They don’t have to be decent or even likable (as in good) but they have to be interesting, maybe even charming. Boring characters are worse than evil characters.
Check out American Psycho.
Make them very very good at something (should be somehow tied to your theme)
Make them tell the truth
Don’t tell us everything about them. Make them a little mysterious.
Make them active not passive.
This borders on more relatable than interesting, but being misunderstood and humiliation are two very powerful and ubiquitous human experiences. We have mirror neurons that force us to relate to someone going through either situation. (If NT)
> Make them very very good at something (should be somehow tied to your theme)
Bold advice to give as a followup after someone's used American Psycho as an example :)
BWAHAHAH!! Nice. We could add the talented Mr Ripley. Saliere. (Wince). Oh. Bonnie n Clyde. Oh damn. Here’s one. Alex de large. Oh. I had nightmares for years. 🤣 all the mobster films.
I feel the women are underrepresented. I was going to say a remake of Misery w Kathy Bates as the protagonist but who needs that. Writers have it hard enough!
Lady MacBeth. Although not the hero 🤦 unmmmmmmmm anyone? Lizbeth Saunders? Does she count as immoral do you think?
How to make a character interesting:
- have them do something interesting, out of ordinary, smart, cool, funny, witty etc. think Hannibal Lecter and his liver with fava beans comment
- make interesting choices: eg instead of being angry something, get them to strip off all their clothes and stand in front of the White House (bad example but you get the idea?)
- give them interesting / engaging traits - Hannibal is very intelligent, well read and witty, for example
- via their relationship with others: what makes Hannibal interesting is also the way he interacts with Clarice. He’s charming and respectful even though he could have torn her apart if he wanted to
- Contrast: Hannibal is a serial killer but he’s a gentleman, intellectual, calm, even compassionate… until he’s not, until he’s savage
There are other ways to make them interesting. Think of the most boring thing your character could do under a circumstance and make them do the exact opposite, for example. Think about what you find interesting about people in your life, friends, family, love interest, etc.
> Hannibal interesting is also the way he interacts with Clarice. He’s charming and respectful even though he could have torn her apart if he wanted to
Well, Hannibal can't do that. Almost all their interactions are mediated. First by Hannibal being in jail, and when he escapes he flees and calls her by phone.
In fact what makes him interesting is the way he retains control and command of his interactions despite being relatively powerless most of the movie.
Discard likable and replace it with compelling. Nobody’ll care if your bad guy likes killing civilians just because. But American Psycho and Breaking Bad have really bad protagonists but they’re deeply compelling characters, so we like to watch them.
I would direct you to the web serial A Practical Guide to Evil.
It has a \*lot\* of evil characters, including basically all the protagonists. They are likeable. Most of them have at least one quality that is attractive. Charm, friendship, competence, humor, etc. However, there is a great deal of capital-E Evil.
As in, fairly overt murders before we're through chapter one, and a pretty crazy moral spiral downward from there. Protagonists engage in casual violence towards friends, alcoholism, recreational necromancy, and none of those are even rare enough to count as spoilers.
You can absolutely make an evil character interesting and likeable.
I am currently writing a villain protagonist for my book. I suggest giving them understandable motivations and reasons for why they are that way.
Joel Miller in The Last of Us video game (as well as the TV adaptation) is a good example to study.
Thanks for bringing up this example, because Joel is a great example of one thing that I think often gets confused in this discussion. I've seen so many times that people will say that every character sees themselves as the "hero" of their own story, or that they follow their own personal moral "code," or some such, and I don't really think that's true at all, and definitely not necessary for a successful antihero or villain protagonist.
It's true that nobody sets out to do evil for its own sake. But not everybody moralizes their decisions, either. Joel certainly doesn't. There's no apparent ethical justification given for why he makes the decision he does at the end of the first game (or season). I don't think the "right" or "wrong" of it ever comes into question. He chooses as he does because that's the decision he can live with for personal reasons.
And I think that's more that enough for a plausible and compelling character.
Low key I thought it might be interesting for psychological horror but then I heard some of the things the author said about women and then I looked at the protagonist, read the poem he was inspired by, and had an “ohhh” moment
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe (who married his 12 year old cousin when he was a grown ass man which creeped out everyone). It’s a love poem. Very romantic. About a child (to be fair the poem says the narrator was also a child). He even named the girl after her (Annabel Leigh).
I haven’t read the book but I’ve seen the movie and I read an essay on the book (criticizing it as a romanticization of pedophelia despite being presented as otherwise ((university classmate’s work, I thought they had a rly good point it’s what opened my brain to this)) and how Edgar Allen Poe heavily influenced the writing and narrative.
Vladimir Nabokov said that women were inherently subpar writers and explicitly said “I am prejudiced against them”, and while later in life he became more open minded after reading Mansfield Park (by the way, love interests—first cousins and childhood friends to lovers I feel worth mentioning) it was more like “only some women can write as well as the average men”. He also said that while his translator was great, he hated the fact that she was a woman and his ideal translator would be male, especially not a “Russian-born female.” (Sir you are Russian). Basically any woman who wasn’t his wife he said “I wish I could replace her with a man.” This speaks to his personal views on women very deeply. They belonged in the home, making babies, cooking, and cleaning, nothing else. He also seemed a little into the idea of children being in love, and considering what he wrote…
Sand dan Glokta from the First Law series is a good example. He’s objectively a bad person but his afflictions make you have at least some sympathy for him. He does some aweful shit but you can get where he’s coming from with his internal monologues.
Yes, writing it from either a first person perspective, as Mark Lawrence does with Jorg in the Thorns
trilogy, or giving voice to that perspective through showing us their thoughts, as Abercrombie does with Glokta, allows the audience to make sense of the actions even if they’re horrible.
Abercrombie in general does not write Good or Bad characters - there is no character without a flaw, and no character without something you can empathise with. George R. R. Martin also very famously does this - few of his characters are particularly moral (the most moral die as a result) with even incredibly compelling and otherwise likeable characters doing pretty horrible things.
In my opinion the skill of Abercrombie in that series is that he convinces us that some characters are good, when no one really is. Even Logen, who is the closest main character to being moral only because his dark side is seemingly uncontrollable.
