The Greatest Literary Villains of All Time

[Clint_L]

Well, this is just fun:

The Best Villains in Literature Bracket: The Not-So-Sweet 16

Welcome to the third round of Literary Hub’s inaugural Ides of March Madness bracket: The Best Villains in Literature. We’re halfway through voting and things are really starting to heat up.…

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My money's on Sauron, though Nurse Ratched and Pennywise might have something to say about it in his bracket. And Satan is lurking as a possible finalist as well...

 

[Deset Gled]

That bracket is weird.

For starters, I'm not really certain why "anti-villians" would be on the bracket at all. But some of their choices for what constitutes an anti-villians are just as confusing, so it's almost like two wrongs making a right.

Annie Wilkes in the same category as non-human boogeymen? But not a single Lovecraftian monster? Stephen King is blatantly being over represented, and that's from someone who likes him as an author.

Choosing just one antagonist that's representative of one particular real world eligion is certainly a decision that tells you something about the article's author and intended audience.

If a non-anthropomorphised planet is allowed to be a villian from one series, I don't understand why weather (maybe from "The Perfect Storm?) or even concepts like institutional racism or fate aren't represented. Set some guidelines already.

Ah well. Screw it. I vote for Napoleon the pig. In the context of evil, genocide, subjugation, and horror, does it even make sense for a talking pig to be on the bracket? Probably not. But in the end (spoilers!), Napoleon becomes a man; an allegory for humanity. And we all know that people are the worst. Literally.

 

[Muso]

Sauron vs Gollum would be a nice final, lol.

 

[Dioltach]

With these things, I always get the impression that they're based mostly on "Look how many literary books I've read!"

 

[TheSword]

With these things, I always get the impression that they're based mostly on "Look how many literary books I've read!"

Presumably a discussion was had in a bar somewhere. It doesn’t feel there are two many esoteric figures on there though?

For me Dracula tops the list. He is the most villainous villain of all time not just all literature. and D&Ds greatest villain is an homage to him.

I’m surprised Cersai Lannister wasn’t on the list.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

With these things, I always get the impression that they're based mostly on "Look how many literary books I've read!"

This is 100% the vibe, yeah. Like it's the sort of thing I might have done when I was like 22 and extremely pleased with myself for having read a lot of the Western Canon.

There's also a lot of 'airlifting' going on - i.e. stuff that's clearly from genre works being called "literary" for the sake of inclusion. There's no way Steven King's It is literary first, genre-second, even if you could maybe argue that for LotR. Let alone President Snow.

Also there's some absolute ridiculous shenanigans going on when Humbert Humbert - a simple self-deluding pervert/sex offender (basically a criminal and loser and not much else) is a "[better] villain" (their words not mine) than Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes, who is one of the premier villains of detective fiction! I feel like people voted for Humbert because they were afraid to fail to condemn pedos in the eyes of their peers, not because they were actually looking at who was a well-rendered and truly villainous character.

And why is Caliban even in there? He's not even a villain and there are like fourteen actual villains from Shakespeare that could have had the slot! Don't even get me started on Frankenstein's Monster - including him is just trolling lol. (Yeah, I see that they're in anti-villains, but there are several straight-up evil characters in there, which makes it a weird category to even include.)

As for the current bracket, Napoleon should win it, but someone trite like Sauron probably will. Despite 90% of the people voting don't even understand the nature of Sauron's villainy.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Anton Chigurh nowhere to be seen.

 

[Dioltach]

Don't even get me started on Frankenstein's Monster - including him is just trolling lol.

And indicates that they never actually read the book, where he's called "the Creature" (you know, as in "create", the whole premise of the book being Man aping God's work?).

And Kurtz from Heart of Darkness a bogeyman? An awful person, definitely, but the narrator spends half the book looking forward to meeting him, and when he does he's mostly disappointed. Kurtz might be a bogeyman to the local population, or to the colonists in the trading posts, but he's never presented to the reader in that way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And indicates that they never actually read the book, where he's called "the Creature" (you know, as in "create", the whole premise of the book being Man aping God's work?).

And Kurtz from Heart of Darkness a bogeyman? An awful person, definitely, but the narrator spends half the book looking forward to meeting him, and when he does he's mostly disappointed. Kurtz might be a bogeyman to the local population, or to the colonists in the trading posts, but he's never presented to the reader in that way.

Calling the monster is fair though

He was pretty evil in the book. Very sympathetic and persuasive, but evil. And he has reasons for why he is the way he is which have to do with frankenstein’s rejection of his responsibility towards the creature, but he still murders a child, frames an innocent woman and let’s her get executed and kills people around Frankenstein who have no fault for his situation. So by any measure the creature is a villain. In fact I think his sympathetic portrayal is what makes him such a great villain. He probably gives one of the best bad guy speeches ever

 

[Bedrockgames]

No one is ever going to agree on choices in a villain bracket lol. But I applaud the effort. There are definitely characters I would like to add from things like Chinese literature. Every Jin Yong novel has like at least 5 great villains. But this seems more like a western lit list ), so that is fair.

I definitely don't know all the characters, or don't know them all well enough to weigh in on some. And others I may be more acquainted with the movie version.

Satan from Paradise or Frankensteins monster would be my two picks from the anti-villain list (not sure how they define anti-villain). Definitely Dracula wins the monsters and boogeymen list for me. Captain Ahab for authority figures. Lady MacBeth for manipulative bastards (though a number of these characters I am not familiar with).