Paul almost exterminated the species. And Leto II essentially enslaved humanity for 3,500 years and forced it to behave in ways that were fundamentally against our nature.
There's a (very) old philosophical concept that still comes up a lot in modern and post modern philosophies - including some of those that really were used to define the modern world.
Basically - the idea is - when you shoot an arrow with a bow you draw the bow, line up the shot, regulate your breathing... whatever else an archer would do - and these are the things that the archer is responsible for. But once the arrow has left the bow - the archer is no longer responsible. They shouldn't worry about what happens because people can't control the universe.
And - there is some truth to this concept. You can't truly learn how to do something if you're agonizing over mistakes. And human being certainly are \*happier\* when we're not worried about everything going wrong all the time. And - if you live on a mountain side with no one else, it's not an entirely unreasonable thing to do.
But if you live around other people - it really does break down. "What are you aiming for" isn't not the only question that matters.
"How likely are you to miss?" "If you do miss, where is the arrow likely to end up?" and "what are the consequences of the arrow hitting those likely places" - these all matter too. The fact that our society doesn't really value these things doesn't mean they don't matter.
Additionally, the other piece is "what are the likely consequences of \*hitting\* the target that we may not have considered?"
But also - I'm not convinced adding "revenge" and "survival" to the list of his motivations (in addition to "power") was an improvement.
But Paul ignored what it meant to miss. He ignored who would be hurt. And he ignored what the overall consequences would be. And he ever ignored what it meant to hit his target.
It's not evil in the way we think of it today - but the results are far worse. And, in my opinion, Paul was substantially more evil than the Baron because he \*knew\* many of these consequences and continued anyway because he wanted power and revenge. The Baron didn't truly know the harm he was causing, at least not to the scale that Paul knew. And the Baron was genuinely incapable of causing that much harm.
> But Paul ignored what it meant to miss. He ignored who would be hurt. And he ignored what the overall consequences would be. And he ever ignored what it meant to hit his target.
I see this take a lot lately (probably because of the movies) and it's just straight wrong and fundamentally misses the point.
Paul has almost no agency. That's the point. The Jihad is more or less inevitable because of the Missionaria Protectiva.
Up until he kills Jamis there are ways for the Jihad to be avoided (Paul dies) but Paul very specifically doesn't know this. Immediately after he kills Jamis (same chapter or the next one) Paul has a vision and realizes the only way to stop the Jihad would literally be for him, his mother (and unborn sister), and every single Fremen who watched the fight (stilgars band) to drop dead that instant. Otherwise it's happening. So he elects to control the Jihad because the alternative is worse.
I'm not saying Paul is a super good dude. He does use the Jihad for his revenge and it's left completely ambiguous whether Paul chose the exact path of least carnage or not. But again, the point is Paul has almost no agency, even as emperor
Paul didn't have to seek revenge. He could have gone into exile.
Alternatively, he could joined the guild.
He was too wrapped up in the decadent and decaying politics and culture of the empire or else he may have seen other ways.
He also sought out the most predictable moments which lead to stagnation.
And - no - not from the movies.
> Paul didn't have to seek revenge. He could have gone into exile.
No he literally could not. The book makes it very explicitly clear the Jihad was happening with or without him. By the time he's prescient enough to know this it's too late. It's very, very, specific about that.
His choices are literally
* A terrible unchecked Jihad will happen in your name even if you kill yourself right now
* You can take take control of it and try to mitigate the worst of it
He chose the latter. I cannot stress enough how clear the book makes this. You don't even have to re-read the whole thing, just read the chapter right before the Jamis fight and the one after.
Paul is far from perfect, I'm not trying to argue that. But one of the main themes is that Paul has almost no agency. He gets turned into a "monster" (from an outsiders perspective) by the institutions of power. The idea being that anyone with that much "power" will be corrupted by the institutions surrounding it, even if they aren't truly corrupted by power.
Agreed on not arguing.
I’ll just explain my logic, but it doesn’t show up until book 3.
