Books where protagonist is the most morally vile character

[SeanF]

One protagonist who @CTPhipps mentioned as absolutely vile a few years ago is Mike Harmon, from Paladin of Shadows.  Now that I have read THAT SCENE I would agree. 

[IFR]

You're all amazing! I honestly didn't anticipate this many suggestions. With these recommendations and the ones in the steampunk thread, I think that's a couple of years worth of reading.

I'll probably start with Lolita. Bit of a surprise, because I had no interest in the book before this. The premise wasn't appealing to me, but the way people are describing it here makes it very intriguing.

Then I'll follow it up with Blood Meridian. I've read The Road and I loved it, so that's an easy sell for me.

Then I'll work through the rest.

@Ormond

I've actually watched the movie The Player a couple years ago when I was obsessed with the director Robert Altman. It seems to be a relatively obscure movie, which is too bad because it's excellent.

[Fez]

The main character of The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco is a complete bastard and the villain of the story. And the extent of his awfulness just becomes more and more apparent over the course of the novel. It's a good read, though not remotely SciFi/Fantasy.

ETA:

I'd argue the main character of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson also fits the bill. He's not supposed to, I think he's supposed to be more of an anti-hero. But he does something so incredibly vile early in the first book that I have no reaction except "Fuck him" the rest of the series

[SeanF]

41 minutes ago, Fez said:

The main character of The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco is a complete bastard and the villain of the story. And the extent of his awfulness just becomes more and more apparent over the course of the novel. It's a good read, though not remotely SciFi/Fantasy.

ETA:

I'd argue the main character of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson also fits the bill. He's not supposed to, I think he's supposed to be more of an anti-hero. But he does something so incredibly vile early in the first book that I have no reaction except "Fuck him" the rest of the series

Yes, I struggle to see any redeeming features in Thomas Covenant.

[Maithanet]

Whether or not Kellhus in Bakker's books is the most morally vile character depends somewhat on how you interpret the metaphysics/afterlife in the series.  He's unquestionably a force for harm, but it's debatable whether other antagonists are even worse.

Also if we're getting into graphic novels, Watchmen. 

[IFR]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

I'd argue the main character of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson also fits the bill. He's not supposed to, I think he's supposed to be more of an anti-hero. But he does something so incredibly vile early in the first book that I have no reaction except "Fuck him" the rest of the series

I think Covenant is unavoidably an antihero. He's an incredibly selfish individual, but most of his immorality stems from not accepting the reality of this new world. It's like killing people in video games.

Also, Lord Foul is the devil of that world, and while some of the actions of Covenant are bad, they don't put him in a worse state than the devil. 

17 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Also if we're getting into graphic novels, Watchmen.

I think Nixon was worse than most of the main characters. Certainly more damaging. 

As for the end, I guess that character being deemed the most morally vile is a utilitarian question. The action wasn't motivated to cause harm, but to avoid greater harm. Sort of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki question - undeniable atrocities, but you'll encounter many who will debate that it ultimately saved more lives than were lost. 

[Fez]

26 minutes ago, IFR said:

I think Covenant is unavoidably an antihero. He's an incredibly selfish individual, but most of his immorality stems from not accepting the reality of this new world. It's like killing people in video games.

Also, Lord Foul is the devil of that world, and while some of the actions of Covenant are bad, they don't put him in a worse state than the devil. 

I think it depends. Lord Foul intends to harm more people, so by that definition, yeah, this isn't what you're looking for. But on the other hand, I think there's an argument that Covenant is morally worse than Lord Foul. As I recall (it's been ages, and I only ever read the first series) Foul is bound by his nature of what he is to be evil, there's no choice in the matter; Covenant chose to be a rapist and all-around selfish asshole.

[Hereward]

34 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think it depends. Lord Foul intends to harm more people, so by that definition, yeah, this isn't what you're looking for. But on the other hand, I think there's an argument that Covenant is morally worse than Lord Foul. As I recall (it's been ages, and I only ever read the first series) Foul is bound by his nature of what he is to be evil, there's no choice in the matter; Covenant chose to be a rapist and all-around selfish asshole.

I’m not sure Covenant can be worse as Lord Foul is a manifestation of his own self-loathing, though it’s left to our imagination as to whether he is imaginary or real. Covenant is clearly vile in the first series, and what he does is unforgivable. The second series shows him trying to redeem what he did without ever being able to forgive himself. It’s a wonderful read, especially as he never approaches being nice despite his determination to put things right.

