All About Books

Favorite and Least Favorite Villains

Favorite Villains in Fiction

At first I thought this would be a really easy post to write. I love villains so making a list of my favorites and least favorites shouldn’t be hard BUT it is. There aren’t actually that many books out there that I have read and that have a proper villain. Of course there are often bad guys, characters the heroes are working against, your usual everyday asshole, but it’s not always the kind of character I would actually consider as a “real” villain or antihero.

I was especially surprised when I was searching for books that had a villain I didn’t like and (to no one’s surprise) I couldn’t come up with many, I just love my villains. I almost feel bad for featuring the ones I did find because it makes them seem even worse because there are so few.

Favorite villains

Loki

Loki is my favorite villain ever! Tom Hiddleston made me fall in love with Loki first but then I read a bunch of Marvel comics with him and The Gospel of Loki and I can’t get enough. Loki has done some really shitty things but he had also makes me FEEL things. He is the kind of character that does really questionable things and you like him anyway and you are like ooops??? That’s exactly how you write a great villain. Loki is definitely one of the only-a-poor-misunderstood-creature, give-him-a-hug type of character. And don’t even get me started on Teen Loki because HE TRIES SO HARD.

Victor Vale FRom V.E. Schwab’s VICIOUS

Victor Vale is such a complex, well done antihero, I secretly call him my personal hero. What I like most is that you can have this huge discussion about whether Victor is good or not but it all comes down to him being in this gray area and you just can’t say.

The Dane twins from A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC by V.E. Schwab

I always cackle with glee when I read about the Dane twins. They have so much fun doing bad things do people, it’s fascinating to watch. They are kind of a weird case because they don’t fall into the “love to hate” category even though I should hate them because they hurt my favorites but… they are just so wonderfully sadistic!?

Holland from A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC

(yes, another character created by V.E. Schwab, shut up, she is just really good at this kind of thing okay)
Why Holland? Because “no one suffers as beautifully as him”. Holland is the perfect example of a character who does bad things because 1) he forced to and 2) he is really trying to do good things only no one can see it and maybe he should work on his methods.

The Lord Ruler from Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

Talking of misunderstood creatures, the Lord Ruler is the perfect example. I always loved how he is portrayed as this super evil guy everyone is scared of and it’s 100% believable and all that without really knowing him. But then you do get to know his background story and all of a sudden you’re like WOW, so THAT is what made him this evil guy and it’s really fascinating.

Mayor Prentiss from Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness

Also known as super evil genius, master manipulator and overall cunning asshole.
Even thinking about him causes an outburst of anger because he is so damn good at being evil but totally makes people think he is actually doing good. This deception he has going and how he manipulates my precious boy makes me want to bash his head in so bad. Definitely a case of love-to-hate.

Gretchen Lowell from Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Sexy, manipulative, FEMALE serial killer! Hell to the yes! I love Gretchen and find her utterly fascinating. Watching someone enjoy doing all kinds of REALLY messed up stuff should make me run away screaming (which I totally would if she were real) but reading about her is strangely addictive. She makes me worry both about the author (for making this stuff up) and me (for liking this character).

Voldemort from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

I guess I don’t need to say much about him because who doesn’t think that Voldemort is a complex and perfectly done villain?!

Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

It’s funny how Hook is always the villain of this story when it’s actually Peter Pan who is the asshole here. I mean okay, Hook is constantly trying to kill Peter and kidnaps kids and all that jazz but come on, he is stuck in a world full of kids, who wouldn’t go batshit crazy in that situation, especially after what’s been done to him. HE LOST HIS HAND TO A CROCODILE THAT IS TO HUNT HIM FOREVER.

Least favorite villains

Adelina Amouteru from THE YOUNG ELITES by Marie Lu

I don’t even know why I list her because she is so not a villain. Nope. This book was supposed to be the origin story of a villain which got me all excited and then disappointed me so much. Villains are all about doing dark things because of their own strange logic and me liking them anyway. Adelina though? All she does is blush every second page and the “bad” things she does aren’t even her own fault, it’s more like wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t see any of the darkness that was supposed to be inside her at all. She is way to weak to be a proper villain. I didn’t hate her because she was a great villain, I hated her because she was not a complex, dark character.

Levana from THE LUNAR CHRONICLES by Marissa Meyer

I think Fairest was the only book in the series where I really thought that Levana might make a proper villain because there we saw some really messed up shit. Overall though, Levana was kind of a weak villain because she never surprised me, she had it way too easy as a villain thanks to her abilities. She just wants to rule them all and where for example Mayor Prentiss from Chaos Walking does the same thing with genius manipulation of people, Levana just uses her conveniently fitting powers.

 

 

Nefarious Tales - Villain week

 

This post is part of Nefarious Tales, a week-long event hosted by Chasing Faerytales to celebrate villains. Check out Mishma’s blog for more villainy posts all week and a giveaway.

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  • OMG, YOU AND I HAVE SUCH SIMILAR TASTES, IT’S SO UNCANNY!!! I haven’t read all the villains from your list, but I 100% approve of those ones I have. I love Victor to death, the Dane twins gave me the chills, and HOLLAND MY PRECIOUS BABY!!! I just wanted to hug him tightly! And Loki is hands down one of my favourite movie villains! And after reading your description, I really want to go read the comics now!

    Thanks for joining – once again – and for the post, Crini! <333

  • Great list! I don’t know all of them, but I agree with the ones I do know. I’m glad Holland made your list. (I’m still counting on him to be strong in ACOL.) I love the part about Gretchen Lowell, because I was thinking the same thing about myself and the author while reading the books. XD

    Have we already talked about Fairest? I didn’t like it very much, because I was hoping it would make me at least understand where Levana was coming from, and it didn’t. At all. Her evilness was very one-dimensional.

    • I don’t think we have! I actually liked Fairest because of how messed up Levana was in that one. I think a lot of people didn’t like it because they thought it was meant to make you sympathize with her? But imo you could say that to every villain’s origin story LOL

  • Loki is just so precious! He’s one of my favorite movie villain, and not only because of Hiddleston does an amazing job potraying him, but because his complex moral and how hard he tried. Really excited to see more of him in MCU. And Holland is another complex one. I hope he got more amazing plot in AGOS! Somehow I prefer Bellatrix more than Voldemort. She’s just such a psychotic, ruthless, downright scary witch. Great list Crini! :D

  • Ich liebe Bösewichte! Mayor Prentniss ist auf jeden Fall auch ganz oben auf meiner Liste. Den Darkling aus der Grisha-Trilogie find ich auch super x) Aber an sich findet man echt selten richtig gute, also komplexe, Bösewichte, echt schade. Meistens ist es nur so eine eindimensionale Levana :P

  • V. E. Schwab is fantastic at creating characters! I haven’t read Vicious yet, but I love a good villain and Victor has a lot of fans so I definitely want to get to that soon. Have you read A Gathering of Shadows yet? Because that book’s villain is even better than The Dane Twins.

  • V.E. Schwab writes such excellent villain characters. I really need to pick up Vicious soon!

  • LOVE the Dane Twins as villains! They are some of my favorites! Nice list :D

Apr 22, 2016