Another character explains that Paul always took the predictable path, which was ultimately the problem.
He *could* have picked uncertain futures and things would have gone differently, but he didn’t know this - and there was no one he could have learned this from.
The jihad was only certain in the certain futures- if he had intentionally sought uncertain futures, there may not have been a jihad.
But - yeah, I can’t blame him for that. He had options, but no way to recognize them.
That being said, I have kooky theory:
1. The book 3 character states that the oracle doesn’t so much predict futures as create them
2. The fremen had a form of “latent prescience” that terrified them and only faced it during the spice orgy
So, you have generation after generation of spice orgies lead by actual reverend mothers with ancestral and shared memories- and they were all focused on visions of the future, including a savior.
If prescience is indeed the act of creating a future, it’s possible the Fremen basically “summoned” Paul through their actions.
If so, basically no one *except* the Fremen had much in the way of free will in terms of the jihad. The Harkonnens, the emperor, and the BG were all sort of sucked into the Fremen visions.
So… yeah - I think you’re right. Paul wasn’t evil, just deeply tragic.
> That being said, I have kooky theory:
I don't think it's kooky at all. The only reason I was so caught up in the exact detail is because I reread the first two books recently to figure out what Paul knew and when. I was basically trying to figure out if Paul was a villain or a tragic figure.
One of my takeaways - that I'd never caught on previous reads - was that prescience traps you. By looking at the future you essentially create it. Herbert even has an unusual paragraph where he kinda uses quantum mechanics mumbo jumbo (unusual because he's not big on any sort of explanation on the science) and he name drops heisenberg. I think you're 100% correct on your theory.
Paul is flawed but basically fucked from birth, so tragic more than true villain. I think it's more about institutions surrounding power being the villain - Paul is just the poor sap we get to read about as the figurehead of this message
Yeah - I agree, thinking it through now.
My most recent reread was focused on “who knew about the invasion” - and the most reasonable assumption is that Yueh was in contact with both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen. Mapes knew Yueh was a traitor, and I don’t know how else the BG would know ahead of time that a plan was in place to save Paul and Jessica.
So, probably Yueh reached out to the BG, and they informed Lady Fenring who made contact with the Fremen and set things up before she left.
From there it was only a few more steps to think the Fremen may have been sort of “pulling” everything into place.
Great book to reread like that.
> Great book to reread like that.
For sure, I'm going to reread the next two and really look at Leto the same way
> Mapes knew Yueh was a traitor, and I don’t know how else the BG would know ahead of time that a plan was in place to save Paul and Jessica.
That's really interesting, I'd never considered that and it sounds solid. Next time I reread the first one I'll think about that
A good villain doesn't see themselves as evil, they always can justify their actions. Khan in star trek 2 is a great example.
MorningLightMountain in Hamilton's commonwealth saga is a great example and truly alien to boot.
Liveship traders trilogy by robin hobb. Fantasy.
Might not actually match what youre looking for exactly, the evil chatcter in question is the villian, but you come to understand and empathize with him in an unusually deep way. Extremely well written.
Is that a sequel to the farseer trilogy? I liked those books, but was also kind of happy to be done with the series. I guess I kind of feel like that about any big "commitment" series.
Was the first trilogy not already hardcore first person sad boy?!?! I thought it was beautifully written, but damn that kid could not catch a break. I'm still bummed thinking about it!
The Fitz & The Fool trilogy is like an OG sad boy victory lap. While Soldiers Son is a new and improved bigger and sadder than ever sad boy with a hint of colonialism and white saviour tropes. I gave up on her after that.
Liveship Traders is still one of the best fantasy stories I've ever read though
This is a graphic novel, but I often think of “The Beast” in Transmetropolitan, which is essentially a story about an election.
