The ones that really get me are the ones that aren't fantasy books, but real-to-life books that involve mental/physical/sexual abuse and/or torture, especially of children.
Umbridge is very well-written. But the really horrifying ones – the parents in Push (the movie Precious) or the mother/grandmother duo in Flowers in the Attic. Long-term abuse over time. I'm sure there are many, many more, but I try not to read those types of books, frankly. They totally get under my skin and freak me out.
As the enemy of both good and evil, Death is the greatest villain in fiction. Good people die too young and bad people live too long. In the end, death is the unknown, uncontrollable element of humanity that's inevitability is the enemy or ally of everyone.
Voldemort, Umbridge, Sauron…great villains all. However, the one that has outshined and outlasted all of them in my memory is Leland Gaunt from Stephen King's Needful Things. He was so subtly insidious. Fantastic.
I actually agree with Dolores Umbridge, except for the fact that she was so soundly beaten, without ever being as effective as Voldemort … but yes, I always thought she was more evil than he was, if only because she BELIEVED SHE WAS RIGHT. She wasn't after power because she could take it like Voldemort, she was just absolutely convinced that what she was doing was right, and nothing should stop her.
Fanatics are always the scariest villains. They're not always the most "evil" characters, but they're usually the ones who strike the most fear in the hearts of others–even if their obsession is something as seemingly benign as building a cathedral (Connie Willis' "To Say Nothing of the Dog.")
Though, my own to add to this list? Gabriel from Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. Saintly face and reputation, yet doing pure evil all the time. Deliciously terrible.
I have to go with the Bard's Iago on this. And while I want to write a lengthy essay on why, I shall curb myself.
Iago has a plan. Very early on he just wants to ruin Othello, and he goes about it.
He does it all under the guise of a friend, showing just how deceitful he can be.
He manipulates others into doing the dirty work for him.
He succeeds! He ruined the lives in that play. The hero did not overcome him in the end. Desdemona is dead, Othello murdered her, and now knows that he did so without cause. Not only that, Iago leaves an impressive body count in his wake.
Perhaps most importantly, is that when the whole mix up is revealed, Iago goes quiet on his reasons. he shuts up and stays quiet without elling anyone why he did all this. We're left with an evil and a hate that cannot be explained because the villain is evil enough to know when to shut up (a trait lacking in many a Bond villain).
Also, he survives. He's walked off the stage alive and whole. WE can all imagine he'll be put to death or imprisoned, but we don't know. He's crafty, and with the right lawyer could get away with it. All the audience is left with is speculation as to this guy's fate, with no proof of one over the other, and that gives him bragging rights to not tell what he did. Others will tell it for him.
i wad scared of Pennywise, too until I watched Tim Curry in Clue and then in Oscar. Then 'it' made me laugh. "You've got a dangling participle!" My favorite villain of all time is still Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham! Of course, I love one liners and he's got quite a few great ones.
I actually think Saruman and the Witch King of the Nazgul are better villains than Sauron.
The very best villain of all time, though, is the French knight on the castle wall in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
Well MY of course! /joke I would have to say there are many great fiction villains. My personal favorites are the ghosts and people of Fatal Frame and Silent Hill. Because not a one of them is truly evil. Fatal Frame 1 – Kirie, turned evil by malice when a sacrifical ritual failed because she fell in love Fatal Frame 2 – Sae, twisted and made evil by her villages failed sacrifice of her Fatal Frame 3 – Reika, tainted by malice and turned evil when a ritual fails and she sees the man she loves killed in front of her Silent Hill 1 – Alessa, an innocent girl tortured to birth god Silent Hill 2 – The protagonist, James, in a way because he finds out in the end he IS the true antagonist, having smothered his wife Silent Hill 3 – Claudia was abused by her father and it made her want to for the birth of God to cleanse the world and usher in Paradise for ALL. Silent Hill 4 – Walter was abandoned and twisted by the SH cult doctrine
Then for movies/books: Darth Vader – a good guy as Anakin, seduced to the darkside to save Padme but ends up believing HE was the one who killed her.
I think the best and scariest of villains are those who you feel weird CALLING villains. They were made into what they were by other people and it really wasn't their fault!
I just blogged about this on Monday! 😀 My number one was The Master from Doctor Who. Not sure if that counts since it's a TV show. If not, the greatest villain is Voldemort, hands down.
Mrs Danvers from Rebecca…she scared the bejesus out of me and sometimes, sometimes, when I look up and see someone standing at the window I think it's her.
Hannibal Lecter, hands down. He is precisely what every human being alive should fear the most: an intelligent vilain. Plus, what's freakier than someone who eats their victim?
