Voracious readers one and all suffer an undeniable fascination with characters who refuse to be pinned down. The heroes in white armour have their place, certainly, but oh—how much more interesting are those souls who dwell in the shadows between virtue and villainy!
If your heart yearns for fantasy protagonists as complicated as real people, with motives as murky as a London fog, then pray settle in, for we have quite the list of adventures ahead.
The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
One might say that Joe Abercrombie has done for fantasy what an honest mirror does for one’s vanity—he shows us heroes as they truly are, warts and all. In this masterwork of grimdark fiction, we meet Logen Ninefingers, a barbarian whose reputation for violence precedes him like thunder before lightning, and Sand dan Glokta, a torturer whose sharp wit cuts deeper than any blade.
What makes these characters so deliciously compelling is their utter refusal to be good in any conventional sense. Glokta, once tortured himself, now inflicts that same suffering upon others—yet his internal monologues sparkle with such dark humour that one cannot help but be charmed. Abercrombie’s prose flows with the ease of a master storyteller who knows that in the real world, even villains have their reasons.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Picture, if you will, a band of criminal misfits in a city where anything can be purchased for the right price—including impossible heists. At the helm stands Kaz Brekker, a young criminal prodigy known as “Dirtyhands,” whose ruthlessness would make seasoned villains blanch. And yet! And yet there beats beneath that cold exterior a wounded heart.
Leigh Bardugo has crafted something magical here: a story in which the thieves are the heroes, broken souls find family among fellow outcasts, and the line between right and wrong becomes gloriously tangled. Each member of Kaz’s crew carries secrets and scars, and watching them navigate an impossible mission whilst grappling with their own demons is pure literary delight.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
In the treacherous courts of Faerie, where beauty masks cruelty and words are weapons, we find Jude Duarte—a mortal girl with absolutely no intention of remaining powerless. Holly Black has fashioned a protagonist who schemes and manipulates with the best of them, whose ambition burns with a flame that would make lesser characters flinch.
What enchants readers most thoroughly is Jude’s refusal to play the helpless victim. Surrounded by immortal beings who consider her inferior, she claws her way toward power through methods that are decidedly not heroic. The dance between Jude and the cruel Prince Cardan crackles with tension, proving that the most captivating relationships are those where neither party wears a halo.
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson has given us Kelsier, a man who smiles in the face of oppression—not from joy, but from defiance. This charismatic rebel leads a revolution against an immortal tyrant, and while his cause seems noble enough, his methods reveal something darker. Sanderson himself has called Kelsier a psychopath, and there lies the delicious contradiction.
The magic system dazzles, certainly, with its metals and mists, but it is the moral complexity of Kelsier and his protégée Vin that lingers in the memory. These characters will do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, and the sheer depth and breadth of “whatever it takes” will leave you breathless and fascinated in equal measure.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
There exists a world called the Stillness—though stillness is precisely what it never achieves. N.K. Jemisin’s groundbreaking novel introduces us to orogenes, people who can control seismic activity and who are therefore feared, enslaved, and sometimes lynched by those they protect. Our protagonist Essun has done terrible things to survive, and the narrative makes no apologies for her choices.
Written partially in the haunting second person, this Hugo Award winner forces readers to inhabit a perspective where morality bends under the weight of oppression. Jemisin explores what survival costs when the world itself seems determined to destroy you. There are no saints here—only people doing what they must.
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
What would you sacrifice to claim a destiny not meant for you? Shelley Parker-Chan’s luminous debut answers this question through Zhu, a peasant woman who assumes her dead brother’s identity—and his fate of greatness. The lengths to which Zhu will go are breathtaking and, frankly, rather unsettling.
Set against the fall of the Mongol Empire, this tale weaves together identity, ambition, and the terrible mathematics of power. Zhu’s counterpart, the eunuch General Ouyang, proves equally complex, his beautiful face concealing a heart described as merciless as jade and ice. Neither protagonist allows readers comfortable moral ground upon which to stand.
Vicious by V.E. Schwab
Here is a delightful puzzle: what happens when both protagonist and antagonist are villains? V.E. Schwab answers magnificently with Victor Vale and Eli Ever, former friends turned bitter enemies, both possessing supernatural abilities and absolutely no moral high ground. They are brilliantly bad people doing terrible things to each other, and one cannot look away.
Victor, cold and calculating, commits murder with barely a flicker of remorse. Eli believes himself a hero chosen by God to eliminate others like them—while conveniently exempting himself. Schwab has crafted a tale that asks not who the hero is, but whether such a creature exists at all.
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
Few characters transform as dramatically as Fang Runin, called Rin, who begins as a war orphan studying desperately to escape an arranged marriage and ends as… well, to say more would be to spoil the shattering journey. R.F. Kuang has drawn inspiration from real historical atrocities, and she does not flinch from showing how war corrupts even the most sympathetic souls.
