The Unfettered / Literature

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• The Acts of Caine by Matthew Stover demonstrate how the Unfettered make setting right and wrong in your story very difficult. Caine, the protagonist, is a prime example of an Unfettered character (but not his alter ego Hari, interestingly enough). He manages to be both a genocidal murderer and the world's saviour, an amoral cutthroat and a loving father. Stover successfully pulls it off because the morality in his novels is more about how much control you are willing to exercise over events to bring around the right outcome and less about whether death is right or wrong. Other Unfettered characters include Talaan, T'Passe, and Tommy to a degree. Ma'elKoth is Unfettered until the Blind God owns him. Berne comes close but loves infamy and pleasure (read: rape) too much. Raithe manages to be Unfettered for about all of two chapters in Blade of Tyshalle.
• Alpha and Omega: After the dirty bombing of Tel Aviv, Israel has officially run out of fucks to give about what the Arabs think of them. They clear off the Temple Mount to rebuild the Temple, and are prepared to back their actions with nukes if necessary.
• All main characters in Animorphs, with the possible exception of Tobias, end up playing straight and/or deconstructing this trope in one way or other:
  • Jake was willing to sacrifice his brother and cousin, and flush thousands of Yeerks into the space to win the war.
  • Marco describes himself as this at the beginning of the series. He views himself as the most naturally ruthless of the team — the best at seeing the clear line from start to finish. Later, he will do anything to free his mother and that could perfectly include killing her.
  • In book nineteen, Cassie nearly gives up all the Animorphs' cover (which would mean losing the war and enslaving all humanity to the Yeerks) just to spare the life of Karen/Aftran and prove there's a way for them to coexist. In the final arc she also gives the morphing cube to the Yeerks.
  • And well, Ax, as all Andalites, will pay all costs to defeat the Yeerks. In one book he threatens to nuke an entire city to stop the Yeerks from advancing with their plans.
  • Rachel, finally, sacrifices her own life to win a decisive strategic advantage.
• John Galt in Atlas Shrugged brings about the collapse of an entire society/economic system almost through sheer force of will, as well as breaking his torturer the same way!
• Judge Holden from Blood Meridian. The Judge, during one of his lectures, tries to explain gravitational orbits of the stars by swinging a coin around on a thread and explaining how both objects, and men, move "According to the length of their tether" with the least tethered making the greatest moments. He then throws the same coin into the darkness, turns, and catches it, implying he's thrown it around the world, hinting at both his supernatural nature and his complete lack of a moral tether.
• Brad Elliott from Dale Brown's books absolutely believes in doing the right thing, no matter how many toes he has to step on or laws he has to bend/break. This is at times contrasted with Patrick McLanahan and his Dreamland comrades who don't always have the stomach to go as far as Brad.
• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant:
  • The Haruchai "stake their lives on their abilities, and accept the outcome." At one point in the backstory, a number of them are so moved by the majesty of Revelstone, that they swear allegiance to the Lords, giving up "Sleep, death, and wives." You read that right, their dedication is so intense that it actually harnesses the magic of the world and turns them immortal.
  • "The Unfettered Ones" are individuals who could have been rulers of the Land, but instead chose to devote their lives to studying a subject, and were freed from all responsibilities. At least one of them is a pure example of this trope — an Unfettered Healer who feels a compulsion to heal any injured person who wanders into her field of vision, despite the fact that this requires her to transfer their wounds to herself. Her doing this for Covenant's poisoned, leprosy-raddled body causes her own death.
• Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op will get the crooks he's after, no matter what it takes or how many laws he has to break. He is at one point referred to as a "monster." At his worst, the Op is like an unstoppably tenacious fireman: hose, axe, pack of matches and a can of gas.
• In Chrysalis (Beaver Fur), the Terran's one and only aim is to avenge the destruction of Earth and humanity, and the only thing that (theoretically) fetters them is a desire to remain 'human', which to them means not using their Brain Uploading-induced state to cheat death. This does absolutely nothing to prevent them from killing millions upon millions of Xunvirans, and it falls apart completely when the Xunvir get over their initial shock and nearly bring the Terran to the brink of death in battle.
