r/Nietzsche • u/EccentricWisdom • Jul 31 '25
Question Which fictional character best embodies Nietzsche’s philosophy?
In your opinion.
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Conan the Barbarian.
I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
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u/IamLostandKnown Aug 01 '25
Where do I get to see this character?
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u/ShredGuru Aug 01 '25
Are you serious?
There is like, hundreds of books and comics, a cartoon, a TV show, a good Arnold movie, a mediocre Arnold movie, and an awful Jason Mamoa movie.
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u/ThrowawayStr9 Jul 31 '25
Clearly Pippi Longstocking, as explained here: http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1139914
She's the embodiment of amor fati and living your life according to values you've come up with yourself.
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u/altgrave Jul 31 '25
it's somewhat easier to love a life with seemingly unlimited gold, super strength, and no parental supervision.
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u/artinfinx Jul 31 '25
the count of monte cristo, macbeth
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u/HopefullyASilbador Aug 05 '25
Macbeth seems way more Machiavellian. What aspects of Nietzche do you see in Macbeth?
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Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25
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u/Beautiful-Height-311 Dionysian Sep 04 '25
That's where you're wrong, Nietzsche absolutely adored Machiavelli.
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Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 04 '25
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u/Beautiful-Height-311 Dionysian Sep 04 '25
Most people don't understand who Machiavelli really was. Machiavelli wasn't an egoist, nor did he believe that you should just go around doing immoral things to win money or power, he believed that the man that does bad stuff but in the name of whatever he's responsible for (In the prince, that would be the state) will be justified, but the guy that did it just for his own personal gain, isn't.
Machiavelli has been confused and identified as a Greenish figure for far too long.
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Sep 04 '25
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u/Beautiful-Height-311 Dionysian Sep 05 '25
Greenish as in referring to Robert Greene's manipulative ideals
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u/Alberrture Jul 31 '25
Scooby Doo, think about it
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u/Tesrali Donkey or COW? Aug 01 '25
I did but then I had a white Russian and just decided to abide, man.
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u/Dark_Cloud_Rises Jul 31 '25
Forrest Gump
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u/totheunknownman----- Jul 31 '25
Please elaborate. There’s no character that I know better than Forrest.
Do you have any examples?
Thank you!
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u/Dark_Cloud_Rises Aug 01 '25
Forrest lives authentically, never deluding himself with a false idea of who or what he is. He loves who je loves with 100% of his being whether it be someone who is kind to him or not, no resentment. The embodiment of amor fati, he lives each day with passionately indulged in whatever that day brings rain or shine. He does not seek power but is an expression of power; reaching the status of war hero, millionaire business owner, influential across all his encounters including elvis and the cult of runners who seek to be like him.
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u/PeppaPigsDiarrhea69 Aug 01 '25
Not the best, but I think Walter White, specifically at the end of Breaking Bad, can be a good one.
"I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And... I was really... I was alive"
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Jul 31 '25
Tyler Durden
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u/secondshevek Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Isn't Durden somewhat of an embodiment of ressentiment? His values are based on antipathy to modern life and psychological fixation on masculinity. He's not at all life affirming, and he encourages a cult that views him as absolute leader. Fight Club is a great book, but I don't think this is the takeaway.
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u/Qs__n__As Aug 01 '25
Lol, so almost precisely Nietzsche, then.
Just saying the quiet parts out loud.
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u/AlchemicallyAccurate Aug 01 '25
While he is undoubtedly cool, I think his mindset and overall philosophy clearly fit under slave morality. I actually think if someone’s values are built from anger whatsoever, they can’t really be ubermenschian; so in a way it’s less about what the values themselves are and more about how they get to them.
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u/Chr0nicallydepressed Aug 01 '25
Didn’t Fincher describe Durden as being based off toxic masculine misinterpretations of Nietzsche?
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u/HiPregnantImDa Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Whosoever lives their values is Nietzschean in essence
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u/AlchemicallyAccurate Jul 31 '25
Not really. I think anyone can see that if someone is living by views created out of fear or denial, they’re not on the path to being the ubermensch.
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u/Internal-Collar-2159 Aug 01 '25
At the end of the day, only an individual knows the source of his own values. Other will always try to deface somebody's values by ascribing them to low intentions, just because they don't like them.
