiting in the wings.

I'm also really not sure Stover counts either. Caine/Hari is hugely problematic but the forces he is up against are ten thousand times worse.

The only series that immediately come to mind are 1) The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, though it was kind of unintentional and the books are shit, and 2) Mission: Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, where it was intentional and actually executed to completion (although undercut by the morally repellent supervillain as the first person POV being defeated and imprisoned in Book 8 and the last two books are from the POV of the milquetoast boring hero dealing with a more tedious side-villain), but let down by the books being really shit.

Otherwise, Dune, mayyyyyybe (at least when the first three books are read together), but that's also arguable AF.

The Sundering duology by Jacqueline Carey might count, although literally everyone in that is an arsehole, so maybe not.

2 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

The Broken Empire Trilogy.

Jorg is pretty darn awful.

No, I don't think that counts.

Spoiler

Firstly, because the actual bad guy are far worse, and secondly because of the late-trilogy revelation that Jorg's darkness was a result of him being manipulated by outside forces.

 

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I thought Jorg broke free in the first book not the later part of the trilogy. Even then, he destroyed a city with a nuclear bomb after regaining his free will so I actually think Jorg is still the worst of his opponents.

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Here are a very few, off the top of my head, in which the brain on this very gloomy and depressing late afternoon is not working well:

Humbert Humbert, of Lolita.

The protagonists of the House of Cards novels, and of both the BBC and Netflix television adaptations of them for the screen.

Gone Girl's protagonist, whose name I don't recall.

There are several protagonists in Abraham's Dagger and Coin series; one is them is bad, and though at first we think Geder's not, and we're sympathetic to him, because he's a nerd, but is an out-and-out villain, petty as he is.

Silence of the Lambs -- though maybe the vile Hannibal Lector isn't exactly the protagonist, he acts in that role on more than one occasion -- if I recall correctly.  It was a long time ago, and I couldn't finish the book, and I've never watched the movies out of the Harris's Lector novels.

One of the protagonists in The Boys, Homelander. There is no sympathy for this sociopath.

Ripley in Highsmith's fictions.

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Well, Lolita seems the obvious answer. Godfather and Clockwork Orange were books first obviously, you might argue the protagonists are even more morally repugnant in the books. Burgess had a few like that (Earthly Powers “I was in bed with my calamite when the Archbishop came calling …”). Umberto Eco Prague Cemetery. Picture of Dorian Grey. Mayor of Casterbridge. Highsmith’s Ripley books. Bunch of Lovecraft protagonists. American PsychoGone Girl (sort of). Updike’s Rabbit books, McCarthy Blood Meridian. Donald Westlake’s Parker novels. The Dexter books I guess, never read them.

For SFF, Steerpike from GormenghastKim Newman’s Dracula books maybe, he also has at least one book starring Moriarty. VE Schwab Vicious. The Demolished Man by Bester. Donaldson’s Gap series. A load of leading characters from Warhammer 40,000 if you’re into that kind of thing. Um, Artemis Fowl?

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A bit obscure, and I am not a fan of him, but some of the work of English fantasy author John Whitbourn might qualify. I am thinking in particular of A Dangerous Energy, whose protagonist is certainly a straight up force of harm that I had zero sympathy for.

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Just now, dog-days said:

Good call on Steerpike. 

I like Michael Henchard from Mayor of Casterbridge - he's one of my favourite characters. Always thought of him as more of a tragic hero/anti-hero rather than a villain. 

Would you call him a tragic hero?  He incurs all his problems through his own faults of character and willful bad behavior.  His misery from the consequences makes him slightly sympathetic, but hardly a hero.  I would agree that he’s not really a villain in that he hurts himself more than others, even though his impulsive, unthinking actions could easily have caused much greater harm to others (the author cushions the others, especially his wife and daughter, from more-probable consequences).

But it has been a very long time since I read the book, and I might view him differently at a different stage of my life. 

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14 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Would you call him a tragic hero?  He incurs all his problems through his own faults of character and willful bad behavior.  His misery from the consequences makes him slightly sympathetic, but hardly a hero.  I would agree that he’s not really a villain in that he hurts himself more than others, even though his impulsive, unthinking actions could easily have caused much greater harm to others (the author cushions the others, especially his wife and daughter, from more-probable consequences).

But it has been a very long time since I read the book, and I might view him differently at a different stage of my life. 

Like you, it's been a long time since I read the book. What you say is true - he's one of those characters that just digs a hole for himself and keeps digging (I admit that I have a weakness for that character type). However, consider in Michael's defence that 1) after the wife-selling incident, he does reform and through luck, discipline and tenacity becomes Mayor of Casterbridge  2) some of his problems are external to him: Michael is a traditional boss with traditional ways of doing things, he's getting older and part of the story is just about an older generation being overwritten by a new - Donald Farfrae (sp?) is the next generation and more of an embryo-technocrat. Plus, malicious provincial town gossip has a role in his downfall - gossip about stuff that we wouldn't blink an eye about today, and that more free-thinking late Victorians weren't bothered about either. 3) he has good qualities: he's brave, he can be generous, at his best and free of his passions/alcohol, he does try to do the right thing   4) while we can say of any villainous character that they didn't ask to be born with their villainous qualities, Michael's lack of self-awareness, at least to me, makes him seem especially vulnerable. We're all products of our time, but he seems nailed into his. 