• Roland, The Gunslinger of The Dark Tower. He's even willing to let the boy he considered his son die for his quest. He defines this trope throughout the entire series, only growing more tortured and emotional at the prospect of having to lose or sacrifice his companions, but never any less willing to do so.
• Carcer Dun, the villain of the Discworld novel Night Watch Discworld, in direct contrast to Vimes, the protagonist. Vimes explicitly states that Carcer is what he (Vimes) would be if he were to give in to his violent instincts.
• The Draka see themselves as this. Desiring an outcome in Draka society means embracing everything necessary to achieve that goal.
• Martin of The Dresden Files fits. "Red Court is evil, hence Red Court must be destroyed. What does 'other moral considerations' mean?"
  • Harry himself hit this trope in Changes. He was willing to do absolutely anything to rescue his daughter. He accepts Mab's offer to become the Winter Knight, and even sacrifices Susan to destroy the Red Court. He regretted it afterwards, though.
    • To quote: "Fine, let the world burn. The kid and I will roast marshmallows."
• Ender's Game: Ender Wiggin. At school a gang of bullies, all older and stronger, decide to beat Ender up. Ender immediately decides that he not only wants to win this fight, but all the fights afterward, and goes straight for the groin. Ender proceeds to knock the kid to the ground and break the boy's nose by kicking him in the face, killing him. He wants to intimidate all present into leaving him alone, and they are convinced by his sheer brutality. Ender is six years old. He cries about what he's done as soon as he's out of sight, but he does it again and again whenever he's threatened for the rest of the book. As the description says, Ender takes the fight to a level where his opponents won't follow and destroys them so that there won't be a second fight. At the end of the book, Ender ends up destroying an entire planet and almost commits genocide by following his methods to their logical conclusion (and is even more Unfettered in that fight than usual because he thinks it's a wargame simulation). Overall, Ender is a rare example of an unfettered being who may have morals, but when he has to fight, he fights to win. See the quotes page.
  • Which places him squarely in characterization 4 — while he has emotions, and even comes right out and says to his sister, Valentine, that "...in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again."
  • It can be argued that the subversion of this trope is actually the core theme of the book; the idea of Ender's Game is that he is unfettered by morals simply because he tackles everything as a game. When he learns that it's not a game, he realizes there are more important things than winning and is horrified. Along these lines, the entire book acts as criticism of unfettered attitudes towards the Cold War.
• In The Eternal Champion Saga by Michael Moorcock, when Erekose leads an all-out assault upon the Eldren, he becomes this. The narrator even says, in effect "People were scared to be with him, but were glad he was leading the charge."
• Drem from the novel EVE: The Burning Life. After his family and everyone he knows is killed in a capsuleer attack, he makes exterminating the capsuleers his only goal in life. The sheer force of his will and determination is terrifying to behold.
• In Ken Follett's The Eye of the Needle, Lucy Rose, the young wife and mother briefly steps over the line to being unfettered when she shorts out the power to the house by shoving her fingers into a light socket. When another character asks her why she did it that way later, she replies that there was nothing else she could have done.
  • He was asking her why she didn't use a screwdriver or tool to short out the power and she replied that she didn't realize that she could have used something else besides her fingers. The fact that she was willing to use her fingers still makes her The Unfettered, or as he puts it, "a hero."
• Howard Roark in The Fountainhead is willing to do anything to maintain the integrity of the buildings he designs. He goes into poverty rather than design buildings he dislikes, and he even blows up the Cortlandt housing project while in construction since the owners built it differently than he designed it.
• Harry Potter: Slytherin House prides itself on taking every opportunity towards success. It's no surprise, since callous killers like Voldemort were sorted here. Even if they're not evil, the other Houses are wary of their intentions. But after Voldemort's demise, Slytherin gained itself a better reputation... well, less abhorrent, at least.
