This morning it also occurred to me that Hamilton fits this theme really well too. It doesn't need to be painted positively, but I'd like the protagonist to be the embodiment of it. Macbeth might be sort of what I'm looking for, though I haven't read it.
I was reading Steven King's On Writing and he talked about how most authors use the same couple of themes over and over, because for him he's defining theme as "the reason for writing the story" and the main thing being explored, and he says that for him there's only a few kinds of these themes that are powerful enough to power entire novels. Which is really interesting to me, because it makes a lot of sense. I really like stories exploring this message, and Hamilton might be the best example I can come up with? I'm just surprised it isn't done more, especially in classics since their whole thing is exploring profound ideas.
