how do you define how good your protagonist is? By paring him/her up against a great antagonist, and whats better than an antagonist who is at least somewhat sympathetic, below is a short list of some of my favorite villains in fiction and brief reasons why I like them. 1. Omega (Doctor Who - classic series): Omega is a great example of a tragic villain, in the Doctor Who universe it was Omega who gave the Timelords (the alien race that The Doctor belongs to) the power to time-travel, but while doing so he got himself stuck in another dimension, believed dead by his fellow timelords/ladies he soon became a legend on his homeworld of Gallefrey, revered by every Timelord and Timelady, however Omega was not dead, he eventually tried to get out of the dimension in which he was imprisoned, unfortunately he had gone insane over the years that he was tapped there and believed that the Time Lords purposefully imprisoned him on the advice of their President Rasiloun (inference Rasiloun is a class-A jerk so Omegas fears are somewhat understandable) hell-bent on revenge Omega wishes to destroy the known universe and re-shape it in his image so that he can feel vindicated for creating time-travel, he is a tragic character because he is unaware that he is worshiped on his home planet and considered one of the greatest of all Time Lords.... 2. Dom Claude Frollo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo): once a priest with a kind heart, Claude Frollo adopted the abandoned deformed baby who was left on the steps of Notre Dame cathedral by a band of Gypsies, the baby who was half blind and had a hunched-back was given the name Quasimodo and Frollo raised him as the bellringer of Notre Dame, he also helped raise his younger brother Jehan Frollo after their parents succumbed to the plague early in Claudes career as a priest, however Frollo eventually tragically went down hill after his eyes fell on the 16 year old Gypsy girl Esmeralda, now Archdeacon of Notre Dame, Frollo desperately tries to cling to his rigid virtues of science and faith but finds himself increasingly giving into lust... Frollo could have been a hero, but in his desire to prove that he was above human, he failed and showed that he was pathetically human at the end of the day, by the end of the novel he has lost all of his heroic principles and has instead become an attempted rapist, attempted killer, who falsely condemns Esmeralda to death for a crime that he himself committed (the stabbing of womanaizer and general asshole Phoebus de Chatuepear who was trying to have some alone time with Esmeralda). 3. Claudius, King of Denmark (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare): Claudius is another great example of a tragic villain, if you look closely at Hamlet you can see that he genuinely cares for the emotional well-being of his nephew the title character Hamlet (up until the latter stages a play exposing Claudius crime, then the gloves come off), he is also shown to be a far better King, than the one he murdered to take the throne, the first thing we see him do in the play is attempt to avert what seems like a pointless and bloodthirsty war between Denmark and Norway - a war started by his elder brother Old King Hamlet, Claudius even express guilt for his crimes in a tragic prayer scene and in some ways he seems to be a better ruler than the rather unstable and indecisive Prince Hamlet would make. Then on the other hand he does commit murder to usurp the Crown and he later organizes the most elaborate (and farcical) fencing match/murder scheme that ends up with him getting quite literally stabbed in the back and tasting his own medicine.. 4. (*obligatory spoiler warning for those who havent read ASOI&F or watched the HBO show*) Jaimie Lannister (A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin): Jaimie is probably the most human villain out of the ones I have listed so far....Older brother Tyrion Lannister and younger twin brother of his sister Cersei Lannister, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and wife to King Robert Baratheon, when we first meet Jaimie in the first book/season of George R. R. Martins epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones as the TV adaption is called) he is involved in an incautious affair with his sister Cersei which leads to the creation of three bastard children, Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella who both Jaimie and Cersei immediately pretend are Baratheons so that the realm believes they are Roberts true born children. A member of the Kingsguard, Jaimie rather (in)famously broke his oath to protect his King Aeryes II Targearyan in the backstory by slitting the Kings throat (in the TV series it is mentioned he stabbed him in the back) this betrayal earned him the mocking name Kingslayer however it later transpires that Jaimie decided to murder Aeryes (who was a power crazed tyrant) because the latter was going to burn down the capital city of the realm, home to some 50,000 people, the fire would have likely killed everyone, but Jaimie also murdered Aeryes Pyromancer who was in the middle of carrying out the Kings orders, in the actual story itself, Jaimie starts off in the first book by attempting to commit child murder to