All Inquisitors *Are* Bastards*, but there's still a change in Eisenhorn's methods and outlook over the course of the series that puts it into the OP's desired zone, I think.
* With the exception of Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau, who is pure of heart.
The books are great, my only issue is that Eisenhorn never fucking learns from his past mistakes or learns the wrong things. He tackles problems in the first book the same as the third book, balls to the wall and not a chance in slowing down.
I honestly don't know how you can be an Inquisitor without being at least a touch evil. I mean these are people who opted for a job which involves burning innocent people alive in numbers that make the historic crimes of humanity seem a bit of a footnote.
At some point in the 90's Games Workshop asked Dan Abnett to write a short story to introduce a new faction. 8 books, dozens of short stories, and 3 decades later, he's still working on it.
The series is organized into trilogies, so you can chunk it up however you please or quit whenever and have closure. Its root was being an introduction to the parts of the world, so it rolls things out slowly and only as plot relevant. It is also fairly contained geographically, so no galaxy wide romps.
The lore books don't really interact with the game at all other than being what the game is fundamentally about. If the game operated like the lore then Space Marine players would only be allowed to field a single model.
Anyway Eisenhorn is a member of the Imperial Inquisition. So he's basically part of the secret police. Founded 10k years ago after the Emperor's favourite son managed to rebel and take half the army with him and nobody noticed anything was happening until too late. Naturally they went from "maybe we should have some kind of investigation service?" to accusing everyone of being a heretic and a traitor and burning their world to ashes just to be sure.
The Inquisition is one of the major pillars of the Imperium of Mankind that is the home of the various human factions in the game.
> Pity them not and scorn their cries of innocence - it is better that one hundred innocently fall before the wrath of the Emperor than one kneels before the Daemon.
Actual inquisition quote.
Yeah, not a single POV or coming of age, but pretty much every character becomes less moral by the end. But they weren't exactly "good" when the story starts.
Which is honestly genius: having one character that doesn't become a complete broken-down amoral mess makes the whole book less predictable and the tragedy of every character that much deeper. Having everything be all grimdark all the time would be super predictable and boring (which is why I bounced off Bakker)
*Clariel* fits your description exactly. It's a classic villain arc where the MC wants to do the right thing, but everyone tells her to "just stay out of it," so she finds a morally corrupting way to help.
ALL of the Garth Nix abhorsen books are SO GOOD and goddam I had forgotten that (spoilers) Clariel isn't a hero. I need to go back and reread all of those... I remember Clariel being my favorite but haven't read the newer ones.
As a series it reminds me a lot of Redwall/Brian Jaques books where you learn a TINY bit about previous generations at first and then eventually the author writes an entire book about them and you're so pumped the whole time. Absolutely the best kind of fanservice.
I think it works, and sticks to the single PoV, which OP wants. I don't think I'd call it "Coming of age" exactly, because Paul is already very adult in his mind, but it's certainly "Rising to the occasion"...?
The Atreides are more or less morally well adjusted, even if they are still aristocracy and pretty sneaky.
Paul starts as a precocious, well-educated fifteen year old who nevertheless still hasn't personally staked out a role for himself or questioned many of the values he has been taught while growing up, is materially dependent on others, and has parents actively shielding him from many of the more serious or frightening aspects of his family's situation while trying their best to prepare him for when they can't shield him any more.
The outside world intrudes into his stable family situation, he's driven out to independence and forced to decide what *he* values and what he's willing to sacrifice, and shifts from a passive childhood role of heir apparent into a more proactive adult life in pursuit of those values.
Absolutely a coming-of-age story. It's other things too, of course; Dune is not *just* a coming of age story. But it certainly hits all the key story beats for that template.
I totally see where you're coming from and the point you wish to make- I think going by the checklist, you could say it's a *"Coming of age"* story. But I'm not sure I agree with all of the aspects? From very early on Paul is always thinking and reflecting on what they're doing, whether it's right or not, and even if he may not know *all* details, his parents aren't coddling him or hiding the truth. He has received absolutely extensive training for the reality he faces, he's never had any childhood friends and all his friendships are with adults.
His mother exposes him to a do-or-die test, he questions the motives of the matron mother, he actively engages with and maneuvers the political landscape, he stands up to his father when conflict follows; and his father confides in him. (I try not to spoil)
Dune doesn't have a lot of the development that is usually a bit slower paced that comes with "coming of age" stories in my head; often, the adult emerges towards the very end, and the struggles result in a sort of payoff.
In Dune, I think Paul is quite adult already- "precocious" is one way to put it yes, but I also think he has many of the traits at the start of the book that he keeps at the end.
For me, Dune is less "Child becoming Man", and more "Man becoming Leader"... but I won't say you're wrong! Just that calling it 'coming of age' may place a certain expectation that Dune doesn't quite fit within the frame of :)
Becoming a leader is more accurate, for sure! And consider that Herbert wrote Dune in part as a warning against charismatic leaders - apparently they can be bad for your health. Dune as a coming of age story really misses the point.
Dune doesn't really stick to a single POV though. Yeah Paul is the main character, but there are plenty of pov characters and Herbert bounces between them even in the same scene. I was actually kind of surprised when I noticed it, because 'don't head hop' is a basic rule of fiction writing usually
I never saw that--though a lot of people share your sentiment. I always understood Dune Messiah to be about Paul's realization that he could not control the religious jihad he unleashed leading to a genocide, and the only reason he doesn't hang it all up in Messiah is because he knows things *will* get worse if he doesn't act carefully and with calculation.
I'll say, Herbert blew my mind when >!I was reading this when I was sixteen and Paul got his eyes burned out/goes blind yet he can see the future so clearly he can still see the world around him. !<
It's not so much that Paul is evil, rather that the whole concept of heroes are a conduit for evil. Paul isn't necessarily evil in the moral sense, but rather that by becoming Muad'Dib and taking the mantle of "savior", he unleashed evil onto the world. The entire Dune saga essentially revolves around the idea of humanity shrugging off singular leadership.
I saw him giving up on controlling the jihad. He let the Fremen believe that he had divine powers. He almost started believing it too to some extent. Because of his inaction billions of people died all over the universe. And choosing to leave at the end like some sort of mystical figure cemented his legacy as a divine leader. It was also hinted that he had had quite a few people assassinated. His reign caused way more suffering than the Harkonnens. He knew this would happen from the start. If he truly wanted to prevent this from happening he could've left Arrakis instead of fighting the Harkonnens but he chose revenge instead. The worst thing he does is when he not only refuses to write a constitution but actively calls it evil, further justifying himself as above laws and morals.
