Any books where the Hero actually accepts the villains offer?

[Traab]

The Dresden Files series has some examples.

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The most obvious of which is when Harry Dresden takes the offer extended to him by Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, of power in exchange for service. Dresden needs power, a lot of it, as quickly as possible, and he decides Mab is the least evil of the options available to him.

Ultimately it becomes clear that Mab isn't truly a villain. She's a very complex antihero, and an extraordinarily dangerous one. But Dresden didn't know that when he made the deal.

Well yeah but

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He also arranged to be assassinated to avoid having to hold up his end of the bargain, going so far as to erase his memories so mab would have no way to learn of it before it was too late. Yeah his plan didnt work (at least partially because he didnt remember it and so fought to come back) but still, he had no intention of going along with it.

[Caledonian]

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Yeah, and he came out of his coma with Mab hovering over him like a starved praying mantis over her prey. But he still has to keep his bargain. And after what he was shown by Grandmothers Winter and Summer, he's doing it of his own free will.

tl;dr : go read *The Dresden Files*, at least up to book four, to see if you like what Jim Butcher made when he had more writing experience under his belt and wasn't pastiching noir quite so much. Then read the rest of the series. Oh my god, they just keep getting better...

[Tvtyrant]

I am, of course, referring to the cliche moment in a story where the villain or villainesse offers a position working for them, possibly also a romantic relationship, and other assorted goodies, if the Hero(or "Hero" I suppose) will come over to their side.
Because I can't be the only person who thought that would make a good read right?

The Protomen Rock Opera of Megaman has first Protoman and then Megaman doing this, while Light and his wife both refuse.

[Sermil]

Yes, it's a few pixels over to the left of this message.
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0634.html

[Jothki]

The Three Musketeers, in a way.

[Rakaydos]

Ooh, I just remembered another Dresden Files example

Spoiler: book 2: Fool Moon

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When dresden is captured by the Lobo gang, Marcone swings by to make one last offer he knows the hero will refuse. And our hero accepts, specifically to piss off the gang that was really looking forward to killing him, and in the resulting fracus, he escapes in the confusion.

[Fyraltari]

At the end of the last Prince of Persia video game, your girlfriend sacrifices herself to seal the god of evil back in his prison. Said god then offers to resurrect her in exchange for his freedom. You have to agree. What's more this is the exact smae deal that he passed with her father before the beginning of the game and that caused the events of the game.

[Peelee]

Not a book, but Season 5 of Angel.

Basically, the bad guys, Wolfram & Hart, offer to let Angel and his crew take over the LA office and run it as they like. They use this to try and do good (being as they are Rogue Do-Gooders), but they realize that the Bad Guys were keeping them busy.

Having never seen either show, I find it really weird that executives apparently thought, "so we have a show about high schoolers fighting demons. So, spin-off, they run a law firm. Good? Good."

I dunno, maybe it makes more sense in the lore.

Didn't this happen in the movie Dodgeball?

The main character takes $1,000,000 from the bad guy, bets it all on his team, and then buys out the bad guy's stock?

Bets on the Cobras, doesn't he? Would have been nice if they'd laid out the odds throughout the movie to foreshadow it somehow, or address how it's a sport where competitors can legally bet on themselves.

[Friv]

Dang forgot about that one. Yeah it was awesome. It was both a distraction and also a temptation. Baby steps to the dark side. I cant remember how close it came to working as I know angel and crew setup a trap to make it look like he was falling hard and had a falling out with his team to setup for the series finale, but I cant remember if they always realized what wolfram was up to or if they figured it out at some point when the moral choices got too tricky.

Neither to memory - Angel was granted a vision which directed him to an evil group, without the knowledge of his team he worked to infiltrate that group so they could be eliminated. The team turned on him - he revealed his plan, and the team went along with it despite not knowing if they were being played or not.

Wolfram and Hart also were upfront about the deal - the heroes could run the operation however they liked, but if the business went under they would merely re-franchise without the heroes running it. To memory they actually had no particular evil plan afoot.

It was sort of a mess, because they had to change the ending of the season to turn it into a series finale instead. So there were a bunch of threads they were busy gathering which all got shoved into a blender at the last minute.

So originally, it played out as a straightforward thing - Wolfram & Hart believed that Angel and co would not be able to run the place without succumbing to evil, whereas Angel and co believed that they could use the resources of the place to make a difference. It was more of a bet than a temptation.

But then they wanted a quick ending, so Whedon invented a super-double-secret ruling party that could be used for a grand strike against the Senior Partners, which in turn meant that Wolfram & Hart got reduced to being just another tool rather than a primary one, turning it into a diversion keeping Angel busy instead of the temptation-bet it was originally portrayed as.

