Quotes / Byronic Hero

Anime & Manga

"What does it mean to be reborn? That isn't the life I had anymore. It's someone else's life. Everyone only gets to live life one time, and it's right here. I only get it once. This is my life. I can't entrust it to someone, I can't steal a new one, I can't force it on others, I can't forget it or erase it. I can't stomp over it, laugh at it, or beautify it! I can't anything! I'd have to accept my one shot at life no matter how cruel, merciless, or unfair I thought it was! Sir, don't you understand? That is why I must fight. I must keep on fighting! Because... because I can never accept that kind of life!"

—Yuri Nakamura, Angel Beats!

"If anyone wishes to stop me, let them try! If there is anyone who can go beyond my despair..."

—Lelouch vi Britannia, Code Geass

Comic Books

"[Orpheus] reminded me of you. A romantic fool. Self-pitying, but with a certain amount of personal charm."

— Destruction sums up both Dream and his son, The Sandman (1989)

Films — Animated

"The snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the queen.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside...
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I've tried...
Don't let them in, don't let them see, be the good girl you always had to be,
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know...
Well, now they know!
Let it go, let it go, can't hold me back anymore!
Let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door!
I don't care what they're going to say!
Let the storm rage on... the cold never bothered me anyway!"

— Elsa, "Let it Go", Frozen (2013)

Film — Live-Action

"He always runs while others walk.
He acts while other men just talk.
He looks at this world, and wants it all,
So he strikes, like Thunderball.
He knows the meaning of success.
His needs are more, so he gives less.
They call him the winner who takes all.
And he strikes, like Thunderball.
Any woman he wants, he'll get.
He will break any heart without regret.
His days of asking are all gone.
His fight goes on and on and on.
But he thinks that the fight is worth it all.
So he strikes like Thunderball."

— Tom Jones, theme song to Thunderball

Literature

"But I can tell you this—[Raistlin] was born with the gift. And that is most important. The magic dwells deep within your brother. Did you know that, from the first day Raistlin attended school, his own master held him in fear and awe. How does one teach a pupil who knows more than the teacher? And combined with the gift of magic is intelligence. Raistlin's mind is never at rest. It seeks knowledge, demands answers. And he is courageous—perhaps more courageous than you are, warrior. He fights pain every day of his life. He has faced death more than once and defeated it. He fears nothing—neither the darkness nor the light. And his soul... His soul burns with ambition, the desire for power, the desire for more knowledge. I knew that nothing, not even the fear of death itself, would stop him from attaining his goals. And I knew that the goals he sought to attain might well benefit the world, even if he, himself, should choose to turn his back upon it."

—Par-Salian, Dragonlance Legends

"But few people really want to see themselves as being bad or evil, whatever label they wear. I've done things I regret, I've done things I'm proud of, and I've walked the roads in between. The sliding scale is a fantasy. There's no simple answers."

— Skitter, Worm

Live-Action TV

"I mean, he's not some common vampire. He's—I don't know what he is. A giant. A titan straddling good and evil, serving no master but his own considerable desires. And spiritual! Did you know he spent 150 years in a Tibetan monastery? Which I guess explains all the desire."

— Darla^note Not describing the main protagonist, to his immense chagrin., Angel, "The Girl in Question"

Cyber-Leader: You are proof.
The Doctor: Of what?
Cyber-Leader: That emotions destroy you.
The Doctor: Yeah, I am.

— Doctor Who

"He was the black sheep. The permanent pariah. He asked no quarter of the bosses, and none was given. He learned no lessons. He acknowledged no mistakes. He was as stubborn a mick as ever stumbled out of the Northeast Parishes to take a patrolman's shield. He did what he wanted to do and he said what he wanted to say ... and in the end, he gave you the clearances. He was natural police. Yes, he was. And I don't say that about many people, even when they're here on the felt. I don't give that one up unless it happens to be true. Natural poh-leece... But Christ, what an asshole!"

— Jay Landsman on Jimmy McNulty, The Wire

Music

"I have a holy call to answer: To be an angel of the dark!"

— Aviators, "Angel of the Dark"

"I don't want to hurt you
But I can't stay away
I don't have the strength to know myself and keep you safe
So wherever you are now
I hope you will forget
The flaws I had before because I haven't lost them yet"

— Aviators, "I Don't Want to Hurt You"

"I think it's beautiful how poisoned skies remind me
I'm a ghost behind the veil
I think it's wonderful how I lost the part of me
I need the most, like I was born to fail"

— Aviators, "Requiem for the Hunter"

A man of wealth and a genius mind / A slave to passion and his morbid side
Robbing graves of the newly dead / Erratic tendencies, a troubled mind
"I will create in my own image / If God can then why can't I?
No thought of the consequences / I've got to know the meaning of life"

— Iced Earth, "Frankenstein"

"My twisted imagination
It's more than you'd understand
This mind knows no limitations
There's nothing holding me back!"

