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The biggest problem in the series is something that no amount of editing can get around: The series compels viewers to empathize with a serial killer, to root for him to prevail, to hope he doesn't get discovered.
An interesting twist on conventional storytelling is to take the Sympathetic POV and hand it to one of the Villains. Although " hero" and "protagonist" are frequently used interchangeably, it can be fun to take Evil's side and root for it to win over the boring goody two-shoes.
Sometimes " Anti Hero" is used to mean this, but a distinction can be drawn between a Darker And Edgier good guy and an actual bad guy who just happens to be the protagonist. Sometimes overlaps with a type of Anti Villain, such as Affably Evil, Noble Demon, or Well Intentioned Extremist; but an Anti Villain can be an antagonist, and a Villain Protagonist can be bad to the bone.
The Sympathetic POV can be justified by setting the Villain Protagonist against something even worse, or by exposing the heroic antagonists as hypocrites who are Not So Different. However, if done poorly, that can feel like a cop-out. The best villain protagonists are either simply larger than life, funny as Hell — or both. They may fall into the Heroic Sociopath or Magnificent Bastard roles through it, as the audience cheer them on because of their obviously villainous qualities.
It's not necessary for the point of view to be sympathetic, though. One of the oldest Villain Protagonists, Shakespeare's King Richard III, is a hateful, thoroughly unsympathetic monster. This was almost certainly deliberate on Shakespeare's part; keep in mind that as of his time, the idea that the audience was automatically supposed to sympathize with the protagonist hadn't yet been set in stone. (Not to mention that the play was written around 1591, when Elizabeth I—granddaughter of Henry VII, who defeated Richard III, married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth, and executed almost all of the Plantagenet heirs—was on the throne. The play was in large part a propaganda piece, painting the previous administration as black as midnight while justifying the Tudor presence on the throne.)
A Villain Protagonist (especially in a comedy) is very likely to go down in flames at the end. Whether this counts as a Downer Ending or not is left to the viewer.
Of course, in the case of video games, some will allow you to choose to be evil, but that's another trope entirely; only when the character you play automatically defaults to villainy does this trope apply.
When this is done for one episode, it's a Villain Episode.
Compare the Hero Antagonist.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Pictured above: Light Yagami in Death Note, who kills people for his Knight Templar dreams of a better world… and godhood.
- Raoh from Fist of the North Star was given two movies and his own spinoff manga and anime.
- Kenshiro's other brother Jagi has just recently been given his own spinoff.
- The majority of the cast of Baccano
- Lots of anti-villains though. Luck Gandor has in fact been stated in-story to be too nice to be much of a gangster.
- The titular protagonist of Gokudo-kun Mannyuki borders between this and Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist.
- The cast of Black Lagoon.
- Lucy from Elfen Lied is a cold-blooded killer who even remorselessly slaughters children, but no effort is spared to let the viewer feel sympathy for her plight.
- Byronic Hero Lelouch Lamperouge in Code Geass acknowledges early in the second season that he does evil to defeat a greater evil (Britannia) because some evil is just too great to be defeated by just means. This is why he argues that the idealism that leads Anti Villain Suzaku to try and change the system from the inside is doomed to failure (and he's completely right). Depending on who you ask, Lelouch is either a villain protagnoist or an Anti Hero, since he doesn't commit evil acts on a consistent basis (but when he does, he makes a show of it to be sure) and repeatedly shows a softer side depending on who you ask.
- As of R2 episode 21, Lelouch deliberately invokes this trope as part of his Zero Requiem plan.
- Just to hammer the point home, in post-series interviews the show's director and the voice actors for Lelouch and Suzaku all expressed the sentiment that Lelouch's actions come off in a much more positive light because he's the protagonist. Were Suzaku the spotlight character, Lelouch would come off as far more unsympathetic.
- The fact that just about every character is Lelouch's ally at one point in the series and his enemy in another makes it all the more confusing. Suzaku: enemy early in the series, ally late and eventual successor to Lelouch's title of "Zero". The Black Knights: allies early in the series, enemies late. This editor is of the opinion that the best way to decide which side is "good" and which is "evil" is to see which side Nunnaly is on: that's the "good" side.
- Nuking anyone who resists from orbit is good?
- MD Geist is revealed to be a Villain Protagonist, but it is difficult to either sympathize or despise him because he isn't developed at all and his true motives are never revealed.
- Hazama Shou, main character of Akumetsu. He's a Light Yagami-esque crusader for justice who targets mainly corrupt politicians, retired, active or otherwise. He also has the superpower to create as many copies of himself as he likes, and to be anywhere at any given time.
- Mirai Nikki is interesting as the true protagonist is reasonably moral (though not truly heroic, least not yet), but all of his allies seem to have rather questionable morals. One is a terrorist who thinks nothing of blowing up a school while it's occupied, while his closest ally and potential girlfriend is, uh...dangerous.
- In Yukki's defense he really doesn't have much of a choice in the allies he has. Really the poor guy's so unlucky he borderlines on being The Woobie. In Minene's case it's pretty clear she's helping because of a deal she made, and side materials give her a FreudianExcuse.
- And Yuki no longer qualifies as "reasonably moral". He is now both truly heroic, and as nutty as his girlfriend.
- Well, maybe not that crazy. But he's certainly pretty damn far from sane.
- Dai Mahou Touge.
- Yuuhi and Sami, the main duo of The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer. Sami has vowed to destroy the Earth herself after saving it from the titular hammer, and Yuuhi is extremely loyal to her for that end. The other Knights besides Yuuhi don't know about Sami's intention; Yuuhi and Sami plot to turn against them as soon as the world is saved.
