What are some good examples of incontrovertibly wicked characters who, nevertheless, genuinely & wholeheartedly love one (and only one) other person?
I don’t necessarily mean sexual or romantic love. In fact, the first example that occurs to me is utterly asexual: the Mayor on BtVS, whose love for Faith was, surprisingly, born of the heart, not the testes. Anybody else?
Imhotep from The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. His love for Anck-su-namun was genuine. He doesn’t seem to have too many other good qualities, though.
Dr. Doom comes to mind; he recruited Dr. Strange to help him attempt to rescue his mother’s soul from Hell at great risk to himself.
Hitler seemed quite fond of Eva Braun.
Well, I was speaking of fictional characters, as you might have inferred from the forum. 'Sides, we don’t know much about Adolph’s interior life; he may have wacked off every night to the fantasy of Eva being gang-raped by baboons and then fed to hippos, and was only waiting to have this done so that the moment of betraying her would be that much more amusing.
Mr Freeze loved his wife(?)
Brian
Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader – but to split hairs, A.S. wasn’t evil to begin with; he went over to the Dark Side out of love for Padme, and how long or truly Darth continued to love Padme after his conversion and her death may be debatable.
Severus Snape and Lily Potter (nee Evans).
Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights is pretty high on the list. He did love Cathy, but in all other ways, everyone in the novel would have been vastly better off had they just left him in the ditch where Cathy’s father found him.
Doctor Bong clearly loved Beverly Switzer – and she him. It was one of the few cases where the villain ends up marrying the hero’s girlfriend without any attempt to force her.
To the extent he was a villain, King Kong. Sure, he was a victim of circumstance, and was misunderstood, mythologized, feared, and kidnapped, but he also went out of his way to kill a lot of relatively innocent New Yorkers, who hadn’t had anything to do with his plight, and who weren’t in the audience to see him in chains.
There have been several “mad scientist” characters who’ve tried to rebuild or revive their daughter or their one true love, in movies ranging from Eyes Without a Face to Frankenhooker and, IIRC, Bride of Re-Animator. And I’m pretty sure that Bela Lugosi played at least one of these mad-scientist types in a movie or two back in the day…
Did Boris and Natasha [“The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show”] love each other, or were they just good comrades?
Heathcliff certainly wasn’t a villian.
** Venture Brothers** - The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend.
G.I. Joe - I always thought Destro had a thing for The Baroness.
Count Olaf --> Kit Snicket
Well, of course he did. Everyone with eyes and a penis had something for her. That said, Destro’s not a VILLAIN villain. That is, he isn’t ruthless; there’s a lot of things he simply won’t do. I can easily imagine him having friends quite apart from the Baroness.
**The Lizard **loved his wife and son.
IIRC, the original Parasite had a wife and children.
Dracula spoilers.
[spoiler]In the Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), as opposed to Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Vlad the Impaler is driven to the dark side by his beloved Elisabeta’s suicide and subsequent condemnation by the church. Centuries later, he travels to England in search of her lookalike, Mina. Since he believes her to be the reincarnation of his true love (I don’t remember if the film definitively establishes that she was, but the possibility was certainly there), I’d say this meets the OP’s requirement.
In Hellboy II, Prince Nuada absolutely loves his sister Princess Nuala. In addition, it can be argued that his actions in the story are motivated by a legitimate love for “his people” (the fantasy creatures on whose behalf he wants to make war against humanity) rather than by any kind of personal ambition.
Dr Evil and Mini Me.
Great, now I have the image in my head titled “Hangin’ out at Destro’s.”
I’ll toss in the Phantom of the Opera.