Top 5 Rogues in Fiction
Oh, okay. Watch me forget every character I’ve known. But off the top of my head:
Eugenides from the Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. THE BEST. THE WORST. Everyone around him wants to worship him and/or wring his neck, often simultaneously. Regularly steals kingdoms from people. My all-time favourite thief.
Corvo Attano from Dishonored. Everyone loves the mute traumatised rat assassin falling off buildings and (depending on chaos) saving souls.
Lando Calrissian from Star Wars. Baby me fell so hard for this space pirate prince with his cloud city and his cape and his gambling and his heart-wrenching decision between his city and his friend.
Ezra Standish from The Magnificent Seven (1998). I am a complete sucker for a fancy-pants gambler with a heart (and tooth) of gold and more ten-dollar words than actual dollars. Between him and Lando, gamblers are a bit of a thing for me.
If we’re talking archetypes, Hermes from Greek Mythology informed a lot for me. Also Lugh from Irish mythology, and several other mythological tricksters. But Hermes was my first, when my granddad gave me a big book of Greek Mythology. Hermes is why I love to mingle tricksters and psychopomps together, thieves and the grave.
(Occasionally) Honourable mentions: Rin Setsua from Thunderbolt Fantasy (amazing trickster asshole), Jonathan Carnahan from The Mummy (“And did I panic? I think not!”), Arsene Lupin (original flavour), Arsene Lupin from Lupin III, Selina Kyle from Batman, Hardison & Parker from Leverage, Althalus from The Redemption of Althalus (I realised David Eddings is iffy, but this was one of my childhood books), Slanter from The Wishsong of Shannara (arguably a ranger, but he was my introduction to surly, sneaky, morally ambiguous, competent, enemies-to-allies), Willow from Willow (even when facing an evil sorceress, bog-standard sleight of hand can and will win the day), Robin Hood from Disney’s Robin Hood (childhood), Hawkins & Jean from The Court Jester, Artemus Gordon from the (original) Wild Wild West, an uncountable number of spies …
Actually, you know what? I’ll shut up now. But I enjoy a good rogue, I really, really do.