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u/AlchemicallyAccurate Aug 02 '25
People hardly ever know the source of their own values, or at least we would have to say it is certainly well-observed that people create values that they think are their own but are actually rooted in some deep-seated insecurity or because it allows them to not face something that they don't want to face.
Proving this is obviously quite impossible. But we can directly infer from the adaptability of the worldview, which is why Nietzsche pressed so much on life acceptance and amor fati. Someone who engages in life denial regularly will have values that actually keep them from engaging with the world, because it will be painful for them. If they are adapted, then they will be able to not only engage with everything but also take something meaningful from everything they encounter that actually **transforms** them and does not make them retreat back into a shell.
So in a sense, sticking by your own values (by which I mean previous values - this is important) can actually make someone the opposite of ubermenschian. It is very frequently the case that people do so out of fear and retreat, and the worldview directly reflects how much they do so. If it is bad enough, then they will retreat into a small enough corner of reality that every outward challenge is a direct attack. At this point surely we could say that we all but know for certain the origin of his values.
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u/7H3l2M0NUKU14l2 Jul 31 '25
The germans from the big lebowski
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u/altgrave Jul 31 '25
i assume you're joking, but them's nihilists, which nietzsche explicitly condemns, and very silly nihilists, at that.
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u/vestac95 Jul 31 '25
...Griffith
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Griffith is quite literally full of resentment. Berserk presents an interesting inversion of the image of the nietzschean man, where Guts is (very obviously) "the struggler", the life affirming one, while Griffith lived under the illusion of his own control and when he lost it he totally broke down and became resented, and of course did all the horrible things he did.
Saying Griffith is a nietzschean character is like saying "Nietzschean is when no morals". Which is not a smart statement and reveals more on your reading of Nietzsche (or the fact that you didn't read any) than anything.
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u/secondshevek Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Good comment. Berserk and Nietzsche both draw fans who seem to completely miss the author's point.
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Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Isn't Guts' whole quest driven by vengeance? Why is Griffith's "resentment" an issue, then? I can only see that Griffith did what he did because he couldn't stand the fact that Guts had become stronger than him, and now that he has become a god-like figure and done those horrible things (exploitation?), Guts seeks vengeance and is in a similar position. However, none of them value weakness as a result of being surpassed by strength, so maybe "resentment" in a Nietzschean context isn't the right characterization in the first place? I am not sure- not well-read enough.
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Aug 01 '25 edited Sep 07 '26
Nietzsche doesn't deem all revenge as "resentment-driven". He is very meticulous in differentiating an reactive vengeance based on ideas of "justice" and "morals" and an active vengeance based on capacity, tension dissolution and expression. I won't dive too deep into this though because it's not part of my point. I think it's in Genealogy of Morals where he talks the most about it, so if you're curious check it out.
Guts not only acts by "revenge" but also by protection; him and Casca are still marked as sacrifices, and he also sees in the death of Griffith a way to "revert" and "fix" Casca's mental condition. I won't say he isn't resented of Griffith though, because this was a pretty big theme in the beginning of the manga, even directly expressed by Puck as "maybe you shouldn't be living in the past". Guts character steadily grows though, as the manga goes further and makes him more gentle and less revenge-driven, now more worried about protecting himself and his friends instead, and he will never be protected while Griffith is there in Falconia.
Griffith on the other hand appeared to be a noble, aristocratic man, but a VERY big theme from Nietzsche's work (and also, Berserk) is how the will to power of an apparent nobleman can be turned against itself. Griffith was not "strong" from the beginning. Although he looked strong and acted strongly, all this showing-off went away when he lost control for the first time (while strength in the nietzschean sense has a lot to do with letting yourself lose control, because you never even had it in the first place; the universe's nature itself is chaotic, and the will to power itself are forces against forces in an eternal, random battle of chance, and not affirming this is what leads to teleology). He got first resented that Guts had abandoned him to seek his own dream instead of submitting to his will, and then resented to Guts and Casca again because they could find love in each other and strength in each other when he was tortured and destroyed, and then killed all of his friends to become Femto, raped Casca to finally get back his so desired control, and turned his whole potency a negation of the potency of others. There is no strength in this.
