Most any character from Alan Moore’s ouvre, but special mention to Edward Hyde - serial killer, murderer-by-buttrape, all round animal - yet still has my sympathy at the end.
Oh, and Toad of Toad Hall, of course.
Oooh, he wouldn’t like you calling him “grey”. At all.
Comte de Valmont from Dangerous Liasions. His unadulterated selfishness is fnally cracked by falling in love.
In comics, who could be more ambiguous than Agents Graves from 100 Bullets? He gives a suitcase full untracable bullets to those who have been wronged, togther with evidence of who committed the wrong, telling his victims/chosen ones they can get revenge without fear of consequence from the law. Is it a perverse game, or is it something else? Years have passed and we still don’t know.
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yay! my Meme jumped threads! <happy dance happy dance>
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Most of the characters in Miyazaki’s movies aren’t black and white villains. Although Mosca from “Castle in the Sky” is a pure-black villain, Dora and the pirates are ambigious figures. Same with Lady Eboshi the leader of Irontown in “Princess Mononoke”. Sure, she tries to kill the forest spirit but you can easily understand why she wants to do it. Yubaba from “Spirited Away” seems very evil, but we eventually see that she’s not evil, just selfish, vain, and ruthless. And “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service” don’t have ANY villains.
And I started both threads!
That’s kinda scary. Maybe I should post less.
Isn’t that kind of the definition of evil? If you’re working from a different meaning, please let us know.
One of the first ones that occurred to me was another B5 character who does some pretty nasty things out of an honest conviction that it’s necessary for the good of his people – one Alfred Bester.
Nah, keep it up. they’re interesting!
That’s what I meant. Before Mal even hired Jayne, he watched him blow out the kneecap of his boss-at-the-time and switch sides within five minutes at the promise of a few more dollars and a bunk (which he apparently did need). Not the best hiring choice for someone so big on loyalty.
Then, in the pilot (why’d they hafta give an episode and the movie the same name?), Jayne tells Mal in no uncertain terms that he’d do the exact same thing to the crew of Serenity. Mal even assumes this, with his “Why didn’t you turn on me, Jayne?”
And finally, Jayne puts his money where his mouth is, and makes plan to ditch the crew and sell out the Tams.
Jayne is hardly the lovable thug that he appears to be.
No, Yubaba definately isn’t evil, any more than, say, Bill Gates is evil.
Have you seen “Spirited Away”? I agree, at first Yubaba seems to be a terrifying monster. But she’s not exactly what she seems. She IS a monster, but she’s not an evil monster.
Maybe I should start a “Spirited Away” thread…
Please do. 
Of course, then I’d have to watch it to be unspoiled first. Can you give me a quick, relatively unspoiled synopsis and recommendation?
Quick, no-spoiler plot synopsis: Think of it as a girl has to rescue her family after they’ve trespassed against the Queen of the Sidhe.
(Translated to English terms, the movie is Japanese, though.)
Forgot the reccomendation: An awesome movie. Animated, but adult in the sense of good characters, excellent plot, and very satisfying.
What, no Sopranos? Carmela Soprano is the grayest character amongst a bunch of gray characters. She’s conflicted about her husband’s line of work but is willing to be bought, truly loves Tony but isn’t above manipulating him, craves independence but can’t get herself to leave her way too comfy upper-middle class life. Good to her friends-- to a point. Or to the point of denial, in Adrianna’s case. There are moments when you’re getting teary-eyed with her and moments where you can’t say anything more than “what a BITCH.” Plus, Edie Falco hits this way too human character out of the ballpark time and time again. There’s one actress who wouldn’t have a problem coming out of the jungle covered in mud and tangled hair.
I refuse to hold the murder-by-buttrape against Hyde. He was avenging Mina Harker.
Wow, I found this thread too late. My first thoughts after reading the title were Mal Reynolds (especially in the movie) and Miyazaki characters (I had in mind the various warring factions in “Nausicaa”).
Dr. Cox from Scrubs. He really acts like a jerk to everyone–his interns, his ex-wife, some of the patients, the nurses, his boss–but he also really does care for J.D. and Carla, tolerates Elliot and Turk, and was willing to be a father to his ex-wife’s baby even when he didn’t know he actually WAS the father.
The janitor, on the other hand, is totally out to get J.D…
Excellent suggestion. For a sitcom character, Dr Cox is very multi-faceted and extremely interesting. He acts like such an asshole much of the time because he really does care about the patients, about healing the sick, about saving lives, and he doesn’t tolerate goofing off and generally not taking things seriously, not because he’s boring and bitter but because it risks lives and health.
waves… I do! Agreed, fantastic author.
I’ll nominate the three main characters from L.A. Confidential, especially Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce).