[[quoteright:308:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ManfredAndTheWitchOfTheAlps.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:308:"Manfred and the Witch of the Alps": One of Byron's Byronic heroes]]

->''"Mad, bad and dangerous to know."''
->-- Lady Caroline Lamb, ''before'' she started having sex with LordByron.

The Byronic Hero is a particular sub-type of AntiHero. A character of larger-than-life flaws who is quite often placed into the story where an AntiHero would go, he generally has very few (if any) redeeming qualities beyond panache and seldom performs any of the heroic actions that are usually required of an AntiHero. In some cases, the "hero" part of the name seems to be there only because he tends to be a primary protagonist and thus is a DesignatedHero.

Byronic Heroes often have many unpleasant characteristics, such as conflicting emotions, poor integrity, the status of exile, a lack of respect for rank or privilege, a [[DarkAndTroubledPast troubled past]], cynicism, arrogance, and self-destructiveness. They also have a number of characteristics which had been considered controversial by the audience of the author's time, even if those characteristics have been considered heroic by audiences during other time periods; for example, a Byronic hero is often nonconformist with a dislike for social norms, introspective, a man struggling with his sexuality, and (importantly) [[LonersAreFreaks a loner]]. Prone to {{Melodrama}}. They are generally noted for, however, a vast extant intelligence.

A Byronic hero may have a vaguely suggested [[OffstageVillainy horrible crime behind him]]. This crime may never been made explicit; may indeed be so vague as to suggest that the hero is [[{{Melodrama}} over-dramatizing himself]]. This is sometimes wise; WalterScott had his Byronic hero in ''The Lady of the Lake'' commit forgery and lose his impressiveness. If a pirate, bandit, or other criminal, he may [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything never commit the crime]] during the course of the work, to avoid [[MoralEventHorizon bringing his crimes down to earth]].

Though he can never ([[BadassDecay some would say should never]]) leave his dark past behind him, he can still be redeemed by the [[PowerOfLove Love of a Good Woman.]] Just be careful that [[LoveMakesYouCrazy it doesn't have the opposite effect on him...]]

There have been examples of Byronic heroes since well before Lord Byron's time; Byron just made them famous with both his writings and his private life.

In many ways, the darker incarnation of the UpperClassWit. Totally unrelated to [[{{Mythbusters}} Kari Byron.]] Or any [[BionicCommando series]] with a ''[[TheSixMillionDollarMan Bionic]]'' [[TheBionicWoman Hero]].
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!!Examples:

* The original heroes of classical mythology certainly fit this. The original definition of hero (as in, Heracles, Odysseus, etc.) was not a man who did good deeds. It was [[{{Badass}} a man with the strength to do whatever the hell he wanted]]. Heracles, for instance, was a murderer, a rapist, a thief and a general thug. Most Greek 'heroes' were like that.

