Post your nominees for the most evil characters in fiction

[charlie and algernon]

my nominee:

James Gandolfini's character in Crimson Tide - Lt. Bobby Dougherty

He escalates the issue of who's in command into a full blown civil war aboard the NUCLEAR sub and he's the only one who's actually disappointed that they won't be nuking Russia at the end of the movie. The movie is filled with him giving particularly evil glares at Denzel's and Viggo's Characters.

[Swede]

1. Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men was a real monster.

Javier Bardem played him perfectly.

[av8rdave]

13. +1

[Monk06]

32. Pick it, go ahead and pick it. Heads you win tails you lose. Brrrrrrrr

[cemaphonic]

41. yeah, but he's got nothing on Judge Holden

McCarthy knows how to write some memorable villains.

[Orrex]

96. Sure, Holden is evil, but he's a hell of a dancer.

You'll not take that from him.

[cemaphonic]

108. kinda like Christopher Walken.

[Forkboy]

47. Yes, a good choice.

To me he represented violence and the randomness of fate, and how they intertwine. Maybe not the most "evil", but one of the best metaphors in a long time.

[Alexander]

107. Agreed.

Disturbingly evil.

[AsahinaKimi]

2. From Dr. Who..

The Master..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrGBzZaR8pI&feature=related

or perhaps, Davros..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc8DDyjbvmE

[keroro gunsou]

118. true...

but at least he's got style. the master... davros, not so much... but he is a good omnicidal maniac.

[Jade Fox]

3. Reverend Nathan Price......

from "Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver.

Okay, I'm reading the book now, so he's fresh in my mind. Still, he puts his family in mortal danger all in the name of God.

[old mark]

4. Joaquin Pheonix as the emperor in Gladiator.

He plays a great psycho, that was a perfect role for him.

mark

[ElboRuum]

62. Not evil, just a creature of unwarranted entitlement. n/t

[nomorenomore08]

5. Patrick Bateman from 'American Psycho' - the book, not the movie.

The movie version, of course, drastically toned down the gore - couldn't have been made otherwise - as well as downplaying Bateman's murderous bigotry toward women, minorities, and gays. But the character from the novel is a truly sick, evil creation, the perfect embodiment of what "Reaganism" really was, behind the smiling, all-American facade.

[unpossibles]

93. reading it now

You are so correct.

[Tom_Foolery]

6. The obvious: Hannibal Lecter.

[ElboRuum]

63. Not evil, just lives by his own code of honor. n/t

[Burma Jones]

7. Iago

[Blue-Jay]

8. Nurse Mildred Ratched

What a rotten piece of shit.

[ornotna]

94. "You know Billy, what worries me is how your mother is going to take this. "

Yeah, she was evil as hell.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. Satan - Paradise Lost

Or maybe God in the same story.

[LostInAnomie]

37. I was going to say...

... I thought Satan came off pretty sympathetic for the majority of Paradise Lost. It was God that seemed like the dick in the story. I guess that's the sign of a good book and a good writer.

[Bucky]

50. I don't think so. That mopey "myself am hell" attitude is too damned emo to be scary.

But good call on God in that same poem--He's a ruthless bastard straight to the end.

[ElboRuum]

64. Not evil, evil wishes it were this. Need a new word for this. n/t

[muffin1]

65. Truly chilling documentary.

Is Damian Nichols (sp?) still on death row?

I am definitely going to have to google that case this morning. Thanks for the reminder!

[LostInAnomie]

100. Different Paradise Lost

But yes, he's still on death row. Check my sig line.

[muffin1]

111. Thanks for the information.

I starting thinking it might be a different movie later in the day. I will do my best to donate something this month.
It is disgusting that listening to metal music and wearing black t-shirts (and statements made by an IQ-challenged individual who had been questioned for way too many hours), was enough for that jury to convict.

Even worse, that no one seems to care enough to review the case.

[Kat45]

10. Keyser Soze

From "The Usual Suspects," of course.