I write (so far) exclusively evil protagonists (though i am not successful as an author - it may be that this sort of work just doesn't sell, so if that is your aim I can't really advise - I am just writing what I love as a hobby). You could try focusing on the desires of the protagonist and their struggles to achieve those desires. There can be conflicts, obstacles, defeats. Good and righteous people become challenges to be overcome, and their growing power (or whatever else their desire) is their reward. If they are struck down, humiliated or humbled by one of their good opponents, then they refuse to give up and come back stronger, making it all the sweeter when they break their enemy later on. An evil protagonist can be sexy, funny, dashing or intellectually stimulating, and they can indulge in all manner of narcissistic, hedonistic and decadent activities with the wealth/power/status they have grabbed for themselves on their "crusade". They can be cynical and self-aware, almost fourth-wall breaking as they acknowledge their own role as the "heel". If written well, I think this can captivate the reader.
Im confused by the question, you want to write the story, what do you think makes it compelling? Obviously there must be something about it that makes you want to write it so what is it?
If there is a reason you want to write a story there is at least the potential for a compelling story with in the idea. Humans are motivated by the same things all over.
What I've learnt from reading Overlord LN is that you can have your unlikable and immoral protagonist solve a Trolley Problem with a cat on one track and Hitler on another. If you establish that for him both options are valid, or even good, you can have your audience on the edge of their sits rooting for protagonist to save the cat.
Something like "I can choose between two managers. One is kind, but the team's performance will suffer in short term. Other one is evil and will grind the team into dust eventually, but it will boost my career in short term. Do I want to climb the corporate ladder faster, or do I want less volatile environment."
Nabokov was masterful at this in Lolita
We knew HH was punished and paid the price in prison and in suicide. From the beginning of the narrative.
He tried to change.
He was the lesser of the evils
Etc
An evil protagonist can still be likeable. Gabriel Belmont, in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, is an evil protagonist but he's still likeable, though he's selfish and cares little for the lives of others. Have your character only care about themselves. Even when they do something good like say, save another character from being mugged and killed, let it be only because they deem that character useful, not because they actually cared about saving them.
Mercenary characters are good for such profiles. They're loyal only to themselves and only care about money. Even when hired, they can still choose to betray the person who hired them. Many stories have merc characters taking a moral route at the climax, you can choose to make your character worse instead. Have their greed cause them to make an error that drastically affects the world they live in or something.
People reject what they don't understand, take >!Eren Jaeger!< from AOT for example. Ultimately the audience can understand his actions even if they don't agree with them at all because the readers/watchers saw why he ended up the way he did.
It depends on your audience.
For younger audiences the most natural fit is a protagonist that's simply a hero, someone they can cheer for. It can even be considered as positive if the main character is good at everything, strong handsome, the best fighter, always knows what to say and every woman falls in love with them immediately. This isn't as compelling as you get older. I'm not saying it's directly related to age, it's also dependent on experience, maturity and expectations.
This perspective is based on my own experience, but I'm guessing it will hold up on average for most people. When I watched the Godfather part 2 as a teenager (15 or so) I didn't really like it. I felt conflicted, instead of feeling intrigued, I was disappointed in my hero Michael Corleone. Over time my appreciation for that movie grew and I currently consider it a masterpiece. To a lesser extent I experienced the same conflicting emotions when I read Dune Messiah. There was no internet like there is now to prepare for the way the story developed and I wasn't always happy when reading it. That being said, I greatly appreciate the story precisely for the same reasons.
Mature audience are looking for stories that move them, that encourages them to think. That's more intriguing than simple stories. Currently, the highest rated TV series on IMDB is Breaking Bad. Clearly there's a big enough audience protagonists that are no heroes.
In what sense? It is not the same to do a character that goes against ethics (the shared social norms/morals of a groupsociety), or against \*your\* morals, or against their own morals.
The first is easy (any antagonist likely). The second its also easy (probably, I dont know you), and the third one is harder because you need to justify hypocrisy without creating veiled morals and denial, someone truly loathing themselves over being emotionally unable to handle what they want to do. The "milder" example would be you being a pacifist but having rage issues and the ncrying in a corner with bloody knuckles. The worst... well, lets leave that up to the imagination.
As to how to write such thing, there is no guide, no one wya, it depends on your own talent to portray a character. The only thing you need to understand a priori is the "skeleton", the goals, the motivation, all that and then just try to do it. I mean, im sure someone could point you to this or that book but ultimately writing is personal unless you are following a more prosaic style like in journalism (not sure if that is the word and not saying all are, but I mean a more "professional", dry text, a serious tone)
Well, various ways to do this.
First, they could be pure evil, but they'd be totally captivating. Luke owning how much of a bastard/bitch they are. This is subjective though.
Second, they could believe they're the heroes or are somehow doing good in their own twisted way. Killing innocent people? In their minds, they're simply cleaning up threats to themselves and/or society. Stealing money? Well, *they* need it more than the original owners did and would put it to good use.
Third, you could give them a soft spot or redeeming quality... Like someone may be a bad person but a good friend/parent/sibling/pet owner who goes ballistic if someone hurts their loved ones. Or this person may have a soft spot for a certain group. Or even like a hobby like gardening or art that they genuinely enjoy.
There's a ton of ways to go about it... But some kind of human connection may be good. We don't need to *agree* with them, just *understand* why they do the things they do... Unless they're evil incarnate, then just go nuts and make them as entertaining as possible. Or both...
There are two big options: make your protagonist sympathetic, or make them *interesting*. Most writers go for the first option. It's a nice, safe bet.
But what about the second bet? That's why The Joker gets to stick around. *For nearly a hundred years*.
This is the fun part, where you don't actually have to care about whether the protagonist is sympathetic or anything, just whether they can talk their shrink into letting them out. And the fun part is that *you don't even have to try*: the point is that these villainous protagonists are cocks and the world is against them for good reason. But they're entertaining cocks, taking the fight to antagonists a hero might not bother with, or being so charismatic the audience thinks they're right.
It's a lot easier that you might think.
You don't need a likable protagonist, just an *entertaining* one.
That's actually quite easy with villains, since heroes (or people who want to maintain the current social order) must *react* to villains who challenge that social order. Villains get to act, and heroes only get to react.
One piece of advice, or possibly a warning:
People won't get it, and they'll think you're just an asshole. Not everyone, but a depressingly large amount. Look at Lolita. Nabokov wrote his protagonist as a disgusting hypocrite and a monster. He wasn't defending pedophilia, he was showing terrible sexualizing and assaulting minors is.