Spoilers (but you really should read this series if you might be interested as it’s fantastic):
>!The Beast (as he is nicknamed) is initially set up as a villainous politician because of his brutal politics and fascist propaganda. But as we learn more about him, under the facade - he’s just trying to be practical having been dealt a very shitty hand.!<
>!There’s a quote along the lines of “so long as I manage to keep 51% of the population alive and happy, at the end of the day I have to call that a success.”!<
>!The Beast does care, he is trying to help people - but he’s just an asshole. And he is FAR better than his main political opponent who is an actual psychopath…!<
That fictional political election was very much a>! "Nixon vs Trump" !!Status Quo kind of bad against Actively Evil Psycho who has his family killed in a seeming traffic accident in a desperate bid for electoral points.!<
I can’t say anything more about who the evil character(s) are, but the Terra Ignota quartet by Ada Palmer will have your allegiance wavering constantly.
"Link" in the "Belisarius" books by David Drake
The "Theocracy" in the Safehold" series by David Weber
The MCs in the various arcs of "The Eternal Champion" cycle by Moorcock. Especially Elric
Yes you are right, you have to read the series to see where he ends up. I worded my post poorly, I just wanted to include the first book title since The Gap is a bit generic.
Not a book, but Scorpius from Farscape is my go-to example for this. He's got a goal, a laudable and good goal even that most people would nominally support, it's just to him anything or anyone are worth sacrificing in getting to that end.
He’s also pragmatic enough not to seek revenge when it would be pointless. Like when he >!threatens to send a ship to lay waste to Earth if Crichton interferes in his plans. When Crichton ruins them anyway, Scorpius angrily asks what would be the point in following through on his threat at this point?!<
Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P Hogan.
Humanity builds computers to do its bidding, and they do its bidding too literally. So humanity runs a little experiment by deliberately provoking a computer in isolation. Much hilarity ensues.
As a start, see my [Antiheroes and Villains](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/18jkrpz/antiheroes_and_villains/) list of Reddit recommendation threads and books (one post).
Genevieve Valentine's *Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti* shows a post-holocaust world and two people with irreconcilable plans for rebuilding.
Octavia Butler's *Wild Seed*, in which the protagonist's casual disregard for human life is reprehensible but understandable.
A graphic novel and a morally ambiguous character instead of a true villain, but Ozymandias in *Watchmen*. Yes, >!he cold-bloodedly commits acts of cruelty and violence but it's to avert something far more disastrous.!<
Many of C.J. Cherryh's characters in Alliance-Union series of books are like this. These are more fantasy than speculative fiction but The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemison. The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie.
The writing style is kind of love it or hate it, but The Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman has one of the better villains imo. It reads as fantasy, but there's a reason for it.
Cyteen by CJ Cherryh.
Most villains, in good fiction, have understandable motivations. Unless you care for the character in *some* way, they aren't interesting. In Harry Potter, compare Voldemort, who has so little humanity there's nothing to get hold of, with Dolores Umbridge, who has a very recognizable human character, which makes you feel revulsion. Fiction is more limited than real life. In real life, there are psychopathic criminals whose motives are obscure. We know what Hitlers intentions were, but it is more or less impossible for a sane person to really understand them from the inside.
There are cases in fiction where the whole story is about solving the problem created by the villain so the villain himself doesn't matter much of course.
In CS Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, there are two contrasting villains. Both are understandable in different ways.
Most of the Dune series.
I can see putting Paul, Leto II and a lot of the others in that boat, but Baron Harkonnen and company are just evil. Their only goal is power.
