Amph Who are the best villains in fiction?

HAL 9000 , altho I love him .

 

Palpatine. The guy had one of the most intricate and successful bad guy plans in the history of fiction. If that's not good story telling, I don't know what is.

 

Mom from Doctor Detroit.

 

Momma from Throw Momma from the Train.

 

The Thing from John Carpenter's The Thing.

 

“I admire Tolkien greatly. His books had enormous influence on me. And the trope that he sort of established—the idea of the Dark Lord and his Evil Minions—in the hands of lesser writers over the years and decades has not served the genre well. It has been beaten to death. The battle of good and evil is a great subject for any book and certainly for a fantasy book, but I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black. When I look at the world, I see that most real living breathing human beings are grey.” - GRRM

With that in mind, I'd say the "best" villains in ASOIAF are the POV characters themselves. Even if you see the whole thing as a oversimplistic Stark vs. Lannister contest, much of the story is told from the viewpoints of both the children of Ned and the children of Tywin. I'd say many of the POV characters are also capable of great evil in thought and deed, or morally complicated at the least. Tyrion, for example: he's a misogynist, straight up; he serves his father and King Joffrey-- both of whom he hates, yes, but that doesn't stop him from doing his best to protect his awful family members; he's a man of great anger, and despite it being understandable, that has led him to do some horrible things such as murder a prostitute; oh, and he rapes sex slaves and seriously considered raping Sansa when they were married; he doesn't care about the common people (almost none of the nobility really do) and demolished a section of King's Landing in order to make it more defensible against Stannis (his reaction to the protests was, "IT'S BECAUSE I'M A DWARF ISN'T IT").

Also, yes, Joffrey is a spoiled child-- emphasis on child. He's barely a teenager when he takes the throne and had been neglected by his ostensible father. He thinks he can do anything he wants because his mother has told him that his entire life. Yes, he's terrible, but I think his terrible upbringing and age make the adults behind him (Cersei, Pycelle, Varys, Littlefinger, Tywin, Tyrion) the "villains." While he decided to execute Ned Stark, he wasn't of age and could have been overruled by his regent (his mother). Tywin just did what every successful noble family does and took it to an extreme. Of course he hates his disabled son; nobody in that world has an affinity for "cripples." Of course he mercilessly crushed uppity vassals. Of course he eliminated threats to Robert's claim on the throne. Littlefinger, I'd say, is just playing the "game" better than any of the higher lords and he doesn't have much regard for the rules most others pretend to follow. We're not even sure what his grand plan is.

The show toned him down after season one. He let some serving girl mouth off to him without having her tongue cut out. Even the most tolerant lord would have told her to shut the **** up. The whole thing with Tysha wasn't mentioned again after Tyrion told the story. He engaged in "witty" banter with Olenna Tyrell. He was overall more genial. Blech.

 

J.J. Hunsecker.

 

Literature:

Satan (Paradise Lost)
Macbeth

Film:

Harry Lime (The Third Man)
Michael Corleone (The Godfather trilogy)

Television:

Livia (I, Claudius)
Walter White (Breaking Bad)



Also, I must say it would be fascinating to meet a person who considers the Christ of the Gospels a "villain." His/her worldview would be devoid of charity, empathy and grace--a sort of atheist Republican (that is to say, a completely self-aware Republican).

 

God and Jesus are both c-words responsible for suffering, division, hate, intolerance, repression, war. If we got rid of our stupid and weak dependence on crutches we would eliminate the major thing holding our species back.

Here's someone less **** than your Christ:

 

You underestimate the stubborn will of humanity. Our crutches are greater than what we believe.

Anyway, David from The Last of Us is a pretty good villain. He is disarmingly charming, and he tries to be as gentle as possible with Ellie despite the fact that it's suggested he may rape her. What a freak.

 

Dvdactive is quite the villain.

EDIT: The picture changed so this post now makes no sense.

 

Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert, the Templar from Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. He's dangerous, powerful, cynical, self-centered, hypocritical, and merciless. I hate that guy.

In movies, I'll nominate Archibald from Rob Roy. Disgusting little turd, IMO.

 

Isn't he the guy who raped Jessica Lange's character in that movie? It's been so long since I've seen it.

 

Yeah, that's the one. I love what she told him: "I'll think of you dead until my husband makes you so, then I'll think of you no more."

 

Amon Goethe .

 

I always thought Danglars was one of those mustache-twirling villains. What with the way he arranged for Edmond Dantes to be imprisoned and stole his position.


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He was definitely of the mustache twirling variety. He's not really a redeemable character in the sense that Fernand and Villefort are, or even Caderousse (not Caderousse, I guess). Those men at least had families that they actually cared about. Danglars abandoned his family and absconded with the rest of his funds, and is the one villain in the tale who I think TRULY deserved Dantes' vengeance. But he was forgiven, which is something I also think he truly deserved.

 

Daniel LaRusso