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[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* Guts from ''{{Berserk}}'' is a noticeable example of this trope and fits most of the classical traits. It changes with the story, in particular the years after the Eclipse has Guts basically just going around killing apostles while not caring about the people he saved while hanging on to his humanity by a thread. He eventually starts returning to his original personality after he sees where his obsession with revenge has left him.
* Lelouch Lamperouge from ''CodeGeass'', is arrogant, has no trouble about slaughtering not only enemies, but also people that are theoretically on the same side, if he disagrees with their methods, fairly vengeful and lies to his own men all the time. [[DiabolusExMachina After the universe screws him over a couple of times]], [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished usually just when he tries to straighten his act]], he grows increasingly ruthless, loses most of what he cared about, and ends up abandoning his initial moral scruples (such as not harming the innocents and not using his MindControl EvilEye to permanently enslave people). While Lelouch sincerely wants to make the world a better place, his methods are so devious and underhanded that it's impossible to call him ChaoticGood. In the end, [[spoiler:he succeeds in his noble goal of uniting the world... by becoming the evilest overlord in history.]]
** That last one is a case of AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: [[spoiler: yes, he did become the evillest overlord in history and it did unite the world... against ''him''. And all according to plan. A plan that involves his best friend killing him at the very end of it.]]
* Light Yagami from ''DeathNote'' certainly fits this. He's arrogant and manipulative to an incredible degree, and will often use anybody who openly supports Kira or himself as an expendable ally, even considering killing his family at one point but deciding against it for the sole reason that it would make him seem more suspicious. He even openly states that aside from creating the perfect world through fear of death, he intends to [[AGodAmI rule over it as a god.]]
** In the anime, he simply couldn't kill Sayu. Simply couldn't bring himself to do it; it had nothing to do with people getting suspicious, and was arguably a [[PetTheDog humanizing moment]] for him.
* Shinn Asuka from ''GundamSEEDDestiny'', whose hate of ORB brings him much suffering.
* Paptimus Scirocco of ZetaGundam can be seen as one of these. He was quite the womanizer, much like Lord Byron himself, but seemed to truly want to bring about a better world.
* {{Tsukihime}}'s Tohno Shiki's [[SuperpoweredEvilSide split personality (Nanaya Shiki)]] is basically a murderous amoral lustful sociopath who seriously enjoys killing (and violating the female) non-humans. Despite all these, his killing instincts are the only reason Shiki can survive against his inhuman opponents, and it is highly likely that the entire story would not have been able to begin if it were not for Nanaya Shiki's homicidal impulse that arises around non-humans.
* Kanta, the titular ''Series/DesertPunk'', is on the borderline of this and an extreme form of UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist. He's short-tempered, amoral, extremely cynical, and doesn't care about anything but money, [[BreastMan boobs]]/sex (to the point where when he had Junko dead-to-rights for betraying him and didn't plan on letting her go until she had his kid), and saving his own ass. InAWorld where pretty much everyone is a survivalist {{jerkass}} he's ''still'' a worse person than most of them. The only things "heroic" he has going for him are his skills and professionalism as a mercenary and inexplicable tendency to [[TechnicalPacifist spare his defeated opponents lives]] (and just steal all their stuff). Perhaps demonstrated best when he past a pair of children who he refused to endanger himself to save until he had gotten more supplies from a village--''so he could sell them as slaves'' ([[spoiler:though they did turn out to be con-artists]]). [[spoiler:Even when the chips are down, he still cares about himself above all others, pulled a FaceHeelTurn, and killed one of the few men he admired along with his wife and half his children to cover that he was still alive.]]

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[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Tara Chace from ''{{Queen and Country}}''
* Dream of the Endless in NeilGaiman's ''TheSandman''.

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[[folder: Fan Fiction ]]

*[[spoiler:Widget Hackwrench]], the initial BigBad of the ''ChipAndDaleRescueRangers'' {{fanfic}} ''[[FanficRecs/ChipAndDaleRescueRangers Under the Bridge]]'' not only becomes one, but even describes herself as such.
* [[spoiler:Mister Sinister]] becomes one of these in the excellent ''X-Men'' {{fanfic}} ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1588712/1/A_Test_of_Power A Test of Power]]''
*[[FanFic/MyImmortal Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way]], unintentionally unless it's a parody.

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[[folder: Film ]]

* Jake [=LaMotta=] from the film ''RagingBull''.
* Travis Bickle from ''TaxiDriver''.
* V from ''VForVendetta'' anyone? He has a mysterious past and is [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness verbosely eloquent]], cultured, charismatic, brooding, and defiant of the authority that has wronged him.

