First Evil Protagonist

IdleRich

IdleRich
This something that occurred to me to ask recently. Been watching Breaking Bad recently and got to the fifth series and I notice that my girlfriend is losing interest in what happens, the more evil Walter becomes. I've not been that bothered by the series so far but I feel that having watched to the fifth series I want to see the end of the story - I don't really care whether or not I'm rooting for the protagonist. But a lot of people do. I don't think Breaking Bad could have started with Walter as a bad guy, they had to sucker people in with the victim story line and get people on his side before they could start with the bad stuff. Most people needed to be lured in before they could go that way.
Which started me thinking - what are the stories when the main character is a bad guy? Which was the first of these? Girlfriend suggested Shakespeare but I'm not sure that's what I mean. Othello, Macbeth are both partly sympathetic, they are led astray by others and situations. But what's the first book with completely, unredeemablly nasty characters. I guess 120 Days of Sodom could be a contender.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Raskolnikov (Crime & Punishment)? Satan (Paradise Lost)?

Interesting thread. I liked BB but found it a bit of a drag towards the 5th series just because of how unremittingly bleak it got (getting that way about Game of Thrones a little, to be honest). But Anna feels the same way Liza does, and I suppose I did a bit too. However, even as Walt descends into irredeemable evil I felt myself nonetheless rooting for him in a completely amoral way, simply out of respect for his ingenuity, determination and sheer Wille zur Macht, as well as a desire to see the other (equally shitty) characters get their comeuppance. In fact, apart from a few points where Walt does something that just seems almost gratuitously evil (watching Jane die from a heroin overdose and not lifting a finger to help her, poisoning Brock in order to manipulate Jesse), the bits where I wanted to yell at Walt through the TV were when he did something stupid rather than morally bad. But then I guess the show's writers have such a finely attuned sense of classical drama that it was always going to be Walt's hubris, rather than simple badness, that led to his downfall.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Hamlet kinda. Paradise Lost?

Alot of the post-Sade decadent books are nasty characters, amoral, Maldoror definitely doesn't have any remorse.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Oh yeah, Maldoror is a good one but that book is so all over the fucking place I'd have a hard time describing it as a 'story' as such.

Hamlet ends up being a bit of a fuck-up but isn't he basically a noble character driven to extreme actions by the circumstances?
 

you

Well-known member
Idle - there are a lot of utterly amoral protagonists out there, but that doesn't stop you from rooting for them and turning the pages.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Is Glamorama the only book ever written where the protagonist is a total dick, but you still end up rooting for him, or following him or something.
 

woops

is not like other people
good question

My first thought was Lermontov's Hero of our Time
I think that's more or less agreed to be the first anti-hero.
Basically appearance of novel = emergence of good baddies
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Not read Paradise Lost - is Satan the main protagonist?
With the Shakespeare stuff, I'm not sure that that's what I was asking for - I think that there is an acceptance that the most evil ones (Richard III say) must ultimately be punished and be seen to be be punished as a result of their iniquities, I guess you couldn't show someone profiting from their crimes without there being an ultimatel reckoning or you would have been denounced as being immoral.
 
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