Berserk's triumph as a nietzschean work is this subversion of the image we have of strength, and the manga is not subtle about it. Griffith's whole image after the eclipse is to mirror one of the christian saviour, the "white falcon", and Guts in a more demonic, barbaric form. Griffith, the weak man, lives as a nobleman (socially speaking, not in a nietzschean sense) while Guts, the strong man, the struggler, lives in gutters and in the dark.
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u/TheBoyofYore Aug 01 '25
Sonic the Hedgehog. (Atleast the correctly written version)
Not even joking.
Bro is literally the Übermensch.
Also Eren Yeager
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u/CapivaraEnxadachim Jul 31 '25
Luffy
He doesn't care what's right or wrong, he lives by his values alone.
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u/AlchemicallyAccurate Jul 31 '25
Again, like I told the other guy, living by your own values doesn’t cut it.
If someone’s own invented values were made from fear or denial then it doesn’t matter how vehemently they stick to them or live by them. Not that I’m saying this about the character you mentioned, idk anything about him, but the reasoning is insufficient.
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u/CapivaraEnxadachim Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Sure, I agree that it is not enough, as I wasn't trying to properly argue on Luffy's behalf, it was just a somewhat incomplete synthesis of a broader reasoning. I didn't really think it was necessary to elaborate, as anyone familiar with the character can easily relate to him as a life affirming figure, really disjointed from the expectations of the world around him, and a self of natural greatness. As a matter of fact, I think Nietzschean philosophy is very present in One Piece, as one could argue that Luffy and Black Beard are distinct men because of their free spirit, and the Determination of the D could embody the will to power.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 31 '25
Alyosha from The Brothers Karamazov embodies the Nietzsche's idea of the Christ-type. dostoevsky as a whole is almost like Nietzsche expressed through novels.
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u/secondshevek Dionysian Jul 31 '25
I can't believe I had to scroll so far to get to this. As another person commented, the combination of the brothers is very close at times to Nietzsche. Most of the suggestions in this thread are just 'men of action' who dislike rules/social norms or have their own moral code.
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u/tugboattoottoot Hyperborean Jul 31 '25
I'm so glad you said this. You could argue each of the Brothers Karamazov contains psychological elements that correspond with Nietzsche. I fell like Alyohsa is the easiest to overlook, but the most important to have an accurate and positive idea of what Nietzsche was striving for.
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u/Reasonable-Fee1945 Jul 31 '25
Nietzsche called him "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn,"
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Jul 31 '25
Judge Holden?
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u/EmptySymbol Aug 01 '25
I would agree that Holden has will to power, follows a self-made morality and embodies master morality, but he is less life-affirming and more death and violence-affirming, and doesn’t seem to overcome nihilism but, arguably, embody it. Holden is mythical, could say demonic, whereas the ubermensch is a vision grounded in future reality.
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u/Beautiful-Height-311 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Not really.
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Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25
I think it’s a fair. Just because judge Holden is an abhorrent character doesn’t mean he in some capacity isn’t a “Nietzschean”. At the very least this answer is no worse off than some of the other answers given here. I think if anything Judge Holden may not be a complete expression of “Nietzsches” Philosophy but rather just an expression of one aspect of his thought
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u/Beautiful-Height-311 Dionysian Aug 01 '25
He simply embodies SOME of Nietzsche's more brutal ideas. People in this subreddit who have totally "read" Nietzsche seem to forget that he wasn't just some brutal monster who thought that destroying and fighting everyone you see is glorious and masculine.
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Only if you're stupid
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Aug 01 '25
Easy dude, remain kind. Holden is pure will to power, that we can agree on, yes?
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Aug 02 '25
Sure, but that's only because everything is will to power. Not a high bar
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u/CranberryOk1064 Jul 31 '25
Rust Cohlen from True Detective S1
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
How so? Rust is quite literally a Cioran guy. Very far from Nietzsche.