[Traab]

Having never seen either show, I find it really weird that executives apparently thought, "so we have a show about high schoolers fighting demons. So, spin-off, they run a law firm. Good? Good."

I dunno, maybe it makes more sense in the lore.

Bets on the Cobras, doesn't he? Would have been nice if they'd laid out the odds throughout the movie to foreshadow it somehow, or address how it's a sport where competitors can legally bet on themselves.

Considering the main character, Angel, is a 200 year old vampire with a soul, its not that big of a stretch. Cordelia graduated from high school like a year ago before the start of the spinoff if I remember and was working as the secretary more or less. The only other main character to follow was the very much so adult former Watcher Wesley.

[Peelee]

Considering the main character, Angel, is a 200 year old vampire with a soul, its not that big of a stretch.

It's a law office, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't skimp on getting SSN and other IDs for payroll purposes. They let a rampant identity fraudster in I tells ya!

I gotta say, for not having seen it, I think I'm doing a fantastic job expounding on the lore.

[tiornys]

Bets on the Cobras, doesn't he? Would have been nice if they'd laid out the odds throughout the movie to foreshadow it somehow, or address how it's a sport where competitors can legally bet on themselves.

Spoiler: Dodgeball spoilers

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No, he takes the money that he got from selling Average Joe's Gym and bets on his own team, which is a massive underdog. When they win he gets back a ton of money thanks to the odds against his team, and that makes him rich enough to buy a controlling interest in the bad guy's company so that he effectively owns his gym again. No ethical questions about the bet itself (just, you know, selling his gym in the first place) since he's betting on himself.

[Friv]

Having never seen either show, I find it really weird that executives apparently thought, "so we have a show about high schoolers fighting demons. So, spin-off, they run a law firm. Good? Good."

I dunno, maybe it makes more sense in the lore.

As much as I love your version of the canon, I'll defend this for a moment!

So, early Buffy is about high schoolers fighting demons. Then later Buffy is about leaving the things you know behind and stepping into a bigger, scarier world (represented by college, but also by newer and more complicated villains.) At about the same time that Buffy is going off to college, Angel is moving into the world, too, setting up a magic detective agency and struggling with all the garbage he went through in early Buffy.

So then you have these two shows for people who latched onto them in high school and have followed them into the adult world. Buffy escalates things, and ends on a message of "you're not alone - bring other people into your fight, and don't let people tell you it's impossible."

Angel takes the opposite route. Angel says, "When you are a young revolutionary, the System will try to absorb you. Society will give you all the reasons to give up and stop fighting evil, and it's complicated and insidious." Going from being a bunch of iconoclaust monster hunters who do detective work for the poor to being part of a big law firm that corrupts everything it touches is the extraordinarily on-the-nose metaphor for the temptations and compromises that we make as we enter adult life.

The message at the end of Angel is "you can't change the system from within, so blow it up and go down fighting", which may stem more from getting cancelled than anything else (especially since they apparently got cancelled because Whedon tried a power-play that failed spectacularly.) But it's a consistent message.

[Manga Shoggoth]

If we are starting to mention video games, the more recent Bards Tale game gave you the option of (a) romance with the evil demon princess trying to conquer the world, (b) allying with the druid who has been trying to have you killed all through the game because you are (unwittingly - until this point you don't know about the demon bit) supporting the princess, or (c) telling them both to get stuffed and going off to the pub for a drink. I think at least one of those sort of matches.

(Hint: It's not the one about the pub)

[Rynjin]

A Practical Guide to Evil is built on this trope; the main character basically had the potential to become a great hero or a great villain.

One of the greatest villains in the country came by with a recruitment pitch first and, well, the series isn't called A Practical Guide to Good, now is it?

[Traab]

If we are starting to mention video games, the more recent Bards Tale game gave you the option of (a) romance with the evil demon princess trying to conquer the world, (b) allying with the druid who has been trying to have you killed all through the game because you are (unwittingly - until this point you don't know about the demon bit) supporting the princess, or (c) telling them both to get stuffed and going off to the pub for a drink. I think at least one of those sort of matches.

(Hint: It's not the one about the pub)

Breath of fire 3 I think, gave you the choice to join the bad guy at the end.

[Prime32]

Negima actually has the hero figure out the villain's evil plan, realise he's working towards a noble goal, and approach him with an offer to work together. The hero came up with a better plan which is slower and more ambitious but can potentially achieve the same thing with far lower collateral damage. If it fails, the hero promises to assist the evil plan himself (and is completely unconflicted about this).

If you can stomach anime/manga, medieval politics and economics and the "villain" being a cute anime girl, then Maoyu is basically this premise but with more "I can stop the war peacefully if we just do this complex socio-economic stuff."