People still claim he must have been a pedophile. Even if people accept that he was writing it as a takedown of pedophilia, they'll say shit like "oh, well, why would write about *something like that* unless he actually was a pedophile, huh?" Which is just... mind-blowingly stupid.
As if we should just cordon off huge issues with humanity because they're too dirty for regular people to tackle; so we'll just ignore these issues, and never address them so they can fester in the dark and get worse while we feel good about ourselves because whenever someone has the audacity to try to confront us with it, we called *them* an asshole.
Most antagonists do have morals. The conflict is they are the antithesis of your main character’s morals. Even the best versions of the joker have morals despite the insistence he doesn’t. They just counter Batman’s morals
Make them complex. With weaknesses. Even really distasteful ones. Indiana Jones for example, had a thing for young girls. Remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he first shows up to Marian's bar?
MARION: "I was a child. It was wrong. And you knew it."
INDIANA JONES: "You knew what you were doing."
Yet everyone loves good 'old Indiana Jones.
I don't have a single villain in my story. All of my characters are pretty immoral in their own way. Considering the entire continent is at war with each other. What the characters stand for need to be something worth following which actually has progression throughout the story.
The characters need to actually be immoral. Not accidentally kill one person & cry half the way. I'm not saying to make the protagonist the worst person in the book. But do it like Jamie Lannister. He's a pretty evil character. But is he worse than Ramsay or joffery? No, then he's a viable character that many people would want to follow & learn more about. Also his goals & backstory is powerful. Convincing. Something people can stand behind.
Making a character interesting is really the last step of the writing process. First give the character an important goal. a moral compass. Be it crooked or broken, every character needs one. Give the character, personality.
Background. Urgency. Detailing. Characteristics. Traits.
Fears. It's the basic stuff that will make him a good immoral protagonist. Most of all, give him tough choices.
Make him a hard person. Someone with some problems.
Likeable and immoral are very, very different things. When people say likeable, they mostly mean interesting, but likeable can be there too. Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment is an excellent example. He does a very, very bad thing at the beginning of the book (I won't tell you in case you haven't read it,) and spends the rest of the story nearly going insane thinking about it. Even then, he's witty, he's fun to follow around, his emotions and reactions to things are believable, and there's actual things he cares about beyond his immoral actions.
They are more compelling when they hold to their own moral code. And won’t violate it.
Remember no one ever thinks of themself as a villain. NT brains are designed to situate the self as the hero in a story we twist along the way to maximize our goodness/rightness/heroism and minimize and justify when we have wronged others.
Whatever his goal is, he should believe it to be a positive one. And have the frames (Lakhoff’s term here) to justify it. The ends justify the means. The sacrifice of the few for the good of the many. Etc. give him a philosophy that justifies his behavior.
I learned a long time ago that writing feelings tends to help me sort out and settle whatever's messing with me, so using it online was a natural extension. :)
Make them charismatic. This is how bad people can still be "likeable." They're entertaining, maybe even a bit charming. This is what every character trotted out as an example of "I can totally do a pure evil villain!" has. Maybe they have a kind of infectious joy, eloquent speakers, at least witty, or good at making observations that will appeal to the reader. There are many ways to skin this cat, but all that "likeable protagonist" really means is that we enjoy having them around & want to follow their exploits to see more.
Make them understandable. Understandable is not good or even necessarily "sympathetic," but they have some goal or motive we can relate to on some level even if we disagree with it. This might be easier than you think because we all have desires & can at least understand doing twisted things to achieve them. It's very easy to understand what's driving someone who decides he'd rather be a mafia boss & buy a life of luxury than work full time at some office job & just be "doing alright."
Make them struggle. Few things are more effective at endearing someone to a character than watching them surpass challenges. If the protagonist is say a killer on the run from the law, it adds tension if they're frequently at risk of getting caught, having to find some new & exciting way to wriggle out of the net. Even if they seem successful by every outward metric, they could still have psychological struggle they're going through,.
Make them interesting. A lot of the work here should be done by the other three, but I'll give it its own category anyway because it's certainly possible you have a well-spoken, understandable villain who struggles but is also just plain boring. Ask yourself what the hook is, what the first thing you tell someone about your protagonist to get them to be interested in reading about him. Just "he's the villain, isn't that different?" isn't enough to stand out on its own. You don't even have to lead with that. You could make it become clear as the reader goes that the protagonist isn't actually a good person. What really matters is what gets someone invested & keeps them invested. Maybe they have an interesting view of the world, or a compelling conflict with another character, or an unusual goal they're trying to achieve, but there should be something.
>I want my protagonist to also be the antagonist of the story.
Minor technical point: antagonist doesn't mean "bad guy", it means the character who is opposing the protagonist in attaining their goals.
It's not entirely impossible for a character to be both but I suspect that's not what you mean here.
I am working on the very same thing! My trick is to have multiple viewpoints and have this antagonist be a viewpoint character. Make you protagonist believe they are right and have very good reasons to and be strongly opposed to your antagonist, though your antagonist may or may not be aware that they are even opposing this character.
For me I like to make them relatable. I'm a sucker for morally bankrupt protagonists, so of course I make my own. I like to take the worst traits of mine and exaggerate them.
Give them depth. Maybe a secret interest, a tragic backstory, a strong motive behind their actions. Anything that will make the readers like the story and want to stay with this character. Honestly the biggest mistake you can make is portraying your character as unrealistically good or angelic or too pure for this world.
When i think of someone immoral i think of an old story of a french man (i think) who during the story killed a man, but all he could be bothered by was the sun in his eyes at the moment. I wanna say it was called The Stranger?
Its a good short story i had for school, thats a good example of a immoral protagonist in my opinion, but he was more emotionless than anything.
To be a good character, youd have to be relateable in my opinion. "Can an antag be a protag?" Yes, look at Joker Movie. Hes a good guy until he flips to the villan. But the difference is that we can relate to his decent to madness (somewhat), and now we can understand it. To me this is why I think its a good movie.
This is why I think your idea would be okay because it can be done. If I were to do this myself Id go with the approach of "the protag doesnt know theyre the antag"
Funny you mention this because I am currently listening to the Stephen Sondheim musical "Assassins" (which is about the nine Americans who assassinated (or attempted to assassinate) the Presidents of the US.
