Do you ever think about the archtypes of fantasy writing?

The alcoholic wizard, the slave who's actually a princess, the thief with the heart of gold. Those images are cliched, because they are so powerful. They are the contract of what we expect and what we experience in life. I'm currently working on smashing the last one. Redd, my protagonist, is a thief, and I'm also giving him a psychopathic, vindictive side. This is not a man who is a clean shaven thief who's victims deserve to be cheated (although I'm not going to give him all innocent victims). He's a man who will knife people who cross him, people who get in his way, no matter how innocent or righteous their reasons are. And that's what I'm working on in this latest tale. The Ortans that he takes in are going to betray him, and he's going to get them back. I just want to put motives in their heart that are understandable. I'm still going to kill them at the end, but they are going to have good motives, motives we can understand.