History DesignatedHero / Literature

* ''Literature/BooksOfKings'': Literature/TheBible has plenty of supposedly heroic figures do questionable things, which sound terrible today due to ValuesDissonance. But even so, King Jehu is among the most egregious cases. He starts out with killing the kings Joram of Israel (whose throne he then takes) and Achasia of Judah. Then he orders the courtiers to kill the elderly Queen Jezebel (Joram's mother), only to remain notably nonchalant about her gruesome death. Then he orders the death of all of Joram's younger brothers (out of whom some must have only been children), everybody with any connection to the former royal house, some relatives of Achasia, who had not done anything except for saying that they came to see the now extinct former royal family, and all the remaining Baal prophets, who had even been tricked by Jehu into coming to a party where they were killed off. Jehu is never seen doing anything but having people (out of whom most are never seen doing anything wrong) killed, and his body count seems to end up being much larger than that of DesignatedVillain Queen Jezebel. But he was able to defeat the ''supposed'' bad guys and was ''supposedly'' chosen by God, and God appears to approve of his actions. So he must be a hero, right? And to really make us see that worshipping an idol is worse than killing hundreds of supposedly "evil" people (most of whom clearly were defenseless aginst his attacks), the narrator seems to only have one criticism about King Jehu: He stayed on as king of Israel for twentyeight years. But he still never got around to removing the golden calves, which were a part of a local idol cult. Because a few statues were obviously more abominable than all that needless bloodshed, that Jehu did during his violent coup d'etat...

* D'Artagnon in ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'' is portrayed as a callow yet valorous young man out to prove his worth to the world and getting caught up in schemes of politics and love well over his head. And while some of his actions are certainly heroic, he tends to do some incredibly questionable and even villainous things. One of his first acts in the story is to attempt to murder a man who commented on his strange-looking horse. When he fails, d'Artagnon swears a vow to find him and slay him no matter how long it takes... over [[DisproportionateRetribution an innocuous comment about a horse]]. When his [[UnintentionallySympathetic landlord]] (to whom d'Artagnon is in great debt) comes to him for help, d'Artagnon participates in getting him arrested for a crime he didn't commit so that he can live rent free and hit on the landlord's wife. d'Artgagnon declares his undying love for the landlord's wife, then pursues and eventually [[KarmicRape rapes]] Milady de Winter (by fraud rather than force, but still), then moves on and denounces her as a villain when she discovers his deceit and becomes furious. d'Artagnon's companions (the titular three musketeers) are little better, and the four of them only obey the laws convenient to them, lie to and intimidate whoever they please to squeeze money out of them, abuse their lackeys, and turn their noses up at anyone they deem lesser than them. Their two greatest accomplishments in the story are protecting the reputation of the lying and cheating Queen of France and tracking down and beheading a lying and cheating lowborn woman. Despite this, they are portrayed as goodhearted men struggling to make ends meet and maintain their honor in a difficult world.

* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' discusses this trope in pointing out that professional "heroes", the people who go around slaying the monsters and stuff, are typically just violent and rather dim.

* The Abh from ''Litetrature/CrestOfTheStars'' are TheEmpire as depicted by an author who is RootingForTheEmpire, and glorified [[RecycledInSpace Space]] [[CantArgueWithElves Elves]] to boot. The dissonance between the fact they're intended to be the sympathetic, admirable, perfect, heroic faction and the reality of what they actually are is so great that many viewers/readers end up RootingForTheEmpire instead -- and TheEmpire in this case is a case of TheEmpire being played straight!

* The protagonist of the fairy tail ''Literature/TheTinderBox'' murders the witch when she refuses to tell him the tinder box's special properties, kidnaps the princess repeatedly, and -- after getting arrested and sentenced to execution for this -- kills the kingdom's ruling members, ''including the princess' parents'', before taking over and marrying her. His hero status is questionable at ''best.''

* Creator/AynRand’s (deliberately) {{Anvilicious}} writing style means her works can fall victim to this even among staunch libertarians, and it’s nearly universal among non-libertarians. Her protagonists are written as larger-than-life archetypes to make sure [[BlackAndWhiteMorality the intended morals of her books are clear]], but the lack of humanizing doubts or quirks can make it very alienating to read their adventures, say, [[Literature/AtlasShrugged pulling the supports out from society and knowingly abandoning their loved ones, loyal employees and potentially billions of other people to die]].
** This is missing the point - the 'supports' of society mentioned above are the characters themselves. Who are nearly universally called exploiters and useless parasites by the society. So they quit and leave, and that shows just who is essential and who is the exploiter after all.