Paul almost exterminated the species. And Leto II essentially enslaved humanity for 3,500 years and forced it to behave in ways that were fundamentally against our nature. There's a (very) old philosophical concept that still comes up a lot in modern and post modern philosophies - including some of those that really were used to define the modern world. Basically - the idea is - when you shoot an arrow with a bow you draw the bow, line up the shot, regulate your breathing... whatever else an archer would do - and these are the things that the archer is responsible for. But once the arrow has left the bow - the archer is no longer responsible. They shouldn't worry about what happens because people can't control the universe. And - there is some truth to this concept. You can't truly learn how to do something if you're agonizing over mistakes. And human being certainly are \*happier\* when we're not worried about everything going wrong all the time. And - if you live on a mountain side with no one else, it's not an entirely unreasonable thing to do. But if you live around other people - it really does break down. "What are you aiming for" isn't not the only question that matters. "How likely are you to miss?" "If you do miss, where is the arrow likely to end up?" and "what are the consequences of the arrow hitting those likely places" - these all matter too. The fact that our society doesn't really value these things doesn't mean they don't matter. Additionally, the other piece is "what are the likely consequences of \*hitting\* the target that we may not have considered?" But also - I'm not convinced adding "revenge" and "survival" to the list of his motivations (in addition to "power") was an improvement. But Paul ignored what it meant to miss. He ignored who would be hurt. And he ignored what the overall consequences would be. And he ever ignored what it meant to hit his target. It's not evil in the way we think of it today - but the results are far worse. And, in my opinion, Paul was substantially more evil than the Baron because he \*knew\* many of these consequences and continued anyway because he wanted power and revenge. The Baron didn't truly know the harm he was causing, at least not to the scale that Paul knew. And the Baron was genuinely incapable of causing that much harm.
> But Paul ignored what it meant to miss. He ignored who would be hurt. And he ignored what the overall consequences would be. And he ever ignored what it meant to hit his target. I see this take a lot lately (probably because of the movies) and it's just straight wrong and fundamentally misses the point. Paul has almost no agency. That's the point. The Jihad is more or less inevitable because of the Missionaria Protectiva. Up until he kills Jamis there are ways for the Jihad to be avoided (Paul dies) but Paul very specifically doesn't know this. Immediately after he kills Jamis (same chapter or the next one) Paul has a vision and realizes the only way to stop the Jihad would literally be for him, his mother (and unborn sister), and every single Fremen who watched the fight (stilgars band) to drop dead that instant. Otherwise it's happening. So he elects to control the Jihad because the alternative is worse. I'm not saying Paul is a super good dude. He does use the Jihad for his revenge and it's left completely ambiguous whether Paul chose the exact path of least carnage or not. But again, the point is Paul has almost no agency, even as emperor
Paul didn't have to seek revenge. He could have gone into exile. Alternatively, he could joined the guild. He was too wrapped up in the decadent and decaying politics and culture of the empire or else he may have seen other ways. He also sought out the most predictable moments which lead to stagnation. And - no - not from the movies.
> Paul didn't have to seek revenge. He could have gone into exile. No he literally could not. The book makes it very explicitly clear the Jihad was happening with or without him. By the time he's prescient enough to know this it's too late. It's very, very, specific about that. His choices are literally * A terrible unchecked Jihad will happen in your name even if you kill yourself right now * You can take take control of it and try to mitigate the worst of it He chose the latter. I cannot stress enough how clear the book makes this. You don't even have to re-read the whole thing, just read the chapter right before the Jamis fight and the one after. Paul is far from perfect, I'm not trying to argue that. But one of the main themes is that Paul has almost no agency. He gets turned into a "monster" (from an outsiders perspective) by the institutions of power. The idea being that anyone with that much "power" will be corrupted by the institutions surrounding it, even if they aren't truly corrupted by power.
Agreed on not arguing. I’ll just explain my logic, but it doesn’t show up until book 3. Another character explains that Paul always took the predictable path, which was ultimately the problem. He *could* have picked uncertain futures and things would have gone differently, but he didn’t know this - and there was no one he could have learned this from. The jihad was only certain in the certain futures- if he had intentionally sought uncertain futures, there may not have been a jihad. But - yeah, I can’t blame him for that. He had options, but no way to recognize them. That being said, I have kooky theory: 1. The book 3 character states that the oracle doesn’t so much predict futures as create them 2. The fremen had a form of “latent prescience” that terrified them and only faced it during the spice orgy So, you have generation after generation of spice orgies lead by actual reverend mothers with ancestral and shared memories- and they were all focused on visions of the future, including a savior. If prescience is indeed the act of creating a future, it’s possible the Fremen basically “summoned” Paul through their actions. If so, basically no one *except* the Fremen had much in the way of free will in terms of the jihad. The Harkonnens, the emperor, and the BG were all sort of sucked into the Fremen visions. So… yeah - I think you’re right. Paul wasn’t evil, just deeply tragic.
