Literary villians

[ALB2012]

I am sitting here eating my lunch, wondering how I can avoid work this afternoon. I have just discovered I can log into this site from work- this is BAD.

Anyway I was wondering who people think is the "greatest" or nastiest literary "villian?"

I suppuse I should start with mine-
Sauron
Javarre

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Cersei Lannister. Sure, Sauron is epically evil, but I never really hated him. But man, I despise Cersei with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

 

[ALB2012]

Marquise de Mertuellion (sp)
Valmont
Joset Tremayne (my book)- there was something deeply satisfying about that guy.
Lilith


ALB2012
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Light-Beyon...QO9C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339430660&sr=8-1

 

[Feo Takahari]

The addition of "literary" makes this harder for me, since my favorite villains are in animation. That said, a few highlights:

The Scramblers in Blindsight. They've managed to evolve to spacefaring status without developing conscious thought, operating entirely on instinct. One of these instincts is to kill anything that wastes time they could be using to reproduce and spread, and the mere act of talking to them is perceived as time-wasting. Because humanity sent them a "We come in peace" message, their instincts drive them to attack all of humanity until either they or we are dead.

The real villain in The Golden Age by John C. Wright. It's very hard to describe it without spoilers, but the scene that introduces it is an extended story of an entire society being melted into goo except for their brains, which are then disassembled so that the information in them can be beamed into a black hole.

El Patron in The House of the Scorpion. The protagonist is a clone of him, and their natures are the same, their differences coming from El Patron's hellish upbringing. He's ruthless and entirely self-focused, but he can be quite charming--at first, it's hard to tell he's even the villain.

From a completely different direction, Akar Kessell in the Icewind Dale trilogy. This guy is introduced as a complete idiot who betrayed and killed his boss as part of a scheme he really should have realized was supposed to end with his own elimination. After he gets his hands on a magical evil crystal, he's still a complete idiot, but now he's an idiot with the means to kill anyone he doesn't like. (Yeah, technically the crystal itself is the villain, but Kessel's much more fun to watch as he stumbles into a position of power and bumbles back out of it.)

If I started listing non-speculative fiction, I'd be here all day, but I'd like to just bring up one example: Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. Writers who're not working off of real-life examples often screw up characters like this, making them just a tad too cartoonish. Goeth practically made a cartoon of himself in real life--the movie adaptation even toned him down a bit to make him less ridiculous--but the book does a credible job of making him believable even in his pettiest, most pointless cruelties.