- Jigoku Shoujo. Ai and her helpers are likable, but they damn people to hell for a living. What's more, Ai gets most of her contracts from desperate, vulnerable people who will regret their decision for all eternity. The first season balanced Ai's group with a pair of non-villain protagonists, Hajime and Tsugumi, and Mitsuganae seems to be doing the same with Mikage. Futakomori's approach was to emphasize the helpers' sympathetic backgrounds and ramp up the nastiness of Ai's victims.
- Excel Saga is pretty much an exemplary version of the comedy side of this trope with heroine Excel Excel working for the shadowy world-domination plotting ACROSS. Though, for most of the series, the branch she works for is focused on the (supposedly) easier task of conquering one city.
- In the introduction to the Viz Media English-language translation of the manga, Rikudo explicitly says that Excel is a good and energetic, if misguided, young woman. She is not a villain.
- The protagonist, Ryo, in the manga Shamo is one of the most hate-able main characters in comic/manga history. He murders his parents in the very first scene of the manga, and throughout the series commits (or at least attempts to commit) multiple acts of murder and rape.
- Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni loves this trope. Several characters play this role at some point.
- Code: Breaker's Oogami Rei appears to be this, but he's clearly more emotional then he lets on (not that it does anything about his nearly 150-person body count). He even defines his organization as "super-powered murderers put to good use."
- Mayo Sasaki in Fushigi Yuugi: Eikoden. While she's not truly evil, she is extremely selfish and unsympathetic, and her obsession with stealing Miaka's beloved husband Taka/Tamahome, coupled with her irresponsible behaviour, causes a lot of trouble for the warriors of Suzaku.
- Arguably Mayuri Kurotsuchi of Bleach fame. He is technically a protagonist (One of many in the series), even though he has the mind-set of a villain and is entirely unrepentant of his past crimes, he is an otherwise loyal and valuable member of Soul Society. As a character though, it really depends upon the viewer whether or not he is deserving of "being rooted for" - In his first appearance, it is impossible to sympathise with him (Though he is technically a full-on villain at this point). However, his second major appearance plays his character differently, and it becomes much easier... Though fan opinions, as ever, remain divided.
- Toshiya and Mon of The World Is Mine. They're Mad Bomber Serial Killer Rapists who take over a police station with rocket launchers; even Toshiya's own father wants to kill him himself after the media attention caused his mother to commit suicide. It should be noted that for most of the story these two people had caused more deaths then a giant bear creature that can destroy whole buildings.
- Yami Yugi arguably falls under this trope during the early story arcs of Yu-Gi-Oh!, as he challenges people who mess with Yugi repeatedly to Dark (Shadow) Games, and then brutally mind rapes them when they lose. This aspect of his character is toned down heavily by the time Duelist Kingdom rolls around, though, which is the version of the character most people are familiar with.
- How has Alucard from Hellsing gone so long without mention? Even though the TV Show made him more of an Anti Hero, the original manga and OVAs showed EXACTLY what he was like. All one has to do is watch the fight with Rip Van Winkle to understand what a monster he is.
- Alucard is (this far in the OVA series)only shown trying to kill those who try to kill him. I think that Nazi vampires are Acceptable Targets.
- This goes beyond simply Acceptable Targets, as he is ENJOYING the terror and pain he is inflicting. She was scared, so he went out of his way to physically and mentally rape and torture her for his own amusement. Make no mistake, his targets may be pure evil, but he is no less a monster.
- Pretty sure he only limits himself to Acceptable Targets because of Hellsing's orders. If it weren't for her, well...
- You could possibly think about Axis Powers Hetalia this way - the main protagonists are the Axis Powers of WWII, after all.
Comic Books
- The protagonist of the eponymous Bomb Queen is a supervillainess-turned-Evil Overlord. There are no apparent efforts to justify a Sympathetic POV.
- Mark Millar's Wanted, clearly, since nearly all of the main characters are stand-ins for DC supervillains.
- Millar does everything to make sure beyond the shadow of a doubt everyone understands that most of those guys (including the protagonist) were too busy raping the dog to notice the point at which they crossed the moral event horizon.
- Oh, and by the way, they're still looking for the next kick.
- A lot of DC villains get this treatment, which is much more rare over at Marvel, despite the difference in approaches. Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, even Catwoman when she's not being an Anti Hero.
- The Joker had his own short-lived series back in the '70s in which he cheerfully offed various other characters.
- Recently, Lex Luthor had his own limited series in which he presents himself as a brave man trying to let humanity take its own course by freeing us from the influence of that meddling alien, Superman.
- On the other side of the fence, most iterations of the Thunderbolts (especially the most recent one) play this trope to a T.
- The seven issue miniseries Empire (The Other Wiki link here
 ) centers around a Doctor Doom-esque protagonist finalizing his conquest of the Earth, and dealing with the question "what next?"
- As opposed to the version in the Jim Carrey movie, The Mask (often called Bighead) is in most of his incarnations a sociopathic serial murderer, akin to the Joker given powers. (Which got even scarier in the Joker Mask miniseries, where this actually happened.) Let's just say that in the comics, the early scene in the movie where the Mask shoved mufflers up the asses of the mechanics who ripped him off would have involved a lot of red ink being used in the coloring process. Very often, the actual people wearing the mask are treated as little more than hosts whose bodies are being used to commit Bighead's comedic killing sprees... and they'll still gladly kill each other for the chance to wear it.
- One wearer of the mask was a little girl (in 5th grade or something) who was bullied at school, and so when she puts the mask on (a dream come true for her) she goes to a school party and burns the school down.
- This aspect of the comic series may have been referenced in the animated series, when a 4000 year old sociopathic fey who claims to have known all of the Mask's previous hosts (who included the likes of Attilla the Hun and Genghis Khan) returns to Earth to team up with the latest Mask, but soon realizes he's "not like the others".
- Johnny The Homicidal Maniac, an Ax Crazy Serial Killer with touches of the Heroic Sociopath. In his more collected moments, he's all too aware of it, once even breaking the fourth wall to remind readers that he is the villain in the story.
