# 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:** 4
**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, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/61 "2008-05-29T23:37:12Z")
[QUOTE=Guinastasia] Let’s not forget _Vanity Fair_. Becky Sharp makes Scarlett O’Hara look like Mother Teresa. [/QUOTE] Also by Thackeray: _Barry Lyndon._ The protagonist is a total bastard, much worse than in Kubrick’s movie. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/62 "2008-05-29T23:39:26Z")
Hmmm, I’ll have to try that one-I loved _Vanity Fair_. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/63 "2008-05-30T00:06:07Z")
[QUOTE=jayjay] 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. [/QUOTE] He hurled the Enterprise to the far reaches of space which led to an encounter with the Borg that cost the lives of several crew members. That’s a little notch above mischievous I think. Marc ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/64 "2008-05-30T00:16:04Z")
How about _Breaker Morant_? The movie may have been about how governments fail their soldiers, but, still, they were liars and killers. [QUOTE=The Them] There’s **To Live and Die in L.A.** , featuring Secret Service agents who decide that the end DOES justify the means. Coolest car chase ever. I mean that. EVER. [/quote] Absolutely; that movie had at least _four_ villains as heroes, and I still quote the radio voice over at the end of that car chase. [QUOTE=The Them] Someone will be along to mention Shakespeare; I’m gonna stop now. 🙂 [/QUOTE] That would be Richard III, the opening soliloquy, [And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/richardiii/full.html) One could argue Bruce Willis in _Last Man Standing_; the man was a sadistic murderer. Or, for that matter, just about any Clint Eastwood movies. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/65 "2008-05-30T00:35:19Z")
I would say that the protagonist of _Fight Club_ is a villain, but probably shouldn’t say more about it than that for fear of spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t read/seen it. ---
**Author:** ![Indyellen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/indyellen/32/4176_2.png) [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/66 "2008-05-30T01:08:17Z")
[In Bruges](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/) (an excellent movie) has as its main characters hit men. Just because one of them feels bad about a killing he’s done (accidentally) doesn’t make him any less a villain. ---
**Author:** ![Ragiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6de8d8/32.png) [@Ragiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ragiel)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/67 "2008-05-31T00:54:44Z")
Would the murderer of Roger Ackroyd be a good example? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/68 "2008-05-31T01:07:21Z")
Tony Soprano is not a villain. He’s a multidimensional character who has a lot of good things about him and a lot of bad things about him. His cheerful demeanor and sense of humor and avuncular personality make him likeable, the fact that he suffers from anxiety attacks makes him sympathetic because a large portion of society at large shares this with him, and he’s a good father. He makes a living through crime but he is never shown to be a sadistic guy and he is never shown to enjoy killing - the crime is just a means to an end. Amoral, yes. Villainous, no. There ARE villains in the Sopranos. Phil Leotardo, the New York rival of Tony, is the primary example. There are also guys like Ralphie and Richie who operate within Tony’s own organization but are trying to undermine him, and who are much more sadistic and much less sympathetic as characters than Tony. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/69 "2008-05-31T18:38:37Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] He hurled the Enterprise to the far reaches of space which led to an encounter with the Borg that cost the lives of several crew members. That’s a little notch above mischievous I think. Marc [/QUOTE] He was stimulating mankind and preparing them for bigger encounters to come, to save the race a few crewmen died. ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/70 "2008-05-31T20:11:53Z")
**Jack Torrence** in _The Shining_. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/71 "2008-05-31T20:24:42Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] He hurled the Enterprise to the far reaches of space which led to an encounter with the Borg that cost the lives of several crew members. That’s a little notch above mischievous I think. Marc [/QUOTE] Mischief doesn’t have to be innocent. In fact it rarely is. Most of the classic mischief figures in myth, legend and literature create situations that often lead to great body counts. Rarely are those body counts intended, but the trickster’s actions are usually a proximate cause of the deaths. I don’t think it makes the trickster necessarily evil, either. An inability to consider consequences may lead to what we’d consider criminal culpability, but intent matters a lot more when dealing with whether someone is a villain or not. ETA: For the OP, the movie [Killing Time](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140312/) features a LOT of villains, and one anti-hero. The central character really is the female Italian hitwoman. And she’s completely amoral. That she’d been hired by a ‘nominally’ dirty cop to kill a psychopath makes her a bit sympathetic. And that she’s mostly killing people attempting to kill her makes it more so, but looking at her actions, and reactions, it’s hard to see her as anything but a villain. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/72 "2008-05-31T21:59:05Z")
How about Moorcock’s Elric? Often a villain, always an anti-hero. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/73 "2008-06-01T03:02:14Z")
There is a (nigh impossible to find, out of print) book called Villains by Necessity. The general gist is that the world has been becoming more and more good, darkness is basically unheard of and evil is sealed away. A druid ends up finding that the tip of balance is, to use a cliche, too much of a good thing. Reality becomes ferociously unstable and to preserve the world from unraveling the druid gathers up villains who have to release/bring back evil. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/74 "2008-06-01T04:56:57Z")
