Most books and shows that I've seen which feature a villain protagonist, they're a killer, and the audience is made to feel bad for this character as their victims are often some of the worst individuals conceivable. Light Yagami is a notable exception. For characters who are actualy psychopaths, the author basically just writes them with 0 sex drive like with Dexter to get away from the obvious fact that surely a serial killer who is incapable of empathy wouldn't have any problem with also commiting rape.
Then of course there's the books where the main character does do those things but it's very downplayed and the MC receives no backlash, and it's even implied the characters deserved it like in Redo of Healer, or that they liked it or grow to like it such as in Fifty Shades of Grey. There's also books where it's not even addressed at all such as in Mushoku Tensei.
As opposed to those books, I would like to read a book where the main character commits rape and at the very least it's conveyed to the reader that should they be caught, there will be consequences. It doesn't matter to me if they actually get caught, and it focuses on some sort of redemption arc, or if it focuses on events leading up to their arrest, or if they don't get caught. All that matters is that they are portrayed as a bad person who did something bad, and their victims are portrayed as actual victims of a horrible act.
by LogosKing
4 Comments
Maybe ‘The People In the Trees’ by Hanya Yanagihara.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. I’m surprised people don’t talk about it more, but the protagonist getting to the point of committing a sexual assault, and then the aftermath of that are a major turning point in the book’s arc.
Disclaimer, I have not read this book but I know that something similar to what your describing happens.
Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen Donaldson