  • Their rivals, Gryffindor House, are a more heroic contrast. Bravery and chivalry are all respectful, of course, but it's all a tool for them to use towards success. In truth, Gryffindors mostly do the right thing because it's the easiest and least troublesome way to do things. However, this hasn't completely turned them away from pranking and being idle towards their studies.
• From Honor Harrington:
  • Victor Cachat whenever he enters his Fanatic mode. He's an interesting example in that he apparently can turn it on and off at will, and he's usually pretty picky about just what situation requires it to be on. This allows him to be The Unfettered while maintaining a strong and heartfelt moral code.
  • The titular character's no slouch either. When she has a goal or obligation in mind, that goal will be achieved, to hell with the odds or anyone that stands in her way.
• Older Than Feudalism: In The Iliad, after the death of Patroclus, Achilles becomes this, caring about nothing except taking revenge on Hector, whatever the cost.
• King City: Wade is aware of how easy it would be not to pick so many hard battles, and he understands why so many of the other people in his life don't. But the destruction of his marriage, being sent on a Uriah Gambit, being forced to set and office in a former porn store which wasn't repaired after an arson, and being constantly denied support at every angel never make him despair or give up or stop trying to do his job as a policeman.
• The Kingkiller Chronicle: The Amyr certainly qualify: Being equal parts religious order and vigilante brigade whose credo "Ivare Enim Euge" (For the Greater Good) both compels and allows for any action, however immoral, if it means furthering their goal. Among their number the Ciridae stand out even more, being high-ranking members of the order, with hands tattooed a blood-red, so trusted by their own that none of their actions will ever be questioned.
• Knaves on Waves has Captain Carnage, who is determined to free his people and bring down the Empire, no matter the cost. He's actually self-aware enough about this that he recruits others to try and make him more reasonable, with mixed success.
• The Lensman corps is a strict military hierarchy, where everyone is subject to orders from above. The best among them, however, are issued a Release which allows them free rein. These Unattached lensmen can do anything they want, and are not subject to orders or any restraints save those of their own conscience. They wear a plain gray uniform so that their Unattached status is instantly recognizable.
  • The good news is, only those with the strongest moral character will ever be issued a Release. The intent is to create a small pool of highly competent Space Cops who can follow their intuitions unfettered by the need to get permission for their actions.
• Sam from Lord of Light swears to do anything to break the power of the gods over humanity. He tries persuasion, and when that fails does some assassinations, leads several violent rebellions, even founds a competing religion. What really marks him as this trope is that he's willing to join forces with them against a mutual threat after they agree to his conditions; his goal is to end their oppression, not to necessarily kill or obliterate them.
• The Lord of the Rings: Saruman, in the days of the War of the Ring, might be seen as this sort of character. He claims allegiance to Sauron, engineers unnatural Super Soldiers, burns down the forests around his tower, and even when he is defeated goes off to rebuild his power base by conquering the Shire. All this in pursuit of the One Ring... or, when that is lost, power like it.
• The Marquis de Sade advocated this in his writings, either directly or through libertine characters, saying nothing should stand in the way of pursuing pleasure, even if that meant murder, rape or torture in most cases. Those were not means to the end, mind you — they gained pleasure from acts like that, advocating that they take power in pursuit of it. He is the trope namer for sadism, after all.
• Evil Sorcerer Pryrates, from Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, claims to be a seeker after knowledge— all knowledge, no matter how forbidden or dangerous; no matter how many people he must torture and kill, kingdoms he must destroy, or souls he must feed to darkness. He sees power as merely a means to this end. He eventually makes himself into the most hated man in Osten Ard, and ends up using the power he was given by the Storm King to attempt to control him, which doesn't turn out so well.