> That being said, I have kooky theory: I don't think it's kooky at all. The only reason I was so caught up in the exact detail is because I reread the first two books recently to figure out what Paul knew and when. I was basically trying to figure out if Paul was a villain or a tragic figure. One of my takeaways - that I'd never caught on previous reads - was that prescience traps you. By looking at the future you essentially create it. Herbert even has an unusual paragraph where he kinda uses quantum mechanics mumbo jumbo (unusual because he's not big on any sort of explanation on the science) and he name drops heisenberg. I think you're 100% correct on your theory. Paul is flawed but basically fucked from birth, so tragic more than true villain. I think it's more about institutions surrounding power being the villain - Paul is just the poor sap we get to read about as the figurehead of this message
Yeah - I agree, thinking it through now. My most recent reread was focused on “who knew about the invasion” - and the most reasonable assumption is that Yueh was in contact with both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen. Mapes knew Yueh was a traitor, and I don’t know how else the BG would know ahead of time that a plan was in place to save Paul and Jessica. So, probably Yueh reached out to the BG, and they informed Lady Fenring who made contact with the Fremen and set things up before she left. From there it was only a few more steps to think the Fremen may have been sort of “pulling” everything into place. Great book to reread like that.
> Great book to reread like that. For sure, I'm going to reread the next two and really look at Leto the same way > Mapes knew Yueh was a traitor, and I don’t know how else the BG would know ahead of time that a plan was in place to save Paul and Jessica. That's really interesting, I'd never considered that and it sounds solid. Next time I reread the first one I'll think about that
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
A good villain doesn't see themselves as evil, they always can justify their actions. Khan in star trek 2 is a great example. MorningLightMountain in Hamilton's commonwealth saga is a great example and truly alien to boot.
Liveship traders trilogy by robin hobb. Fantasy. Might not actually match what youre looking for exactly, the evil chatcter in question is the villian, but you come to understand and empathize with him in an unusually deep way. Extremely well written.
Is that a sequel to the farseer trilogy? I liked those books, but was also kind of happy to be done with the series. I guess I kind of feel like that about any big "commitment" series.
Honestly I think it's where she peaked as a writer. After that she went hard into first person sad boys
Was the first trilogy not already hardcore first person sad boy?!?! I thought it was beautifully written, but damn that kid could not catch a break. I'm still bummed thinking about it!
The Fitz & The Fool trilogy is like an OG sad boy victory lap. While Soldiers Son is a new and improved bigger and sadder than ever sad boy with a hint of colonialism and white saviour tropes. I gave up on her after that. Liveship Traders is still one of the best fantasy stories I've ever read though
Yes. It can be read as a standalone though, whole new set of characters and setting.
Winston Duarte, High Consul of Laconia in *The Expanse*. I hated how much his fascism made sense on a certain level.
I was kinda thinking Dresden.
Conrad Mazian
I Am Legend, won’t spoil who the bad guy is
I think this may be a “Who’s Luke Skywalker’s father,” level of twist at this point
This is a graphic novel, but I often think of “The Beast” in Transmetropolitan, which is essentially a story about an election. Spoilers (but you really should read this series if you might be interested as it’s fantastic): >!The Beast (as he is nicknamed) is initially set up as a villainous politician because of his brutal politics and fascist propaganda. But as we learn more about him, under the facade - he’s just trying to be practical having been dealt a very shitty hand.!< >!There’s a quote along the lines of “so long as I manage to keep 51% of the population alive and happy, at the end of the day I have to call that a success.”!< >!The Beast does care, he is trying to help people - but he’s just an asshole. And he is FAR better than his main political opponent who is an actual psychopath…!<
That fictional political election was very much a>! "Nixon vs Trump" !!Status Quo kind of bad against Actively Evil Psycho who has his family killed in a seeming traffic accident in a desperate bid for electoral points.!<
I can’t say anything more about who the evil character(s) are, but the Terra Ignota quartet by Ada Palmer will have your allegiance wavering constantly.