The protagonist of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel _Zombie_ is a Jeffrey Dahmer-esque serial killer, and the novel is in first person. Very disturbing. C.S. Lewis’ novel\* The Screwtape Letters \* is the correspondense of a senior devil to a minor tempter in how best to seduce humans to sin. The movie _Natural Born Killers_ is about a crazy young couple (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis at their career best) who go on a killing spree. ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/75 "2008-06-01T13:34:22Z")
Similar in some ways to _Man Bites Dog_ is _The Last Horror Movie_, a simulated documentary about a serial killer. ---
**Author:** ![Ragiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6de8d8/32.png) [@Ragiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ragiel)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/76 "2008-06-01T13:56:49Z")
[QUOTE=Jragon] There is a (nigh impossible to find, out of print) book called Villains by Necessity. The general gist is that the world has been becoming more and more good, darkness is basically unheard of and evil is sealed away. A druid ends up finding that the tip of balance is, to use a cliche, too much of a good thing. Reality becomes ferociously unstable and to preserve the world from unraveling the druid gathers up villains who have to release/bring back evil. [/QUOTE] ABEbooks has 57 copies listed for sale, if anyone’s interested. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/77 "2008-06-01T17:57:39Z")
I’d say [The Ladykillers](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048281/) counts. The protagonists are a group of thieves using a nice, somewhat befuddled, old lady’s home to plan and stage a robbery. [The remake](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335245/) is okay but doesn’t have the charm of the original. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/78 "2008-06-01T18:27:04Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] 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. [/QUOTE] I respectfully disagree. The protagonist is simply the main character of a story. It’s a term that comes to us from Greek drama. Yes, the antagonist i the chief character opposing the protagonist. The functional definition of a protagonist as one who initiates the action is useful to an extent in film analysis and screenwriting classes, but overapplication leads to problematic readings. Is God the protagonist of **The Ten Commandments** (the version starring Charlton Heston)? Certainly he sets everything in motion, but clearly the protagonist is Moses. The entire film is the story of his journey. Is Sauron the protagonist of **The Lord of the Rings**? He creates the Ring, loses the Ring, and starts the War of the Ring. He _is_ the Lord of the Rings, but the protagonist is Frodo, ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/79 "2008-06-01T19:00:29Z")
(itchy trigger finger there) … but the protagonist is Frodo (although good cases could be made for other characters). Even though he spends much of the story being led about by other characters, his journey forms the bulk of the narrative. It’s frankly easier to think of stories where the protagonist doesn’t initiate the action than ones in which he does. Usually there needs to be a call to adventure, either in a literal sense of of someone assigning a quest or issuing a plea for help, or in a more abstract sense of circumstances becoming intolerable due to outside forces. But whatever the back story may be, the protagonist _eventually_ comes to drive _his_ story, which is the one that matters. In a dramatic sense, the hero is the main character and the villain is the main adversary, but as these meanings are already covered by “protagonist” and “antagonist,” it’s more interesting to go by the common usages of hero as someone with admirable qualities or a good person and villain as a scoundrel or evil person. That allows us to talk of protagonists who are villains and antagonists who are heroes. An antihero is a main character conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities. An antihero could be a hero, villain, or secondary character. Han Solo is undoubtedly brave and resourceful, but his conspicuous (initial) self-centeredness and unchivalrous behavior qualifies him for antihero status. Cites: > **[Definition of PROTAGONIST](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/protagonist)** > > the principal character in a literary work (such as a drama or story); the leading actor or principal character in a television show, movie, book, etc.; an active participant in an event… See the full definition > **[Definition of ANTAGONIST](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antagonist)** > > one that contends with or opposes another : adversary, opponent; an agent of physiological antagonism: such as; a muscle that contracts with and limits the action of an agonist with which it is paired —called also antagonistic muscle… See the full... > **[Definition of HERO](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hero)** > > a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability; an illustrious warrior; a person admired for achievements and noble qualities… See the full definition > **[Definition of VILLAIN](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/villain)** > > a character in a story or play who opposes the hero; a deliberate scoundrel or criminal; one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty… See the full definition > **[Definition of ANTIHERO](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antihero)** > > a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities… See the full definition ETA: And I guess I’m not really disagreeing with Cervaise at all, since he did start with the qualifying statement “From a standpoint of formal structural theory in literary analysis…” His functional definition is a useful one in that context, but I think overapplication can lead to tortured readings in which almost every hero is an antagonist and the terms lose much of their usefulness. ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976/80 "2008-06-01T19:13:21Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] John Gardner wrote a series of books with Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis in one book and novel by Doyle, and in a LOT of pastiches) as the narrator and central character. [/QUOTE] Didn’t Gardner also do one from Grendel’s point of view? Yep. _Grendel_, 1972 Curiously, Wiki doesn’t list it in the Gardner entry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-with-a-villain-as-protagonist/450976.md?page=5)