How can you tell if your favourite character is, in fact, a manipulative bastard?

I recently finished reading The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah. If you don't know, this is Sophie Hannah taking on the continuation...

We likely get the narrative concept of the mentor from the Greek mythological character called, surprise surprise, Mentor.

It’s difficult to say where this trope originated from, given, as far as I can see, it’s been part of Western culture since literature began

John William Polidori was working off a lot of mythology. Legends of vampires go back to the ancient Greek myths of Ambrogio and Selena.