- Iznogoud, anyone?
- Teknophage, a short-lived comic by forgotten mid-90's publisher Tekno Comix, was a story about a 65 million year old, reptilian, Steam Punk Dimension Lord / Magnificent Bastard who fed strife, misery, and tyranny merely to enjoy the chance to eat the souls of those with the killer instinct to struggle against him. Nominally, the comics were about the people trying (and inevitably failing) to stop him, but everyone knew who to root for.
- Henry did fail/suffer from setbacks a few times in the story, his plan to murder a group of religious people backfired when they merged into one person and promptly flew away, one of his subordinates betrayed him, assorted civilians managed to escape from him, and the rebel said subordinate is working with managed to escape. It's just that his failures were never so large as to completely undermine his lifestyle.
- Venom had his own comic series for a while, though this may not count as he's an idealist who hates evil (at least in his own twisted mind)
- Why, of course it counts. Venom is a dangerous, hypocrite sociopath. Why on Earth should he be considered an "idealist"?
- Eddie!Venom considered himself the "protector of the innocent". It's just that his definition of "innocent" was extremely narrow.
- He just had a current mini with the new Venom is pretty much just a superhero for the bitches (and eating people)
- Some argue that most classic superhero comics are ironically villain protagonist stories (though without the sympathetic POV) because the entire stories revolve around the dynamic villains and their plots as opposed to the static heroes who only react to the villains, the way Darth Vader ruled StarWars despite being the villain because everything that happened was a direct result of anything he did. He was the one we look at when we watch, and while Luke's success is important to us, Darth Vader is the driving force, and therefore the protagonist. Now simply replace Darth Vader in there with a supervillain of your choice and Luke with a superhero and you have just gotten an accurate description of surprisingly many stories.
- No need to "replace": Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker count as "super" already since they have telekinesis. Think you can get that by lifting weights, learning Asian martial arts, running laps, doing situps, reading Soldier of Fortune, etc.? Darth Vader already closely resembles Doctor Doom anyway, exclusive of his telekinesis.
- The titular Lord Havok and the Extremists are all deadly supervillains bent on dominating the world that denied them... and are in fact portrayed much more sympathetically than the "heroic" Americommando, who is inarguably a danger to all around him. Lord Havok in particular is given a heartbreaking Start Of Darkness.
- Hunter Rose, the original Grendel was an assassin/crimelord who did a lot of bad stuff for kicks and giggles. The later Grendels were more Anti Heroes, fighting against even worse individuals, particularly Japanese Kabuki Vampire Tujiro XIV.
- Deadpool, the lovable Fourth Wall-breaking psychotic killer. Same goes for many other mercenary- or hitman-based comics, such as Scud the Disposable Assassin.
- According to Word Of God, the Legion of 3 Worlds miniseries is focused on its main villain Superboy-Prime.
- Diabolik, the eponymous hero of the long-running Italian comic series. He is a ruthlessly violent jewel-thief who indifferently kidnaps, tortures, brainwashes and kills the innocent and guilty alike. His lover/partner-in-crime Eva Kant happily assists with all of the above, and throws obsessive sexual jealousy into the mix.
- Jackie Estacado, The Darkness ruthless mafia hitamn with demonic powers. "Completely amoral," kills with a smile, is a bit upset that his former boss had his girlfriend killed...
- Incognito's main character, Zack, is an ex-super villain who got put into a witness protection program. He does do some heroic acts in secret but only for selfish reasons.
- Secret Six
Fan Fic
Film
- The Starship Troopers movie is loaded with suggestion that the humans are the evil invading aliens.
- Every serious gangster film ever made, from The Public Enemy (1931) to Public Enemies (2009).
- Yuri Orlov in the film Lord Of War is a gunrunner who sells weapons to anybody, including violent dictators and human rights violators. We're shown what a disaster this makes of his love life and family relationships in such a way that you have to stop and say "Wait. This guy is a world class scum bag. Why do I feel sorry for him?"
- A Shock To The System follows an Average Joe (played by Michael Caine) who, after accidentally killing a hobo, decides to also ingeniously murder his wife and boss, seduce his secretary, and get that job he's always wanted. And he gets away with it all, too.
- Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs (Orange should be the good guy; we really sympathize more with White), and Jackie Brown. Jackie Brown is the version where the unscrupulous protagonist is pitted against someone worse, but it wasn't until after the movie that you remembered she was scamming him.
- Mel Gibson's character in Payback is a violent thief and murderer. And he steals from a beggar. Generally though, his character (Porter) was the least awful character, and that beggar deserved it:
Beggar: Help a cripple walk again!
(Porter steals all the money from his hat)
Beggar: (gets up to protest) What the fuck you doin'?
Porter: (pushes beggar) Shut up! I cured you.
- The Director's Cut makes him slightly more noble.
- Big Jim Mc Lain features a "hero" who works for Senator Joseph Mc Carthy (yes, that Mc Carthy), and beats the living snot out of liberals in Hawaii. Made worse by the fact that this "hero" is played by John Wayne. To be fair he is targeting "communists", but the definition seems to be more than a little... general.
- The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, Peter Sellers' final film, is an Affectionate Parody (with roots in The Goon Show) that makes Fu charming and even a bit sympathetic in his unrepentant wickedness. Having been thwarted so many times by the British, and on the brink of death, the whole plot hinges on him creating a youth elixir to save himself.
- The Day of The Jackal. Originally literature, but well-known for the film.
- Nick Naylor of Thank You For Smoking is the "Sultan of Spin" and chief spokesperson for the tobacco industry. His Crowning Moment Of Awesome comes when he testifies before a Congressional hearing that when his son, possibly the only other sympathetic character, turned eighteen and wanted a cigarette, he would buy him his first pack.