[Ran]

Donaldson's brilliance in the Thomas Covenant series lay in creating this incredible dilemma: a leper who has to constantly monitor his reality every single waking moment to insure he does no cause himself permanent or even mortal injury is thrust into a fantastical other world which immediately restores his sense of touch, thereby challenging the very process he has used to stay alive. And so he's the Unbeliever, rejecting the reality he's in because it will kill him if it's all just a hallucination, and the tension in the story lies in the struggle between his "unbelief" and the fact that what is happening is actually real. 

So, is Covenant vile? I don't think so, within the framework of his understanding and his refusal to accept what's going on to preserve his life. He is very selfish precisely because he refuses to believe any of what's going on, but he has a pretty good reason to do it.

So, IMO, he's not the most morally vile figure in the book. Also, besides Lord Foul himself, the Ravers are pretty damned vile as well. You can say that it's all in their nature to be monstrous, but to that I'd say that it was in Covenant's nature to not believe and what he did as a consequence of that should similarly not be held against him.

The Second Chronicle is indeed a wonderful read. I think it may in fact be better than the First Chronicle.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

I don't think Blood Meridian fits the OP, the kid is the protagonist and total shit but most other characters are much worse.

Someone mentioned The Boys and Homelander, but I can't see how he's a protagonist, and defintely not the protagonist.  

For some older stuff, the Under Ground Man and MacBeth.

See also, Love in the Time of Cholera.  

 

The following spoiler is an Iain Banks book:

 

Banks Use of Weapons.  Although maybe there is an argument to be made (I'd argue against it though) that all the drones who know who Zakalwe really is are even worse.

 

 

 

[Iskaral Pust]

22 hours ago, Ran said:

Donaldson's brilliance in the Thomas Covenant series lay in creating this incredible dilemma: a leper who has to constantly monitor his reality every single waking moment to insure he does no cause himself permanent or even mortal injury is thrust into a fantastical other world which immediately restores his sense of touch, thereby challenging the very process he has used to stay alive. And so he's the Unbeliever, rejecting the reality he's in because it will kill him if it's all just a hallucination, and the tension in the story lies in the struggle between his "unbelief" and the fact that what is happening is actually real. 

So, is Covenant vile? I don't think so, within the framework of his understanding and his refusal to accept what's going on to preserve his life. He is very selfish precisely because he refuses to believe any of what's going on, but he has a pretty good reason to do it.

So, IMO, he's not the most morally vile figure in the book. Also, besides Lord Foul himself, the Ravers are pretty damned vile as well. You can say that it's all in their nature to be monstrous, but to that I'd say that it was in Covenant's nature to not believe and what he did as a consequence of that should similarly not be held against him.

The Second Chronicle is indeed a wonderful read. I think it may in fact be better than the First Chronicle.

 

You’ve highlighted a key tension in the Covenant series: does Covenant’s wary unbelief — to maximize his own self-preservation — excuse his treatment of others?  A real analogy might be the incredible misery inflicted by Catholic missionaries in their pursuit to save the souls of indigenous peoples; and that misguided belief was more altruistic than Covenant merely trying to protect himself.  Does a rational person, weighing their own dark version of Pascal’s Wager, get a free ride for their harm to others?  I really don’t think so. 

Also, IIRC, the rape occurred before Covenant’s rationalization for unbelief and therefore dehumanization of the people.  Although it has been so long since I read it that I may be mistaken.

Edit: another analogy could be anti-vaxxers today infecting and thereby killing young children.  Does their subjective worldview exempt them from blame?

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Also, IIRC, the rape occurred before Covenant’s rationalization for unbelief and therefore dehumanization of the people.  Although it has been so long since I read it that I may be mistaken.

He's already called himself the Unbeliever at this point, but admittedly it is a bit of a whim that resonates forebodingly. Before he goes out that night to be alone by the river, he thinks to himself he can't be a hero in some "dream war", that he can't forget himself that much because "forgetfulness was suicide." And then he tells Lena that he's in a nightmare and that she's trying to drive him mad by making him believe otherwise, because he can't even allow himself to believe that he's not an outcast, abominable leper. 

It's an interesting comparison to the sincere belief of soe Catholic missionaries believing that their harsh methods were worth the souls they saved. The difference between him and the missionaries is that what he does to Lena is not a rational act -- he has a mental breakdown because of the impossible paradox of what she and the Land represents and what he is desperately trying to hold on to. Afterwards he feels immense guilt that he never lives down, even though he's still refusing to believe any of it is real. The brutal missionaries rationalized what they did, and acted according to a rational concept, and I think most of them never got around to feeling any guilt.