* Creator/AynRand’s (deliberately) {{Anvilicious}} writing style means her works can fall victim to this even among staunch libertarians, and it’s nearly universal among non-libertarians. Her protagonists are written as larger-than-life archetypes to make sure [[BlackAndWhiteMorality the intended morals of her books are clear]], but the lack of humanizing doubts or quirks can make it very alienating to read their adventures, say, [[Literature/AtlasShrugged pulling the supports out from society and knowingly abandoning their loved ones, loyal employees and potentially billions of other people to die]]. The books are also full of AuthorAppeal elements that include [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization non-consensual sex]], homicidal jealousy, and pervasive (and fully intentional) racism toward Asians and Native Americans, which most people would agree are [[KickTheDog huge problems]] completely separate from whatever they might think of her economic views.

* Folktales in general have a tendency to have Designated Heroes as often as not. Often, WhatMeasureIsANonHuman comes into play, as a folk hero will often go about antagonizing and usually killing a monster that may or may not even be hurting anyone, and even if it is, the hero’s actions are frequently more than the monster deserved.

* ''Adam'' by Ariel Schrag has the titular character. He is a cis heterosexual male who is mistaken for a transman because he's a minor that managed to sneak into gay clubs. When he meets a lesbian named Gillian, he decides to use this misunderstanding to his advantage so that he could sleep with her, and he succeeds, which falls under [[BedTrick Rape by Deception]]. Adding to the creepiness is that he's 17 while Gillian is over 18, so he also tricked an adult into committing statutory rape. Not only does he [[KarmaHoudini get away with it]], he and Gillian get together even after he was exposed.

** Theseus, from the Greek myth of the Minotaur, abandons his lover Ariadne on an island, despite the fact that he would never have killed the Minotaur without her. His reasoning? His father and her father, both kings, are sworn enemies and thus their relationship becoming public would be extremely politically embarrassing. She's rescued by the gods in a rare PetTheDog moment from [[JerkassGods them]], but Theseus doesn't know that. This however is far from the worst thing he does, latter he abducts Helen of Troy when she is still a child even by Ancient Greek standards, (ten in some versions, seven in others) with the intention of marrying her when she gets older. He does this almost purely because he feels entitled too have a divine wife as a child of the Olympians. This sparks a war between Sparta and Athens. He's never punished for this, although he is trapped in the underworld for a time as a result for the different but not unrelated crime of attempting too abduct Persephone.

* The Gods of Good from ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' come off as this more than once, ''especially'' in the original trilogy written by Weis & Hickman. The corrupt ruler of a theocratic empire trying to demand the power to break the BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil by eliminating evil ''[[SarcasmMode obviously]]'' should be met by throwing around extremely vague portents of doom with no clear messages to the mortals as to why the gods are angry, culminating in devastating the planet with a cataclysmic meteor strike. Oh, and make sure you kidnap all of the still-faithful priests and whisk them away to the god's realms first, and never send them back to minister to the survivors during the massive disasters, famines and plagues that result from the Cataclysm afterwards. And don't forget about being offended when mortalkind is angered by this treatment, declare mortalkind has "turned its back on the gods", and abandon them for centuries to struggle in the now-devastated world with no healing magic of any kind! [[StrawmanHasAPoint Small wonder that a lot of fans support]] Tanis Half-Elven and those of similar view when they [[NayTheist claim the gods are arrogant, self-absorbed bastards who don't deserve reverence in the first place]].

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': Aslan, who is presented as [[GodOfGood a noble Christ-like figure]]. However, throughout the series he commits several head scratching deeds.
** In ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' he grants all the animals the ability [[TalkingAnimal to speak]], but he makes it so that if they continue to behave like natural animals, they will lose that gift. He also decrees that non-speaking animals will be the lowest class in the Narnian hierarchy, while humans [[HumansAreSpecial will rule over everyone else]]. In hindsight he is making it so that animals who chose to follow their instincts and nature are the lowest of the low, while humans, who in reality [[HumansAreBastards don't have the best track record for living with natural things they can't control]], get to rule all. Additionally, the morality of Narnia could be summed up like this: [[WithUsorAgainstUs you're either with Aslan and you're "good", or you're with someone else or independent and you're evil]].
** In ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'', he wounds Princess Aravis in the back because her handmaiden had helped Aravis escape her arranged marriage and was punished for it. Aslan intended that Aravis know the handmaiden's suffering, even though she didn't really deserve it and had gone through enough hell already.
** In ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'' it's implied he turned a group of fat boys into pigs for no reason than that they were fat.
** In ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' he does something that every other designated hero ever written would call him on, he outright [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroys Narnia]].

