Villain protaganists

Do you think Ben Linus from LOST qualifies as a Villain Protagonist?

Sweeny Todd, and yeah, read Macbeth. Very good story.

does tyler durden count?

William Gull from 'From Hell'.

There may be no peace for the wicked, but the righteous can damn well get a piece whenever they feel like it.

Pretty much.

I think anyone arguing Vader has a very thin ice arguement at best. He's a Hero until Palpatine moves the switch on his back from Good to Evil, then he's unrepentantly evil until Luke at the last second gets him to switch back. Add in that he's not any kind of protagonist in the original trilogy and you don't have much of an arguement.

The TV Tropes has all the examples I can think of, with the best (IMHO) being Dr. Horrible and obviously The Tragedy of MacBeth.

Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects might be a good example of a villain protagonist

Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man. Henry Brooks Adams, American Historian (1838 - 1918)

Chev Chelios, from the Crank movies.

the guy from "Catch Me if You Can."

Riddick from The Chronicles of Riddick series probably qualifies.

If we can expand the search parameters to include comic books, I would say that Catwoman, the current incarnation of the Secret Six, and Deathstroke the Terminator (back when he still had his own title) from DC and the original Thunderbolts from Marvel also count.

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No, because very little of the series actually focuses on him as the main character.

Oooh, tough call. By the end of the film we know that he is actually the villain and has been the whole time, but we also know by then that his entire story is suspect, and very likely lies. And in that story, although he's a protagonist, he's not a villain, more a tragic figure.

Be careful in which characters you choose, because there's a fine line between a Villain Protagonist (The VILLAIN, who is the MAIN CHARACTER of the story) and an anti-hero (A HERO, who does EVIL THINGS in order to succeed).

You'll also likely find that even the worst Villain Protagonists are going to have redeeming qualities and a heavy dose of pathos, otherwise the audience wouldn't be able to support them, identify with them, or want to see anything but their downfall.

Off the top of my head, some other Villain Protagonists would be...

Alex from A Clockwork Orange
Jekyll/Hyde in Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Invisible Man in The Invisible Man
Lestat in Interview with The Vampire

Thats all I can think of for now. There's probably a bunch of other great examples in classical literature that I'm forgetting right now, but MacBeth is a very good case to work with.


Edit: Remembered a couple more.

Fantomas from the works of Allain et Souvestre
Grimly Feendish from the old British WHAM! comics
Hannibal from Hannibal Rising