Hannibal the Cannibal (cool villains also have cool nicknames), despite Thomas Harris's best efforts to turn him into an anti-hero with the last two books.
I have to go with Margot Macomber, from Hemingway's "Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Self-absorbed, bullying, she has emasculated her husband. She openly cuckolds him with the safari guide, and the next day, when he gains even a modicum of courage and integrity, she "accidentally" shoots him.
It's a tossup between Iago from Othello and Pennywise from Stephen King's It. Iago brought about a lot of destruction and made Othello do things he would have never done, so he was the perfect nemesis. Pennywise scared the @#$% out of the kids in the book and me. He's a villain to remember.
My favourite villain comes from X-Men Comics, so not literature per se, but still fiction.
Magneto is a well-rounded, three-dimensional villain. A victim of the Holocaust who vowed never to allow similar atrocities to occur to his new people, "mutants". However, in doing so his anger poisoned him and he ended up becoming as bad as those he fought against, engaging in terrorism and murder to achieve his idealistic goals.
He's a villain that you know has done terrible things, but you can't help but sympathise with his reasons for doing what he does.
That's how villains should be written IMO. What's that old saying "a protagonist is only as interesting as his antagonist"?
Gonna have to throw my hat in with Moriarty, and the Joker. I like the way both compliment and challenge their respective heroes, making almost a symbiosis for the story while being truly compelling and terrifying people.
I am with Stu and Bryan… Judge Holden from McCarthy's Blood Meridian, hands down. In no small part because he is only partly fictional, and it is the most horrifying parts that are based in fact.
I saw THE SHINING the other day on TV and I can't think of a villain creepier or more twisted than Jack Torrance…esp at the end when he's charging through the snow with the axe…
Wait, Ahab was the villain? I thought the whale was the enemy. I think Ahab is a pretty cool guy. Eh hunts white wales and doesn't afraid of anything.
For my money there is no greatest villain. It's like asking what a favorite movie is. I mean yeah sure I have an answer I usually give, but is it really my favorite movie when there are so many great ones or am I just saying the first movie that pops into my head? The Cowboys. Ike Clanton's gang have been done to death for a reason. (You said in fiction, not purely fictional)
Frank CHalmers in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy has always been my favorite. He's a villain until you get to the third book; then he's just a really screwed up guy. I liked how real he was.
I'm a big fan of both Acheron Hades and Jack Schitt from Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
Acheron is one of those truly evil psychopaths with no plan other than evil. Jack Schitt uses big business/government to accomplish his goals, which always creeped me out.
Well, Judge Holden is supposedly based on a real person, but the only account of him comes from an autobiography which is pretty widely acknowledged to be unreliable and full of embellishment, so even if he was real, it's hard to tell what the author made up. And then of course McCarthy took that and just made it a million times creepier.
Stephanie Garber says
Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. She might not have been the main villain but that woman was so evil!
Project Savior says
Yoda, the leader of the cult "Jedi" that formed a shadow government in "Star Wars".
Mira says
The ones that really get me are the ones that aren't fantasy books, but real-to-life books that involve mental/physical/sexual abuse and/or torture, especially of children.
Umbridge is very well-written. But the really horrifying ones – the parents in Push (the movie Precious) or the mother/grandmother duo in Flowers in the Attic. Long-term abuse over time. I'm sure there are many, many more, but I try not to read those types of books, frankly. They totally get under my skin and freak me out.
T.M. Lunsford says
As the enemy of both good and evil, Death is the greatest villain in fiction. Good people die too young and bad people live too long. In the end, death is the unknown, uncontrollable element of humanity that's inevitability is the enemy or ally of everyone.
Ganz-1 says
Pennywise from Stephen King's IT… scared the shit out of me when I first saw the movie as a kid.
Anonymous says
Voldemort, Umbridge, Sauron…great villains all. However, the one that has outshined and outlasted all of them in my memory is Leland Gaunt from Stephen King's Needful Things. He was so subtly insidious. Fantastic.
--Deb says
I actually agree with Dolores Umbridge, except for the fact that she was so soundly beaten, without ever being as effective as Voldemort … but yes, I always thought she was more evil than he was, if only because she BELIEVED SHE WAS RIGHT. She wasn't after power because she could take it like Voldemort, she was just absolutely convinced that what she was doing was right, and nothing should stop her.
Fanatics are always the scariest villains. They're not always the most "evil" characters, but they're usually the ones who strike the most fear in the hearts of others–even if their obsession is something as seemingly benign as building a cathedral (Connie Willis' "To Say Nothing of the Dog.")
Though, my own to add to this list? Gabriel from Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. Saintly face and reputation, yet doing pure evil all the time. Deliciously terrible.