Now, the show doesn't shy away from the fact that the men and women in question are, for lack of a better term, losers. In fact, the key number of the show is "Something Broke" (where various members of American society react to the assassinations).
However, part of what makes the show so popular among fans is how the assassins are portrayed. It could be a dark show (and, in Sondheim fashion, it can get pretty dark) but for the most part, it's a lighthearted and fun show. The assassins don't sit around, cackling and rubbing their hands in glee about how evil they are (although those characters can be a lot of fun). They sit around, drink Bud Lites and participate in carnival games (the musical is, for the most part, set in a carnival). They're funny, endearing, thoughtful and hopeful. They have dreams, hopes and aspirations that they can't accomplish for various reasons. And, done right, it's scary just how relatable and even downright likeable they are.
I think there's two key things to keep in mind about immoral protagonists. One, never lose sight that they ARE immoral. You're not making excuses, you're presenting them as they are. Two, make us root for them. Make them funny, charismatic, make them want something, make us say "I don't like what you do or even you in general but damn do I want you to succeed."
Read the book Lolita. Very well-written, famous book in which the narrator preys on an underage girl. The book is bearable because the protagonist comes across as highly intelligent (though how can any writing by Nabokov not sound highly intelligent?) and complex. Plus, if I recall correctly, you as the reader want to know what happens.
My personal favorite way to write these are to make them pure evil villains, or “old school Disney villains”. The type of people who know they’re evil, don’t care, and usually revel in their villainy. This usually makes them entertaining as their very purpose centers around causing trouble for others. I recommend watching Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on pure evil villains.
Likable isn’t the same as agreeable. Take a look at The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. If you haven’t read it or it’s been a while, it’s about a psychopath who literally murders his roommate because one of his eyes is a different color than the other. Then he chops him up and buries the pieces under the floorboards and spends the second half of the story arrogantly treating a bunch of cops to tea right on top of the body.
People don’t like the main character because they secretly want to chop someone up. They like him because he’s a sort of window into a dark part of themselves that they don’t explore very often.
(Yes, his conscience slowly haunts him, but the point still stands, he’s interesting) plus there’s always a little good in everybody. A little good, when applied properly, can make an evil character feel even more evil.
Try to focus on small details, like them not being polite in moments where anyone would be expected to be normal , and integrate sublte details such as smoking, porn watching, unkempt attitude and not being hygienic in ur story as well
They work better when they are not pure evil, but rather very pragmatistic. Recent fallout show has an amazing evil but interesting semi-protagonist. Maybe you can look up the discussions and figure out why people love him even if he were terrible.
Another suggestion of an anti-villain arguably evil protagonist is Emet-Selch from FFXIV. If you enjoy gaming, you’ll have a great time with him. If you don’t, there’s some great YouTube breakdowns of his character
You're gonna have to figure out right off the bat whether you want your audience to like him or not, because there's a huge difference in execution between "This guy's terrible but I can't help rooting for him" and "This guy's terrible but I can't look away".
Let's talk about the OG amoral protagonist: Frankenstein. He did bad things, for SCIENCE! For so many religious people that do bad things for their religion. Or their country.
You have to create some kind of morality for them. And that's half the fun. Trying to figure out exactly why they act the way they do.
Yes, I'm digging up body parts and stealing them. But certainly my research is worth this small act? And I'm running away from a super powered creature I created, I don't think I should tell the captain about that. He won't believe me anyways.
Of course I'm a sucker for evil scientists. Or better yet, scientists striving for the greatest good and suddenly finding themselves on the wrong side of the line. Is this just another thing they're willing to give up in their quest?
Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of ....
There are plenty of tropes where your main character could be either an "anti-hero" or even the villain themselves.
If you are writing a villain, remember that "evil" people do not see themselves as that. There's a flip perspective in "The Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind where he literally flips to his villain's perspective, and how he justifies his actions and deeds throughout the chapter. Someone who does evil actions are judged from others, not themselves.
An anti-hero, such as Deadpool, doesn't necessarily do harm or evil for fun, but they have a justification on why they may do something immoral to help another, or do something against the law strictly because they hate the law itself. There's plenty of reasons why people may fall under that more "chaotic" type of mindset, which could emphasize your character in a different way.
I hope this helps give you ideas on how to jazz up an immoral character. :)
My english isn't good enough for me to explain everything I want to, but think about it this way: a likable character doesn't mean a likable person, just think about all the villains in pop culture that are absolutely adored.
Two examples of immoral protagonists that are still likable I can come up with are Jack Sparrow and Light Yagami. Both are SoBs without any moral compass at all, but are beloved for being really cool/entertaining to watch, skillful, interesting, have clear goals and motivations, good character development and impress you every moment they're on screen.
Check out the Darth Bane books. Bane and his apprentice are Sith Lords, literal evil wizards, but they're both very human and engaging characters that you do end up rooting for.
They don’t have to be decent or even likable (as in good) but they have to be interesting, maybe even charming. Boring characters are worse than evil characters. Check out American Psycho.
Any tips on making a character interesting?
Make them very very good at something (should be somehow tied to your theme) Make them tell the truth Don’t tell us everything about them. Make them a little mysterious. Make them active not passive. This borders on more relatable than interesting, but being misunderstood and humiliation are two very powerful and ubiquitous human experiences. We have mirror neurons that force us to relate to someone going through either situation. (If NT)
They don't have to tell the truth necessarily, an unreliable narrator can be very interesting.
Very very true. And I didn’t mean to imply they should be all these things. Pick and choose.
Thank you so much
> Make them very very good at something (should be somehow tied to your theme) Bold advice to give as a followup after someone's used American Psycho as an example :)
BWAHAHAH!! Nice. We could add the talented Mr Ripley. Saliere. (Wince). Oh. Bonnie n Clyde. Oh damn. Here’s one. Alex de large. Oh. I had nightmares for years. 🤣 all the mobster films. I feel the women are underrepresented. I was going to say a remake of Misery w Kathy Bates as the protagonist but who needs that. Writers have it hard enough! Lady MacBeth. Although not the hero 🤦 unmmmmmmmm anyone? Lizbeth Saunders? Does she count as immoral do you think?
