# Stories with a Villain as Protagonist **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 29, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976 "2008-05-29T02:40:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/21 "2008-05-29T13:20:00Z")
Can’t believe no one’s mentioned the _Dexter_ books, yet. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/22 "2008-05-29T13:23:51Z")
_Chicago_, for that matter. The main character’s a (not alleged) murderess. All the secondary characters are either killers or slimy lawyers or corrupt prison matrons. The only halfway good characters are an ineffectual sap and a woman who may or may not have been railroaded through the judicial system (the Hungarian woman). I said to my mother after we watched it, “You know, there was nobody in that film we SHOULD have been cheering for, but we were anyway…” ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/23 "2008-05-29T13:34:17Z")
Hannibal Lecter is arguably the protagonist of \*\*Hannibal \*\* where he is still reasonably villainous. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/24 "2008-05-29T14:00:08Z")
**The Mechanic** starring Charles Bronson. He is a professional hit man. **Gros Point Blank** - Once again, a professional hit man - this one more comedic. **Wag the Dog** - Corrupt political manipulators (I suppose that’s a bit redundent). In books: The _Hit Man_ and follow up books. _The Burgler Who…_" series - well, he is a burgler, I don’t really see him as a villain though. I suppose the same could be said for incompetent thief Dormunder and his series of stories. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/25 "2008-05-29T14:05:01Z")
_The Debt to Pleasure_ by John Lancaster, a satire novel in which the narrator is “a man whose professed gentility conceals a cold-blooded obsession and a sinister agenda” (from \*Publishers Weekly \* review). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/26 "2008-05-29T14:18:37Z")
Does “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” count? Since the OP asks for it and since most people (thanks to movies and comics) have the wrong idea: Dr Jekyll is a doctor, doing pharmaceutical research on himself. He takes a philter which turns him into a split personality. Jekyll is a lamb (if one with some strange ideas); Hyde, while not physically different except in his demeanor (and this is what people don’t seem to “get”) is a sadistic SOB. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/27 "2008-05-29T14:22:17Z")
Q, from _Star Trek_? (What do you mean, he wasn’t the protagonist…?) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/28 "2008-05-29T14:23:06Z")
Snake Pillskin in Escape from New York. Ed McBain’s _The Deaf Man_. I so want to see those books made into movies starring Leonardo DiCaprio in about five years when he will be old enough to do the role. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/29 "2008-05-29T14:35:33Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia] Q, from _Star Trek_? (What do you mean, he wasn’t the protagonist…?) [/QUOTE] Not a villain, actually. The Q are amoral, not immoral. Even _our_ Q. Edited: Never mind. The whole amoral/immoral dichotomy is the whole point of _Dexter_, which I mentioned, so it doesn’t really differentiate villain from non-villain. I still don’t think Q (“our” Q, anyway) was a villain. Just because he didn’t actually do villainous things…mischievous, maybe. Annoying, yes. But not villainous. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/30 "2008-05-29T14:42:23Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] _Soon I Will Be Invincible_; much of the book is from the viewpoint of Dr Impossible, a comic book style supervillain. He’s on his twelfth plan for world domination. [/QUOTE] I thought this book was a hoot - the way it gets inside the mind of Dr. Impossible was fun… ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/31 "2008-05-29T14:52:28Z")
Shakespeare’s Richard III - Evil, power hungry and out for revenge, but the guy can talk a good game, and isn’t boring. [QUOTE=jayjay] Can’t believe no one’s mentioned the _Dexter_ books, yet. [/QUOTE] It could be argued that Dexter doesn’t qualify, since even though the protaganist is a serial killer, he’s not actually the “bad guy,” so to speak…perhaps more [affably evil?](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AffablyEvil) ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/32 "2008-05-29T15:02:36Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] Not a villain, actually. The Q are amoral, not immoral. Even _our_ Q. [/QUOTE] He’s also not a protagonist. Except maybe in that one episode where his rowdy brat gets kicked out of the continuum. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/33 "2008-05-29T15:18:39Z")
From a standpoint of formal structural theory in literary analysis, the protagonist is the character who initiates and drives the action, and the antagonist is the character who reacts to and opposes the protagonist. Heroism and villainy have nothing to do with it. Therefore, in every James Bond movie where some megalomaniac is pursuing some world-dominating scheme, Bond, strictly speaking, is the antagonist, while the villainous mastermind is the protagonist. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/34 "2008-05-29T15:21:27Z")
Lestat the vampire in Anne Rice’s novels. He sure is a vampire. ---
**Author:** ![powerjacob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@powerjacob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/powerjacob)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/35 "2008-05-29T16:32:08Z")
V in “V for Vendetta”? vigilante “The Professional” hitman “Unforgiven” retired gunslinger of sorts Almost any films by Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (minus the Spy Kids flicks of course) ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/36 "2008-05-29T16:37:53Z")
Alex in A Clockwork Orange. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/37 "2008-05-29T16:43:18Z")
[QUOTE=Skara\_Brae] Shakespeare’s Richard III - Evil, power hungry and out for revenge, but the guy can talk a good game, and isn’t boring. [/QUOTE] Macbeth, too – and more interesting than Richard because, instead of simply gloating over his evil, he has doubts every step of the way – but he never lets that stop him! I once read a George Orwell essay about Shakespeare (or maybe it was an intro to a radio dramatization of the final scene of _Macbeth),_ pointing out that Macbeth represents the fallacy that it is possible to say, “I will commit this one crime that will get me where I want to be, and after that I will become respectable.” As it plays out, each of Macbeth’s progressively worse crimes is necessitated by the first one; he murders Duncan for self-advancement, but all his other victims for self-preservation. _"Hamlet_ is the story of a man who does not know how to commit a murder; _Macbeth_ is the story of a man who does; and, although few of us commit murders, it is possible Macbeth has more in common with our experiences in real life." (From memory, quotes probably not exact.) You could make a case that Iago, not Othello, is the protagonist of _Othello._ He is, after all, the driver of the action. And unlike Richard III and Macbeth, he acts not for gain but from **pure malice.** Great achievement on Shakespeare’s part to make such a character believable at all. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/38 "2008-05-29T16:51:29Z")
Margaret Mitchell’s orginal idea for “Gone With The Wind” was to have a good couple and a bad couple, with the bad woman in love with the good man. She considered Melanie Hamilton Wilkes to be the heroine. Neither Scarlett or Rhett are good people. They are opportunists who lack scrupples, who are only interested in getting what they want, and anyone who gets in their way be damned. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/39 "2008-05-29T16:51:52Z")
I just remembered, **The Picture of Dorian Grey** both book and movie. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/40 "2008-05-29T16:55:19Z")
Cassius is **a** protagonist of _Julius Caesar,_ and is carefully contrasted with his fellow assassin Brutus, whose motives are more noble and republican. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976.md?page=3)