- Diabolik, Italian comic book hero and main character of the film Danger: Diabolik (spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000's final episode) is definitely a Villain Protagonist. At first rub, Diabolik may come off as a Gentleman Thief, but throughout the film he indulges in purely selfish acts, stealing millions and killing indiscriminately just to satisfy his girlfriend Eva's tastes or his own whims. He doesn't even have the caveat of fighting a greater evil; he's simply indulging himself with every act in the film.
Crow: Well I'm sorry if you're offended by my random killings.
Servo: Once again they triumph in the name of sex!
Mike: ( fake joviality) So more innocent people killed because of Diabolik's whims!
- Repo! The Genetic Opera has an ensemble cast with a lot of these—Rotti, Luigi, Pavi, Amber, Grave-Robber, and Nathan can all apply.
- Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) in Ace in the Hole (1951). He's a washed-up, amusingly cynical, charismatic, and brilliantly manipulative newspaper writer who dooms a man to death in a collapsed cave by prolonging and milking the rescue attempt - he's confident the man will make it through several days in there - just so he can report on it and restore his career. He regrets what he does in the end, but it's doesn't much matter because it's a World Half Empty where most of the characters don't care about the life at stake, and instead take his lead and encouragement to profit off of the literal media carnival that springs up in its wake of this "Human Interest Story".
- Gojira, anyone?
- Hard Candy. You can chose either one or both of protagonists.
- Word Of God is that it's both. Jeff is a predatory hebephile, and Hayley is a fledgling serial killer.
- Salieri in Milos Forman's Amadeus
- Daniel Plainview, obviously, in There Will Be Blood.
- Peyton, the Yandere from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle.
- Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down, though reviewers like this one seemed not to understand the concept of the villain protagonist.
- Sing from Kung Fu Hustle starts off as a poodle-poker wanting to make big-time with the powerful Axe Gang, but eventually pulls a Heel Face Turn and becomes a proper hero.
- Similarly for John Preston from Equilibrium, who starts the film as a member of the local Dystopia's Stoic Badass Longcoat-clad Culture Police, but misses a dose of the emotion-blocking drug, starts questioning his own actions and eventually becomes a hero.
- The League of Gentlemen - ex British Army officers turned bank robbers.
- Speaking of Angelina Jolie and assassins, neither of the titular characters in Mr. & Mrs. Smith seem to have any qualms at all with killing anyone (except each other... eventually) which arguably makes them a notch more evil than most Hitmen With A Heart who have the decency to be emotionally damaged.
- Hannibal Lector/Lektor in Hannibal Rising, although it's more of a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge at that stage.
- The protagonist of Jumper uses his power to get rich via theft, and when seeing people trapped by floodwaters on the news, he simply changes the channel, definitively cutting himself out of Anti Hero or Jerk With A Heart Of Gold status. He is definitely not a "good guy," it's just that the folks who hunt down jumpers simply for having the power are worse. Watching our 'hero' get beaten up by Samuel L. Jackson was hilarious by the time it happened, though when the sharp objects came out...
- The main character from Match Point starts a love affair with his friend's (eventually ex) lover, marries the same friend's sister, and continues the affair while married. He eventually gets his mistress pregnant and when she confronts him about it, murders both her and her unborn child in cold blood after and makes it look like a robbery, effectively crossing the Moral Event Horizon.
- Henry, the titular character from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Unlike other examples of this trope, though, he's not Affably Evil or an Anti Villain in the slightest. In fact, he's so cold and emotionless that he comes across as barely human, and routinely commits some of the most horrific murders in film history.
- In the Norwegian film Insomnia, the protagonist Engstrom begins as a moderately corrupt detective (though he's highly regarded by his peers). By the end, he's descended into near-Complete Monster status, partially caused by the madness of working in 24-hour sunlight above the Arctic Circle but mostly due to his own inner lack of humanity. The final shot of his dead, haunted eyes is one of the creepier endings in film.
- Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Protagonist Jean-Baptiste Grenouille kills women in order to create the perfect perfume.
- StarWars is arguably an example. If you only look at episode 4, 5 and 6, the story seems to be about Luke, but when you look a the complete serie, Darth Vader becomes the protagonist and the movies are about his rise, his fall and his redemption.
- Kind Hearts and Coronets: The protagonist's mother, the daughter of a duke, is disowned by her family after eloping with an opera singer. In revenge, the protagonist plots to murder every relative standing between himself and the dukedom. While simultaneously leading on both Betty And Veronica. And it's all played for laughs.
- The Godfather: Michael Corleone is the American Film Institute's 11th most iconic villain in film history.
- Wikus in District 9 could be considered a borderline example: basically an anal bureaucrat working for the dubiously legal, blatantly amoral MNU. He is shown at the very beginning to display little empathy for the aliens, aborting unlicensed offspring with something suspiciously like glee, and using manipulative threats to evict them from their homes. He also seems perfectly willing to double-cross his only ally at the drop of a hat. Though it seems he grows out of it toward the end.
- Catch Me If You Can. the Protagonist is none other than the most notorious counterfiter in the world, and the "Bad Guy" is the FBI agent trying to Catch Him if He Can.
- Arguably The Producers (either version) is about two guys who basically spend the whole movie not only scamming old ladies assembling a Xanatos Gambit that bights them in the ass, and is also the Trope Namer for Springtime For Hitler.
- Heck, the 2005 version even makes the Hitler-worshiping Nazi into an arguable protagonist. He is pardoned along with Bialystock and Bloom and continues writing plays for them. And unlike them, his crimes included attempted murder.
