I was thinking the other day about Steven R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and how the main villain, Lord Foul is a really good bad guy. From the very beginning everything the Lords to do counter him works in his favor, and he even tells the Lords this whenver he can. His plan is so perfect that no matter what anyone does to stop him all they do is help him.
He is probably the best bad guy I’ve encountered in my reading thus far, and I wondering if there were any other books or movies where the villian is so overwhelmingly powerful.
Check out the James Mason character[Mr. Straker] in “Salem’s Lot”. He is superbly and smoothly powerful, all the while taking advantage of the other characters attempts to defeat him. His accent, suavity[?] and general demeanour bely his nefarious purpose in coming to town. A thoroughly enjoyable villain.
I doubt anyone else likes Philip G. Williamson, but check out Dinbig of Khimmur. I like the way it actually shows, despite everyone being paranoid about it, the ‘demon lord’ (can’t remember its name) toppling countries like dominos and ending up sitting on an empire accross the continent, while the good guys end up fleeing. You respect a bad guy more when you see him using politics and war and magic intellegently to build power, rather than only having the advantage of being in charge, and being beaten because the hero is less stupid.
Well, I think the perfect “villian” would be some otherworldy terror, that doesn’t so much wish to conquer humanity, but instead barely notices it, crushing it much like you crush ants beneath yourself without a care.
They say that people loathe a good villain–but that they love a great one.
Great villains, I think, reach their full potential when we see them as early in the story as possible, so that we have the longest amount of time to identify with them.
Take, for instance, the Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars episodes 4-6, when he would only pop up very seldomly and then for a few short scenes at the end–a cool character, but out of touch with the rest of the cast.
Then, look at Kefka from the game “Final Fantasy VI”–we see him right from the start, Act I, Scene II, Figaro Castle. And even though he is introduced from the very beginning as a mere henchman to the ruling emperor of his country, the player automatically -knows- throughout the game that this nefarious, twisted character will ultimately be the prime antagonist…because anything less just wouldn’t be fitting for someone so delightfully crooked and eccentric.
Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. No compunctions about killing you, they don’t bleed, they’ve been around for ages, and they’re absolutely inflappable.
Lord Foul is unquestionably the best fantasy villain ever. I love his introductory speech: “All of humanity will be dead in forty-nine years no matter what you do. However, you’ll be dead in two years unless you do exactly what I tell you to do.” He’s so powerful that he can make the others work for him and know they’re working for him and still not be able to do anything about it.
I think the best science fiction villain is “the Blight” in Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon the Deep. First of all, it’s never really explained what the Blight is, an obvious must for truly great imaginative villainy. Second is that it can demolish whole planets with ease. Third, it toys with its victims like no other. For instance, making them think they’ve made a safe getaway and then striking in the very last nanosecond before thye jump to hyperspace.
I allways liked Dick Dastardly, he has the name, the clothes, the voice and the sneer of the perfect villain.
On a slightly more serious note, villains that keep hidden and inscrutable are also very good. The best of which I can think of is ‘No. 1’ from the Prisoner TV series.
About 15 years ago in Louisville’s Central Park, I saw a very good actor (whose name I have forgot) play Richard III in Shakespeare’s play of the same name. That guy was the best villain I ever saw.
Croup and Valdemar… excellent choice! Especially as played in the miniseries; the actors they chose really cemented those personalities for me.
Great as they are, however, my choice goes to someone else. In Jasper Fforde’s novel The Eyre Affair, the chief villain is a delightfully wicked character named Acheron Hades. He’s perfectly happy to make mischief just for its own sake, and takes serious joy in doing so. He was the most memorable thing about that book.
Ultimate villainy begins with Iago, it hung around with Iago, and ends with Iago. If he hadn’t kill his wife, he would have totally gotten away with totally destroying Othello.
Below is a huge spoiler for Unbreakable (no spoiler boxes because I don’t know how to make them)
Alright, I just finished watching Unbreakable and Elijah Price was frickin’ awesome. I mean what an ending! It works so well because Price is sort of creepy with his disability, but right from the start we think he’s a good guy. The end speech from Price just blew me away, it was quite scary to think this guy killed hundreds of other people to find his place in the world, to find out he is a villian. The movie was a slow start, but the end was worth it.
Lord Foul and Kefka are both good choices, not only because they’re good characters, but because they’re successful. Kefka, for example, achieves everything he ever wanted to accomplish - and you get to watch him accomplish it, halfway through the game. Not only that, but you have to play the second half through knowing you can’t change that. FF6 is my most favoritest console RPG ever, specifically because the story is so well done.
My personal favorite “villain”, however, is The Nothing, from either the book or the movie versions of The Neverending Story. There’s not much you can do against an inevitable philosophical concept - and of course it’s pretty successful, too.