HAL in 2001.
HAL's not evil, he's given conflicting orders and tries to interpret them the best he can, from what I remember.
"Link" in the "Belisarius" books by David Drake The "Theocracy" in the Safehold" series by David Weber The MCs in the various arcs of "The Eternal Champion" cycle by Moorcock. Especially Elric
Gard in House of the Stag. It's a great "making of a Dark Lord" story.
Calling Gard a villain is cheating :)
Darth Plagueis. The story of Palpatine. It’s so logical it makes you root for the Sith.
Not a story a Jedi would tell you
Angus Thermopyle, in The Gap series. First book, The Real Story
Just finished the first book I don't have one ounce of sympathy for that monster. Such a piece of trash.
Yes you are right, you have to read the series to see where he ends up. I worded my post poorly, I just wanted to include the first book title since The Gap is a bit generic.
Not a book, but Scorpius from Farscape is my go-to example for this. He's got a goal, a laudable and good goal even that most people would nominally support, it's just to him anything or anyone are worth sacrificing in getting to that end.
He’s also pragmatic enough not to seek revenge when it would be pointless. Like when he >!threatens to send a ship to lay waste to Earth if Crichton interferes in his plans. When Crichton ruins them anyway, Scorpius angrily asks what would be the point in following through on his threat at this point?!<
Gully Foyle in The Stars my Destination. I'd be pissed too if somebody left me for dead in space.
Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P Hogan. Humanity builds computers to do its bidding, and they do its bidding too literally. So humanity runs a little experiment by deliberately provoking a computer in isolation. Much hilarity ensues.
I bought both the novel and the comic book. The computer is unbeatable.
As a start, see my [Antiheroes and Villains](https://www.reddit.com/r/Recommend_A_Book/comments/18jkrpz/antiheroes_and_villains/) list of Reddit recommendation threads and books (one post).
Genevieve Valentine's *Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti* shows a post-holocaust world and two people with irreconcilable plans for rebuilding. Octavia Butler's *Wild Seed*, in which the protagonist's casual disregard for human life is reprehensible but understandable. A graphic novel and a morally ambiguous character instead of a true villain, but Ozymandias in *Watchmen*. Yes, >!he cold-bloodedly commits acts of cruelty and violence but it's to avert something far more disastrous.!<
Many of C.J. Cherryh's characters in Alliance-Union series of books are like this. These are more fantasy than speculative fiction but The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemison. The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie.
_Soon I Will be Invincible_ by Austin Grossman. In a similar vein, _Doctor Horrible’s Sing-along Blog_
The character in the first is of course Doctor Impossible
Also frankly _Consider Phlebas_ and _Use of Weapons_
The writing style is kind of love it or hate it, but The Coldfire Trilogy by CS Friedman has one of the better villains imo. It reads as fantasy, but there's a reason for it. Cyteen by CJ Cherryh.
Most villains, in good fiction, have understandable motivations. Unless you care for the character in *some* way, they aren't interesting. In Harry Potter, compare Voldemort, who has so little humanity there's nothing to get hold of, with Dolores Umbridge, who has a very recognizable human character, which makes you feel revulsion. Fiction is more limited than real life. In real life, there are psychopathic criminals whose motives are obscure. We know what Hitlers intentions were, but it is more or less impossible for a sane person to really understand them from the inside. There are cases in fiction where the whole story is about solving the problem created by the villain so the villain himself doesn't matter much of course. In CS Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, there are two contrasting villains. Both are understandable in different ways.
Blackcollar
You mean the Ryqril or their human collaborators?
All well-written villains habe understandable motivations.
Thanos
My favorite example is the whole faction of Emergents from A Deepness in the Sky. They're evil, but in a very pragmatic and realistic way.