Literature
- Lucius Cornelius Sulla from Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is a pretty mean guy. He brings about the deaths of his stepmother, her nephew and his stepmother's lover in order to inherit their fortune (and kills another man to frame the deaths on him), treats his wife harshly to the point of driving her to suicide, and travels up north to spy on a group of Germans where he meets and impregnates a woman, he later arranges for his German family to be protected and leaves them. And that's all in the first book.
- Doctor Impossible from Soon I Will Be Invincible is pretty comfortable with being the Evil Mad Scientist, albeit with a sort of flamboyant Silver Age kind of villainy. But even if he turns out to be a fairly nice and somewhat misunderstood guy, he is on his thirteenth attempt to destroy or take over the world.
- this troper feels comfortable in saying it was more than that, as during several reminiscent moments, Doctor Impossible notes how every few weeks the whole world would see him rising again at the head of an army of robots, giant bugs, etc etc etc...
- Half the cast of Micah E. F. Martin's Prophet's House.
- Alex from A Clockwork Orange.
- Humbert Humbert from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Altogether a charming, well-spoken and eloquent young historian of French literature, liked by the reader and nearly anyone who meets him. Too bad he is also a sadistic pedophile who marries a woman in order to abuse her daughter, then proceeds to lie to said daughter about the death of her mother while taking her on a not-quite-consensual road trip, on which he tries to drug and then have intercourse with her.
- Dexter is a very self-aware sociopathic Serial Killer, but is quite Affably Evil, and does restrict his murders to people who've harmed innocents and managed to escape conventional justice. It's the part where he dismembers them that might get a bit debatable.
- Artemis Fowl tries to be this in the first book, but who is he trying to kid? He knows he's a good guy at heart. A greedy, Magnificent Bastard Chessmaster, perhaps, but a good guy nonetheless.
- Lord Soth of Dargaard Keep, a death knight, was originally a villain in the Dragonlance novels. Three novels were later released starring Soth as the main character: Knight of the Black Rose and Spectre of the Black Rose by James Lowder and Voronica Whitney Robinson, and the eponymous Lord Soth by Edo van Belkom.
- Paradise Lost essentially defines this. Modern readers are often apt to see Satan as an Anti Hero, but if this was what Milton intended, he's certainly not recorded anywhere as having said so.
- Melkor, who would later be known as Morgoth is the one that's really driving the Plot around in The Silmarillion, ultimately becoming it's main character along with Sauron. Being noticeably influenced by Lucifer from Paradise Lost does not help matters.
- RA Salvatore's The Sellswords series follow the adventures of Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle, both of whom are recurring antagonists in his previous novels. While Jarlaxle is really more of a neutral, power-hungy Magnificent Bastard than an outright villain and Entreri's backstory gives him a Freudian Excuse for being a heartless murderer, neither character can really ever be seen in a positive light.
- Interestingly, prior entries have had his more conventional protagonist, Drizzt, commenting on this, noting that while Entreti may have had his reasons for becoming an assassin, these challenges were hardly insurmountable. It's also worth noting that Entreri has improved a great deal from his first murderous appearance.
- Similarly, the antagonists Jarlaxle and Entreri face are all even worse than them.
- Forgotten Realms War of the Spider Queen series. All characters walking along the plot are fit in range from casual backstabbers to neighbour-sacrificing Lloth priestesses, not to mention violent half-demons. Which does not prevent some of them from being charming and all of them from having more or less good points.
- Patrick Bateman from American Psycho is a deliciously Axe Crazy Serial Killer who tortures and murders a wide variety of innocent people in the story, simply because he like the feeling. Or did he...?
- Whether it's Screwtape or Wormwood who's the "protagonist" of The Screwtape Letters may be up for debate, but both count as a Villain Protagonist.
- The Eagle Has Landed follows a group of Nazi agents attempting to assassinate Winston Churchill. You'll still likely find yourself rooting for them at a few points.
- Parker, the central protagonist of a series of novels by Donald E. Westlake, under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Several of these have been filmed (most famously as Point Blank starring Lee Marvin, and Payback starring Mel Gibson) although, oddly, the central character is never named Parker in these adaptations.
- Wyatt is the thief protagonist of a series of novels (starting with Kickback) by Australian author Garry Disher. You will end up barracking for Wyatt as his schemes bring him into conflict with worse criminals who lack even Wyatt's basic sense of honour and ethics.
- Mary Gentle's Grunts! tells the story of a group of orcs just trying to make their way in the world. After they loot a dragon's horde that has weapons from assorted universes, including some from the US Marines and assorted literature (including Das Kapital, which inspires one female orc to try and start a communist revolution). The book is (warning or recommendation!) a acid-tipped parody of Lord of the Rings, and none of the characters are heroes in the traditional sense.
- Elphaba from Wicked. The original story has her as the main villain but here she is the protagonist.
- A number of the books by Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked) feature villains from well-known stories as the protagonist. For example, the queen from Snow White (in Mirror Mirror), and one of the stepsisters from Cinderella (in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister).
- Considering that the queen in Mirror Mirror is actually Lucrezia Borgia, this is a case of Historical Villain Protagonist Upgrade.
- Wait, the protagonist wasn't Bianca?
- Grendel from the book Grendel.
- The Hitman from Thomas Perry's first novel The Butcher's Boy. He is a sociopathic, amoral killer of considerable ability who has to evade both government agents and Mafia thugs when a Mafia boss tries to have him killed after a successful hit on a U.S. Senator that can be traced back to the latter.
- Mercedes Lackey, in one of her stories featuring fantasy elves in the real world, had a cold-hearted, ruthless bitch of an antagonist who was quite willing to kill children if the job required it. The only problem was that she was going after a family that were protected by those same, very powerful, elves acting in secret to protect them. The shear magnitude of her hapless floundering around as she was constantly thwarted in one long Humiliation Conga would make you feel sorry for her if you didn't remind yourself that she was a murderous sociopath.
- Strahd von Zarovich, the sociopathic vampire in I, Strahd (and TSR's Ravenloft campaign world).
