Who is your favorite literary villian?

a reply to: Astyanax

By all means, take us off topic if that's how you'll go about it!

Will respond more after work today. Thanks for the great commentary.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Lord Foul . Managed to urn everything the hero did to right evil against him .
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant , the Unbeliever
Warning - series is full of dark times.

These books are AMAZING. I've read an unbelievable amount of fantasy, and this series is very, very near the top of my list of all time best books. (I still haven't read the new set of 4 books, but I read the first and second trilogy)

As for my answer to the best literary villain... really hard to answer that, but I'm going to go with Baron Harkonnen from Dune. He's smart, he's evil, and he's so freaking fat he wears an antigravity belt to get around.

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I'm going to throw in an honourable mention for Emperor Palpatine, even though he's from Star Wars. However, since there are numerous Star Wars novels, comic books, etc, this isn't quite cheating.

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Captian Howdy by William Peter Blatty

a reply to: Astyanax

He's certainly at the top of the list.

Haven't read it since my freshman year in college...may have to dig it out again.

I'd have to go with Cathy Ames from East of Eden. Totally without any redeeming values. Beautiful, but poisonous. Cold. Calculating. Murdered her parents. Abandoned her children. All in all, major baddie.

This was a toughie. I have to go with Randal Flagg though.

a reply to: intrepid

Yeah. He was pretty bad, which is good.

There are so many. Injun Joe from Tom Sawyer was a good one, even though he was somewhat peripheral to the story...but dangerous, amoral, all in all, a fine villain.

The boil


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It was a tossup between Hannibal Lecter and Randall Flagg, but since the latter has been mentioned so many times, I'll go with ol' Hannibal. Deliciously e-vile, smart, sophisticated, and even -- dare I say -- likeable (unless he's planning on eating your "oysters".)

Runnerup:

Annie Wilkes from the Stephen King book Misery.

a reply to: argentus

Nice pick. There's something so terrifying/fascinating about the cultured evil genius, as opposed to the brutishly violent. Thanks for your input!