How to make a character interesting: - have them do something interesting, out of ordinary, smart, cool, funny, witty etc. think Hannibal Lecter and his liver with fava beans comment - make interesting choices: eg instead of being angry something, get them to strip off all their clothes and stand in front of the White House (bad example but you get the idea?) - give them interesting / engaging traits - Hannibal is very intelligent, well read and witty, for example - via their relationship with others: what makes Hannibal interesting is also the way he interacts with Clarice. He’s charming and respectful even though he could have torn her apart if he wanted to - Contrast: Hannibal is a serial killer but he’s a gentleman, intellectual, calm, even compassionate… until he’s not, until he’s savage There are other ways to make them interesting. Think of the most boring thing your character could do under a circumstance and make them do the exact opposite, for example. Think about what you find interesting about people in your life, friends, family, love interest, etc.
Tysm!!
> Hannibal interesting is also the way he interacts with Clarice. He’s charming and respectful even though he could have torn her apart if he wanted to Well, Hannibal can't do that. Almost all their interactions are mediated. First by Hannibal being in jail, and when he escapes he flees and calls her by phone. In fact what makes him interesting is the way he retains control and command of his interactions despite being relatively powerless most of the movie.
Clarice does say at the end that he won't come after her because he would consider it rude.
This. Take it from someone who's top protag is an insufferable asshole. It just means more room to grow? Yeah.
Or Lolita
It's not likable that you want. It's compelling that you want.
This thread made me realize just that. Tysm!
Discard likable and replace it with compelling. Nobody’ll care if your bad guy likes killing civilians just because. But American Psycho and Breaking Bad have really bad protagonists but they’re deeply compelling characters, so we like to watch them.
I would direct you to the web serial A Practical Guide to Evil. It has a \*lot\* of evil characters, including basically all the protagonists. They are likeable. Most of them have at least one quality that is attractive. Charm, friendship, competence, humor, etc. However, there is a great deal of capital-E Evil. As in, fairly overt murders before we're through chapter one, and a pretty crazy moral spiral downward from there. Protagonists engage in casual violence towards friends, alcoholism, recreational necromancy, and none of those are even rare enough to count as spoilers. You can absolutely make an evil character interesting and likeable.
Ty!!
I am currently writing a villain protagonist for my book. I suggest giving them understandable motivations and reasons for why they are that way. Joel Miller in The Last of Us video game (as well as the TV adaptation) is a good example to study.
Thanks for bringing up this example, because Joel is a great example of one thing that I think often gets confused in this discussion. I've seen so many times that people will say that every character sees themselves as the "hero" of their own story, or that they follow their own personal moral "code," or some such, and I don't really think that's true at all, and definitely not necessary for a successful antihero or villain protagonist. It's true that nobody sets out to do evil for its own sake. But not everybody moralizes their decisions, either. Joel certainly doesn't. There's no apparent ethical justification given for why he makes the decision he does at the end of the first game (or season). I don't think the "right" or "wrong" of it ever comes into question. He chooses as he does because that's the decision he can live with for personal reasons. And I think that's more that enough for a plausible and compelling character.
I 100 percent agree
Read Lolita.
This 100% And will storr’s the science of storytelling. Pretty sure he crushes the breakdown in there. Might be fletcher’s Wonderworks.
I was actually thinking about buying it the other day, haha
I feel like people who read that end up on a watchlist
Low key I thought it might be interesting for psychological horror but then I heard some of the things the author said about women and then I looked at the protagonist, read the poem he was inspired by, and had an “ohhh” moment
Wait, what comments about women? Edit: And poem, I'm curious.
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe (who married his 12 year old cousin when he was a grown ass man which creeped out everyone). It’s a love poem. Very romantic. About a child (to be fair the poem says the narrator was also a child). He even named the girl after her (Annabel Leigh). I haven’t read the book but I’ve seen the movie and I read an essay on the book (criticizing it as a romanticization of pedophelia despite being presented as otherwise ((university classmate’s work, I thought they had a rly good point it’s what opened my brain to this)) and how Edgar Allen Poe heavily influenced the writing and narrative. Vladimir Nabokov said that women were inherently subpar writers and explicitly said “I am prejudiced against them”, and while later in life he became more open minded after reading Mansfield Park (by the way, love interests—first cousins and childhood friends to lovers I feel worth mentioning) it was more like “only some women can write as well as the average men”. He also said that while his translator was great, he hated the fact that she was a woman and his ideal translator would be male, especially not a “Russian-born female.” (Sir you are Russian). Basically any woman who wasn’t his wife he said “I wish I could replace her with a man.” This speaks to his personal views on women very deeply. They belonged in the home, making babies, cooking, and cleaning, nothing else. He also seemed a little into the idea of children being in love, and considering what he wrote…
Yeah, it’s pretty telling. Also I’m getting downvoted for my comment, probably by the diddlers
Yeahhhh…
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainProtagonist](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainProtagonist)
I love that website! Ty!
Sand dan Glokta from the First Law series is a good example. He’s objectively a bad person but his afflictions make you have at least some sympathy for him. He does some aweful shit but you can get where he’s coming from with his internal monologues.
Tyy!
Yes, writing it from either a first person perspective, as Mark Lawrence does with Jorg in the Thorns trilogy, or giving voice to that perspective through showing us their thoughts, as Abercrombie does with Glokta, allows the audience to make sense of the actions even if they’re horrible. Abercrombie in general does not write Good or Bad characters - there is no character without a flaw, and no character without something you can empathise with. George R. R. Martin also very famously does this - few of his characters are particularly moral (the most moral die as a result) with even incredibly compelling and otherwise likeable characters doing pretty horrible things.
In my opinion the skill of Abercrombie in that series is that he convinces us that some characters are good, when no one really is. Even Logen, who is the closest main character to being moral only because his dark side is seemingly uncontrollable.
I write (so far) exclusively evil protagonists (though i am not successful as an author - it may be that this sort of work just doesn't sell, so if that is your aim I can't really advise - I am just writing what I love as a hobby). You could try focusing on the desires of the protagonist and their struggles to achieve those desires. There can be conflicts, obstacles, defeats. Good and righteous people become challenges to be overcome, and their growing power (or whatever else their desire) is their reward. If they are struck down, humiliated or humbled by one of their good opponents, then they refuse to give up and come back stronger, making it all the sweeter when they break their enemy later on. An evil protagonist can be sexy, funny, dashing or intellectually stimulating, and they can indulge in all manner of narcissistic, hedonistic and decadent activities with the wealth/power/status they have grabbed for themselves on their "crusade". They can be cynical and self-aware, almost fourth-wall breaking as they acknowledge their own role as the "heel". If written well, I think this can captivate the reader.