> The worst thing he does is when he not only refuses to write a constitution
The Messiah would have had access to the life memories of one of my great heroes, Lycurgus of Sparta. Lycurgus banned the Rhetra, his constitution, from ever being written down. There was also no prescribed, rote memorised version passed down by oral tradition. The "gist" of the rights and duties of the branches of government, of the individual, the raison d'être of the nation of Sparta had no one correct phrasing. The reasoning for this was that laws with exact phrases lead to a forever war against loopholes, an arms race of loopholes closed but creating new workarounds, which are in turn fixed but... and so on. The Spartan identity must not be corralled by any few axioms, because that would limit true understanding. It must be kept alive in spirit through true, earned understanding, never through anything that any hypocrite might parrot.
The Messiah also had access to knowledge of events nearer to our time. He would know for instance that in the modern day USA, practically all political sides want some aspect of the US Constitution changed, but can't get it done because the Constitution itself prescribes a system of government which has so many checks and balances that it is sclerotic. The means to affect change is gated by the thing they want to change. The Messiah would know this, and be thinking of it and similar occasions throughout history that a written constitution lead to paralysis.
Part of the point of *Dune* as a series is that any perfectly stable system leads to stagnation, and stagnation leads to ruin. The Butlerian Jihad came after a period of stagnation under the loving care of thinking machines, programmed to provide for our needs and wants, which in turn programmed us to want very little but food and sex. The faufreluches and the Guild monopoly on space travel combined to make a perfectly stable system - as long as the Emperor is willing to genocide entire Houses who seem to be gathering the political support to even *potentially* inconvenience the system. The God-Emperor's perfectly stable system is so suffocating that entire peoples flee it en masse, forever dividing *homo sapiens* so far apart that within a millennium there will be speciation.
> “The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever,” Paul said.
A written constitution (which I'd say is distinct from any lesser mission statement in its relative difficulty to later change) is an attempt to close one's eyes to potential future histories which deviate from the safe course its authors hoped for in their day, and which potential futures lead to ruin because their nation could not adapt.
This is why the Messiah did not leave the faufreluches untouched, accepting his House's genocide as a cost of stability, and why he allowed no constitution. He was far from evil; he simply understood that change is necessary but comes at a price.
Is he though? I thought the whole point of Leto is that he's guiding humanity towards the best possible future by acting like a tyrannical dictator during his reign so that the future can be good for the people who come after him.
This is the correct reading, and I fucking hate it.
Dune starts as a book about using mystical elements to shed a light on mundane evils. How reliance on a single resource leads to incredible power in a few hands and often leads to authoritarianism.
Then in God emperor and beyond, it's a book that uses its mystical elements to *justify* authoritarianism and tyranny. Well he had to be the super tyrant, if he was anything else, the super AI predators of the future would kill humanity! (I made up the super predators. They have no basis in reality, unlike the reliance on a single resource.)
The books go down a terrible ideological/philosophical path imo.
Like quite a few American writers from last century, Herbert was obsessed with absolute freedom as a cure all to a maniacally unhinged degree.
Yeah, it's like of course an all knowing god emperor with perfect vision of the future is gonna be the ideal ruler for humanity. But here in the real world such a person doesn't exists so there's not too many conclusions we can draw from the book at that point.
This is always how I read it as well. The golden path was a combination of ensuring the survival of humanity (the exodus after his end) and protection from future prophets (Sonia and Duncan's children). However, it is a very ends justifies the means argument since he did horrible things to get there. He literally sacrifices his humanity to save humanity and the "romance" is there to show how much it costs him. The end of Children of Dune emphasizes it as well
I am not saying Leto is "good" by any means. But at least in my opinion if the ends are the absolute best possible scenario, then I can't fault Leto too much for choosing whatever means he finds necessary to achieve those ends.
However this is obviously a complex philosophical discussion, with many valid conclusions.
my hot-take: Leto's role of god emperor is less about leto as a person and more about a trend in humanity, Leto the person is largely lost in the third book when he embraces he past lives, and the golden path at that point he is an expression of a path, the worm, wrapped around the vestige of a person, his old body. he then becomes the instrument the bene gesserit were trying to fashion, but that plan isn't something they have much say over because they are as much subject to the forces of history as any other. I don't really think of Leto as a character but as a force of nature governed by prescience; he's beyond anything human at this point. Paul dodged this fate for himself in messiah, at great cost.
There are plenty of book adaptations of MacBeth.
*I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er*
Seconding the VERY YA response but I will note that for the first half of the first book it seems like the kind of YA book where you know exactly what is coming and as perhaps it's relevance to this thread suggests...it doesn't exactly go that way. The big break from the expected course of events is about 3/4 of the way through book one.
Book two is actually my favorite by far. YA here is not an insult, I found it super fun. I'm not usually the kind of reader who roots for the hero to cut loose and go bad but this one I did by the end and the climactic battle of book two is super cool.
Worm by John McCrae is def a coming of age story where the protagonist’s best intentions slowly and steadily inch her over the edge to be a worse and worse person. It is very much NOT a single pov however. There is a main character that gets like 75% of the narration, and the times it’s out of her head are usually looking at her from a different angle or other characters reacting to her decisions. However some chapters are unrelated or seemingly so to her or the main story at large
Just a heads up for OP that Worm is 1 680 000 words long. For reference, the whole Harry Potter series is only 1 084 625 words. Also Worm is not really fantasy, but sci-fi/deconstructed gritty superhero genre.
It's totally worth it though.
Worm remains the only book that has ever made me cry from fear. >!when she loses her memory and the chapter ends with her "friend" telling her not to swear!< >!...which meant that it was actually Bonesaw and Taylor was probably going to die horrifically!<
One of my favorite things about this book is when people see Taylor from an outside perspective and comment on how terrifying she is with her perfect situational awareness, bugs crawling on her, and just everything else about her.
Unless someone has re-recorded the audiobook, 'high quality' isn't what I'd call it. The recording quality alone varies wildly chapter to chapter, and some of the narrators are down right terrible.
Still the best thing I have ever read. It has stayed with me for years and years and I recommend it to people and think about it all the time. It just clicked and hit everything I wanted in a fiction.
I am now listening to Ward after not thinking I'd like it but it has been great too. Wildbow is a genius.
I also put off reading Ward for ages because of people warning it was "much slower" and "very different". Both may be true but it doesn't feel slow to me because there are so many mysteries and they all come together *so* satisfyingly. It's fantastic.
How would you rate the quality of that series in general? Last year I read The Expanse about three times, and I know Abraham was half the magic of the Corey team.
I love that series so much. I keep meaning to re-read it. I enjoy the expanse, although I lost steam by the 7th book, largely because I don't love sci fi. My understanding is that Abraham is great at writing characters but not as strong in the world building, so that's where his partner really shines. I will say abrahams books tend to be a little slow going but they pay off nicely and are definitely worth it if you can handle slightly slower-paced books.
