Evil protagonists from fiction - or 'Examples of how to play the bad guy without being a total jerk'

[Flamestrike]

Vic Mackey from the Shield.

Great example.

 

[Flamestrike]

Vic Mackey (The Shield, TV). LE: Mackey is a corrupt and brutal detective in the LAPD. He leads a small anti-gang unit primarily tasked with curbing the rampant drug trade in the fictional Farmington district of Los Angeles. He commits several crimes throughout the series including drug dealing, extortion, police brutality, and murder, always justifying his crimes as a 'means to an end'. He is nonetheless a devoted family man, with a (twisted) sense of honor, who devotes much of his time to controlling everyone and everything around him.

- Mackey's not a cop. He's Al Capone with a badge. Captain David Aceveda

A man with his own twisted code of honor, who views his extreme measures as OK, as long as his victims are the street thugs he deals with daily, and who sees nothing wrong with 'fighting fire with fire' and who believes the ends justifies the means.

Technically becomes a team killing Jerk when he murders a fellow Cop and one of his friends who was going to turn informant to protect the Strike Team (and himself) from prosecution, but generally works well with his own circle of trusted confidantes and associates, and is the main protagonist of the show.

 

[Bohandas]

Has anybody mentioned Belkar Bitterleaf from Order of the Stick yet?

EDIT:
And also the wizard Vaarsuvius, also from Order of the Stick, who at one point in the comic goes mad with power and kills off an enemy's entire extended family using black magic

 

[Bohandas]

I know his dream is nothing more sinister than 'to kill all Humans' but reckon I'd have Bender as more CN (E tendencies).

Cant recall him killing people all that often. A total disregard for human life for sure, but he's not much of a killer.

There are at least two episodes where he gets involved with selling children as food (The Cyber House Rules (pictured above) and The Problem With Popplers (although to be fair in The Problem With Popplers it wasn't initially intentional)).

EDIT:
And there was also this incident:

 

[Flamestrike]

There are at least two episodes where he gets involved with selling children as food (The Cyber House Rules (pictured above) and The Problem With Popplers (although to be fair in The Problem With Popplers it wasn't initially intentional)).

EDIT:
And there was also this incident:

Giving the Devil a robot isn't exactly evil though is it?

And not seeing where he actually sold any of the kids as food (the kids all seemed alive and un-eaten so it could have just been an elaborate scam).

Still have Bender CN.

Roger the Alien on the other hand:

In the episode Virtual In-Sanity, Roger ran over and killed five innocent people just because they didn't pay him twenty dollars. It was also revealed he killed six other people just for eighteen dollars. Roger even drove his limo through a plane to kill his last victim, killing an entire planeload of people in the process. When a flight attendant parachuted right beside him and Klaus, he unhooked her parachute and let her fall to her death, claiming to Klaus that he had developed 'the bloodlust'.

And:

In the episode Why Can't We Be Friends?, Roger hires Jeff to clean his attic but, when he goes home he mugs him and he continues to do this many more times. On the second mugging, he was even about to rape Jeff, but decided he didn't have enough time. Jeff also has no idea that Roger is mugging him. However, Roger does get his comeuppance when Jeff finally shoots him. Just before the mugging attempt that led to Jeff shooting him, Roger even decided he would go through with raping Jeff this time.

And:

In the episode A Boy Named Michael, Roger moves into Greg and Terry's home by impersonating their newly-adopted Russian son Michael, whom he threw out of a plane. He later attempts to murder Terry when he becomes unsatisfied with his new lifestyle.

Roger Smith

There was also this:

CE without any doubt, and a total team killing jerk. He once tried to flay and wear Haleys skin because he loved her, and actually did flay Jeff and wear his skin.

Like Rick Sanchez, not the guy you want in your party of PCs.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Giving the Devil a robot isn't exactly evil though is it?

And not seeing where he actually sold any of the kids as food (the kids all seemed alive and un-eaten so it could have just been an elaborate scam).

Still have Bender CN.

Roger the Alien on the other hand:



And:



And:



Roger Smith

There was also this:

View attachment 137751

CE without any doubt, and a total team killing jerk. He once tried to flay and wear Haleys skin because he loved her, and actually did flay Jeff and wear his skin.

Like Rick Sanchez, not the guy you want in your party of PCs.

I do not think rick is that evil, close but he is less team killing or a rapist.

 

[Flamestrike]

I do not think rick is that evil, close but he is less team killing or a rapist.

Rick Sanchez? He literally sets a death trap for his comrades wired with neutrino bombs.

According to Morty - not the first time he's done it.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Rick Sanchez? He literally sets a death trap for his comrades wired with neutrino bombs.

According to Morty - not the first time he's done it.

Tue, so that removes the team kill as a difference.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Cugel.

LOL, he's a scumbag and a half. He's too LAZY to bother to harm anyone that isn't directly in his way, but who would ever work with this guy? He's almost classic bad news, hehe. Likeable at times though, perhaps.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep. And people in the real world still named their children after her. While the last season could have been done better, Game of Thrones was great long con - many people were fine with Daenerys because she was supposed to be the hero, until she wasn't.

Right, but it was always there, right on the surface basically. There were NO surprises there in what happened when she came back to Westeros. It was more the case that her allies DELUDED themselves into believing that they could turn her around. Of course it didn't help that pretty much all the other leaders in Westeros were even worse than her.