- Soltan Gris, narrator of L. Ron Hubbard's Mission: Earth, is also the series antagonist (although you can't really call him sympathetic) who is secretly trying to stop the mission of his incorruptible, heroic Marty Stu counterpart Jettero Heller.
- Croaker, and later The Lady, from the Black Company. Members of an ancient mercenary cult, who believe the only morality is loyalty, and the only sin incompetence. The protagonists may be eloquent and empathatic, but you can't really overlook the fact that their nine-to-five job is making the world an uglier place, considering that their patron client is an undead Fem-Sauron out to enslave the world. But hey, that's no reason to turn down paying work! After all, the tyrants always have the biggest treasuries...
- Hester Shaw, from Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines quartet (really, she's only the protagonist of the second book "Predator's Gold"; the first focuses on her husband and the third and fourth on her daughter), hovers between this and anti-hero. On the one hand, she is completely and incontrovertibly evil (she sells a city into slavery or death just to get rid of her rival for her husband-to-be, and actively enjoys killing people); on the other, one somehow can't help sympathising with her regardless, and because of her genuine love for Tom, her interests generally coincide with those of the other (not so evil) protagonists.
- The narrator of The Debt to Pleasure, although his villainy is only gradually revealed over the course of the book.
- Some of the POV characters in A Song Of Ice And Fire swing pretty far to the villainous side, such as the Lannisters and Greyjoys. Still, the series is lacking in irredeemably depraved characters in spite of its cynicism (except Gregor).
- What do you mean in spite? The fact that all the horrible deeds are done by people who are NOT evil to the core IS the reason it is so cynical.
- Let's not forget The Grinch.
- The Cleaner by Paul Cleave is written from the first person perspective of a psychotic serial killer who considers killing, mutilating and raping women "just a hobby".
- Arguably, Rodya Raskolnikov from Crime And Punishment.
- Horace Dorrington from the short-stories by Arthur Morrison is a corrupt detective who won't hesitate to cut deals with the villains or even kill his own clients, if he can profit from it.
- Jacen Solo presents a rather painful example in Legacy Of The Force, quite aside from the Character Derailment. He's clearly a first-rate asshole from pretty near the beginning, and while his ultimate goal is galactic peace, his plans for getting there are thoroughly repulsive. As far as this editor can tell, the audience isn't supposed to cheer for him, but they're given no one to cheer for against him until the last book or two. Well, there was one character as early as book 5, but since it was only book 5, you can guess the results. And he is neither larger than life nor funny as Hell, although some fans might disagree.
- I suppose I'm going to get a few strange looks if I say that I was rooting for Jacen for much of the series (and, possibly, the rest, if I can just FIND THE LAST BOOKS...).
- Up until book 5 or so, the steps he was taking weren't too crazy. Around the middle of book 4 or 5 they start making him obviouslly, stupidly, evil in a way that felt insulting up until the last minute but where he unites the galaxy by being a giant threat to everyone, yawn
- Elsewhere in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, we have Death Star, which focuses on the various people on the first Death Star. Most of them are Punch Clock Villains, really, who either think that The Empire is flawed but good or don't think they can join the Rebellion, either because they are stuck or they think it would just be curb stomped. (They are on the Death Star.) The cast includes the gunner who pulled the trigger to destroy Alderaan, a pilot who shot down enough X-Wings to become an Ace Pilot, Grand Moff Tarkin, and Darth Vader. The survivors all either join the Rebellion (it blew up the Death Star! Maybe there's a chance!), flee to somewhere far away, or are Darth Vader.
- Lets not forget the Darth Bane trilogy, which follows the exploits of Darth Bane, a dark lord of the Sith.
- Theoretically Harry Keogh is the protagnoist of the Necroscope series, but in the first book he gets so little screen time relative to Dragosani, and Dragosani is so much more fleshed out, that it can be argued Dragosani is the true protagonist.
- The entire cast of the H.I.V.E. series.
- Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley and its sequels. His most significant acts include murder for the purposes of identity theft, art forgery, and taking revenge on a random guy who pissed him off by tricking him into thinking that he's dying of cancer, then persuading him to become a hitman. The Ripley books were Highsmith's only series, but the central characters of her books are almost always either Villain Protagonists or pathetic losers who suffer horribly.
- The "My Side of the Story" series of Disney picturebooks. One side of the book has the protagonists' story while the literal flip side has the villain's account.
- Steerpike is pretty much the protagonist of the first Gormenghast novel, while he either manipulates or assassinates the Groan family and their associates.
- To at least one other protagonist's surpise, Clem's motives for assembling the Hand Of Mercy are only a part the problem- as a Fallen angel, he's the villain by default. To a lesser extent, Nana Sophie and Salve aren't loyalists either, so it could be argued that most of the main characters are, at the very least, officially morally grubby.
- The title character of The English Patient, in the sequences where he tells the other characters his backstory, probably qualifies, seeing as he was actively helping Axis spies cross the deserts in North Africa.
- Baron Harkonen from Dune during his POV segments. You so want him dead for his crimes and perversions, but while waiting for his comeuppance, you can't help but admire his brilliant political maneuvering and epic-level Magnificent Bastardy.
- Catherine de' Medici is the protagonist of Jean Plaidy's trilogy Madame Serpent, The Italian Woman, and Queen Jezebel. Plaidy paints her as a Complete Monster who has her brother-in-law and one of her own sons murdered, and orders courtiers to sexually abuse another son to "turn him gay" and ensure that her favourite would reach the throne. She also shows the abuse Catherine endured as a child - in one scene, a six-year-old Catherine is forced to watch her beloved dog die in agony because her aunt disapproved of her crying over her other dog's death. (All Truth In Television, sadly.)