Thomas Sinclair says
I have to go with the Bard's Iago on this. And while I want to write a lengthy essay on why, I shall curb myself.
Iago has a plan. Very early on he just wants to ruin Othello, and he goes about it.
He does it all under the guise of a friend, showing just how deceitful he can be.
He manipulates others into doing the dirty work for him.
He succeeds! He ruined the lives in that play. The hero did not overcome him in the end. Desdemona is dead, Othello murdered her, and now knows that he did so without cause. Not only that, Iago leaves an impressive body count in his wake.
Perhaps most importantly, is that when the whole mix up is revealed, Iago goes quiet on his reasons. he shuts up and stays quiet without elling anyone why he did all this. We're left with an evil and a hate that cannot be explained because the villain is evil enough to know when to shut up (a trait lacking in many a Bond villain).
Also, he survives. He's walked off the stage alive and whole. WE can all imagine he'll be put to death or imprisoned, but we don't know. He's crafty, and with the right lawyer could get away with it. All the audience is left with is speculation as to this guy's fate, with no proof of one over the other, and that gives him bragging rights to not tell what he did. Others will tell it for him.
William Jones says
My personal favorite is Saint Dane from the Pendragon series.
Robert says
Shout out to Double Rainbows and Annie Wilkes, but I pick the Great Depression in the Grapes of Wrath.
Stacy says
i wad scared of Pennywise, too until I watched Tim Curry in Clue and then in Oscar. Then 'it' made me laugh. "You've got a dangling participle!"
My favorite villain of all time is still Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham! Of course, I love one liners and he's got quite a few great ones.
Peter Dudley says
Where's the Church Lady when you need her?
I actually think Saruman and the Witch King of the Nazgul are better villains than Sauron.
The very best villain of all time, though, is the French knight on the castle wall in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
RBSHoo says
Since my goal of becoming published may never happen, thus remaining fiction, I'd have to say… The Literary Agent.
I kid because I care.
I'd go with Randall Flagg from The Stand.
Honorable mention to the serial killer in Blood Work by Michael Connelly (because of his motivation, not the gore).
RJ Hipling says
Madame Morrible and the Wizard of OZ in Gregory Maguire's "Wicked"
Alma says
At the risk of sounding immodest, mine, mine, mine! Wait till you meet him. His name is Adair (a one word name!) May 2011.
Oobzie says
I know it doesn't seem to fit, but i'm a fan of Richard II
Pete says
Jessis is right – it has to be Professor Moriarty.
Scarlet Passmore says
Well MY of course! /joke
I would have to say there are many great fiction villains. My personal favorites are the ghosts and people of Fatal Frame and Silent Hill. Because not a one of them is truly evil.
Fatal Frame 1 – Kirie, turned evil by malice when a sacrifical ritual failed because she fell in love
Fatal Frame 2 – Sae, twisted and made evil by her villages failed sacrifice of her
Fatal Frame 3 – Reika, tainted by malice and turned evil when a ritual fails and she sees the man she loves killed in front of her
Silent Hill 1 – Alessa, an innocent girl tortured to birth god
Silent Hill 2 – The protagonist, James, in a way because he finds out in the end he IS the true antagonist, having smothered his wife
Silent Hill 3 – Claudia was abused by her father and it made her want to for the birth of God to cleanse the world and usher in Paradise for ALL.
Silent Hill 4 – Walter was abandoned and twisted by the SH cult doctrine
Then for movies/books:
Darth Vader – a good guy as Anakin, seduced to the darkside to save Padme but ends up believing HE was the one who killed her.
I think the best and scariest of villains are those who you feel weird CALLING villains. They were made into what they were by other people and it really wasn't their fault!
Horserider says
I just blogged about this on Monday! 😀 My number one was The Master from Doctor Who. Not sure if that counts since it's a TV show. If not, the greatest villain is Voldemort, hands down.
clindsay says
Lecter.
Ciara says
Mrs Danvers from Rebecca…she scared the bejesus out of me and sometimes, sometimes, when I look up and see someone standing at the window I think it's her.
February Grace says
Didn't read all the comments yet so sorry if somebody already said this. The choice is obvious to me…
Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz.
Amanda Sablan says
Hannibal Lecter, hands down. He is precisely what every human being alive should fear the most: an intelligent vilain. Plus, what's freakier than someone who eats their victim?
Gregg Podolski says
Hannibal the Cannibal (cool villains also have cool nicknames), despite Thomas Harris's best efforts to turn him into an anti-hero with the last two books.
Tina says
"IT" from A Wrinkle in Time
MLGoodell says
I have to go with Margot Macomber, from Hemingway's "Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Self-absorbed, bullying, she has emasculated her husband. She openly cuckolds him with the safari guide, and the next day, when he gains even a modicum of courage and integrity, she "accidentally" shoots him.
