Name your Favorite Villains

Discussion in 'Discussions' started by Lorrelian, Apr 14, 2012.

  1. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Not sure I want to be the hero. Anti-heroes get the cooler sword in DoD. 'Course, the Little White Lies does better damage over the last few floors...
     
  2. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    I'm the hero. Because I'm going to keep talking about villains. :p


    Irene Adler from the BBC's current incarnation of Sherlock. Which, by the way, is one of the best shows on television of all time ever.

    Lex Luthor, specifically the version from Young Justice. Another of those 'dark bargian' villains that I love.

    George W. Bush. Reality's best villain of the past decade.

    The System. The least vulnerable super-villian of all time. The System is what happens when you let business get in bed with politicians. The result is the inevitable decline of living conditions for everyone except the business owners and the politicians. See: The United States since 1979 (when they first allowed businesses to give money to politicians.)

    Sarah Walker of Chuck. She was only a villain on rare occasions, but goddamn she looked good in black leather. Chuck, by the way, is one of only two TV shows that shares the top tier of TV-ness with Sherlock. (The other is Psych, with honorable mention to Leverage and White Collar.)

    And, lest anyone forget, Sauron.
     
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  3. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Now, Essence, remember, politics is like religion, they're both extremely hard to discuss without causing some problems.
    People are extremely passionate about their views. :)
    You do have to admit sometimes it may not be a good time to bring real life events up. :)
     
  4. Tycho

    Tycho Member

    Morgoth was a MUCH bigger badass. (and Fingolfin was more badass than the entirety of the Fellowship of the Ring combined)
     
  5. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    Why, yes, but some of us think that Sauron was more interesting, with his involvement in the back-story (particularly the creation of the rings), and with his status as an ever-present threat. Morgoth was more badass, but this thread is more about which villain we like, rather than which we think is strong.

    And the Fellowship itself was kind of weird, as it was pretty much a hastily-sewn patch-carpet made from conflicting loyalties, with most of its members not giving a damn about Frodo.
     
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  6. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    To be fair, Morgoth is also a God. :) And 100 feet tall.
    Another favorite villain of mine is Dagoth Ur from Morrowind. Completely, and utterly insane, but almost nicer to you than people you thought were your friends. :) "I'm a God, how do you kill a God? Such grand arrogance!"
     
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  7. Tycho

    Tycho Member

    yes, true, my bad.

    I do have another particular favorite villain - Hannibal Lecter. So intelligent, eloquent, brutal and evil.

    poke poke poke with the swordthingy and wham with the hammerthingy and gg, sorry Ur :V
     
  8. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Hey, it's an opinion. You want the 'best' villians, right? Bush Jr. is a rockstar villain in a world mostly made of of the likes of Michael Vick and Enron. The fact that some people might think he's a hero only makes him a better villain. He's very much comprable, actually, to Hercule from DBZ. I'mma go ponder that for a while.
     
    r_b_bergstrom likes this.
  9. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Well, good point. But you can't just throw around the word villain willy-nilly.
    Otherwise you end up making me look like I could be a better president than him. :)
     
  10. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    ***MUST***RESIST***TEMPTATION***TO***CHIME***IN.....
     
    Essence likes this.
  11. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Hey, hey, I wasn't trying to pick a fight.
    I may be a Republican, but I'm not mean.
     
  12. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    I have no political affiliation. I am unconvinced they really mean anything.

    I hate all political parties equally. The actions thereof are another matter...
     
  13. Daynab

    Daynab Community Moderator Staff Member

    Hey guys, look north, that's the Derail Train we can see coming, I think we should get out of the way :)
     
  14. jhffmn

    jhffmn Member

    My favorite villians have to be the self destructive unemployed bohemians from the musical Rent. For no other reason than it is oh so satisfying to learn that the protagonist of the show, HIV, ultimately triumphs.

    A similar argument could be made for the humans in The Walking Dead being the antagonists. Who isn't rooting for the zombies in that show?
     
    Essence likes this.
  15. Tycho

    Tycho Member

    I laughed, am I a horrible person?
     
