If Rand were writing AS today, she would have had to write several parallel novels, each telling the story from a slightly different point of view.

Robert Stadler would rate his own full-length novel. I have an idea of the story to tell there:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Robert_Stad...

http://www.conservapedia.com/State_Scien...

http://www.conservapedia.com/Project_X

I love villains whom I can partly identify with. Kahn (prime) is a bad guy bc his wife died after Kirk marooned him. He really is smarter than everyone and feels like people would be wise to let him run things. He is mad Kirk didn't come check on him, something he never wanted or asked for. He's wrong, but we understand why he's doing this.

Gordon Gekko is the same way. His father worked his tail off and died broke. Now he has a job liberating shareholder value tied up by management and unions where milking the gravy train. He'll take bribes from those unions, though, if it is more profitable to him than liquidating the assets for the shareholders. He's actually mostly a hero, which highlights his tragic flaw.

I'm afraid not. I could not publish any of it.

Oddly enough, I'd still call him a hero.

A literary hero is simply that character in any story who has a life-altering decision to make, and after it's over, he or she is not the same person that he or she was going in.

A literary villain, by contrast, pursues his goals with single-minded-ness of purpose, often to a fault, and will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He often literally will kill anyone who stands in his way.

Heroes usually serve a cause you can identify with. Anti-heroes serve a cause we hope you wouldn't identify with, because it is, at least conventionally, evil.

Villains usually serve an unjust cause. Anti-villains serve a just cause.

For that reason, Dagny Taggart and Henry Rearden are the true heroes of Atlas Shrugged. Each one has a decision to make. Rearden decides he has been facilitating evil all the time, and must stop, and support his real friends. Dagny realizes she has been giving away her services free to those who would not lift a finger to help her when the life of her loved one is on the line, so she gets fed up and stops.

The closest thing to an anti-hero in the novel could be Robert Stadler. "Did you think it was for you that I sold my soul?" he starts to say. It is the second-to-last thing he ever says, the last thing being, "Don't touch those levers, G_d d__n you!"

I love this topic. Is any of it available for download?

I use the word "anti-hero" to mean characters like Shaggy of Scooby Doo: a good guy you can sometimes identify with but is not heroic.
I haven't studied writing that much, so I'm likely using it wrong.
What would you call Shaggy?

My #3 most loathsome character was intended to be a hero: Ragnar Danneskjold. He was a villain to me because he was a thief. He claimed to steal only from the looters and give to the producers, but life is never that clear cut. Most people pay some taxes and get money from some stupid gov't program at some point, and that doesn't make them consummate producers or looters. It seemed like his point was the looters didn't respect property, so he wouldn't either, modeling himself after the looters. All thieves have a justification. His was tu quoque. I did not like him.

My #2 most loathsome character:
Jim Taggart was close behind when he became abusive toward his wife for seeing herself as human being equal to him or anyone else. He needed his wife to feel like a diamond in the rough, not quiet worthy, who should always count herself lucky to be affiliated with him.

His evil also showed when they were torturing John Galt and seemed to lose sight of the goal of co-opting Galt and instead just wanted to see him suffer because he was good and that made Jim feel bad.

He was an evil little $#!& through and through.

My #1 Most Loathsome AS Character:
My most loathed character is the woman who doled out benefits at the motor company. She could see that the system was pitting workers against one another, encouraging them to strive to have the best sob story so they could provide for their families. She got some perverse pleasure out of workers competing for her favor, so they could get money for their kid's operation or whatever it was. To top it off, she patted herself on the back for all the good deeds she was doing with other people's money.

I agree Robert

Mouch was incredibly slimy, as well as being a traitor to Rearden. Good quote

Mouch was Dodd-Frank and yes, the most villainous. I can hear Frank quoting Mouch, "to solve this problem I created, I need more money and more regulation latitude and authority". And he got it and made the problem worse. And so it goes. Layer upon layer of more and more oppressive regulations on all of us. Evil villainous defined.

I agree Wesley Mouch was a despicable human being.

Robert Stadler.
He knew the truth. He knew reality. He knew how to reason. He understood proper human relationships. He knew the difference between right and wrong.
He chose to deny all of that in favor of "personal comfort" at the expense of the taxpayer...hence his denial makes him the most evil person.
Ayn said that lack of knowledge wasn't evil. It is when you know the truth and refuse to stick with the truth that you harbor evil.
I agree.

No. Never heard of them. Who are they?

I would be very interested.

if we can expand our view a bit, the worst villain
is the reader who intentionally mis-understands
and damns AR as a vile advocate of unmitigated
greed, unprincipled money-grubbing and selfish
personal aggrandisement. . there are so many
who do this, I believe, while harboring a silent
understanding of the a is a, value for value tenets
which are the foundations of objective living. -- j

p.s. OK, Emma?
.

I agree -- Top Looter Thompson! -- j
.

Totally agree!!!

Hey tem have you ever submitted anything to Liberty Island?

Not to be shot is a decision.

Sorry for the delay. I write speculative fiction, speculating on the end of human history as we know it. If you want further details, I might share them in a private message.

To davidmenabb, I agree with the first part of your comment.. However., the most vile does vote here in my corner of the left coast.

He won by discovering his moral core and being true to it and leaving before they could destroy him.
And, yeah, some days I feel definitely bent over.

Reardon fought hard but ultimately he lost to the government writing laws specifically to destroy him. Reardon lasted the longest but in the end, the government can bend you right over the table!!!