Your Favorite Villain

[Spider]

Who's your favorite antagonist/villain and why? Not only from books, but also movies. Honestly, I can't decide, but I do like Loki from the movie Thor. Even though he betrayed his friends, I can still sympathize with him.

 

[MFreako]

I'm thinking the Joker from The Dark Knight.

He's a total psycho; doesn't care about anything, doesn't have an agenda. It's just chaos wherever he goes, and to me, that's really fun.

 

[Pythagoras]

Darth Vader.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Hannibal Lecter

...from The Silence of the Lambs. Didn't watch the other one.

 

[kayd_mon]

Darth Vader, of course.

Honorable mentions are The Joker (from The Killing Joke), The Sherrif of Nottingham (Alan Rickman from Prince of Thieves), and Magus (from the game Chrono Trigger).

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

Oooh, loads of them. Saruman (both book and film), Joker (Mark Hamill's), Dutch Van der Linde, maybe that puppet from Gardens of the Moon, its a long list.

 

[Jessquoi]

Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The White Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia (books and movie). Female villains can be most interesting!

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Mine has to be Nakago, from Fushigu Yuugi. Sexy, charismatic, and utterly ruthless, he is complex, intelligent, and a bit tragic. I find him endlessly fascinating!

 

[teacup]

I agree with Jessquoi with Azula from Avatar.
Also Pride, Wrath, and Father from Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood (so many good villains in that. Too many, it was hard to choose even my top 3.)
Vicious from Cowboy Bebop.
Kuja from FF9.

I have too many favorites don't I? This was the trimmed list.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Amon from the Legend of Korra. I loved how awesomely manipulative he was.

 

[Ireth]

Not necessarily my favorite, but Jim Moriarty, especially from BBC's Sherlock, is definitely up there on the list. He's cold, cunning, ruthless, and a match for Holmes himself as far as intelligence goes -- no easy feat! And he's just so stinking casual about everything, even cold blooded murder.

 

[teacup]

I have to add another.
The Master from David Tennant's era of Doctor Who. He was just so brilliant.

 

[Feo Takahari]

El Patron from The House of the Scorpion.

During Cinco de Mayo the ranchero had a celebration. I and my five brothers went to watch. Mama brought my little sisters . . . The mayor of our village--dressed in a fine black-and-silver suit--rode on a white horse and threw money to the crowd. How we scrambled for the coins! How we rolled in the dirt like pigs! But we needed the money . . . One year, during that feast, my little sisters caught typhoid. They died in the same hour. They were so small, they couldn't look over the windowsill--no, not even if they stood on tiptoe. During the following years, each of my five brothers died; two drowned, one had a burst appendix, and we had no money for the doctor. The last two brothers were beaten to death by the police. There were eight of us, and only I lived to grow up. Don't you think I'm owed those lives?

 

[Kikuchiyo]

Mordred, the bastard son of King Arthur.

Blind Guardian - Mordred's Song (with lyrics) - YouTube

 

[Jabrosky]

Frollo from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I like how his evilness stems from his religious and social views rather than mere greed or power-lust as is usually the case with Disney villains. Plus "Hellfire" is an awesome song.

 

[phillipsauthor]

To continue the Victor Hugo theme above, Javert from Les Miserables is my all-time favorite villain. As opposed to the too-oft used "just plain evil" characters that are more or less interchangeable, Javert is almost good. His problem is an obsession with a good thing (law and justice) to the exclusion of another good thing (grace and mercy). This makes him a far more believable and dangerous character than, say, Darth Vader. It's very easy for us to say, "Oh, I'd never be like Sauron or Emperor Palpatine;" it's much harder to honestly say, "I'd never be Javert."

For me, it has really made me think about what I believe and why. In addition, it made Javert's downfall at the end of the book incredibly riveting - because it's so easy to put yourself in his mindset.

 

[wordwalker]

Another atypical Disney villain, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. For a lot of kids in the audience, that might be the first time they ever saw a comic-relief "of course you want to marry me" clown turn into something not so silly, or a villain come out of someone who might have been at home on their own street.

 

[The Unseemly]

I'm thinking the Joker from The Dark Knight.

He's a total psycho; doesn't care about anything, doesn't have an agenda. It's just chaos wherever he goes, and to me, that's really fun.

You, my good Sir MFreako, have made my day. I mean, why so serious?

 

[Feo Takahari]

Another atypical Disney villain, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. For a lot of kids in the audience, that might be the first time they ever saw a comic-relief "of course you want to marry me" clown turn into something not so silly, or a villain come out of someone who might have been at home on their own street.

I've heard it argued that Gaston is Disney's best villain, because you see how he becomes a Disney villain. At the beginning, he's arguably closer to the kind of antiheroes that populate Grimm's Fairy Tales. It's only when he faces rejection that he sinks into a more bestial state (ironically paralleling the Beast's redemption.)

Just amongst Disney's baddies, Frollo's the other popular choice. I've also heard mention of Mother Gothel (who really hits home if you've experienced abuse), Facilier (who has three separate motivations, one of which is only hinted at), and even Chernabog (because you just can't top someone who's practically the Devil.)

 

[Ireth]

Another Disney villain who deserves mention is Ursula. Sure, she has the stereotypical motivation to dominate the undersea world, but the way she gets Ariel to surrender her voice is just evil awesome. There's no tricks, no lies -- she flat-out tells Ariel what she intends to do, and what Ariel can expect, and the girl goes running (metaphorically) right at the bait. (Of course, it could be said that Ariel was a stupid teenager, so naturally she did that, but still.)

Also, come to think of it, Hades is pretty cool too. He's hilariously voiced and acted, and comes off like a used car salesman or something of the sort a lot of the time. Sure, he's a (literal) hothead out for murder, but he does have a redeeming quality or two that even the hero can't match. For one thing, when he makes a bargain, he keeps it. Unlike Hercules, who punches Hades in the face and walks away once he has what he wants.