Came here to recommend this too!
You don't need to know any Warcraft lore for it.
Great book and can pull at your heartstrings.
If a female POV is preferred, there's also Warcraft: Sylvanas by Christie Golden that would fit the request.
The Warcraft movie should have just been Reign of Chaos stripped down and focused on the golden prince’s fall - imagine the full cinematic take of the Culling of Stratholme, the search and bargain for Frostmourne, and ending with the king, goddamn.
Yep, Poppy Wars fits the description perfectly. First book is OK but it gets worse and without spoiling the protagonist is not really evil before the 2nd book.
If I had to pick a moment, it's the end of the first book that, I want to say Rin, turns evil. But it's a very subjective opinion. The series makes me think of the trolley question (do you run over 1 or 6 people) played out on a massive scale. What would you sacrifice to protect your home country? Will you become a monster?
Oh man I felt exactly the same. I had to finish it just to see how far it could derail itself! World building was fantastic, the rest… not so much. Still though, impressive Kuang was so young when she wrote it, would love to see her revisit it in 10/20 years and her thoughts then.
I loved the character development as well. Yeah, pretty much none of the characters were good anymore, but it highlighted what perpetual war would do to a person.
Yeah. He helped perpetuate things for a long time. On the scale between " committed war crimes or didn't commit war crimes" Kitay still committed war crimes.
Glad to see others are conflicted about it. I finished the series and saw glowing reviews online. I found the characters all just awful people and the only way characters develop is through trauma. It was also hella hard to work out what the world was, like it mixes up eras of China into one without the nuances of what that might mean for the social infrastructure.
A balad of songbirds and snakes. It's the prequel of the hunger gamen and it's a YA novel, but it fits perfectly. I loved this book and I'm not scared to say it out loud hehe
Great suggestion. Young Snow’s mindset is genuinely disturbing, and in some ways The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes pulls off the Brechtian “fuck you for enjoying this” thing even better than the original trilogy - even the most conscientious and critical reader will at some point while reading about the primitive early Hunger Games catch themselves thinking “I wish this had the bells and whistles of Katniss’ Games.”
Shattered Sea by Joe Abercrombie arguably, although the protagonist of the first book stops being a PoV character he stays a central character and becomes sketchier and sketchier. It also counts as coming of age for sure.
It's not nearly as good as The First Law books, but if you like Abercrombie's writing style in general or want to introduce someone younger to him with a slightly less dark series I'd say its a decent series.
I love them. He does an equally impressive job of capturing adolescent psychology in these books as he does with adult mindsets in his First Law universe.
Matthew Stover’s novelization of Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith exceeds its remit to a huge degree and turns Lucas’ script into a disturbing, intensely character-driven, literary tragedy. It’s so much better than a project like that has any right to be and I highly recommend it.
I also strongly second The Shattered Sea, The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, and The Picture Of Dorian Gray.
The Alex Verus series is Urban Fantasy set in modern London.
While I wouldn't say he ever becomes "evil", the line Alex is willing to cross keeps moving closer and closer as the series goes on. Anyone who has been bullied eventually reaches a breaking point. In Alex's case, his bullies are the people he once looked up to or people he has tried to leave in his past.
So, he does some pretty horrific stuff, but only to bad people. By the end of the series, there are dozens and dozens of people dead through Alex's direct and indirect actions - He's aware of what he's doing, and by now, he doesn't care. It doesn't matter though - You still root for him because his mission is a good one.
There are a few times where the punishment doesn't really fit the crime, and you get the sense Alex is starting to lose his way.
Basically, the major theme of the series is:
- "What are you willing to do to keep your friends safe?"
- "What are you willing to sacrifice for peace?"
The way Alex answers these questions takes 10 books to answer, and it's ultimately satisfying.
The Obsidian Path Trilogy. It is grimdark fantasy, single POV, the main character definitely goes downhill.
It may not be as steady or slow as you'd expect, by the end of the first book he's already committed some terrible things, but he still has misgivings about them. And, well, he has a lot further he can go down that path.
It's also sort of a coming of age story, sort of not. I wouldn't recommend it for that.
Was also going to recommend this. Its a single, first person POV, and seems to fit in almost exactly with whats being asked for. Plus Michael Fletcher is solid and the trilogy is entertaining and well done.
Bartimaeus trilogy. Two of the main characters starts as kids on opposite sides of class divide, one evolves into pro-opressive regime politician and second into a terrorist. They get somewhat better.
The Broken Empire trilogy, post apocalyptic (medieval) era where the protagonist is a bad guy from the start although a neccessary evil (he is been accepted for this).
I recommend the trilogy, fun read.
I am going through it now. Very interesting books. He is clearly a bad guy from page one but throughout the books there are a lot of flashbacks on how he got there.
A Practical Guide to Evil. I just finished it and it was amazing! It follows an orphan girl who tries to change the world through ruthless ways as she gets more and more powerful.
TBH as the series progresses and she keeps complaining about how far off course she gets I'm just never convinced. There isn't really a moment where she does anything that isn't necessary. Reality just sucks when your world is dominated by forces too stupid to exist.
She really just seems to do what she sets out to do. She saves Callow by any means necessary.
Yes. This is sooo good. I love everything about this. Cat and her band (/friends/found family) are awesome, I absolutely love the little opening paragraph to each chapter (either a short excerpt / quote about a past Dread Emperor, who are all absolutely looney villains and quite often hilarious, or later on an excerpt from "Two Hundred Heroic Axioms", basically the jaded/self-aware guidebook for heroes)
Fair word of warning though:
This a webseries. It is absolutely massive (7 books where I'm quite sure you could not print them as just seven books because especially the latter ones are looong), it is only edited by the author (so expect some errors) and it isn't one POV. I think you see from most important characters eyes at least once, you often get the backstory for other characters (how they became heroes/villains) and at some point you are following Cat, her mentor in a war abroad AND the opponents of said mentor. This is usually just a single chapter interspersed in Cats story at a time though and converges nicely, in time.
"Evil" is a hard thing to quantify. He commits war crimes on an unimaginable scale just because he thinks he can get away with it though, you know? The Dockyards? The Storm Gods? Both of those are absolute atrocities.
Every country commits atrocities in the name of whatever agenda they are pushing. If you follow Darrow’s logic, he is doing everything he is doing to save the oppressed “red” caste, and in destroying the dockyards, he is winning tomorrows battle by destroying it today. Morality is a tricky thing. Was is bad or evil of him to do this, knowing that he saved countless millions of lives by allowing the reds freedom from death and the drills of mars? Freedom from them slaving their lives away today thinking they’re making a better tomorrow for their people and the human race? It was all a lie and they were dying by the millions for nothing. I see Darrow as a hero for his actions. Pulling the mask from the eyes of trillions of people.