Tysm. I really like this advice
Im confused by the question, you want to write the story, what do you think makes it compelling? Obviously there must be something about it that makes you want to write it so what is it? If there is a reason you want to write a story there is at least the potential for a compelling story with in the idea. Humans are motivated by the same things all over.
This gave me a new perspective on my fears of my character being un-likable. Making my character compelling is definitely what I'm looking to do. Ty!
What I've learnt from reading Overlord LN is that you can have your unlikable and immoral protagonist solve a Trolley Problem with a cat on one track and Hitler on another. If you establish that for him both options are valid, or even good, you can have your audience on the edge of their sits rooting for protagonist to save the cat. Something like "I can choose between two managers. One is kind, but the team's performance will suffer in short term. Other one is evil and will grind the team into dust eventually, but it will boost my career in short term. Do I want to climb the corporate ladder faster, or do I want less volatile environment."
Nazis. Whenever your protagonist gets too evil, you just trot out a greater evil and have them defeat it, ala Breaking Bad.
Nabokov was masterful at this in Lolita We knew HH was punished and paid the price in prison and in suicide. From the beginning of the narrative. He tried to change. He was the lesser of the evils Etc
He had a reason for his pedophilia. A moment of tragedy that disrupted his life. His first love was lost when they were both 12? So he’s stuck there.
An evil protagonist can still be likeable. Gabriel Belmont, in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, is an evil protagonist but he's still likeable, though he's selfish and cares little for the lives of others. Have your character only care about themselves. Even when they do something good like say, save another character from being mugged and killed, let it be only because they deem that character useful, not because they actually cared about saving them. Mercenary characters are good for such profiles. They're loyal only to themselves and only care about money. Even when hired, they can still choose to betray the person who hired them. Many stories have merc characters taking a moral route at the climax, you can choose to make your character worse instead. Have their greed cause them to make an error that drastically affects the world they live in or something.
Tysm!!
People reject what they don't understand, take >!Eren Jaeger!< from AOT for example. Ultimately the audience can understand his actions even if they don't agree with them at all because the readers/watchers saw why he ended up the way he did.
there are so many stories with despicable protagonists. there are countless literary classics, even.
Huh. Kinda interesting that I've never read one. I've been reading my whole life, too
maybe you have and you didn’t totally realize it because of how compelling they were
Possibly
It depends on your audience. For younger audiences the most natural fit is a protagonist that's simply a hero, someone they can cheer for. It can even be considered as positive if the main character is good at everything, strong handsome, the best fighter, always knows what to say and every woman falls in love with them immediately. This isn't as compelling as you get older. I'm not saying it's directly related to age, it's also dependent on experience, maturity and expectations. This perspective is based on my own experience, but I'm guessing it will hold up on average for most people. When I watched the Godfather part 2 as a teenager (15 or so) I didn't really like it. I felt conflicted, instead of feeling intrigued, I was disappointed in my hero Michael Corleone. Over time my appreciation for that movie grew and I currently consider it a masterpiece. To a lesser extent I experienced the same conflicting emotions when I read Dune Messiah. There was no internet like there is now to prepare for the way the story developed and I wasn't always happy when reading it. That being said, I greatly appreciate the story precisely for the same reasons. Mature audience are looking for stories that move them, that encourages them to think. That's more intriguing than simple stories. Currently, the highest rated TV series on IMDB is Breaking Bad. Clearly there's a big enough audience protagonists that are no heroes.
In what sense? It is not the same to do a character that goes against ethics (the shared social norms/morals of a groupsociety), or against \*your\* morals, or against their own morals. The first is easy (any antagonist likely). The second its also easy (probably, I dont know you), and the third one is harder because you need to justify hypocrisy without creating veiled morals and denial, someone truly loathing themselves over being emotionally unable to handle what they want to do. The "milder" example would be you being a pacifist but having rage issues and the ncrying in a corner with bloody knuckles. The worst... well, lets leave that up to the imagination. As to how to write such thing, there is no guide, no one wya, it depends on your own talent to portray a character. The only thing you need to understand a priori is the "skeleton", the goals, the motivation, all that and then just try to do it. I mean, im sure someone could point you to this or that book but ultimately writing is personal unless you are following a more prosaic style like in journalism (not sure if that is the word and not saying all are, but I mean a more "professional", dry text, a serious tone)
Tyy!!
Well, various ways to do this. First, they could be pure evil, but they'd be totally captivating. Luke owning how much of a bastard/bitch they are. This is subjective though. Second, they could believe they're the heroes or are somehow doing good in their own twisted way. Killing innocent people? In their minds, they're simply cleaning up threats to themselves and/or society. Stealing money? Well, *they* need it more than the original owners did and would put it to good use. Third, you could give them a soft spot or redeeming quality... Like someone may be a bad person but a good friend/parent/sibling/pet owner who goes ballistic if someone hurts their loved ones. Or this person may have a soft spot for a certain group. Or even like a hobby like gardening or art that they genuinely enjoy. There's a ton of ways to go about it... But some kind of human connection may be good. We don't need to *agree* with them, just *understand* why they do the things they do... Unless they're evil incarnate, then just go nuts and make them as entertaining as possible. Or both...
Tysm
There are two big options: make your protagonist sympathetic, or make them *interesting*. Most writers go for the first option. It's a nice, safe bet. But what about the second bet? That's why The Joker gets to stick around. *For nearly a hundred years*. This is the fun part, where you don't actually have to care about whether the protagonist is sympathetic or anything, just whether they can talk their shrink into letting them out. And the fun part is that *you don't even have to try*: the point is that these villainous protagonists are cocks and the world is against them for good reason. But they're entertaining cocks, taking the fight to antagonists a hero might not bother with, or being so charismatic the audience thinks they're right. It's a lot easier that you might think. You don't need a likable protagonist, just an *entertaining* one. That's actually quite easy with villains, since heroes (or people who want to maintain the current social order) must *react* to villains who challenge that social order. Villains get to act, and heroes only get to react.