- For most of the book The Woad to Wuin, the normally cowardly Anti Hero Sir Apropos Of Nothing descends into this. And fully enjoys it.
- A.E. van Vogt's classic sci-fi novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle opens with his previously published story "Black Destroyer", recounting the powerful, feline predator Coeurl's battle of wits against the crew of human space explorers who arrive on his planet. Partly because the story's told largely through Coeurl's eyes, and partly because the human characters' Expo Speak dialogue makes them seem bland and uninteresting in comparision, his eventual defeat almost comes across as a Downer Ending. In the end, though, perhaps Coeurl had the last laugh: the Space Beagle's crew has passed on into obscurity, while he's gotten a Shout Out as an enemy in practically every Final Fantasy game.
- In the second book of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Nathaniel becomes one of these as part of his Character Development, especially unfortunate seeing as how he had previously been disgusted with the behavior of magicians who acted similarly to how he started to in the book.
- Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters .
- Fantômas, protagonist of a series of stories written by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre.
- Brendan Stokes in Edmund Power's The Last Chapter starts out as am "aspiring novelist", i.e. a pathetic, conceited, talentless hack. He finds a manuscript while looting his dead neighbor's apartment, promptly steals and plagiarizes it, lies his way to success, and on the way expands his repertoire with adultery, blackmail, and eventually, double homicide.
- In the second book in the Night Watch series, Day Watch, part of the story is narrated by Alysa, who is the series protagonist Anton's opposite number/Evil Counterpart in the forces of darkness (They start at the same level of power; while the Big Good is Anton's mentor, the Big Bad was Alysa's lover), and she is one of the protagonists of the book.
Live Action TV
- The titular character of The Mary Whitehouse Story.
- Alan B'stard of The New Statesman. A corrupt polititian abusing his power, all Played For Laughs.
- Dexter from the series with the same name who is a serial killer of other serial killers.
- A product of the show's Grey And Grey Morality is that he often resembles a hero; if only in contrast to his victims. Or "victims", if you like.
- Nancy Botwin and her Affably Evil associates from Weeds are drug dealers. Then again, almost every official and law officer is a corrupt hypocrite. She starts out in a Stepford Suburbia in a Crapsack World, and things go downhill from there.
- The Babylon 5 episode "The Corps is Mother The Corps is Father" is presented as if the morally ambiguous (to say the least) telepathic Psi Cop Alfred Bester is the person the whole show is about, down to a slightly altered credits sequence. It follows him through a classically constructed cop show "find the killer" plot as he tutors a pair of eager rookies, with the very structure getting the audience to identify with him, or at least the rookies. Then at the end he orders someone to be brutally killed, and we realize how much we've been fooled into rooting for him.
- This is how Bester is presented throughout the entire series, as most (if not all) of his appearances feature him as at least somewhat sympathetic or doing something because something has finally crossed his ethical limit. Of course, by the end of each of these appearances we discover he's easily as bad or worse than the people he's enlisted Bab5's help to oppose.
- The Shield Vic Mackey, and the other members of the Strike Team.
- Hustle is about a group of con artists, though they tend to remain sympathetic due to their incredible charm and their code of only scamming people who are dishonest, greedy, and otherwise presented to the audience as unsympathetic.
- Tony Soprano.
- Jim Profit of Profit.
- In Volume Four of Heroes, Sylar has become this. He's no longer working against the heroes, he's off looking for answers, killing people and racking up CMOAs while he's at it.
- Kenny Powers of Eastbound And Down.
- Walter White from Breaking Bad is trying to leave an inheritance for his family before he dies prematurely of lung cancer...by cooking and selling crystal meth.
- Sons of Anarchy lives this trope.
- To the extent that they are protagonists, rather than Echo, the staff of the Dollhouse is this.
- Some fans believe Lost is becoming one of these with the ascent of Magnificent Bastard Benjamin Linus to prime character status.
- Francis Urquhart in the BBC series House of Cards, and its sequels To Play the King and The Final Cut. Urquhart is a Richard III-esque British MP who schemes his way up to being Prime Minister via various sneaky and some downright evil acts.
- Lex Luthor in Smallville fits this trope. Although the show is supposed to be about Clark it focuses on Lex just as much and his descent into becoming a total douche
Theater
- Phantom Of The Opera. Albeit Erik/the Phantom's merit of the title 'villain' varies from person to person
- Although Othello is ostensibly a play about the titular character, Iago is really the protagonist and most definitely the villain.
- Richard of Gloucester (aka King Richard III) from Shakespeare's Richard III is one of the earliest Villain Protagonists. Unlike Othello, Iago, or even Macbeth, Richard is uniformly and unambiguously evil; Shakespeare makes it impossible for the audience to feel anything but revulsion for him.
- To some extent, Richard's father, Richard of York, in the Henry VI trilogy.
- The title character of Macbeth, naturally.
- Medea from Greek Myth, at least as presented by Euripides in the play Medea. A straight reading of the facts of the myth makes Medea come across as an irredeemably evil multiple murderess (her victims included her younger brother and her sons), yet Euripides presents her as sympathetic, or at least understandable. So this is Older Than Feudalism.
- Sweeney Todd kills everyone who comes into his barbershop and has them baked into meat pies to get rid of the bodies.
- Well, not everyone; only people who won't be missed. And his personal enemies, of course.
- Roxie Hart, Velma Kelly and, to a lesser extent, Billy Flynn from Chicago.
- Shylock from The Merchant Of Venice fits this to a T, although whether or not he is the actual protagonist, or is supposed to have a Sympathetic POV, is a scholarly Flame War.
- It is a fairly common view that Bassanio, Portia, and Shylock all qualify as main protagonists (though many are surprised to find that Portia has by far the most lines), and who has the (real) Sympathetic POV can differ widely from production to production.