Aristotle wouldn't think he was a tragic hero, but: near the start he has a position of respect/status and loses it through hamartia - here, jealously, insecurity. And the book ends in a measure of catharsis through the compassion of Elizabeth Jane. So, yes - I think he's one of Hardy's tragic heroes, and maybe the one that adheres closest to the classical form. (Jude and Tess both have miserable lives from one end to the other; they rarely have much to lose.) 

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33 minutes ago, dog-days said:

Like you, it's been a long time since I read the book. What you say is true - he's one of those characters that just digs a hole for himself and keeps digging (I admit that I have a weakness for that character type). However, consider in Michael's defence that 1) after the wife-selling incident, he does reform and through luck, discipline and tenacity becomes Mayor of Casterbridge  2) some of his problems are external to him: Michael is a traditional boss with traditional ways of doing things, he's getting older and part of the story is just about an older generation being overwritten by a new - Donald Farfrae (sp?) is the next generation and more of an embryo-technocrat. Plus, malicious provincial town gossip has a role in his downfall - gossip about stuff that we wouldn't blink an eye about today, and that more free-thinking late Victorians weren't bothered about either. 3) he has good qualities: he's brave, he can be generous, at his best and free of his passions/alcohol, he does try to do the right thing   4) while we can say of any villainous character that they didn't ask to be born with their villainous qualities, Michael's lack of self-awareness, at least to me, makes him seem especially vulnerable. We're all products of our time, but he seems nailed into his. 

Aristotle wouldn't think he was a tragic hero, but: near the start he has a position of respect/status and loses it through hamartia - here, jealously, insecurity. And the book ends in a measure of catharsis through the compassion of Elizabeth Jane. So, yes - I think he's one of Hardy's tragic heroes, and maybe the one that adheres closest to the classical form. (Jude and Tess both have miserable lives from one end to the other; they rarely have much to lose.) 

Good discussion.  You remember the book well.  I’m still stuck on whether he is a tragic hero because is the root of his downfall in hamartia (misfortune that could happen to anyone), or a consequence of “vice or depravity” (if we’re using Aristotle)?  Selling his wife and infant daughter while drunk, his jealous antagonism toward Farfrae after Henchard himself persuades Farfrae (who is a virtuous and generous actor throughout) to abandon his emigration and stay in Casterbridge, and his callous treatment of Lucetta, Jopp (?) and the sailor looks more like a cautionary tale about suffering long-lasting consequences for impulsive and uncaring bad decisions.  His chickens come home to roost.  The Stoics would lose their shit over Henchard: he loses command of himself even when faced with no great adversity; he shows great weakness of character and fails to act nobly at every turn.  He is reckless and unthinking, and fritters away lifetime of good standing — a cautionary tale to the upright Victorians with rigid social mores.  He does not retain the moral high ground of a tragic hero from Sophocles nor Euripides (not that I’m deeply knowledgeable of either).

His downfall is very contrived and yet there was no outside actor or misfortune that brought him low.  Everything was a consequence of his mistreatment of others.

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1 hour ago, john said:

McCarthy Blood Meridian

O yes!

Also, not only the Godfather books, but just about all the gangster flix, from the beginning to present.  I am having an ever stronger reaction over time that the characters I'm given with whom to identify and pull for, are drug dealers, sex traffickers, abusers of women and children.  This includes my all time favored gangster viewing, which are the Godfather films and the Italian series, Gomorrah. 

This is what it's come to, with the US national obsession with, glorification of violent men doing violent acts, since long before we were a nation.  "Justified" violence is our them and our national identity.

Which is what Puzo was doing with his books, and then in collaboration with Capola, creating an Italian-American origin myth that proves Italians as American and worthy of being American as any 'anglo' founding father. We all do it with weapons and every kind of other violence.

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Lolita. Humbert Humbert remains the only book protagonist I've ever encountered where I found myself genuinely wanting to punch him.

A Clockwork Orange and American Psycho are other candidates. Flashman for black comedy.

For something more old-school... Shakespeare's Richard III. Christopher Marlowe's whole thing was having morally despicable protagonists who come across as cool (Tamburlaine, Faust, The Jew of Malta).

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This thread reminds me how good Lolita is. HH is not a psychopath, a sociopath or a master criminal, all of whom are fun to read about. He’s not a man struggling with the consequences of evil acts or a wrong thinking teenager like Alex from Clockwork Orange. He’s just a pathetic pedophile.

But it’s so well written that he’s still fun to read because he has such an entertaining inner monologue. And the book really has two villain protagonists since, problematically perhaps, Lolita’s victimhood is barely taken into account. It’s as much a story about a sad middle aged man driven crazy by a devious 13 year old as anything.

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13 hours ago, Zorral said:

O yes!

Also, not only the Godfather books, but just about all the gangster flix, from the beginning to present. 

Right, that reminded me of something that I which is quite good. The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee is a Godfather-inspired fantasy series. I generally don't like to read or watch gangster books or movies, but this was an exception. It's quite good if you like that sort of thing. The setting is a standout, IMO. Asian-inspired modern urban fantasy settings aren't too common.

Summary: The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It's the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.

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