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[[folder: Literature ]]


*Edward Cullen from Twilight to a freaking T.
* Satan from ParadiseLost is perhaps the [[UrExample grandfather]] of this trope.
* Raistlin Majere of the Dragonlance books fits this trope perfectly. He's arrogant, ruthless, cynical, emotionally troubled, and ultimately evil. He's also highly intelligent, strong-willed, and capable of extraordinary bravery.
* Mishra of MagicTheGathering fame.
* Gully Foyle in Alfred Bester's ''TheStarsMyDestination'' starts out as this; he lives entirely to take revenge on the ship that declined to rescue him from his own crippled spacecraft (not the crew, mind you, just the ship; he's not that bright) and stops at nothing to do so, including raping perhaps the one completely likable character in the whole book. However, he gradually becomes more of a traditional hero and even a messiah of sorts.
** It's worth noting that the novel is ''TheCountOfMonteCristo'' [[RecycledInSpace set in a future where people can teleport]].
* Heathcliff from ''WutheringHeights'' is one of the most famous Byronic Heroes. Admired by millions of people throughout the world, even though he is quite clearly a ''very'' [[strike:bad]] evil man.
* ''JaneEyre'''s LoveInterest, Mr. Rochester, is decidedly 'Byronic'. A taste for such heroes seems to have run in the Bronte family.
* Lord Byron's semi-autobiographical poem ''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' contains one of the earliest Byronic Heroes to be actually named as such.
* Susanna Clarke's ''JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'': Jonathan Strange ends up as one for a while, although he did have a heroic motive. It was {{lampshaded}} with Strange explaining that he picked up some of Lord Byron's style from hanging out with him.
* Peter David's ''SirAproposOfNothing'', who only became a squire because he would be killed otherwise. He loathes long tales of heroic derring-do, and even [[spoiler:became a full-fledged villain for a while.]]
* Dumas' ''TheCountOfMonteCristo'', who one minor female character nicknames "Lord Ruthven" (see below) in reference to his pallor and mannerisms.
** And by logical extension, the Count of Monte Cristo in the anime ''{{Gankutsuou}}''.
* Dom Claude Frollo from Victor Hugo's ''TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'', despite being the novel's primary antagonist, fits the mold of a Byronic hero. A compassionate, fatherly person for most of his life, by the time the novel begins, he, while still brilliant, is isolated by his alchemical studies and ultimately doomed by his lust for Esmerelda.
* Lord Ruthven of the novella ''The Vampyre'' as well as the Lord Ruthven from a novel by Lady Lamb above, both based on Byron. To be fair, Ruthven (and later, Count {{Dracula}}), are both stellar examples of a Byronic ''villain''.
*Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Pechorin in Mikhail Lermontov's ''A Hero of Our Time'' is both a good example and possibly a {{deconstruction}}, being very GenreSavvy and all the more miserable for it. Also, he's not even the protagonist as such and [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dies "off-screen"]]. The author apparently intended to stretch the idea of the Byronic Hero to its limits:
-->"You will again tell me that a human being cannot be so wicked, and I will reply that if you can believe in the existence of all the villains of tragedy and romance, why wouldn't believe that there was a Pechorin?".
* Michael Moorcock's ''Elric of Melnibone''.
* Lord Asriel from PhilipPullman's ''HisDarkMaterials'' takes the ByronicHero to a cosmic scale.
*The title character of Pushkin's ''Eugene Onegin'' can be both seen as an example and a {{deconstruction}}. On one hand, he fits the mold in his cynical, self-destructive nature, he has more than a little of the UpperClassTwit in him, and is kind of ineffectual compared to similar characters.
* AnneRice's The Vampire Lestat
* MaryShelley's ''{{Frankenstein}}'' contains a rather nice Byronic Hero in the eponymous doctor ([[IAmNotShazam not]] [[FrankensteinsMonster the monster!]]).
** I think that the Monster (or the Creature, as he is more often called in the novel) also qualifies. He is incredibly eloquent, brilliant, and even persuasive in his best moments. He is also filled with characteristically Byronic anguish and despair due to being cut off from humanity as a result of his unnatural birth (or creation, depending on how you look at it). Not to mention that some literary critics have interpreted the Creature as Victor's dark side.
* {{Tolkien}}'s Middle-Earth has a couple of these, and the greatest of them may be Turin "Turambar." A gritty AntiHero felled by a cruel deity's curse and his own pride.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* For a good period of some of the later series of ''{{Angel}}'' Wesley Wyndam-Price fills the the role of ByronicHero as a cynic, self-destructive drunkard with a troubled past and horrible crime behind him and only a vast intellect to sustain him.
** The title character also fits the trope quite well.
* Averted in ''{{Blackadder}}'' where a Byronic hero is someone who wanders round Italy in a big shirt trying to get laid.
** But also played relatively straight in the character of Blackadder himself, who's got all the typical Byronic qualities... except for the charisma.
* Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald from ''{{Cracker}}'' was a Byronic [[TheProfiler Criminal Psychologist]]. Best summed up by the conversation:
--> '''Thomas:''' Why do you drink so much?
--> '''Fitz:''' I ''like it''.
--> '''Thomas:''' And smoke so much?
--> '''Fitz:''' I ''like it''.
--> '''Thomas:''' And you gamble as well?
--> '''Fitz:''' Yes, I ''like it''.
* Dr. Greg {{House}}.
*Todd Manning of ''OneLifeToLive'' (OrSoIHeard) is kind of a HeelFaceRevolvingDoor version of this, sometimes a Byronic Villain, other times a ByronicHero, but always Byronic.
* Adam Monroe is the ''{{Heroes}}'' character most likely to fit this trope. The show's token immortal, he helped save Japan from the feudal warlord Whitebeard four hundred years ago, founded the Company to make a better world for evolved humans, and in the show's second season plotted to give his people a second chance [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans through the release of a supervirus.]] He's [[WickedCultured cultured]], [[ManipulativeBastard cunning]], and a man of ''many'' vices.
* Zack Morris, from ''SavedByTheBell''.