• Zack, the Sociopathic Hero of The Mental State, manages to be both this and The Fettered at the same time. He has a strict moral code that prevents him from harming innocent people and never kills anyone if he can help it. However, he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve that allow him to bend that code to achieve his objectives. He is perfectly willing to frame, blackmail, extort and injure people in his pursuit of survival and imposing his own brand of morality on the prison system.
• Mitch Rapp of the series by Vince Flynn is this to a T. A paranoid (generally properly) Professional Killer, he will accomplish the mission he receives, and woe betide anyone on any side who gets in the way. Attempting to be an Obstructive Bureaucrat usually ends with something broken, at least.
• Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, to the point that this trope is the single most famous aspect of his character.
• Mordant's Need: Both the Big Bad and the Big Good are characters of this type. The former hates any form of restrictions on his behaviour, and while he is disciplined enough to restrain or even humiliate himself if need be, it is always for the purpose of getting his way in the long run. The latter will do absolutely anything to create what he sees as a better world, and the only thing keeping him from being a terrifying Dark Messiah is that his definition of a better world is one that most sensible people can agree with and that, well, his methods usually work.
• Morgaine in C. J. Cherryh's Morgaine Cycle: her entire purpose in life is to destroy the Gates, and she'll do almost anything to accomplish that, no matter who suffers as a result. In Well of Shiuan, they're on a world that has been slowly flooding due to the Gates not working, and her mission to destroy them will make the flooding impossible to stop; her reaction to this news is indifference, since everyone and every world has to die sometime. She does have some moral issues, but only insofar as they permit the mission to succeed: if it comes down to destroying the Gates vs. literally anything else, she's going to pick the former. Additionally, in the world the series starts on, ilin-oath is supposed to be like this: an ilin is expected to do whatever their liyo liege-lord requests, no matter the consequences — Vanye repeatedly mentions that as an ilin his honour is secondary to the ilin-oath Morgaine made him swear, although in person he's not well suited to it.
• Rashel of the Night World series has one goal: kill all vampires. Her single-minded determination is what gives her her zanshin, basically her state of eternal readiness, because her reaction to a vampire is: 1) This is a vampire 2) Kill it as quickly as possible. It takes a bit of a hit when she finds some people who are torturing vampires, possibly because she considers it inhumane, possibly because it violates #2. Her loss of it marks the culmination of her Character Development.
• The appropriately named Wildman in William Nicholson's Noble Warriors trilogy. He is a well known spiker gang leader (kind of lawless scavengers) who focuses single-mindedly on one goal at a time, to be achieved at any cost and is motivated by logic unfamiliar to your normal human. His Verbal Tic is "Heya bravas, do you love me?" God help you if you don't.
• The Dunyain from the Prince Of Nothing trilogy. They have one goal, to produce a "self-moving soul" i.e. an entity with true free-will whose actions are unaffected by circumstances. In achieving this goal, all actions are equal. Kellhus, a main character, spends the books manipulating, killing and betraying the people around him without ever once feeling anything for them. After all, they are merely slaves to their environment and would continue to be so were Kellhus part of their environment or not.
• The eponymous The Prince of Thorns, Jorg Ancrath, will stop at nothing to achieve his goals: Revenge on the man who murdered his mother and brother, and then becoming the emperor of the Broken Empire. He'll kill his men, sacrifice thousands, and set off a nuke to achieve these goals.
• William Blake's Proverbs of Hell encourage this kind of attitude:
  The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom;
  The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction;
  One law for the lion and ox is oppression.
• Quantum Gravity: This is the ideal for demons of any stripe. Yes, the closest thing they have to a morality system is pretty much a complete lack of it. Don't think about it too hard.
  • We find out in the second book that Zal has been trying to do this with his goal to give humans clear sight. This is why he only set up a relationship with bandmates (annoying as can be) and Lila (too underconfident to leave, too strong to be taken). It should be noted that this is unthinkable to most elves — literally. The whole "conflicting allegiance" bit is their thing.