- In Used Cars, the salesman protagonists lie, cheat, and steal from essentially everyone they meet.
- The titular character of Volpone is a greedy and lecherous con man; the play's main plot is about him faking being on the edge of death to trick people into giving him gifts in the hopes that he'd name them as his heir.
- Mr. Punch
Video Games
Webcomics
- Darken features an entire party of evil characters led by Gort, the Lord of Hellfire, who wants to unite the three Artifacts of Hell in order to become a demonic demi-god and rule all of Darken with an iron fist.
- Richard from Looking For Group. The other heroes are far too morally grey to count.
- The protagonists of Hellbound, especially Mel the demon.
- Narbonic's protagonists are evil, but it's cute fluffy evil. The Mad Scientist is an upbeat, plump, 26-year-old blonde woman (aging to ~32 by the end of the strip's run) with pink glasses and a T-shirt that says "evil" with the "i" dotted with a heart. They're all Card Carrying Villains, too.
- We're not, I hope, forgetting Black Mage of 8-Bit Theatre. ...Come to think of it, Thief would probably count as well. Actually, pretty much every main character that isn't White Mage is not someone you'd want to share a bus ride with. Strangely enough, Garland (the main "villain") is the next friendliest character. Fighter is mostly just played as being way too stupid to understand morality above a kindergarten level.
- The Antagonist, which follows a villain after he fails. K, the titular Antagonist, is largely Affably Evil, and would be Dangerously Genre Savvy if he was a little more ruthless. He frequently talks to the readers, an act which confuses the hell out of everyone around him, sounding sometimes like the narrator of a book, and he believes his life is ruled by an overreaching "plot."
- The titular characters of Succubus Justice are soul stealing demons who regularly mutilate innocent people.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic is from the point of view of a group of evil humanoids (and unnatural beings) living underground.
- The Last Days Of Foxhound is as pure an example of this trope as you can find, given that the six lead characters are all the freak mercenary terrorists that Solid Snake must fight in Metal Gear Solid.
- The Sins. Sure they are the Anthropomorphic Personifications of The Seven Deadly Sins and no matter how innocent their unwitting host is they lose their soul instantly, but they are also pretty fun guys to have around. That they are also Punch Clock Villains and affably evil helps.
- Either way, the Virtues are the ones that made it so the Sins need hosts to prevent the universe from being destroyed (the Sins were not always so nice). But, the Virtues are actively trying to destroy the universe by killing the Sins on the off chance the universe gets remade without evil.
- anti-HEROES. The title pretty much sums it up, although we should avoid confusion by saying that they're the opposite of heroes (i.e. villains, but sympathetic and fun) NOT Anti Heroes as we know them.
- Villain Next Door
- The Maniac Chainsaw Wielding Duckbilled Platypus
- Life & Death while played for laughs, Steve takes his job as Death seriously and murders a lot of people as does his assistant Sally.
- Chopping Block. Hard to get more Villain than a serial killer protagonist.
- Arguably, the entire Gobwin Knob side of Erfworld (with the exception of Stanley, who veers into just being a plain old villain) is made up of villain protagonists. (Although some people argue that they're just protagonists with the trappings of villains, or just villains with the trappings of protagonists. The fact that people disagree about this is suggestive.)
- Bun Bun of Sluggy Freelance is a sociopathic, switchblade-wielding, possibly immortal madman (well, madrabbit) who cuts anything that annoys him, and he was actually the protagonist of an entire story arc.
- Belkar Bitterleaf, whose philosophy can best be summed up as a Catch-22-esque "What's best for me is best for the party." Or vice versa, depending on the situation. Based on his popularity, his prophesized death might well be portrayed as either a Redemption Equals Death or Too Cool To Live moment. Even odds, folks...
- The titular Zebra Girl's transformation into a demon was initially played for laughs, but the long-running cerebus syndrome is turning her into a Villain Protagonist. As of now, she's wiping the floor with her nakama.
- Sean and Wormwood, the Friendly Satanists.
Web Original
- In Sailor Moon Abridged, Raye/Sailor Mars is very much this, being a Satan-worshipper (Human Sacrifice included) who was more than happy to take Molly up on her offer of "Kill me first!" when she defended Nephlyte. All of it is played for laughs.
- Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog, anyone? The hero is even a self-proclaimed supervillain, and the story opens with him practicing his Evil Laugh.
- Dorf Quest's Beardbeard embodies this trope - cutting down forests, killing elves, attacking small children, and promoting Satan himself to godhood.
Western Animation
- Brain of Pinky And The Brain is a Diabolical Mastermind out for world conquest — Once An Episode, because Failure Is The Only Option.
- Zim of Invader Zim, an alien trying to Take Over The World. He is juxtaposed to Dib, a preteen paranormal investigator trying to stop him. One could argue that the issue becomes confused for this show, however; while the majority of episodes focus on Zim, there are so many Villain Episodes that some fans would argue that Dib and Zim could both be seen as the protagonists, and that the show has one Villain Protagonist and one traditional hero.
- Grim, who is The Grim Reaper, from The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy, and, to a much greater extent, Mandy.
- The main characters of Evil Con Carne, which was originally part of the same show as the above.
- Dick Dastardly and Muttley of both Wacky Races and Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines.
- Killface of Frisky Dingo is a supervillain protagonist who's way more sympathetic than Jerkass superhero Xander Crews.
- Teen Titans once had an episode where the titular heroes were out of Town, so the H.I.V.E. five decide to hijack the show and show everything from their point of view.
- Woody Woodpecker was probably the definer of the trope as it's manifested in western animation. The guy has exactly zero redeeming qualities, but the audience is expected to root for him.
Music
- The narrator of the Wreckers song "Crazy People". There's a reason only crazy people fall in love with you, lady.
- Likewise, the viewpoint characters in Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain" and "Re: Your Brains".
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