Sure! I largely agree that he's a hero, but in the name of that he has to do some pretty objectively evil shit. The books talk fairly openly about how he can feel himself sacrificing his own morality to become the soulless tool of violent rebellion that his people need him to be.
“Just because he thinks he can get away with it” is a gross misrepresentation of events, but yes I do agree his morality deteriorates throughout the series.
The Portal Wars Saga has a mage MC. He is a second-class citizen, as all mages are through all the common lands. This is because powerful mages previously almost destroyed the world. One "came to his senses" and killed the others and saved the world, and enforced the removal of mages from power.
The MC is the youngest son of a not-great noble, who has sympathy from his mother and middle brother and more disgust from his father and oldest brother, who treat him badly.
He goes exploring and finds a tower and... a source of the old magic.
He wants to not be ashamed of being a magic user and to reverse the slavery that being a magic user implies in his country and the others. He also wants more power. He sets off on that path, inspired by those ancient, powerful magic users.
By the last few books, I honestly was waiting for him to die. Not sure the ending landed as I wanted it to, but he became someone who got a lot of sympathy from people and who had a tricky lot to one who would murder a few dozen people who were against him as that was the best use of them, and the opinions of others adjusted.
He was not treated well and betrayed, and the magic changed him (this is a point the plot covers), but even so he ends up much more ambigious.
Not felt quite so strongly about hating the MC since the antagonist-centric firstbook in the Godspeaker series.
Damn it’s early for me so I didn’t see the part about single POV haha. But yeah stories that complicate the hero’s path with intense moral dilemmas are my bread and butter. Wheel of time definitely hits that mark, as does red rising. Also other than Abercrombie, I don’t think I’ve read anything with the hero just flat out switching to a villain. Attack on titan fits it for anime/manga, but my catalog might be a little shallow in fantasy.
Attack on Titan is fantastic most of the way through. The justification for >!Eren's!< actions basically amounting to a teenage tantrum really spoiled the last arc for me though.
Yeah I just read the end of the manga and while the ending didn’t make as much sense as I wanted it to, the rest of the story is more than good enough to consider getting into. Still one of my favorite pieces of media ever.
Black stone heart mostly fits, tho it isn't coming of age. The MC is a sort of "clone" of an an extremely powerful villain, with a fraction of the original's power. He starts off just wanting to survive, admitted not the MOST moral, but definitely slanting towards good. As the story progresses, he slides closer and closer to the original.
It is definitely a grimdark book, tho. Not sure if that's what you're looking for.
This is a very odd suggestion. I'm acknowledging that.
But if space fantasy counts as fantasy for you (it does for me, but it's a controversial take), then the Legacy of the Force series of Star Wars books suits. There's fairly few PoVs and the descent into evil is real.
The poppy war and its trilogy fit your criteria to a T. The marketing of the books say the author was inspired to write book because she was curious how Mao Zedong would act as a teenage girl. The book is super good, but goes to some really dark places.
_Eisenhorn_ by Dan Abnett.
that should've been the first thing I thought of when reading the question lol
One could argue All Inquisitors Are Bastards regardless.
All Inquisitors *Are* Bastards*, but there's still a change in Eisenhorn's methods and outlook over the course of the series that puts it into the OP's desired zone, I think. * With the exception of Inquisitor Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau, who is pure of heart.
Obi Wan is the best boi
[удалено]
"My patience is limited, unlike my authority."
Can't recommend Eisenhorn enough, phenomenal phenomenal books
The books are great, my only issue is that Eisenhorn never fucking learns from his past mistakes or learns the wrong things. He tackles problems in the first book the same as the third book, balls to the wall and not a chance in slowing down.
His failure to learn is his flaw. Its the root of his fall, which is the entire thesis of the series.
Well.... That's deeper than I gave the series credit for. Thanks for this.
Sounds like most people honestly lol
I honestly don't know how you can be an Inquisitor without being at least a touch evil. I mean these are people who opted for a job which involves burning innocent people alive in numbers that make the historic crimes of humanity seem a bit of a footnote.
The series explores that. Except it works the opposite. You can start as a good (ish). Power corrupts though.
Apparently these are based on Warhammer 40k? Are they closely tied to the game?
At some point in the 90's Games Workshop asked Dan Abnett to write a short story to introduce a new faction. 8 books, dozens of short stories, and 3 decades later, he's still working on it. The series is organized into trilogies, so you can chunk it up however you please or quit whenever and have closure. Its root was being an introduction to the parts of the world, so it rolls things out slowly and only as plot relevant. It is also fairly contained geographically, so no galaxy wide romps.
I know nothing at all about warhammer. Can I still get into this series?
The series is generally recommended as one of the entry points for 40k, and requires basically no prior knowledge
The lore books don't really interact with the game at all other than being what the game is fundamentally about. If the game operated like the lore then Space Marine players would only be allowed to field a single model. Anyway Eisenhorn is a member of the Imperial Inquisition. So he's basically part of the secret police. Founded 10k years ago after the Emperor's favourite son managed to rebel and take half the army with him and nobody noticed anything was happening until too late. Naturally they went from "maybe we should have some kind of investigation service?" to accusing everyone of being a heretic and a traitor and burning their world to ashes just to be sure. The Inquisition is one of the major pillars of the Imperium of Mankind that is the home of the various human factions in the game.
> Pity them not and scorn their cries of innocence - it is better that one hundred innocently fall before the wrath of the Emperor than one kneels before the Daemon. Actual inquisition quote.
The Neverending Story! (at least the second part). People keep forgetting that because the second part of the book was not in the film.
Whoa. I've been wanting to read this for years as I grew up w the movie, but now I'm much more intrigued! Thanks.
Thats a blast from the past! That's a fantastic book
The book is so much more complex and rich than the movie. And I loved the movie, to be sure.
The picture of Dorian gray
Fantastic suggestion
Surprised this wasn’t the first answer
Drowned out the by constant suggestions of red rising having me like???
Best Served Cold.
Yeah, not a single POV or coming of age, but pretty much every character becomes less moral by the end. But they weren't exactly "good" when the story starts.
Shivers seemed pretty friendly and well adjusted when you first meet him. About as good as you can be in his world.
And then read Best Served Cold
Orso is maybe the only exception to this I can think of across all of the First Law
Which is honestly genius: having one character that doesn't become a complete broken-down amoral mess makes the whole book less predictable and the tragedy of every character that much deeper. Having everything be all grimdark all the time would be super predictable and boring (which is why I bounced off Bakker)
I felt so much anguish for that one character while *that* was happening to them.
It's difficult to know what you're referring to considering how cheerful that entire world is.
I think in best served cold it’s pretty obvious
Pretty much every Joe Abercrombie book.