Readers find themselves rooting for Rin whilst simultaneously questioning whether she remains the hero at all. Her victory-at-any-cost mentality produces consequences that haunt the subsequent books. This is grimdark at its finest—beautiful, brutal, and utterly uncompromising.
The Broken Empire Trilogy by Mark Lawrence
Jorg Ancrath might be the most unsettling protagonist in modern fantasy. We meet him as a thirteen-year-old leading a band of murderous outlaws, and his youth makes his capacity for violence all the more disturbing. Mark Lawrence has created a character who commits atrocities with philosophical wit, and somehow—impossibly—readers find themselves turning pages to see what he’ll do next.
The genius lies in Lawrence’s first-person narration, which grants access to Jorg’s twisted but brilliant mind. He is charming, clever, and completely devoid of what most would call a conscience. One might expect to despise him, yet his damaged past and sharp observations create an antihero who defies easy judgement.
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
The series that taught a generation that anyone can die has also demonstrated that anyone can be redeemed—or corrupted. George R.R. Martin populates his brutal world with characters who shift allegiances and moral positions like chess pieces in a game where the rules keep changing. Jaime Lannister begins as a villain and slowly, painfully transforms into something more complicated.
Martin himself calls Tyrion Lannister both his favourite character and “the villain,” which rather says everything about how this series treats morality. There are no chosen ones here, no simple answers, only people making choices in impossible circumstances and living with the consequences.
The Nevernight Chronicle by Jay Kristoff
Mia Corvere wishes to murder everyone responsible for destroying her family, and she will train at an academy of assassins to accomplish this goal. Jay Kristoff presents her journey with prose that drips with dark humour and violence, creating a protagonist who borders on obsidian rather than merely grey.
What distinguishes this series is Kristoff’s unflinching examination of what becoming an assassin actually requires. Mia faces choices that would break a more conventional hero, and watching her navigate the murky waters between vengeance and villainy provides exquisite tension. The world is dark, the characters darker still, and the reading experience absolutely intoxicating.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
Imagine Oliver Twist if the Artful Dodger grew up to run the most elaborate confidence schemes in a Venice-like fantasy city. Locke Lamora is a thief, a liar, and utterly unrepentant about both. Scott Lynch makes us love him anyway, rooting for his cons to succeed even as we acknowledge that his victims don’t always deserve their fate.
The Gentleman Bastards, as Locke’s crew calls themselves, steal from the rich with panache and wit, but let no one mistake them for Robin Hood. Their loyalty to each other provides the emotional core, proving that even criminals may possess their own twisted honour. The humour sparkles, the heists dazzle, and the moral compass spins freely.
Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock
Before the current wave of morally complex fantasy protagonists, there was Elric—the albino emperor who would rather philosophise than conquer, bonded to a soul-drinking sword that inevitably destroys everything he loves. Michael Moorcock created an antihero so influential that his shadow falls across nearly every dark protagonist who followed.
Elric stands in deliberate opposition to the muscle-bound heroes of earlier fantasy, a physically weak sorcerer-king whose conscience sets him apart from his cruel people. The tragedy of his story—watching him lose everything to the cursed blade Stormbringer—demonstrates that good intentions matter little when darker forces hold the strings.
The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
In the magical city of Daevabad, where djinn politics prove as deadly as any sorcery, S.A. Chakraborty introduces Dara—a warrior whose violent past haunts every page. Is he a monster or a victim? A protector or a threat? The beauty of Chakraborty’s creation is that he remains genuinely all of these things simultaneously.
The Daevabad Trilogy examines how history shapes heroes and villains alike, how the same person might be liberator to some and oppressor to others. Dara’s struggle with his own nature, caught between love and the terrible deeds he’s committed, creates a character who defies simple categorisation.
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
Rachel Gillig’s newest offering brings us to a gothic cathedral where diviners drown themselves repeatedly to glimpse the future. Sybil, our protagonist, navigates a world of dark magic and darker secrets alongside the heretical knight Rodrick, and neither emerges unstained by the choices they must make.
This atmospheric tale weaves romance and horror together with threads of moral ambiguity running throughout. Gillig has proven herself a master of characters who make questionable decisions for understandable reasons—the very essence of what makes morally grey protagonists so compelling to readers seeking complexity in their fantasy.
Why We Love Morally Grey Characters
There is something profoundly satisfying about characters who mirror our own complicated natures. We are none of us purely good or irredeemably wicked, and these protagonists remind us that the human heart—even in fictional form—contains multitudes. They make difficult choices, live with regrets, and sometimes do terrible things for reasons we understand all too well.
These books ask us not to judge but to understand, not to condemn but to consider. And in doing so, they offer something no simple hero’s journey ever could: the recognition that we, too, might have made the same choices had we walked in their shadowed shoes.
