# The most evil fictional character in history is... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 6, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-evil-fictional-character-in-history-is/520231 "2009-12-06T21:40:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-evil-fictional-character-in-history-is/520231/161 "2009-12-14T18:06:28Z")
> [@lee](#): > > Honestly, I have to argue against Medea. She was wronged. She fell in love with Jason, threw in her lot with him, helped him gain the golden fleece, suffering herself with a birds foot, gives him two beautiful children and so he dumps her and things he is going to keep custody of the children? Killing them was not unprovoked, which is the mark of true evil. You seem…confused…as to the meaning of the word _unprovoked_. Medea’s **children** didn’t do anything to her. She murdered them to hurt **Jason** –to make him suffer longer than if she had killed him instead, which was surely within her power. The children–her own goddamn sons–weren’t people in her eyes, merely an instrument she used to punish her arrant husband. I mean, really. Medea murders Jason’s new wife and her her own sons to make him suffer? Hell’s Bells, she didn’t have to murder anyone. She had a freaking chariot pulled by dragons; she could have loaded the kids into that and flown off with them. No one would have gotten in her way; that is what _dragon-drawn chariot_ means. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-evil-fictional-character-in-history-is/520231/162 "2009-12-14T20:43:10Z")
> [@lee](#): > > Honestly, I have to argue against Medea. She was wronged. She fell in love with Jason, threw in her lot with him, helped him gain the golden fleece, suffering herself with a birds foot, gives him two beautiful children and so he dumps her and things he is going to keep custody of the children? Killing them was not unprovoked, which is the mark of true evil. I read that in some of the early versions, she didn’t kill her kids. It just so happened that the one where she did was made into a popular play and became the one everyone knows. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-evil-fictional-character-in-history-is/520231/163 "2009-12-14T21:16:24Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You seem…confused…as to the meaning of the word _unprovoked_. Medea’s **children** didn’t do anything to her. She murdered them to hurt **Jason** –to make him suffer longer than if she had killed him instead, which was surely within her power. The children–her own goddamn sons–weren’t people in her eyes, merely an instrument she used to punish her arrant husband. > > I mean, really. Medea murders Jason’s new wife and her her own sons to make him suffer? Hell’s Bells, she didn’t have to murder anyone. She had a freaking chariot pulled by dragons; she could have loaded the kids into that and flown off with them. No one would have gotten in her way; that is what _dragon-drawn chariot_ means. I think you are reading twentieth century Western mores into Medea where they don’t belong. Children were not people in the eyes of most of society in the time Medea was written and for many centuries afterwards. They were property of the parents. At the time Medea was written, parents could and did sell their kids into slavery (which arguably could be worse than a quick death). And as for the kids’ themselves, they certainly didn’t try to stop their father from leaving their mother, so in my opinion they got what they deserved so did Jason. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-evil-fictional-character-in-history-is/520231/164 "2009-12-14T21:33:51Z")
From what I’ve seen of **Prison Break** , Theodore Bagwell needs a mention. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-evil-fictional-character-in-history-is/520231.md?page=8)