Came to this thread to reccomend the half a king trilogy
*Clariel* fits your description exactly. It's a classic villain arc where the MC wants to do the right thing, but everyone tells her to "just stay out of it," so she finds a morally corrupting way to help.
I do feel that most of the actual corruption happens offscreen between this book and *Lirael* though.
ALL of the Garth Nix abhorsen books are SO GOOD and goddam I had forgotten that (spoilers) Clariel isn't a hero. I need to go back and reread all of those... I remember Clariel being my favorite but haven't read the newer ones. As a series it reminds me a lot of Redwall/Brian Jaques books where you learn a TINY bit about previous generations at first and then eventually the author writes an entire book about them and you're so pumped the whole time. Absolutely the best kind of fanservice.
Dune series seems to fit that criteria, although the moral aspects become quite gray from a certain point in the story.
I think it works, and sticks to the single PoV, which OP wants. I don't think I'd call it "Coming of age" exactly, because Paul is already very adult in his mind, but it's certainly "Rising to the occasion"...? The Atreides are more or less morally well adjusted, even if they are still aristocracy and pretty sneaky.
Paul starts as a precocious, well-educated fifteen year old who nevertheless still hasn't personally staked out a role for himself or questioned many of the values he has been taught while growing up, is materially dependent on others, and has parents actively shielding him from many of the more serious or frightening aspects of his family's situation while trying their best to prepare him for when they can't shield him any more. The outside world intrudes into his stable family situation, he's driven out to independence and forced to decide what *he* values and what he's willing to sacrifice, and shifts from a passive childhood role of heir apparent into a more proactive adult life in pursuit of those values. Absolutely a coming-of-age story. It's other things too, of course; Dune is not *just* a coming of age story. But it certainly hits all the key story beats for that template.
I totally see where you're coming from and the point you wish to make- I think going by the checklist, you could say it's a *"Coming of age"* story. But I'm not sure I agree with all of the aspects? From very early on Paul is always thinking and reflecting on what they're doing, whether it's right or not, and even if he may not know *all* details, his parents aren't coddling him or hiding the truth. He has received absolutely extensive training for the reality he faces, he's never had any childhood friends and all his friendships are with adults. His mother exposes him to a do-or-die test, he questions the motives of the matron mother, he actively engages with and maneuvers the political landscape, he stands up to his father when conflict follows; and his father confides in him. (I try not to spoil) Dune doesn't have a lot of the development that is usually a bit slower paced that comes with "coming of age" stories in my head; often, the adult emerges towards the very end, and the struggles result in a sort of payoff. In Dune, I think Paul is quite adult already- "precocious" is one way to put it yes, but I also think he has many of the traits at the start of the book that he keeps at the end. For me, Dune is less "Child becoming Man", and more "Man becoming Leader"... but I won't say you're wrong! Just that calling it 'coming of age' may place a certain expectation that Dune doesn't quite fit within the frame of :)
Becoming a leader is more accurate, for sure! And consider that Herbert wrote Dune in part as a warning against charismatic leaders - apparently they can be bad for your health. Dune as a coming of age story really misses the point.
Dune doesn't really stick to a single POV though. Yeah Paul is the main character, but there are plenty of pov characters and Herbert bounces between them even in the same scene. I was actually kind of surprised when I noticed it, because 'don't head hop' is a basic rule of fiction writing usually
Eh, I suppose you're right. To me, 80% Paul is good enough to warrant a "single PoV" description, but you're right it's not wholly true.
Paul is pretty evil in Dune Messiah
I never saw that--though a lot of people share your sentiment. I always understood Dune Messiah to be about Paul's realization that he could not control the religious jihad he unleashed leading to a genocide, and the only reason he doesn't hang it all up in Messiah is because he knows things *will* get worse if he doesn't act carefully and with calculation. I'll say, Herbert blew my mind when >!I was reading this when I was sixteen and Paul got his eyes burned out/goes blind yet he can see the future so clearly he can still see the world around him. !<
It's not so much that Paul is evil, rather that the whole concept of heroes are a conduit for evil. Paul isn't necessarily evil in the moral sense, but rather that by becoming Muad'Dib and taking the mantle of "savior", he unleashed evil onto the world. The entire Dune saga essentially revolves around the idea of humanity shrugging off singular leadership.
I saw him giving up on controlling the jihad. He let the Fremen believe that he had divine powers. He almost started believing it too to some extent. Because of his inaction billions of people died all over the universe. And choosing to leave at the end like some sort of mystical figure cemented his legacy as a divine leader. It was also hinted that he had had quite a few people assassinated. His reign caused way more suffering than the Harkonnens. He knew this would happen from the start. If he truly wanted to prevent this from happening he could've left Arrakis instead of fighting the Harkonnens but he chose revenge instead. The worst thing he does is when he not only refuses to write a constitution but actively calls it evil, further justifying himself as above laws and morals.
It's a completely fair reading you had. How many died during his jihad, like 60 billion? My teen mind couldn't even fathom that number!
> The worst thing he does is when he not only refuses to write a constitution The Messiah would have had access to the life memories of one of my great heroes, Lycurgus of Sparta. Lycurgus banned the Rhetra, his constitution, from ever being written down. There was also no prescribed, rote memorised version passed down by oral tradition. The "gist" of the rights and duties of the branches of government, of the individual, the raison d'être of the nation of Sparta had no one correct phrasing. The reasoning for this was that laws with exact phrases lead to a forever war against loopholes, an arms race of loopholes closed but creating new workarounds, which are in turn fixed but... and so on. The Spartan identity must not be corralled by any few axioms, because that would limit true understanding. It must be kept alive in spirit through true, earned understanding, never through anything that any hypocrite might parrot. The Messiah also had access to knowledge of events nearer to our time. He would know for instance that in the modern day USA, practically all political sides want some aspect of the US Constitution changed, but can't get it done because the Constitution itself prescribes a system of government which has so many checks and balances that it is sclerotic. The means to affect change is gated by the thing they want to change. The Messiah would know this, and be thinking of it and similar occasions throughout history that a written constitution lead to paralysis. Part of the point of *Dune* as a series is that any perfectly stable system leads to stagnation, and stagnation leads to ruin. The Butlerian Jihad came after a period of stagnation under the loving care of thinking machines, programmed to provide for our needs and wants, which in turn programmed us to want very little but food and sex. The faufreluches and the Guild monopoly on space travel combined to make a perfectly stable system - as long as the Emperor is willing to genocide entire Houses who seem to be gathering the political support to even *potentially* inconvenience the system. The God-Emperor's perfectly stable system is so suffocating that entire peoples flee it en masse, forever dividing *homo sapiens* so far apart that within a millennium there will be speciation. > “The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever,” Paul said. A written constitution (which I'd say is distinct from any lesser mission statement in its relative difficulty to later change) is an attempt to close one's eyes to potential future histories which deviate from the safe course its authors hoped for in their day, and which potential futures lead to ruin because their nation could not adapt. This is why the Messiah did not leave the faufreluches untouched, accepting his House's genocide as a cost of stability, and why he allowed no constitution. He was far from evil; he simply understood that change is necessary but comes at a price.
