A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess
1962
Books with the “Villain Protagonist” trope
The main character is a villain, and the reader follows their actions from inside their motives.
Characters and archetypes · Villain Protagonist
Books with this trope
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith
1955
The Killer Inside Me
Jim Thompson
1952
Double Indemnity
James M. Cain
1936
The Collector
John Fowles
1963
American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
1991
The Monk
Matthew Gregory Lewis
1796
Prince of Thorns
Mark Lawrence
2011
Vicious
V. E. Schwab
2013
The Court of Broken Knives
Anna Smith Spark
2017
The Shadows Between Us
Tricia Levenseller
2020
The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks
1984
A Simple Plan
Scott Smith
1993
The Last Mrs. Parrish
Liv Constantine
2017
My Lovely Wife
Samantha Downing
2019
Brighton Rock
Graham Greene
1938
Often found together with
Combinations that already exist in the catalog. Click to search for both.
Morally Grey Character
Unreliable NarratorRelated tropes
Unreliable Narrator
The person telling the story hides the truth, is biased, or cannot be trusted about what is really happening.
Byronic Hero
A brooding, cynical, and magnetic rebel haunted by a dark secret from his past.
Morally Grey Character
A character who is not a villain but will cross ethical lines to reach their goal.
Mad Scientist
A scientist whose obsession with knowledge makes them break nature's or humanity's rules.