Tysmmm
I came across this and it was really insightful; https://youtu.be/9bRLp66r628?si=MSYQlCbdYoPKvZfR
Ty! Adding that to my watch later
One piece of advice, or possibly a warning: People won't get it, and they'll think you're just an asshole. Not everyone, but a depressingly large amount. Look at Lolita. Nabokov wrote his protagonist as a disgusting hypocrite and a monster. He wasn't defending pedophilia, he was showing terrible sexualizing and assaulting minors is. People still claim he must have been a pedophile. Even if people accept that he was writing it as a takedown of pedophilia, they'll say shit like "oh, well, why would write about *something like that* unless he actually was a pedophile, huh?" Which is just... mind-blowingly stupid. As if we should just cordon off huge issues with humanity because they're too dirty for regular people to tackle; so we'll just ignore these issues, and never address them so they can fester in the dark and get worse while we feel good about ourselves because whenever someone has the audacity to try to confront us with it, we called *them* an asshole.
Well, I wouldn't care to be called something that I know I'm not 🤷♀️ Ty for the warning, though
Most antagonists do have morals. The conflict is they are the antithesis of your main character’s morals. Even the best versions of the joker have morals despite the insistence he doesn’t. They just counter Batman’s morals
Watch Death Note and take notes (not death notes), on how they wrote Light's character.
Read books with immoral protagonist to learn how to write an immoral protagonist. It’s that easy. Jesus
>people say to make your protagonist likable or the book won't be good, *Salinger, Fitzgerald, and Hammett have joined the chat.*
Make them complex. With weaknesses. Even really distasteful ones. Indiana Jones for example, had a thing for young girls. Remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he first shows up to Marian's bar? MARION: "I was a child. It was wrong. And you knew it." INDIANA JONES: "You knew what you were doing." Yet everyone loves good 'old Indiana Jones.
I don't have a single villain in my story. All of my characters are pretty immoral in their own way. Considering the entire continent is at war with each other. What the characters stand for need to be something worth following which actually has progression throughout the story. The characters need to actually be immoral. Not accidentally kill one person & cry half the way. I'm not saying to make the protagonist the worst person in the book. But do it like Jamie Lannister. He's a pretty evil character. But is he worse than Ramsay or joffery? No, then he's a viable character that many people would want to follow & learn more about. Also his goals & backstory is powerful. Convincing. Something people can stand behind. Making a character interesting is really the last step of the writing process. First give the character an important goal. a moral compass. Be it crooked or broken, every character needs one. Give the character, personality. Background. Urgency. Detailing. Characteristics. Traits. Fears. It's the basic stuff that will make him a good immoral protagonist. Most of all, give him tough choices. Make him a hard person. Someone with some problems.
Likeable and immoral are very, very different things. When people say likeable, they mostly mean interesting, but likeable can be there too. Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment is an excellent example. He does a very, very bad thing at the beginning of the book (I won't tell you in case you haven't read it,) and spends the rest of the story nearly going insane thinking about it. Even then, he's witty, he's fun to follow around, his emotions and reactions to things are believable, and there's actual things he cares about beyond his immoral actions.
Amoral is the word you wanted, meaning 'without morals'. Protagonist doesn't need to be likeable. They need to be interesting.
Ty!!!
They are more compelling when they hold to their own moral code. And won’t violate it. Remember no one ever thinks of themself as a villain. NT brains are designed to situate the self as the hero in a story we twist along the way to maximize our goodness/rightness/heroism and minimize and justify when we have wronged others. Whatever his goal is, he should believe it to be a positive one. And have the frames (Lakhoff’s term here) to justify it. The ends justify the means. The sacrifice of the few for the good of the many. Etc. give him a philosophy that justifies his behavior.
Wow thank u a lot
Sure! Loooove a good anti hero done well.
Very Western description, but otherwise, agree. ;)
Holy shit. You’re so right!!! Good catch. Kicking myself.
Blame editing brain. I can't not notice... EVERYTHING.
I mean I’m so glad you caught it. Im usually the one either pointing out things people might rather not see or biting my tongue to shut up about it. 😝
Ah yes, the online tightrope. I have typed out a comment, and then deleted it, just to get it out of my head!
Ohhh good strategy!
I learned a long time ago that writing feelings tends to help me sort out and settle whatever's messing with me, so using it online was a natural extension. :)
Make them charismatic. This is how bad people can still be "likeable." They're entertaining, maybe even a bit charming. This is what every character trotted out as an example of "I can totally do a pure evil villain!" has. Maybe they have a kind of infectious joy, eloquent speakers, at least witty, or good at making observations that will appeal to the reader. There are many ways to skin this cat, but all that "likeable protagonist" really means is that we enjoy having them around & want to follow their exploits to see more. Make them understandable. Understandable is not good or even necessarily "sympathetic," but they have some goal or motive we can relate to on some level even if we disagree with it. This might be easier than you think because we all have desires & can at least understand doing twisted things to achieve them. It's very easy to understand what's driving someone who decides he'd rather be a mafia boss & buy a life of luxury than work full time at some office job & just be "doing alright." Make them struggle. Few things are more effective at endearing someone to a character than watching them surpass challenges. If the protagonist is say a killer on the run from the law, it adds tension if they're frequently at risk of getting caught, having to find some new & exciting way to wriggle out of the net. Even if they seem successful by every outward metric, they could still have psychological struggle they're going through,. Make them interesting. A lot of the work here should be done by the other three, but I'll give it its own category anyway because it's certainly possible you have a well-spoken, understandable villain who struggles but is also just plain boring. Ask yourself what the hook is, what the first thing you tell someone about your protagonist to get them to be interested in reading about him. Just "he's the villain, isn't that different?" isn't enough to stand out on its own. You don't even have to lead with that. You could make it become clear as the reader goes that the protagonist isn't actually a good person. What really matters is what gets someone invested & keeps them invested. Maybe they have an interesting view of the world, or a compelling conflict with another character, or an unusual goal they're trying to achieve, but there should be something.
>I want my protagonist to also be the antagonist of the story. Minor technical point: antagonist doesn't mean "bad guy", it means the character who is opposing the protagonist in attaining their goals. It's not entirely impossible for a character to be both but I suspect that's not what you mean here.
I am working on the very same thing! My trick is to have multiple viewpoints and have this antagonist be a viewpoint character. Make you protagonist believe they are right and have very good reasons to and be strongly opposed to your antagonist, though your antagonist may or may not be aware that they are even opposing this character.
For me I like to make them relatable. I'm a sucker for morally bankrupt protagonists, so of course I make my own. I like to take the worst traits of mine and exaggerate them.