  16. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Yes you are. Welcome to the club. :)
     
  17. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    If you've never read Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis, you should go do so. Basic premise: It's 1939. The Nazis have psychic supersoldiers, the Brits are summoning demons, the general populace is clueless. It's a foray into alternate history that will leave you vaguely discomforted. Particularly when you start thinking about Gretel.

    So let's talk about the villain. And by that, I mean Gretel. The teenaged precognitive psychopath who may or may not have arranged the end of the Second World War three years earlier than we got ours to suit her own twisted ends. Villain? Hero? The Eidolons of England sure don't like humanity very much, and Gretel gives the humans a fighting chance. Question is, will anyone live through her Machiavellian schemes? And what is she up to, anyways?

    Gretel is one of the few villains in an ongoing story that really makes me want to pick up a book as soon as it comes out. July 17th is so far away...
     
  18. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Oh, you reminded me of a true classic that I almost forgot -- Maledicte. Of the book by the same name, Malidicte is a bitter street urchin who prays to the Goddess of Destruction and joins the upper class in a quest to basically f*** over everything. She's a horribly badass villain, and everyone should read that book.
     
  19. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    If you want to see a book that turns good and evil on its head, it's "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad. It's a biting satire of bad science fiction and fantasy, essentially (or to put it another way, it's a satire of about 90% of all science fiction and fantasy). It's kind of a meta alternate universe novel, in that it is science fiction written within an alternate history in which Adolf Hitler, instead of becoming the leader of the Nazi party in Germany, decided to emigrate to the United States, and became a Science Fiction writer. The novel that he writes is called "Lord of the Swastika" (which is the 'alternate' title of "The Iron Dream", and, in fact that's what it says on the title page of most editions of the book "The Iron Dream" by Adolf Hitler). It's one of the books that has most influenced me in my life.
     
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  20. r_b_bergstrom

    r_b_bergstrom Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Some of my favorite villains:

    Virtually every named character from the original (first five, not books 6 to 10) Amber novels by Roger Zelazny. Fiona, Erik, Brand, Dworkin, Oberon, Benedict, etc. His cast are all varying degrees of evil and genius, gifted with skills and powers beyond us mortals, and each nursing his or her own private scheme of vengeance. Any one of them would make a worthy Big Bad for a series of their own, but instead Zelazny puts a whole family of the psychopathic godlings at each other's throats, scheming over the fate of the one true realm (and the infinite shadows it casts) and stabbing each other in the back (and sometimes front) repeatedly. He then carefully doles them out in little glimpses and suppositions, told by a biased narrator whose words cannot be trusted. Every 50 pages you discover that reality is not at all what you imagined it to be, and the true villain someone else.

    Both of the serial killers in Twin Peaks. I can say Windham Earle's name, but the other would be a major spoiler. Both are kinda like The Joker (from Batman) in that they teeter between amusing and horrifying from moment to moment. They are more subtle and more overtly disturbing than The Joker has ever been, though. They've got that "Wheels Within Wheels" level of scheming, coupled with really nuanced performances of a mind coming apart at the seams. The Joker has never been believable to me, but, despite the supernatural elements, both of Twin Peak's killers have always struck me as believable and chilling.

    Ben Wade in 3:10 to Yuma (2007 movie, never read the book). Cold-blooded, implacable, and yet disarmingly charismatic. That little seduction speech he gives women really reveals a lot about the character, implying that every bit of his charisma is a practiced act. He has this strongly developed code of honor that doesn't quite make sense, yet leaves you feeling like that's your failure to understand him, not some fault of the screen-writers. Just when you think you've got him figured out, the final scene complicates him again.

    Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. He's a walking, wheezing, icon of badassitude. Especially loved the subtle things that were never said but blatantly implied by Vader's approach to other characters. All the other villains in the original trilogy can be placed in a hierarchy depending upon how Vader interacts with them. How do we know Boba Fett is also a badass? Only because Vader doesn't strangle him when he mouths off, nor screw him over in their business deal. Sadly, Vader and the setting as a whole continue to be watered down every time Lucas releases any new garbage with the Star Wars logo on it.

    Trek's Q, but only in the first and last episodes of Next Gen. He was at his best as this dire alien pronouncing ironic judgment on all of humanity from his position on high. All his appearances in-between humanized him too much, and changed him from judgmental and alien to simply a meddling jerk with no moral ground to stand on.
     
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