Corey says
Simon Legree, slave owners in "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
Lisa Yarde says
It's a tossup between Iago from Othello and Pennywise from Stephen King's It. Iago brought about a lot of destruction and made Othello do things he would have never done, so he was the perfect nemesis. Pennywise scared the @#$% out of the kids in the book and me. He's a villain to remember.
Nathan Bransford says
Re: Fagin vs. Bill Sykes, while Bill Sykes is the more evil (and scarier), Fagin is the more interesting.
Also he fit the one-name theme.
Jess Tudor says
I agree completely with Dave @ A Writer's Look on what makes a great villain.
But I haven't read IT because I'm too scared (which means it probably should win) so I can't comment on that.
But someone who isn't just going to kill you, yes. There's more fear in living damaged than in simply dying.
Elaine AM Smith says
Meursault
Bateman
Humbert
Maybe in the other order, or not.
R. Paramour says
Across all media, Ukoku from Kazuya Minekura's Saiyuki, hands down.
If we're talking strictly literary, it's a toss-up between Aaron from Titus Andronicus and Gmork from The Neverending Story.
Samuel D. Grey says
My favourite villain comes from X-Men Comics, so not literature per se, but still fiction.
Magneto is a well-rounded, three-dimensional villain. A victim of the Holocaust who vowed never to allow similar atrocities to occur to his new people, "mutants". However, in doing so his anger poisoned him and he ended up becoming as bad as those he fought against, engaging in terrorism and murder to achieve his idealistic goals.
He's a villain that you know has done terrible things, but you can't help but sympathise with his reasons for doing what he does.
That's how villains should be written IMO. What's that old saying "a protagonist is only as interesting as his antagonist"?
Samuel D. Grey says
* Also Magneto is also only a one-word name. 😀
A.L. says
Gonna have to throw my hat in with Moriarty, and the Joker. I like the way both compliment and challenge their respective heroes, making almost a symbiosis for the story while being truly compelling and terrifying people.
Sarah Scotti-Einstein says
I am with Stu and Bryan… Judge Holden from McCarthy's Blood Meridian, hands down. In no small part because he is only partly fictional, and it is the most horrifying parts that are based in fact.
John Ross Harvey says
Dr. John Dee from Michael Scott's Flamel series is first
Achilles from the Bean series of Ender books (Shadow titles) is 2nd
I am writing a crime novel now with a villian I hope can measure up to those.
MJR says
I saw THE SHINING the other day on TV and I can't think of a villain creepier or more twisted than Jack Torrance…esp at the end when he's charging through the snow with the axe…
Nick says
Wait, Ahab was the villain? I thought the whale was the enemy. I think Ahab is a pretty cool guy. Eh hunts white wales and doesn't afraid of anything.
For my money there is no greatest villain. It's like asking what a favorite movie is. I mean yeah sure I have an answer I usually give, but is it really my favorite movie when there are so many great ones or am I just saying the first movie that pops into my head? The Cowboys. Ike Clanton's gang have been done to death for a reason. (You said in fiction, not purely fictional)
Pimlicokid says
Count Fosco in Wilkie Collins' 'Woman in White'
Balinares says
Cthulhu. No question. He's beyond villain. Is there any other literary embodiment of evil that has permeated the popular culture as deeply?
Rick Daley says
Hannibal Lector.
Nick says
Also noticed several people now have mentioned Judge Holden. Oh holy freakin crap yes.
Milo James Fowler says
The clown in The Little Engine that Could. That creep ruined the whole book for me…
TheLabRat says
Frank CHalmers in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy has always been my favorite. He's a villain until you get to the third book; then he's just a really screwed up guy. I liked how real he was.
Nicole says
I'm a big fan of both Acheron Hades and Jack Schitt from Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
Acheron is one of those truly evil psychopaths with no plan other than evil. Jack Schitt uses big business/government to accomplish his goals, which always creeped me out.
Anonymous says
Umbridge. Voldemort knew he was evil, but Umbridge did evil in the name of good.
It makes me unbelievably sad when I think about how I'll never wait in another midnight line for a new Harry Potter book.
Timothy Fish says
Sikes
Bryan Russell (Ink) says
@Sarah Scotti-Einstein
Judge Holden was based on a real person? That really is kind of spooky.
Nick says
Well, Judge Holden is supposedly based on a real person, but the only account of him comes from an autobiography which is pretty widely acknowledged to be unreliable and full of embellishment, so even if he was real, it's hard to tell what the author made up. And then of course McCarthy took that and just made it a million times creepier.