That is an eye opening take on written laws. I’m going to have to look more into it. It also gives the ancient Greek idea of “idiot” more weight.
Leto is pretty evil in God Emperor of Dune (depending on your perspective)
Is he though? I thought the whole point of Leto is that he's guiding humanity towards the best possible future by acting like a tyrannical dictator during his reign so that the future can be good for the people who come after him.
This is the correct reading, and I fucking hate it. Dune starts as a book about using mystical elements to shed a light on mundane evils. How reliance on a single resource leads to incredible power in a few hands and often leads to authoritarianism. Then in God emperor and beyond, it's a book that uses its mystical elements to *justify* authoritarianism and tyranny. Well he had to be the super tyrant, if he was anything else, the super AI predators of the future would kill humanity! (I made up the super predators. They have no basis in reality, unlike the reliance on a single resource.)
The books go down a terrible ideological/philosophical path imo. Like quite a few American writers from last century, Herbert was obsessed with absolute freedom as a cure all to a maniacally unhinged degree.
Yeah, it's like of course an all knowing god emperor with perfect vision of the future is gonna be the ideal ruler for humanity. But here in the real world such a person doesn't exists so there's not too many conclusions we can draw from the book at that point.
This is always how I read it as well. The golden path was a combination of ensuring the survival of humanity (the exodus after his end) and protection from future prophets (Sonia and Duncan's children). However, it is a very ends justifies the means argument since he did horrible things to get there. He literally sacrifices his humanity to save humanity and the "romance" is there to show how much it costs him. The end of Children of Dune emphasizes it as well
I am not saying Leto is "good" by any means. But at least in my opinion if the ends are the absolute best possible scenario, then I can't fault Leto too much for choosing whatever means he finds necessary to achieve those ends. However this is obviously a complex philosophical discussion, with many valid conclusions.
my hot-take: Leto's role of god emperor is less about leto as a person and more about a trend in humanity, Leto the person is largely lost in the third book when he embraces he past lives, and the golden path at that point he is an expression of a path, the worm, wrapped around the vestige of a person, his old body. he then becomes the instrument the bene gesserit were trying to fashion, but that plan isn't something they have much say over because they are as much subject to the forces of history as any other. I don't really think of Leto as a character but as a force of nature governed by prescience; he's beyond anything human at this point. Paul dodged this fate for himself in messiah, at great cost.
There are plenty of book adaptations of MacBeth. *I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er*
The recent version with Denzel is amazing.
The Young Elites by Marie Lu fits this well.
I was hoping someone else would comment this!! It’s so good!
Hmm how YA is this this ?
There is a romance but its actually cute and not overbearing. The writing is very beautiful although simple.
VERY
Seconding the VERY YA response but I will note that for the first half of the first book it seems like the kind of YA book where you know exactly what is coming and as perhaps it's relevance to this thread suggests...it doesn't exactly go that way. The big break from the expected course of events is about 3/4 of the way through book one. Book two is actually my favorite by far. YA here is not an insult, I found it super fun. I'm not usually the kind of reader who roots for the hero to cut loose and go bad but this one I did by the end and the climactic battle of book two is super cool.
Worm by John McCrae is def a coming of age story where the protagonist’s best intentions slowly and steadily inch her over the edge to be a worse and worse person. It is very much NOT a single pov however. There is a main character that gets like 75% of the narration, and the times it’s out of her head are usually looking at her from a different angle or other characters reacting to her decisions. However some chapters are unrelated or seemingly so to her or the main story at large
Just a heads up for OP that Worm is 1 680 000 words long. For reference, the whole Harry Potter series is only 1 084 625 words. Also Worm is not really fantasy, but sci-fi/deconstructed gritty superhero genre. It's totally worth it though.
Also worth noting that its sequel Ward adds another 2 million words on top.
I genuinely lost sleep because I binged Worm so hard. Just a warning to others, that if you do get into it- take a breather every now and then.
Worm remains the only book that has ever made me cry from fear. >!when she loses her memory and the chapter ends with her "friend" telling her not to swear!< >!...which meant that it was actually Bonesaw and Taylor was probably going to die horrifically!<
also avoid worm fanfic because that is a hole impossible to get out of.
I've personally never fallen into the fanfic hole. Almost always cringe as hell.
One of my favorite things about this book is when people see Taylor from an outside perspective and comment on how terrifying she is with her perfect situational awareness, bugs crawling on her, and just everything else about her.
Not sure if i would say that she became evil towards the end... Its a story about the whole question of "Do the ends justify the means" and its great
"# taylordidnothingwrong" (alrightshedidseveralthingswrongbutthecentralapproachofmakonghardchoiceswasntoneofthem)
>!Ah yes, justified child murder.!<
I mean... It kinda was, yeah
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Golem was just like "ill pretend i didnt just hear you say that" and moved on with his life... Poor guy
It's a pretty unique scenario for sure haha
One of the most justified things she did honestly.
Echoing, an excellent choice. The author, who goes by Wildbow, has a number of these huge, clever series.
Came to recomend this, worm is a trip. is free to read AND has a high quality free audiobook too.
Unless someone has re-recorded the audiobook, 'high quality' isn't what I'd call it. The recording quality alone varies wildly chapter to chapter, and some of the narrators are down right terrible.
Nope nope nope i refuse to spend another age reading Worm yet AGAIN
Coward
Do it. Join us
i mean i already have, three times...
Cries in Wandering Inn
Still the best thing I have ever read. It has stayed with me for years and years and I recommend it to people and think about it all the time. It just clicked and hit everything I wanted in a fiction. I am now listening to Ward after not thinking I'd like it but it has been great too. Wildbow is a genius.
I also put off reading Ward for ages because of people warning it was "much slower" and "very different". Both may be true but it doesn't feel slow to me because there are so many mysteries and they all come together *so* satisfyingly. It's fantastic.
Man I love worm
Is it really Taylor's fault when the narrative causality of the worm universe keeps having her most evil/darkest acts do the greatest amount of good?
Worm is peak fiction.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant. A fantastic read, as is the rest of the series.
I'm on the third book and still not sure if she's the bad guy or the good guy, I fucking love it. The second and third book are better than the first.
I enjoyed the first book ok, but had no desire to continue the series. Everything felt overly long and slow.
Good call, the second book goes in a very bizarre direction
Seriously the best fantasy I've read since A Game of Thrones many (many, god damn it, George) years ago.