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u/gg-allins-parents Jul 31 '25
hes based on the writings of thomas ligotti
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
I still have to read some Ligotti, I found a book of his nowadays. I do remember Rust directly quoting/mentioning Cioran though
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u/Anarcho-Ozzyist Crowned Anarchist Aug 01 '25
To play devils advocate, I think Rust’s pessimism approaches a kind of Nietzschean ‘pessimism of strength’ right at the end of the series, when he and Marty are looking at the stars together. “Once, there was nothing but dark. Seems to me the light’s winning” is much more life-affirming than anything early-Rust ever said.
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u/CranberryOk1064 Jul 31 '25
He often ponders about the meaninglessness of life.
Also, life repeating itself is - as far as I understand - something Nietzsche wrote about.
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
He does it all in a very nihilistic way though. He himself is a nihilist and a anti-natalist. He is a Cioran reader through and through, not a Nietzsche reader.
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u/CranberryOk1064 Jul 31 '25
Well, but Nihilism is quite an important aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy as well.
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u/Cautious_Desk_1012 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Yes, in the sense that his whole philosophy is made out of criticisms of it. Therefore, Rust can't be a nietzschean. It's like saying a hypercapitalist character is a marxist character because Marx's oeuvre discusses capitalism.
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u/CranberryOk1064 Jul 31 '25
Nah, pal. There is no Übermensch without nihilism.
Also Rust story is very much the story of overcoming nihilism at the end.
I am sorry that I did not spell that out, but the links are quite obvious.
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u/Desdinova_BOC Jul 31 '25
Came here to say Rust Cohle, and as you say both he and Nietzsche overcome nihilism. Time is a flat circle...
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u/Dense_Clue5249 Jul 31 '25
Yep, but in a way, he lives by his own standards and values, and doesn't compromise on what he believes to be his mission
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Jul 31 '25
I haven’t read it yet, but I heard Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain has a character or two that fits the bill.
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Jul 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/EccentricWisdom Jul 31 '25
Interesting. My take on Raskolnikov is he doesn’t really fit Nietzsche’s idea of the Übermensch and nietzschean ideals. He talks big about being above morality, but deep down he’s full of guilt and doubt. Instead of creating his own values, he breaks down. But complex eitherway!
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u/altgrave Jul 31 '25
the whole point of the character of raskilnikov is that he's NOT nietzschean! he's wracked with guilt for most of the novel, and (it's suggested) returns to faith in the end (spoiler for a... 155 year old book)!
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u/Social-Norm Jul 31 '25
Raskolnikov attempts to embody these ideas. He desires to transcend good and evil. But he runs into Dostoyevsky's wall of Christian ethics and can no longer see beyond his guilt and sin.
But he also kinda murdered someone for literally no reason though. It's completely normal and okay to feel disgusting about yourself after doing that, idk.
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Jul 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/Charming_Maximum_748 Aug 01 '25
The parasite was Alyona Ivanovna. Social-norm probably talks about the innocent sister whom he also had to kill.
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u/Hairy_Beginning_6443 Jul 31 '25
Rick Sanchez.
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u/Noise_01 Jul 31 '25 edited Jul 31 '25
Not at all. He's just a nihilist with mental problems. His desires are mundane and very understandable for people.
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u/scrapmetaleater Aug 06 '25
He is a constant slave to an ideal, and copes by trying to act nihilist and tough even though when it comes down to it he really isnt
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u/bistrojoe Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
Freddie Quell in The Master. Didn't realize how Nietzschian my favorite movie was until I read Zarathustra this year.
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Aug 01 '25
Jesus, Buddha, Zarapusta. They’re all symbols of a truth conveyed through the lens of religion or psychology.
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u/Popular-Panic4121 Aug 01 '25
I’m not sure about this one, but was wondering to what extent The Little Prince embodies an Ubermensch
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u/Pure-Instruction-236 Human All Too Human Aug 01 '25
According to my older brother, Batman/Bruce Wayne
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u/lgstchannel Aug 02 '25
I’d argue Vito Corleone. Not because he’s violent, but because he rejects the herd’s morality and builds his own code around loyalty, power, and legacy. He doesn’t ask if his values align with society, rather he just enforces them. That’s pure will to power in action.