• Woe from Ringing Bell. As we can see in all versions of the story, nothing can stop him in being at the top of the food chain. No matter how despicable or cruel his actions might be, that's just fine with him as long as his stomach is satisfied with a big meal.
• The Scavenger Trilogy — Poldarn is simultaneously a celebration and a condemnation of The Unfetted ideal. He is at his most compelling when he is acting with a pure vision of getting from A to B regardless. But he is undone by it, over and over.
• And from The Silmarillion we have Fëanor and his sons, who swear an oath to get back the Silmarils and kill anyone who "takes or steals or finding keeps a Silmaril." In pursuit of the Silmarils, they repeatedly manipulate, betray, and/or kill anyone in their way. (And a number of people not in their way.) Some of the sons are worse than others. Ironically, the two longest-lived of Fëanor's sons find themselves fettered by that oath— they are free to do anything to take the Silmarils, but they are not free to give up their quest.
• Common in A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Stannis Baratheon. There are many laws in the world of Westeros, but the one Stannis Baratheon is most concerned with is the line of succession. He is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and he will do whatever he needs to take it.
  • Euron Greyjoy. Even among the Ironborn, he spurns their traditions and introduces a lot of customs and ideas from Essos as well as a strategic approach and ambition that goes beyond their usual rape and pillage naval doctrine and has absolutely no problem selling captives as slaves instead of making them thralls or "salt wives".
  • The entire Lannister family. They all tend to be remarkably ruthless in playing the Game of Thrones
  • Topping them all is Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. He has no qualms about doing anything to achieve his goals.
• A defining trait of the Gorn in the Star Trek Novel 'Verse. Once the Gorn have an objective, nothing comes between them and achieving it. Anything that does is brushed aside, ignored or destroyed.
  • In the Star Trek: New Frontier novel Treason, Selar is pushed into such a state by her son's condition. It's a condition Soleta calls "Shal'tiar"; when not even logic works, a Vulcan can default to the most direct path to get what she wants. (And Shal'tiar is an anagram of Tal'Shiar, the Romulan intelligence force.)
• Terry Goodkind being the big Ayn Rand fan that he is, the heroes of The Sword of Truth tend to take this view as well. There are many occasions in the series of armies winning against insurmountable odds by using absolutely any and every method they can think of, the more ruthless the better, and by being entirely uncaring of how bad their losses are as long as the enemy's are even worse. The morality of this is also always stated to be impeccable— anyone trying to deprive you of life or freedom deserve whatever they get, and it's better to die fighting than submit to slavery.
• Gavin Waylock, "hero" of Jack Vance's To Live Forever, wants to achieve immortality, and lets absolutely nothing deter him. Along the way his actions result in the deaths of his only real friend, countless innocent bystanders, and the near-total collapse of society. And, crucially, he gets away with it.
• Trainspotting has Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson, the amoral, sociopathic con-artist. Chapters narrated from his perspective showcase his disdain for society and his friends, and he has no qualms or regrets about using other people. Renton later says of Sick Boy: "He doesnae care. Because he doesnae care, he cannae be hurt. Never."
• In military thriller Victoria, rebel leader William Kraft is a heroic example. He will go to any lengths he believes necessary to bring about his utopia, up to condoning terrorism, political killings and (once he takes power) wars of aggression against other states. To his credit, he will also use only precisely the amount of violence he believes necessary, and prefers to pardon enemies who are no longer a threat, but when push comes to shove, he is utterly ruthless.
• The Black Tower in The Wheel of Time, an organization of men who can channel. It doesn't help that they're all slowly being driven insane by the Dark One's Taint on Saidin
• The Witch of Knightcharm: Gelila, a student at an evil Wizarding School, claims to believe in this when she says she will do absolutely anything to fulfill her goal of rebuilding the Ethiopian Empire. She goes so far as to tell the protagonist Emily that she is confident Emily will determine Gelila's methods are unacceptable and try to stop her. She also says that, should Emily indeed pick a fight, she will kill Emily without a qualm despite having no real problem with her otherwise.

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