cover up his incestuous love affair with his sister however in the third book when we actually get to see some events from his perspective we learn that he is not simply a one dimensional villain, he saves a female knight from rape and later saves her again this time from being eaten by a bear, he also saves the life of his younger brother Tyrion (although he does it out of guilt for lying to Tyrion about something for over decade so yea...) later on in the series, he tries to stop Lannister men from committing atrocities during their crushing of rebellious forces against the throne, Jaimies quest for redemption brings him quite close to the line of anti-hero from the third book onwards and I really cant wait to see what Martin does with the character in the upcoming The Winds of Winter book (book 6 in the series) 5. The Thrunchball (Matilda): well she is a pretty terrifying character who sadistically terrifies children.......Not much else to her really, but she is great to hate. 6. The Wicked Witch of the West (L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz): shes meant to be one dimensional villain and thats clearly how the writer wanted to portray her (scary villain is also scary because she is missing an eye, L. Frank Baum was a dick to disabled characters), however it should be said in her defence she is the victim of an assassination plot carried out by the totally non despotic Wizard of Oz and also she is sort of right in being pissed off over her sisters death even if it was accidental on Dorothys part. 7. Ms. Danvers (Rebecca by Daphnie De Murie) well, she is the archetypal, creepy housekeeper who is obsessed with preserving the ghost (memory) of her late mistress Rebecca De. Winter....she spends a good deal of the novel plotting against the nameless protagonist/narrator and even encouraging the latter to kill herself because shell never replace a dead woman as the wife of Mr. Maximilian De. Winter of Manderly. On the other hand....she actually does deserve some pity I feel, I mean it transpires that the narrators husband the aforementioned Max De. Winter murdered Rebecca in a fit of range one night, Ms. Danvers figures this out eventually but despite her and Rebeccas cousin (and lover) Jack Fevells attempts to bring Max and his nameless wife to justice for hiding the fact of the murder the two are let off the hook on a technicality (Rebecca was dying from cancer at the time she was shot....still she was shot) so yea I feel theres a need for a sympathy for Ms. Danvers fanclub. 8. Hector, Prince of Troy/Ilium (Homers Iliad): from the viewpoint of the epic poems protagonist (Achilles) Hector is the primary antagonist, however from the viewpoint of his own people the Trojans, Hector is a noble, honorable man who will do anything to protect his city from being destroyed, Homer really understood how to make his characters grey, another reason to love Homer. 9. Clytemnestra, Queen of Argos (Aeschylus, Orestia): wife of King Agamemnon of Argos, Clytemnestra is the central villain in the play The Orestia based on a side story written by Homer in The Odyssey (although there she is Queen of Mycenae). In the Orestia, Clytemnestra spends 10 years plotting the death of her husband Agamemnon because the latter sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to appease the Goddess Artemis who was refusing to grant the Greeks a favorable wind to set sail to Troy (so that they could murder more people) at the start of the play Agamemnon returns home and Clytemnestra murders him while he is taking a bath,then she herself is murdered by Agamemnons son Orestes with the help of his sister Electra.....In all seriousness I feel sorry for Clytemnestra, Agamemnon sort of had it coming.........though she took it way too far when she murdered Princess Casandra of Troy, daughter of the Trojan King Priam who Agamemnon had kidnapped and brought back home as a concubine/spoil of war 10. Count Dracula (Bram Stoker, Dracula): last but not least, the Count himself, how do you define a brilliant villain any better? In his mortal life that Stoker sketches out for him in his masterpiece of a Gothic Novel, he was a sorcerer and student at the Satanic school of the black arts where he was thought by the devil himself, there he was turned into a vampire and started to feast upon the blood of the living. A cruel (but also rather charismatic) aristocratic, blood sucking corpse that is hell bent on world domination it really doesnt get better than this......He also possibly deserves some sympathy for it seems he did love at least three women in his lifetime who he turned into vampires, (I too can love, you yourselves know this from the past). But still I prefer to think of him as a devious, charismatic and dangerous villain who has power over wolves, bats and lunatics in insane asylums.........I really could go on and on about him but I wont. If I can make even one of my villains as memorable as one of these figures Ill be pleased........... *note Im not quite happy about number 5 (the Thrunchball) but I cant think of one to replace her so for now she stays...though Im not that big a Matilda fan.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 21:36:01 +0000
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