This was a pastiche of Dragon Quest's "Join me, Hero, and I shall grant you half the world!".

IIRC in the backstory of Dragon Quest Builders, the Hero actually accepted this offer... and ended up with a house named "Half the World".

[Rynjin]

Negima actually has the hero figure out the villain's evil plan, realise he's working towards a noble goal, and approach him with an offer to work together. The hero came up with a better plan which is slower and more ambitious but can potentially achieve the same thing with far lower collateral damage. If it fails, the hero promises to assist the evil plan himself (and is completely unconflicted about this).

Negima in general is kind of a trip when it comes to the titular protagonist. It's rare you see a series where the unambiguous good guy hero just as unambiguously embraces dark magic as a quick and easy path to power without it being foisted off on him; he goes to it of his own free will to basically no consequences as far as I know.

[Prime32]

Negima in general is kind of a trip when it comes to the titular protagonist. It's rare you see a series where the unambiguous good guy hero just as unambiguously embraces dark magic as a quick and easy path to power without it being foisted off on him; he goes to it of his own free will to basically no consequences as far as I know.

And tying directly into this, it has the hero start off knowing how to fight smart, but not knowing how to fight dumb, and this being treated as a character weakness.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

A Practical Guide to Evil got briefly mentioned upthread, but really this is the whole premise of the story. The main character has already decided that a standard heroic rebellion against the occupying Evil forces is a) unlikely to succeed based on precedent and b) way too expensive in terms of collateral damage. So when the Black Knight offers her a position as his Squire, she agrees, since the best way (as she sees it) to help her kingdom is to get enough power in the evil empire to enact policy changes from within.

[druid91]

The Transall Saga has certain levels of this.

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When the MC is captured by slavers, and ends up joining them after being freed for saving his master's life.

[jayem]

The Three Musketeers, in a way.

I was going to post that, the 3rd part too has lots of examples (again in a way)

__

Foundation I suppose counts as one where the offer is accepted at the start.
Narnia in some form in most of the books (The Hideous Strength also)

It's obviously going to be hard for them to accept the offer and still be heroic, maybe Flashman? (Sharpe comes close already, oh or Vanity Fair*)
I feel like there must be a really good face-heel example (like the RotSith one, but without ANH), 1984 can definitely go on the list but I'm sure there's one that celebrates it more.

*Yes, I did get to the subtitle.

[uncool]

i think hero accepting the villain happened in Narnia series where i think peter accepts white witches offer and joins her . but you know then he changes his mind and so on !

Edmund, not Peter.

[Sinewmire]

The Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie, and by extension, The Blade Itself trilogy, as it's the finale.

Spoiler: The Blade Itself trilogy

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Basically it turns out that Bayaz, the Gandalf figure, is at least as bad as his opposite number, if not worse. The main characters go through complex journeys, and each in their own way, accepts Bayaz's help and ends upo largely where they started. Jezal, the brash young hero becomes a puppet king, quite explicitly ruled by fear of Bayaz. He tries to reject Bayaz's manipulations and is utterly crushed, metaphorically, by Bayaz.
Ferro, starts the story seeking revenge on Khalul (the Dark Priest-Lord) and on the journey learns how pointless and empty the war is, and how petty, spiteful and cruel Bayaz is. She actually learns the truth - the it was Bayaz, not Khalul, who started the wars, and murdered their master - but when she confronts Bayaz with the truth, he offers her his ultimate weapon as a means for her revenge, and, she accepts.
Inquisitor Glokta works to uncover the conspiracy at work, and finds that Bayaz is behind everything. In response Bayaz effectively says "you can either rule this state for me or I can annihilate you." Glokta accepts, though his capitulation is not quite as snivelling as Jezal's.
Basically, it sort of turns out that the White Wizard might actually be just another Dark Lord, and everyone pretty much accepts that this is above their pay grade, and they can't do anything about it.

[druid91]

Also, now that I think about it. The Wardstone Chronicles kind of has that as a feature.

[The Glyphstone]

Do we count Villain Protagonist series in this? There's a few moments in the Dire Saga where the titular Doctor Dire persuades some do-gooder hero to either stand aside and let her work, or actively aid her in accomplishing something.

[Fred_Franzinand]

Ditto to what The Glyphstone said.

It feels silly to mention because it is ultimately a childrens book, but the Artemis Fowl book series is essentially just a long, drawn out scenario where the protagonist of the series, Artemis Fowl (in large part the acting villain, or at least character of villainous intent) forces elves (in general the heroes) to do things for him and cooperate with him, through persuasion and coercion.

[Rynjin]

Oh, one I'd forgotten about for a bit: the Coldfire trilogy, by C.S. Friedman. Good series, and is primarily centered around the..."mutual corruption" I guess you could call it of the two principal characters.