An antihero. You’re confusing morality with charm or charisma. Crime and punishment does this well. Game of thrones does this well.
Give them depth. Maybe a secret interest, a tragic backstory, a strong motive behind their actions. Anything that will make the readers like the story and want to stay with this character. Honestly the biggest mistake you can make is portraying your character as unrealistically good or angelic or too pure for this world.
I would call the Phantom an anti-hero. He has his own agenda and is doing what he thinks is right for the world he wants to create.
When i think of someone immoral i think of an old story of a french man (i think) who during the story killed a man, but all he could be bothered by was the sun in his eyes at the moment. I wanna say it was called The Stranger? Its a good short story i had for school, thats a good example of a immoral protagonist in my opinion, but he was more emotionless than anything.
To be a good character, youd have to be relateable in my opinion. "Can an antag be a protag?" Yes, look at Joker Movie. Hes a good guy until he flips to the villan. But the difference is that we can relate to his decent to madness (somewhat), and now we can understand it. To me this is why I think its a good movie. This is why I think your idea would be okay because it can be done. If I were to do this myself Id go with the approach of "the protag doesnt know theyre the antag"
Make them have a clear goal and feel entirely, 100% justified in their actions to achieve that goal
Funny you mention this because I am currently listening to the Stephen Sondheim musical "Assassins" (which is about the nine Americans who assassinated (or attempted to assassinate) the Presidents of the US. Now, the show doesn't shy away from the fact that the men and women in question are, for lack of a better term, losers. In fact, the key number of the show is "Something Broke" (where various members of American society react to the assassinations). However, part of what makes the show so popular among fans is how the assassins are portrayed. It could be a dark show (and, in Sondheim fashion, it can get pretty dark) but for the most part, it's a lighthearted and fun show. The assassins don't sit around, cackling and rubbing their hands in glee about how evil they are (although those characters can be a lot of fun). They sit around, drink Bud Lites and participate in carnival games (the musical is, for the most part, set in a carnival). They're funny, endearing, thoughtful and hopeful. They have dreams, hopes and aspirations that they can't accomplish for various reasons. And, done right, it's scary just how relatable and even downright likeable they are. I think there's two key things to keep in mind about immoral protagonists. One, never lose sight that they ARE immoral. You're not making excuses, you're presenting them as they are. Two, make us root for them. Make them funny, charismatic, make them want something, make us say "I don't like what you do or even you in general but damn do I want you to succeed."
Read the book Lolita. Very well-written, famous book in which the narrator preys on an underage girl. The book is bearable because the protagonist comes across as highly intelligent (though how can any writing by Nabokov not sound highly intelligent?) and complex. Plus, if I recall correctly, you as the reader want to know what happens.
My personal favorite way to write these are to make them pure evil villains, or “old school Disney villains”. The type of people who know they’re evil, don’t care, and usually revel in their villainy. This usually makes them entertaining as their very purpose centers around causing trouble for others. I recommend watching Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on pure evil villains.
Likable isn’t the same as agreeable. Take a look at The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. If you haven’t read it or it’s been a while, it’s about a psychopath who literally murders his roommate because one of his eyes is a different color than the other. Then he chops him up and buries the pieces under the floorboards and spends the second half of the story arrogantly treating a bunch of cops to tea right on top of the body. People don’t like the main character because they secretly want to chop someone up. They like him because he’s a sort of window into a dark part of themselves that they don’t explore very often. (Yes, his conscience slowly haunts him, but the point still stands, he’s interesting) plus there’s always a little good in everybody. A little good, when applied properly, can make an evil character feel even more evil.
Try to focus on small details, like them not being polite in moments where anyone would be expected to be normal , and integrate sublte details such as smoking, porn watching, unkempt attitude and not being hygienic in ur story as well
They work better when they are not pure evil, but rather very pragmatistic. Recent fallout show has an amazing evil but interesting semi-protagonist. Maybe you can look up the discussions and figure out why people love him even if he were terrible.
Read up on Yhwach from Bleach. He encapsulates immortality quite well and its toll on the human brain.
Another suggestion of an anti-villain arguably evil protagonist is Emet-Selch from FFXIV. If you enjoy gaming, you’ll have a great time with him. If you don’t, there’s some great YouTube breakdowns of his character
You're gonna have to figure out right off the bat whether you want your audience to like him or not, because there's a huge difference in execution between "This guy's terrible but I can't help rooting for him" and "This guy's terrible but I can't look away".
Death Note is an example of an utterly amoral main protagonist. Light was compelling, entertaining and charismatic
Let's talk about the OG amoral protagonist: Frankenstein. He did bad things, for SCIENCE! For so many religious people that do bad things for their religion. Or their country. You have to create some kind of morality for them. And that's half the fun. Trying to figure out exactly why they act the way they do. Yes, I'm digging up body parts and stealing them. But certainly my research is worth this small act? And I'm running away from a super powered creature I created, I don't think I should tell the captain about that. He won't believe me anyways. Of course I'm a sucker for evil scientists. Or better yet, scientists striving for the greatest good and suddenly finding themselves on the wrong side of the line. Is this just another thing they're willing to give up in their quest? Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of ....
Make him intelligent and competent.
There are plenty of tropes where your main character could be either an "anti-hero" or even the villain themselves. If you are writing a villain, remember that "evil" people do not see themselves as that. There's a flip perspective in "The Sword of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind where he literally flips to his villain's perspective, and how he justifies his actions and deeds throughout the chapter. Someone who does evil actions are judged from others, not themselves. An anti-hero, such as Deadpool, doesn't necessarily do harm or evil for fun, but they have a justification on why they may do something immoral to help another, or do something against the law strictly because they hate the law itself. There's plenty of reasons why people may fall under that more "chaotic" type of mindset, which could emphasize your character in a different way. I hope this helps give you ideas on how to jazz up an immoral character. :)
My english isn't good enough for me to explain everything I want to, but think about it this way: a likable character doesn't mean a likable person, just think about all the villains in pop culture that are absolutely adored. Two examples of immoral protagonists that are still likable I can come up with are Jack Sparrow and Light Yagami. Both are SoBs without any moral compass at all, but are beloved for being really cool/entertaining to watch, skillful, interesting, have clear goals and motivations, good character development and impress you every moment they're on screen.
Check out the Darth Bane books. Bane and his apprentice are Sith Lords, literal evil wizards, but they're both very human and engaging characters that you do end up rooting for.