# Works of Fiction Where the Villain is the (or a) Main Character **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 13, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778 "2012-05-13T15:53:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/61 "2012-05-15T00:18:36Z")
I suppose even thought they’re largly ensemble films, **Reservoir Dogs** and **Pulp Fiction.** ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/62 "2012-05-15T00:19:40Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Steven Brust’s _Taltos_ novels certainly fit the bill. The protagonist, Vlad Taltos, is a human hit man and small-time boss in (essentially) the elven mafia. The books are written in first person, and Vlad comes across as clever, engaging, and often sympathetic, but he’s unquestionably a cold-blooded killer. Most of his friends aren’t particularly nice, either. Racist, too - he only carries out hits on “elves,” never on humans. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/63 "2012-05-15T00:37:39Z")
_I am Legend_ Should I spoiler a book written in 1954? What the Hell. Even though the protagonist believes he is doing the right thing killing vampires, he realizes at the end he has become the monster parents scare their children with. He has been the villian all along. The title doesn’t even make sense in the Will Smith version. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/64 "2012-05-15T00:40:29Z")
> [@tripthicket](#): > > Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds and his ragtag band of thieves, rebels and fugitives. > > I supported Unification. 😃 > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > “V”, in _V for Vendetta_. Actually, I think rebels and revolutionaries would fall under a whole different literary category than “villain,” unless the point of the story is to so portray them. Robert E. Lee is no “villain” in any literary or cinematic treatment I’ve ever encountered, regardless of its political POV, which is hardly ever pro-Confederate. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/65 "2012-05-15T00:48:10Z")
**Decision Points** by G.W. Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/66 "2012-05-15T01:03:23Z")
**The Wasp Factory** by Iain Banks pretty much blows this category away. Actually, **Solar** by Iain McEwan is a good contender too. Maybe it’s something about being called Iain? ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/67 "2012-05-15T03:49:38Z")
The Sopranos A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/68 "2012-05-15T03:52:25Z")
Meh, let’s make TV tropes do the work for us. Villain Protagonist > **[Villain Protagonist - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainProtagonist)** > > An interesting twist on conventional storytelling: make the bad guy, or a bad guy, the main character. Sometimes (but not always), this villainous main character will even get the Sympathetic P.O.V. On the other hand, it is not necessary for a … ---
**Author:** ![Namkcalb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c89c15/32.png) [@Namkcalb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Namkcalb)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/69 "2012-05-15T04:51:13Z")
Yuri Orlov - Lord of War. It’s about an international arms dealer always trying to stay ahead of the hero-antagonist interpol agents. He would have died twice if the interpol agent Jack Valentine wasn’t so ethically unflexible. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/70 "2012-05-15T04:59:56Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Doesn’t fit. There is no Main Character. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/71 "2012-05-15T17:27:53Z")
Screwtape letters ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/72 "2012-05-15T17:47:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > WRT Iago, that was **my** point. As for Lady Macbeth, she is the one who is too full o’ the milk of human kindness – she goes mad with guilt, while Macbeth commits ever-greater crimes unflinchingly. I think it is significant that Shakespeare usually gives his female characters actual personal names; but Lady Macbeth, even after she becomes Queen, has none but “Lady Macbeth.” It’s like she’s Macbeth’s alter ego – or, rather, neither ego nor id, but an inverted superego, an anticonscience. And it is that which finally breaks, from the contradiction between competing principles of mercy and ambition. But, by that time, Macbeth no longer needs any such thing. "I am in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/73 "2012-05-15T18:22:45Z")
**[I Am A Genius Of Unspeakable Evil And I Want To Be Your Class President](http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Unspeakable-Evil-Class-President/dp/B003A02R58/)** ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/74 "2012-05-15T21:52:08Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Doesn’t fit. There is no Main Character. Um… the title of this thread is “Works of Fiction Where the Villain is the (or a) Main Character.” Note the indefinite article. ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/75 "2012-05-16T15:09:08Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > And, could we include Harold Hill in _The Music Man_? For a substantial chunk of the plot, he’s fully intending to swindle a town full of people. On the commentary for the 25th anniversary edition of _The Last Starfighter_, the filmmakers mention how they picked Robert Preston to play the space swindler Centauri (“Always _trust_ Centauri!”) because of his role in _The Music Man_. They wanted somebody the audience could readily identify as a con man. Along these lines, I’d nominate Jack Crow of John Steakley’s _[Armor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armor_(novel))_. He’s the main character (interspersed with flashbacks to the military adventures of Felix, who is nominally the book’s hero) for the last two-thirds of the book. He ingratiates himself to the staff of a federal research outpost so that he can disable their defenses, allowing a mutineer who has captured a small military vessel to land and refuel. That he eventually joins the scientists to make a desperate last stand against the marauders when they finally arrive redeems him, though you’d have to question why - if he were planning to do this all along - would he have lowered the defenses in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![cyrush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@cyrush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cyrush)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/76 "2012-05-16T20:48:55Z")
Inception ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/77 "2012-05-16T22:05:51Z")
THE MAN WHO USED THE UNIVERSE opens with a guy handling the protection-racket end of things for a crime syndicate; in short order he’s making his way up the ranks by handling the details of bribery and smuggling while carrying out the occasional murder – and, in his eventual capacity as a legitimate businessman, he sells classified info to the other side in exchange for commercial opportunities over there – and when his government then asks him to help out by letting spies work alongside his employees, he promptly obliges and just as promptly blows each cover identity for the folks who keep paying up. (It goes on like this for pretty much the whole book; he doesn’t get any nicer.) ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/78 "2012-05-16T22:52:40Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > Isn’t the Devil the main character in Paradise Lost? Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven and all that? He was just misunderstood and oppressed. Frodo was a villain–aiming to destroy the one thing that could have unified Middle Earth and end the slaughter of millions of lives. In the end he was redeemed, somewhat, when he chose not to destroy it but to see to the unification himself, but not until he’d brought the ring fatally close to its destruction. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/79 "2012-05-16T23:39:22Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > Um… the title of this thread is “Works of Fiction Where the Villain is the (or a) Main Character.” Note the indefinite article. Noted ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778/80 "2012-05-17T00:01:03Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > Um… the title of this thread is “Works of Fiction Where the Villain is the (or a) Main Character.” Note the indefinite article. IMO, the ‘main characters’ of the series are the ones with POV chapters. At least up to about 1/5 of the way through the third book (as far as I’ve gotten yet) there is zero overlap between them and the few characters who could, IMO, be legitimately called villains - Cersi, Joffrey, Jamie, Melisandre, a couple others. The POV characters occasionally do real bad shit, or are on the wrong side of one of the conflicts, but they’re still not villains. They’re people stuck in messed up situations that they’re trying to make the best of…even if the reason they’re stuck there is that they owe some sort of loyalty to the proper villains. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-of-fiction-where-the-villain-is-the-or-a-main-character/621778.md?page=5)