The obvious candidates for protagonist of The Prestige are Borden and Angier.  I’m going to have to side with Andrew and Jared and choose Borden, largely because of the sympathy factor.  While Angier drives the story forward at least as much as Borden, he does so in as an antagonist.  Aaron argues that Borden is not very sympathetic because he is responsible for the feud between the two men, by way of killing Angier’s wife and then not giving him the conciliatory satisfaction of at least “admitting” which knot he tied.  I see a couple flaws in this argument.  First of all, Borden didn’t really kill Julia.  Even if we are to assume that he tied the controversial Langford Double, Julia claimed to be able to slip that knot confidently in the argument with cutter in the beginning.  Additionally, much of Angier’s agitation is with Borden’s inability to describe the fated not, which is best attributed to the idea that there are two Bordens, and one of them really doesn’t know—of course, it does seem rather odd that they would never have discussed the knot among themselves…

I think the fact that two people comprise what we think of as Borden is a bigger problem in considering him the protagonist than the issue of Julia’s death.  Jared and I were chatting earlier about the consistency with which Christian Bale portrays different versions of Borden.  In most cases, we can pretty well guess whether it’s Borden 1 or Borden 2 onscreen.  If Borden 1 is defined as the more aggressive one, the one who loves Olivia, we can see behavioral trends throughout that cue us to recognize him as opposed to the more mellow/thoughtful Borden 2.  For instance, the Borden backstage at the beginning, loudly ranting about knots and whatnot before downing a glass of liquor is probably Borden 1.  By contrast, we can guess that it’s Borden 2 that discusses complete dedication with Angier while he watches the Asian goldfish magician waddle outside the theater.  More obvious examples of the Borden 1/Borden 2 contrast are with respect to their wife, Sarah, who only Borden 2 really loves.  So, if “Borden” is the protagonist, we have to question whether we can really call “Borden” a single character.