* In the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'', Aral is respected, admired or loved by all protagonists and good-guy Barrayaran characters. Those who hate him are either traitors or foreigners who wrongly believe he is a war criminal. One foreigner is his fan ''despite'' his status as war criminal. But then there's his ''spectacular'' miscarriage of justice on Carl Vorhalas. ''Maybe'' Carl deserved to die for accidentally killing an officer in a drunken fight (technically treason), but if there was one person in the universe who should have pardoned him, it was Aral. Because when Aral was Carl's age, he ''intentionally'' killed ''two'' officers in a fit of jealousy and ''got away with it''.

* Arthur Dimmesdale in ''Literature/TheScarletLetter'' seduced and impregnated Hester (she was a married woman, but her husband was disappeared), left her to assume all the blame and humiliation, participated among the people who shamed her and left her with the responsability of her child. However, he has the sympathy of Hester, the people of Boston and Creator/NathanielHawthorne. He does redeem himself, but in the end.

* John Rumford ''Literature/{{Victoria}}''. First, we meet him when he is discharged from the US Marine Corps after interrupting a ceremony remembering their war dead, because he didn't feel it appropriate for a woman Marine to participate. After failing as a farmer he becomes, in effect, a professional rabble-rouser, with his group, the Christian Marines, paying him to plan strategies for preserving conservative Christian culture. Towards this end, he blackmails and kidnaps officials, and leads a militia against federal troops, holding their prisoners as hostages against further government intervention. After states begin seceding from the Union, he employs the same hostage tactics on a grand scale, lynchings, torture, forced relocations, biowarfare, and nukes Atlanta when black rioters seize the city. Blacks are welcome in his state, but only if they refrain from raising families in a city and accept a swift trial and hanging for any substantial offense, non-Christians are outright banished, and heretics burned at the stake. Among the various Straw Liberal successor states, the only one treated as a credible threat and worthy opponent are the actual Nazis, to whom he objects primarily because they are efficiency-crazed modernists. Oh yes, and Rumford becomes fond of 'Retroculture' and sets out to restrict any technology more advanced than was commonly used in the 1930s.

** In ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'' it's implied he turned a group of fat boys into pigs.

** In ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'', he wounds Princess Aravis in the back because her handmaiden had helped Aravis escape her arranged marriage and was punished for it. Aslan intended that Aravis know the handmaiden's suffering.

** In ''Literature/TheLastBattle'' he outright [[EarthShatteringKaboom destroys Narnia]].

* Leon from ''Literature/Pagan Lover'' frequently makes unwelcome advances on the heroine, kidnaps her on the day of her wedding (to someone she would have been HappilyMarried to no less), repeatedly threatens to rape her, and later forces her to marry him. Yet for some reason, he's the romantic lead, and women are supposed to consider him a better lover than the other guy.

* Leon from ''Pagan Lover'' frequently makes unwelcome advances on the heroine, kidnaps her on the day of her wedding (to someone she would have been HappilyMarried to no less), repeatedly threatens to rape her, and later forces her to marry him. Yet for some reason, he's the romantic lead, and women are supposed to consider him a better lover than the other guy.

** Theseus, from the Greek myth of the Minotaur, abandons his lover Ariadne on an island, despite the fact that he would never have killed the Minotaur without her. His reasoning? His father and her father, both kings, are sworn enemies and thus their relationship becoming public would be extremely politically embarrassing. She's rescued by the gods in a rare PetTheDog moment from [[JerkassGods them]], but Theseus doesn't know that. This however far from the worst thing he does, latter he abducts Helen of Troy when she is still a child even by Ancient Greek standards, (ten in some versions, seven in others) with the intention of marrying her when she gets older. He does this almost purely because he feels entitled too have a divine wife as a child of the Olympians. This sparks a war between Sparta and Athens. He's never punished for this, although he is trapped in the underworld for a time as a result for the diffren't but not unrelated crime of attempting too abduct Persephone. He ultimately is still allowed too leave with Heracules in a act of mercy uncharacteristic of an Olympian, who have done far worse for far less.

** Theseus, from the Greek myth of the Minotaur, abandons his lover Ariadne on an island, despite the fact that he would never have killed the Minotaur without her. His reasoning? His father and her father, both kings, are sworn enemies and thus their relationship becoming public would be extremely politically embarrassing. She's rescued by the gods in a rare PetTheDog moment from [[JerkassGods them]], but Theseus doesn't know that. This however far from the worst thing he does, latter he abducts Helen of Troy when she is still a child even by Ancient Greek standards, (ten in some versions, seven in others) with the intention of marrying her when she gets older. He does this almost purely because he's intitled too have a divine wife as a child of the Olympians this sparks a war between Sparta and Athens.