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[[folder: Music ]]

* Siegmund in ''Die Walküre''.

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[[folder: Real Life ]]

* LordByron himself, of course. He was a serial womanizer, possibly a junkie, he was...very close to his [[BrotherSisterIncest sister]] (which lead to his wife divorcing him) and seemed to be unusually close to his niece...almost fatherly...

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[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* In ''{{Exalted}}'', Abyssals and Infernals are the most likely characters to be in this category, though it can happen to the other types as well.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Sol Badguy from ''[[{{GuiltyGear}} the Guilty Gear series]]'' is often boorish, slovenly, aloof, ill-mannered, far more intelligent and well-informed than his appearance would indicate, and is the perpetrator of one of the most awful crimes in that world[[spoiler:: being co-creator of the Gears]]. He might be a loose fit (perhaps more fitting as an [[{{AntiHero}} Anti-Hero]]) due to his gruff concern for [[{{FriendToAllLivingThings}} Dizzy]], his (albeit [[{{TheRival}} rather violent]]) [[{{HeterosexualLifePartners}} almost-brotherly]] relationship with [[{{TheCape}} Ky Kiske]], and his deceptively high sense of self-sacrifice (In [[{{DungeonsandDragons}} D&D parlance]], he's very much Chaotic, but also most likely [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNXEwsj8gs Good]]).
* Travis Touchdown from ''NoMoreHeroes'' seems to fit this trope quite nicely, being a HeroicSociopath with more character flaws than an average politician.
* Wylfred from ''ValkyrieProfileCovenantOfThePlume'' is essentially a petty grudge seeking man whom blames the death of his sister and his mother's sanity on the fact that his dad was taken by the Valkyrie. He then goes on a plot to kill the Valkyrie.

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[[folder: Web Comics ]]

* Bun-Bun from ''SluggyFreelance'', while normally just a HeroicSociopath, becomes increasingly Byronic during "Holiday Wars" and "Oceans Unmoving." The only part of the Byronic template he doesn't fit is the brooding part. If Bun-Bun ever gets in a brooding mood, he just beats someone up instead.

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