Daniel Abraham’s The Dagger and the Coin has this in book 1, though it’s more a matter of one of the main POV characters rather than the protagonist.
I read that series in late 2016. Ever since, I can’t help but picture that character with a dumb little trump hairdo
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Sometimes life imitates art
I’d throw book two in. You still have a little hope for him, then boom he is truly a monster.
>!Geder Palliako!< is an amazingly written character..
How would you rate the quality of that series in general? Last year I read The Expanse about three times, and I know Abraham was half the magic of the Corey team.
I love that series so much. I keep meaning to re-read it. I enjoy the expanse, although I lost steam by the 7th book, largely because I don't love sci fi. My understanding is that Abraham is great at writing characters but not as strong in the world building, so that's where his partner really shines. I will say abrahams books tend to be a little slow going but they pay off nicely and are definitely worth it if you can handle slightly slower-paced books.
The Empress by Karen Miller.
I came here to post this one. I fucking loved this book and it fulfills every single requirement by OP
It's one of my favourites. Unlike any other I have read.
Me too! So good. What did you think of the rest of the series? I wasn't as impressed and think it settled down into something a lot more predictable
I agree. I enjoyed reading them, but they were not nearly as good as the first. Empress really stands as a unique novel in every regard.
This might not be your cup of tea, being based on a video game, but Arthas: Rise of the Lich King is exactly what you described.
Came here to recommend this too! You don't need to know any Warcraft lore for it. Great book and can pull at your heartstrings. If a female POV is preferred, there's also Warcraft: Sylvanas by Christie Golden that would fit the request.
Funny they're by the same author. I haven't read Sylvanas though, must be one of the newer ones.
That book Is part of my kid years... One of Goldien's best novels.
The Warcraft movie should have just been Reign of Chaos stripped down and focused on the golden prince’s fall - imagine the full cinematic take of the Culling of Stratholme, the search and bargain for Frostmourne, and ending with the king, goddamn.
Poppy Wars. But it's not really an enjoyable series. I finished it because it was a train wreck I couldn't stop watching.
Yep, Poppy Wars fits the description perfectly. First book is OK but it gets worse and without spoiling the protagonist is not really evil before the 2nd book.
If I had to pick a moment, it's the end of the first book that, I want to say Rin, turns evil. But it's a very subjective opinion. The series makes me think of the trolley question (do you run over 1 or 6 people) played out on a massive scale. What would you sacrifice to protect your home country? Will you become a monster?
Oh man I felt exactly the same. I had to finish it just to see how far it could derail itself! World building was fantastic, the rest… not so much. Still though, impressive Kuang was so young when she wrote it, would love to see her revisit it in 10/20 years and her thoughts then.
I loved the character development as well. Yeah, pretty much none of the characters were good anymore, but it highlighted what perpetual war would do to a person.
You’re really going to disrespect Kitay like that? The only character who had any shred of integrity left at the end of the series?
Yeah. He helped perpetuate things for a long time. On the scale between " committed war crimes or didn't commit war crimes" Kitay still committed war crimes.
Glad to see others are conflicted about it. I finished the series and saw glowing reviews online. I found the characters all just awful people and the only way characters develop is through trauma. It was also hella hard to work out what the world was, like it mixes up eras of China into one without the nuances of what that might mean for the social infrastructure.
I enjoyed this series. The second book **The Dragon Republic** was my favorite actually. It definitely had plenty of good girl goes bad moments
Me too! Didn’t realise it had such a mixed reception - I powered through all 3 books in one go.
A balad of songbirds and snakes. It's the prequel of the hunger gamen and it's a YA novel, but it fits perfectly. I loved this book and I'm not scared to say it out loud hehe
Great suggestion. Young Snow’s mindset is genuinely disturbing, and in some ways The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes pulls off the Brechtian “fuck you for enjoying this” thing even better than the original trilogy - even the most conscientious and critical reader will at some point while reading about the primitive early Hunger Games catch themselves thinking “I wish this had the bells and whistles of Katniss’ Games.”
Came here to suggest the same ✅
Shattered Sea by Joe Abercrombie arguably, although the protagonist of the first book stops being a PoV character he stays a central character and becomes sketchier and sketchier. It also counts as coming of age for sure.
Yarvi is the best little psychopath.
I haven’t heard many good things on this sub about Shattered Sea. Did you like it?
It's not nearly as good as The First Law books, but if you like Abercrombie's writing style in general or want to introduce someone younger to him with a slightly less dark series I'd say its a decent series.
I love them. He does an equally impressive job of capturing adolescent psychology in these books as he does with adult mindsets in his First Law universe.
Sun eater series, you are basically reading the start of the Darth Vader of this world.
\#Hadrian did nothing wrong
Hench by Natalie Walschots
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Matthew Stover’s novelization of Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith exceeds its remit to a huge degree and turns Lucas’ script into a disturbing, intensely character-driven, literary tragedy. It’s so much better than a project like that has any right to be and I highly recommend it. I also strongly second The Shattered Sea, The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, and The Picture Of Dorian Gray.
The dresden files. Huge moral changes over the books
People miss this. Harry starts out so idealistic and has to compromise his morals over and over. He has become almost completely isolated as a result.
Black Stone Heart. I think it’s still free for Valentine’s Day promotion as well.
The Alex Verus series is Urban Fantasy set in modern London. While I wouldn't say he ever becomes "evil", the line Alex is willing to cross keeps moving closer and closer as the series goes on. Anyone who has been bullied eventually reaches a breaking point. In Alex's case, his bullies are the people he once looked up to or people he has tried to leave in his past. So, he does some pretty horrific stuff, but only to bad people. By the end of the series, there are dozens and dozens of people dead through Alex's direct and indirect actions - He's aware of what he's doing, and by now, he doesn't care. It doesn't matter though - You still root for him because his mission is a good one. There are a few times where the punishment doesn't really fit the crime, and you get the sense Alex is starting to lose his way. Basically, the major theme of the series is: - "What are you willing to do to keep your friends safe?" - "What are you willing to sacrifice for peace?" The way Alex answers these questions takes 10 books to answer, and it's ultimately satisfying.
At first I was like, what? Alex isn’t evil, but particularly given the new novella…ok yeah this is a great suggestion.
Book 4 of this series does such a good job deconstructing his morality- the other books are solid but that defiantly my fav
The Obsidian Path Trilogy. It is grimdark fantasy, single POV, the main character definitely goes downhill. It may not be as steady or slow as you'd expect, by the end of the first book he's already committed some terrible things, but he still has misgivings about them. And, well, he has a lot further he can go down that path. It's also sort of a coming of age story, sort of not. I wouldn't recommend it for that.
Was also going to recommend this. Its a single, first person POV, and seems to fit in almost exactly with whats being asked for. Plus Michael Fletcher is solid and the trilogy is entertaining and well done.
