Who are Fiction's Worst and Most Despicable Heroes?

A favourite is John Corey, the ex-NYPD detective turned FBI agent hero of eight thriller novels by the late Nelson DeMille (the pick of them, IMO, is the brilliant, The Lion's Game). Corey is un-PC in every way imaginable and often extremely funny. I used to get DeMille's regular newsletters and they could have been written by the character.

A bit like Flashman, Corey somehow gets away with being a total ar$ehole and I can't help liking him.
 
JunkMonkey said:
I have The Further Rivals of on the shelves in front of me behind my monitor sandwiched between Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme* and a book with a vaguely pink faded spine... I wonder what it is?

* to stay vaguely on topic, I think Jerry Cornelius is a bit of a prick too.

EDIT: Aha! I moved some stuff, and climbed on a table, and the vaguely pink faded spine turned out to be Keith Roberts's Molly Zero which I knew I had, and was looking for a couple of weeks ago. Only two weeks to find a book I knew I had; that's some kind of record for me.
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I absolutely loath Jerry Cornelius .
 
Venusian Broon said:
Paul Atreides. Leader of universe-wide genocide that kills billons. Doesn't take the necessary steps to ensure humanities future - chickens out and leaves that duty to his son. Also knows all the lottery numbers.
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He did get a very raw deal with fact that so many In the court , Landsraad , CHOAM Co , Navigator Guild other special interest groups and factions power wanted him dead and his family and friends destroyed. The Bene Gesserit didn't even want Paul to exist and, failing in that tried to both destroy and manipulate him , also unsuccessfully. And didhe lose his eldest child in the war he was forced int fight for his survival/ Combined with his life circumstances Paul had no good choices in front of him and he knew it.
 
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In 'The Final Countdown', Kirk Douglas's modern super-carrier is thrown back in time to Hawaii just before the WW2 Pearl Harbor raid, but instead of intercepting the incoming jap bombers, he chickens out, what a wimp..:)


Final Countdown.jpg
 
Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) in Saving Private Ryan.
He and his men are at the foot of the cliffs during the Normandy landings, they're pinned by the German machine guns.
He uses a mirror to peek around the corner then orders 2 of his men out into the open, they're instantly killed.
He callously repeats with 2 more, they die too. Finally the next 2 buy enough time for his sniper to take out the enemy.
After watching it I could fully understand the Vietnam war concept of 'fragging' your officers, if I'd been in that situation there'd have been one more captain KIA that day.
 
Yes, the Ryan film had a list of flaws as long as your arm, there's hollywood scriptwriters for you, for example Hanks's order to attack the radar station was totally unnecessary and got a man killed.
In real life an airstrike would have taken it out long before D-day.
PS- As a computer wargamer I have to keep telling newcomers "FORGET what you've seen in the movies, as it's mostly hollywood baloney and you'll soon die if you copy the stupid tactics you see in films"..:)
 
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The Bride in Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2. But then again ,there wasn't one character that I actually liked in those two films.
 
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