8 Video Game Protagonists Who Are DEFINITELY Getting Coal In Their Stockings

The saying goes that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, where merriment is at its peak and those who've been good, honest folk get rewarded with gifts from Santa Clause himself.

The less well-behaved among us, of course, end up with a stocking full of coal for our misdeeds, and that's that.

And to make a totally natural segue, it's fair to say that the vast majority of video games cast players in the role of a virtuous hero who is easy to root for. However, that's not true in every case.

Villain protagonists are a thing, or in more nuanced cases the player character might exist within the complex moral shades of grey, operating as an anti-hero with some deeply flawed character traits.

With that in mind, these video game protagonists are all sure to get a stocking full of coal this Christmas, for their refusal to play the squeaky clean Good Guy role, their violent tendencies, and perhaps even their outright psychotic sadism.

Whether misguided protagonists trying to do the right thing or outright villains who both know and love the wrongness of their actions, these characters ain't no friends of good ol' Saint Nick...

Do geese even get stockings at Christmas? Either way, the protagonist of the majestic Untitled Goose Game is one of gaming's all-time greatest a**holes - a feathered agent of chaos whose entire raison d'être appears to be annoying the locals of a small English village.

The goose may not be killing anyone, but he spends the whole game inconveniencing most everyone he crosses paths with - ruining their garden, locking them out of the house, stealing their glasses, and honking to scare the living bajesus out of them.

Hell, you're even able to get truly Machiavellian with it on occasion and cause the villagers to turn on one another for maximum funsies.

The goose is centrally preoccupied with trolling people in ways that leave no lasting physical damage, though will probably trigger them any time they hear a honk for the rest of their lives.

Santa definitely wouldn't vibe with that patent lack of Christmas cheer now, would he?