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u/EccentricWisdom Aug 02 '25
Since no one mentioned him yet. I think Goethe's Faust, a man who defies limits, seeks experience over dogma, and dares to create his own values. Faust’s relentless striving mirrors Nietzsche’s Übermensch, rejecting passive morality, embracing becoming, and affirming life’s chaos with passion, rebellion, and a will to meaning beyond good and evil
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u/Nickpchapman Aug 03 '25
Interesting how so few fictional characters really represent Nietzsche’s philosophy. Is this because even our heroes are latter day sheep? To truly expound his philosophy, you must overcome adversity, drop pathetic outdated religions and false moralities, liberate yourself from social mores and recreate yourself based on your very own values which do not mark you out as a slave to society. Most writers won’t even begin to create such a character. Why? Because their paying audience will be made up of little slave sheep and they simply won’t get this liberated character. The nearest would be an artist. Maybe Goldmund from Hesses’ Narcissus and Goldmund, but it’s a while since I read it!
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Aug 03 '25
I don’t think he perfectly embodies Nietzsches philosophy but Guts from Berserk is a great example in my opinion
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u/Rebel-Mover Aug 04 '25
They are all fictions and fabrications…you can’t smash philosophy then create a new fantasy…
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u/Dry-Helicopter-528 Dionysian Jul 31 '25
Tyler Durden from fight club. Anti-consumerist, and anti-conformist, he embodies Nietzsche’s disdain for passive modern life.
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u/StudyingRainbow Jul 31 '25 edited Aug 01 '25
David Bowman – 2001: A Space Odyssey (the Übermensch)
Ellen Hutter – Nosferatu (2024) (amor fati, irrationality)
Jack Sparrow – Pirates of the Caribbean (Dionysian existence, value creation, counter-society, irrationality)
Donnie Darko – Donnie Darko (amor fati, eternal recurrence)
Louise Banks – Arrival (amor fati, eternal recurrence)
Thelma – Thelma (2017) (the will to power, self-surpassing, life affirmation, irrationality)
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u/PN143 Jul 31 '25
Interesting! If you don't mind, could you elaborate on Donnie Darko? I was obsessed with that movie when it came out and would love to hear your thoughts on this
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u/StudyingRainbow Jul 31 '25
I think he is a great example of amor fati. I interpret him as being caught in a sort of time loop (so sort of like the eternal recurrence) and he must embrace his absurd (and in the time loop, repeated) death via airplane engine to fulfill his destiny of saving the world from its end – he laughs as his impending death comes, in love and acceptance of his destiny.
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u/Sea-Lingonberry428 Jul 31 '25
Given Nietzsche was a passionate misogynist, I’d have to disagree on that last one.
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u/StudyingRainbow Jul 31 '25
Nietzsche was misogynistic, yes, one of his many flaws. But, despite that, I think Thelma agrees with aspects of his philosophy – in self acceptance, surpassing the life-denying religion of her family and surpassing her inner inhibitions, tuning into the irrational and instinctual aspects of living, and also with the will to power being very present in Thelma’s powers with her ability to literally actualize her will
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u/Jordanisnothing Jul 31 '25
Light from Death Note.
- Attempts to fashion himself as a God on earth (Will to power)
- Willing to do anything to achieve goal (Immoralism)
- Exerts power over / destroys what he deems the underbelly of society (Aristocratic radicalism)
- Catastrophically fails (The typical end for the tragic figures Nietzsche admired)
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u/Pure-Instruction-236 Human All Too Human Aug 01 '25
Light is a deep moralist who thinks he has the right to kill other humans because they're Evil.
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u/Particular_Wear_6960 Jul 31 '25
I've heard that the Ubermensch would be a carefully orchestrated and purposeful creation of a great and healthy society so perhaps maybe Paul Atreides might fit the bill. Seems like we've discussed this here a while back and there's some dissagreement but I'd argue that no one fits 100% not to mention Nietzsche famously uses abstract and subjective descriptions frequently. Perhaps someone like Ozymandias from Watchmen might also work? He certainly seems to be at the very least a "higher" man.
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Jul 31 '25
[deleted]
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u/altgrave Jul 31 '25
how is dr. strange nietzschean? he's an asshole who becomes a cripple that needs to beg to be taught magic, is given that charity, and, then, shares it with the multiverse. where is nietzsche in that?
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u/Widhraz Trickster God of The Boreal Taiga Jul 31 '25
Zarathustra