— Nerd Out, "Twisted Imagination"

"No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you"

— The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

Theatre

"His isolation
Is confirmation
Of his desperation
For healing hugs."

— The Hidden Folk, "Fixer Upper", Frozen (2018)

Video Games

"A man will come and take you away. This man is different; he will protect you. Please don't judge him for what he might have to do. Some day, you will understand."

— Diana^note Describing the series protagonist, Hitman: Absolution

"I'm just a man who's good at what he does, killing. There's no winning or losing for a mercenary. I've never fought for anyone but myself, I've got no purpose in life, no ultimate goal. It's only when I'm cheating death on the battlefield, the only time I feel truly alive."

— Solid Snake, Metal Gear

"There's a good man within you, Arthur, but he is wrestling with a giant. And the giant wins, time and again."

— Mary Linton, Red Dead Redemption 2

Web Original

"While workshopping ideas, though, the duo came to the realization that they didn't really see Elsa as a cartoonishly evil cryomancer who wanted to rain ice and death from the heavens, but rather a conflicted and emotionally troubled young woman with a terminal case of resting smug face."

— Karl Smallwood, How Elsa's Theme Song Helped Her Become the Hero of Frozen

"Towering Type O Negative singer and bassist Peter Steele may be remembered as a brazenly sexual libertine, but just under his horny, brooding exterior was a sensitive lover who fell hard and suffered harder when it all fell apart. Steele's lyrics were often deeply personal and, even with his signature sense of sarcastic humor, acted as a window into what plagued the frontman: death, love, addiction, and betrayal."

— Kelsey Chapstick, 20 Great Peter Steele Quotes: Type O Negative's Frontman on Sex, Death, and Religion

"Beware the man who would kill a god, the choir whispers, for he will never know peace, and he will drag the whole universe into war to keep him merry company along the way. He will stand before the throne, look the void in the eye and laugh. He cannot bear to live in a world where he is not sovereign of his own soul. He would rip his teeth into divine flesh and swallow the universe whole."

— okayophelia discussing the "Godkiller" archetype

"Thanos, on the other hand, is a far more ambiguous symbol. If Darkseid stands in as a metaphor for a locus of multiple dangerous and terrifying grand historical concepts, Thanos embodies something far more intimate. Thanos is a surly adolescent, forever constrained by the limitations of his Oedipal obsessions, fixated on the concept of death and defined therefore by a strange mixture of curiosity and lust. Darkseid is a fantastic villain precisely because he is so resolutely petty - he rules an entire world with ironclad discipline, embodying everything fearful in political and ideological repression. Other people matter to him on a profound level because domination matters as a goal for Darkseid in and of itself. Conversely, Thanos could not care less about domination, although he is often styled as a "conqueror." He has shown little interest in ruling the universe. He is not a tyrant, he is - or at least, he envisions himself to be, a capital-R Romantic in the vein of a Shelley or a Keats. Even when he wielded the Infinity Gauntlet and was, for all intents and purposes, the literal ruler of the universe, he didn't give one iota's thought to ruling or dominating the untold trillions of lives under his control. Rather, he was concerned with his own private passions, a slave to his emotions, unable to transcend the limitations of his self-obsession. He cared about being able to assert his own will with impunity, to live without restrictions, and to gain recognition from the object of his erotic fixation."

— Timothy O'Neil on Thanos.

"The Byronic Hero is two pounds of thinly sliced turkey, honey-glazed ham, cannabis, salami, marijuana, and cheese on rye and is typically served with some of those cute party toothpicks with little olives on the end. It is usually characterized by rebellion and a distaste for society, yet a haughty appreciation for tasty lunchmeats and hallucinogenic drugs."

— Uncyclopedia's article on Lord Byron.

Western Animation

"My question is for Diane. Look, I'm sorry about all the stuff I said about you earlier. We can publish the book you wrote. You're obviously a better writer than I am, and I don't actually even really care what the world thinks about me anymore. I just hated reading that book because I hated feeling like that's how you saw me. Because I guess you know me better than anybody, and if you think that... Um, I- I guess my question is, do you... do you think it's too late for me? I mean am-am-am I just doomed to be the person I am? The-the person in that book? It's not too late for me, is it? It's — it's not too late — Diane, I need you to tell me that it's not too late... I-I-I need you to tell me that I'm a good person. I know that I can be selfish and narcissistic and self-destructive, but underneath all that, deep down, I'm a good person, and I need you to tell me that I'm good... Diane... Tell me, please, Diane. Tell me that I'm good."

—BoJack, BoJack Horseman, "Downer Ending"

Real Life

"Inwardly, Bruce Wayne is still an adolescent watching his parents being murdered. That will never leave him. And people really relate to that."

— Kevin Conroy

"Mad, bad and dangerous to know."

— Lady Caroline Lamb, before she started having sex with Lord Byron.

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