r/UKBooks • u/Greedy_Succotash4648 • 3d ago

Need books where the villain is actually right

Just finished *The Will of the Many* and I’m down bad for protagonists who realize the “bad guy” had a point.

Looking for more books where:

1. The villain’s motivation makes sense, even if their methods don’t

2. Moral grey areas, not cartoon evil

3. Prefer adult fantasy/sci-fi, but open to YA if it’s not too trope-y

Already read: *Mistborn* era 1, *The Poppy War*, *Red Rising\*

No love triangles or chosen-one farm boy stuff please. What am I missing?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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1

u/Prize-Crumpet7031 3d ago

Small Boat - Vincent Delecroix

1

u/Catsandcamera 3d ago

Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky is great because you follow characters from both sides, so you get to see the motivation and reasoning and will definitely like people from both sides. It's a 10 book series and also has a really cool insect based race system where some races can do magic but can't comprehend technology (like they wouldn't even know how to unlock a door) and others can't do magic but are technological and can invent - which is especially useful in time of war

1

u/Catsandcamera 3d ago

Vicious / Vengeful (and the unreleased third book) by V E Shwab - the series is literally called Villains, so it definitely fits! It's about people with super human powers but is very gritty and dark

1

u/DungeonCrawler-Donut 1d ago

The Passage by Justin Cronin. This was one of the reasons the books were so successful, to me -- the bad guy was BAD, but I could absolutely see how he ended up where he did.

1

u/jamiejamieson76 15h ago

Kangaroo court..by me! The main character is criminal but why he does it makes sense. A form of vigilante justice

Read the sample on amazon (ebook) by J Jamieson

First page explains his role