 

 

[Ormond]

48 minutes ago, Ran said:

He's already called himself the Unbeliever at this point, but admittedly it is a bit of a whim that resonates forebodingly. Before he goes out that night to be alone by the river, he thinks to himself he can't be a hero in some "dream war", that he can't forget himself that much because "forgetfulness was suicide." And then he tells Lena that he's in a nightmare and that she's trying to drive him mad by making him believe otherwise, because he can't even allow himself to believe that he's not an outcast, abominable leper. 

It's an interesting comparison to the sincere belief of soe Catholic missionaries believing that their harsh methods were worth the souls they saved. The difference between him and the missionaries is that what he does to Lena is not a rational act -- he has a mental breakdown because of the impossible paradox of what she and the Land represents and what he is desperately trying to hold on to. Afterwards he feels immense guilt that he never lives down, even though he's still refusing to believe any of it is real. The brutal missionaries rationalized what they did, and acted according to a rational concept, and I think most of them never got around to feeling any guilt.

 

 

It's been a very long time since I read the book, but in my memory Covenant didn't sound like he was being metaphorical when he says he's "in a nightmare." It seems to me that he actually believed he was in a dream and the people around him were not "real." So it's always been hard for me to see him as a "monster" at that point, any more than I would think someone playing a video game was a monster for taking on a "villain" role and "killing" other characters in the game. 

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, Ormond said:

any more than I would think someone playing a video game was a monster for taking on a "villain" role and "killing" other characters in the game. 

Not a bad way to look at it. People do absolutely awful things in video games all the time because it's not real. Even the Catholic missionaries torturing "heathens" did not doubt what they were doing was real.

[C.T. Phipps]

I am a minority among readers in that I actually believe the Land is completely in Thomas Covenant's head and that he is completely right to think they are NPCs. Furthermore, his actions are driven by a desire to find another reason to utterly hate and punish himself.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I am a minority among readers in that I actually believe the Land is completely in Thomas Covenant's head and that he is completely right to think they are NPCs. Furthermore, his actions are driven by a desire to find another reason to utterly hate and punish himself.

The Second and Third Chronicles make this impossible, because of Linden Avery (and some other characters).

[C.T. Phipps]

I always liked the take on it that was similar to LIFE ON MARS and its sequel.

The new heroine is imagining the delusion of another.

But I may be reaching.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Except of course if Linden Avery does not exist outside of Thomas' imagination.

She has a POV, though. I can't see how this is supposed to be his imagination, especially when he is dead. Or are you imagining that this is some multi-layered fugue state where he is imagining himself being dead, imagining Linden Avery and imagining her perspective of him.... ?

But even in the first Chronicle, consider the whole narrative of Hile Troy: not merely the claim that he was from Covenant's world, which as one could argue was "dreamed" by Covenant...  but the entire story of what was going on in a separate part of the Land at the very same time that Covenant has his own story going on. How can Covenant imagine or dream up two simultaneous narratives? And why is it that the separation between them is perfect -- the imagined Covenant is entirely unaware of the imagined Hile Troy's doings, and so on.

Note that after the initial trilogy, The Chronicle of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, the following series are The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Notice what's missing?

[C.T. Phipps]

I changed my statement because I confused Avery and Troy in my head.

Even then, though, Troy is just a background character of Thomas' psyche creating events.

[Jaxom 1974]

On 8/2/2021 at 7:57 AM, SeanF said:

 

One really compelling villain protagonist, surely intended by the author to be read as a villain, is Colleen McCullogh’s Sulla.

 

On 8/2/2021 at 11:50 AM, SeanF said:

 

She was in love with Caesar, arguably another villain protagonist, and i think his characterisation suffers as a result.  She was not in love with Sulla, and I think his characterisation is all the better for it.

I'm not prepared to argue she loved Sulla the way she loved Caesar...but I have a hard time reading Sulla as the villain.  His actions are so proto-Caesar...McCullough seems to want us to understand the depths these men will go to. I always felt she wanted us to sympathize with Sulla to better accept the varnish of what Caesar will do. I mean, history hems exactly where the characters can end up, but Marius is clearly meant to take the villain role to help us accept the justifications of Sulla.

If that makes sense.