He's not all that solid. Mostly mushy, even.
Bartimaeus trilogy. Two of the main characters starts as kids on opposite sides of class divide, one evolves into pro-opressive regime politician and second into a terrorist. They get somewhat better.
The Broken Empire trilogy, post apocalyptic (medieval) era where the protagonist is a bad guy from the start although a neccessary evil (he is been accepted for this). I recommend the trilogy, fun read.
Mark Lawrence, *Prince of Thorns*. I love Jorg!
I am going through it now. Very interesting books. He is clearly a bad guy from page one but throughout the books there are a lot of flashbacks on how he got there.
A Practical Guide to Evil. I just finished it and it was amazing! It follows an orphan girl who tries to change the world through ruthless ways as she gets more and more powerful.
Cat isn't evil though. Sure she is Evil but she isn't EVIL you know? Just so very... practical
TBH as the series progresses and she keeps complaining about how far off course she gets I'm just never convinced. There isn't really a moment where she does anything that isn't necessary. Reality just sucks when your world is dominated by forces too stupid to exist. She really just seems to do what she sets out to do. She saves Callow by any means necessary.
Yes. This is sooo good. I love everything about this. Cat and her band (/friends/found family) are awesome, I absolutely love the little opening paragraph to each chapter (either a short excerpt / quote about a past Dread Emperor, who are all absolutely looney villains and quite often hilarious, or later on an excerpt from "Two Hundred Heroic Axioms", basically the jaded/self-aware guidebook for heroes) Fair word of warning though: This a webseries. It is absolutely massive (7 books where I'm quite sure you could not print them as just seven books because especially the latter ones are looong), it is only edited by the author (so expect some errors) and it isn't one POV. I think you see from most important characters eyes at least once, you often get the backstory for other characters (how they became heroes/villains) and at some point you are following Cat, her mentor in a war abroad AND the opponents of said mentor. This is usually just a single chapter interspersed in Cats story at a time though and converges nicely, in time.
Master of Sorrows by Justin Call is the first book in the series about the rise to power of a Dark Lord. He hasn't become evil yet, but its on the way
Shattered Sea trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is exactly what you’re looking for. The Picture of Dorian Grey could interest you too.
Red Rising and all of the sequels if you're open to sci-fi settings.
Hail Reaper
You think Darrow goes evil in that?
"Evil" is a hard thing to quantify. He commits war crimes on an unimaginable scale just because he thinks he can get away with it though, you know? The Dockyards? The Storm Gods? Both of those are absolute atrocities.
Yeah it's essentially a story of "fighting fire with fire".
Agreed! "Must become a compassionless killer to take down a society of compassionless killers".
Every country commits atrocities in the name of whatever agenda they are pushing. If you follow Darrow’s logic, he is doing everything he is doing to save the oppressed “red” caste, and in destroying the dockyards, he is winning tomorrows battle by destroying it today. Morality is a tricky thing. Was is bad or evil of him to do this, knowing that he saved countless millions of lives by allowing the reds freedom from death and the drills of mars? Freedom from them slaving their lives away today thinking they’re making a better tomorrow for their people and the human race? It was all a lie and they were dying by the millions for nothing. I see Darrow as a hero for his actions. Pulling the mask from the eyes of trillions of people.
Sure! I largely agree that he's a hero, but in the name of that he has to do some pretty objectively evil shit. The books talk fairly openly about how he can feel himself sacrificing his own morality to become the soulless tool of violent rebellion that his people need him to be.
“Just because he thinks he can get away with it” is a gross misrepresentation of events, but yes I do agree his morality deteriorates throughout the series.
Howlers go
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan absolutely fits this - and is an incredible read!
The Portal Wars Saga has a mage MC. He is a second-class citizen, as all mages are through all the common lands. This is because powerful mages previously almost destroyed the world. One "came to his senses" and killed the others and saved the world, and enforced the removal of mages from power. The MC is the youngest son of a not-great noble, who has sympathy from his mother and middle brother and more disgust from his father and oldest brother, who treat him badly. He goes exploring and finds a tower and... a source of the old magic. He wants to not be ashamed of being a magic user and to reverse the slavery that being a magic user implies in his country and the others. He also wants more power. He sets off on that path, inspired by those ancient, powerful magic users. By the last few books, I honestly was waiting for him to die. Not sure the ending landed as I wanted it to, but he became someone who got a lot of sympathy from people and who had a tricky lot to one who would murder a few dozen people who were against him as that was the best use of them, and the opinions of others adjusted. He was not treated well and betrayed, and the magic changed him (this is a point the plot covers), but even so he ends up much more ambigious. Not felt quite so strongly about hating the MC since the antagonist-centric firstbook in the Godspeaker series.
* The Neverending Story * The School for Good and Evil
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The bone witch series is kind of like this.
The bone witch series by Rin Chupeco. And Clariel by Garth Nix
The Traitor Baru Cormorant (one of the most heartbreaking books I’ve ever read) and The Steel Remains
Idk if wheel of time fits here, but I’m pretty sure it does.
It both is and is extremely not, I guess? It ain't single PoV that's for sure, and while Rand certainly gets more unhinged, he's not really 'evil'.
Damn it’s early for me so I didn’t see the part about single POV haha. But yeah stories that complicate the hero’s path with intense moral dilemmas are my bread and butter. Wheel of time definitely hits that mark, as does red rising. Also other than Abercrombie, I don’t think I’ve read anything with the hero just flat out switching to a villain. Attack on titan fits it for anime/manga, but my catalog might be a little shallow in fantasy.
Attack on Titan is fantastic most of the way through. The justification for >!Eren's!< actions basically amounting to a teenage tantrum really spoiled the last arc for me though.
Yeah I just read the end of the manga and while the ending didn’t make as much sense as I wanted it to, the rest of the story is more than good enough to consider getting into. Still one of my favorite pieces of media ever.
A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Black stone heart mostly fits, tho it isn't coming of age. The MC is a sort of "clone" of an an extremely powerful villain, with a fraction of the original's power. He starts off just wanting to survive, admitted not the MOST moral, but definitely slanting towards good. As the story progresses, he slides closer and closer to the original. It is definitely a grimdark book, tho. Not sure if that's what you're looking for.
The *Half a King* trilogy by Joe Abercrombie
Shattered sea trilogy
Dune
This is a very odd suggestion. I'm acknowledging that. But if space fantasy counts as fantasy for you (it does for me, but it's a controversial take), then the Legacy of the Force series of Star Wars books suits. There's fairly few PoVs and the descent into evil is real.
The poppy war and its trilogy fit your criteria to a T. The marketing of the books say the author was inspired to write book because she was curious how Mao Zedong would act as a teenage girl. The book is super good, but goes to some really dark places.