[mitchum]

11. Pap Finn would never win Father of the Year

[DemoTex]

12. Faulkner's Thomas Sutpen

Absalom, Absalom!

Oh, the web we weave ..

[nomorenomore08]

114. Good choice! I always thought Sutpen was an almost ideal sociopath.

And how appropriate that the racially "tainted" son he abandoned played such a key role in his downfall.

This one's a minor character, but I was also thinking of the guy at the end of 'Light in August' who kills/castrates Joe Christmas. Faulkner supposedly once said that he'd created a proto-Nazi with that character.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Dick Cheney.

I'm sure he's mentioned in some work of fiction somewhere. Like Bush vs Gore, for example.

[Initech]

15. C. Montgomery Burns from the Simpsons - the epitome of the rich republican douchebag.

[Mad_Dem_X]

25. He tried to block out the sun!

"Perpetual twilight." Eeeexcellent.

[ElboRuum]

57. Not evil, the guaranteed result of inscrutable authority and wealth. Actually a tragic figure.

[asdjrocky]

16. Carrie's mom.

[BlueIris]

23. Or Frank Dodd's mom.

(shudder)

[sarge43]

24. Or Sonny Elliman. n/t

[ElboRuum]

58. Not evil, probably mentally ill. n/t

[kentauros]

17. Mr. Morden - agent of the Shadows

[LanternWaste]

71. That's a tough one to argue...

That's a tough one to argue... always chilling when he says, "my associates and I..."

[kentauros]

83. The alternative one I considered in the same show was

President Cheney, uh, I mean, President Clark ;)

[pokerfan]

18. Archibald Cunningham in Rob Roy

[hippywife]

76. I still cannot watch Tim Roth in anything

without remembering this roll. I hated him so bad in that movie. He's real amateur evil, tho. A spoiled brat throwing tantrums.

:hi:

[Chal]

19. From Die Hard

Hans Gruber, the head bad guy from the first Die Hard, played by Alan Rickman. Bruce Willis was a bore by comparison.

[ElboRuum]

59. Not evil, just an intelligent criminal. Seems evil because you don't see those often.

[Sugarcoated]

97. I don't know . . .

he and his heartless band of cohorts killed a whole bunch of nice people.

And they followed the evil-bad-guy-in-a-movie rule . . . the more despicable and dastardly, the more gruesome the death. His was pretty horrific and epic.

[lazarus]

20. Geek alert - Voldemort

From the Harry Potter universe.

Also, of course, Sauron and Morgoth.

[sarge43]

21. Iago

A perfect role model for Repugs.

[BlueIris]

22. Heathcliff.

That's Iago level of eeeevil right there.

[swimboy]

26. Cinderella's step-mother

because the stakes were so low.

[ElboRuum]

67. Not evil, just another misguided yuppie... or the time-relevant analogue... n/t

[nuxvomica]

27. Raymond Lamorne

The villain in the original Dutch film "The Vanishing". :scared:

[mitchum]

28. Veda Pierce

[TZ]

29. Baron Harkonnen from Dune...

I know Dr. Strange would probably agree with me...

[baldguy]

42. A proto-Cheney if there ever was one.

[ElboRuum]

60. Not evil, he observed the forms of kanly. n/t

[Dr. Strange]

72. Evil and smart.

Unlike Rabban, who was evil and stupid.

[Orrex]

80. Is that "the Beast Rabban?"

Or the "Parking Valet Rabban?" I keep mixing them up.

[Dr. Strange]

81. The Beast Rabban, obviously.

The Parking Valet Rabban was run over by a worm. It was funny at first. Then a little sad. Then rip-roaringly funny.
I love it when they started referring to him as "thumper" at his funeral.

[nuxvomica]

30. Captain Vidal

From "Pan's Labyrinth".

[alphafemale]

31. Percy Wetmore - Green Mile.

Cruelty for the thrill of it and a craven weasel.

[ElboRuum]

61. Not evil, just another son of privilege whose folks obviously didn't much of socialization

[Enrique]

33. Chad from 'in the company of men'

[Doc_Technical]

34. Lt. Milo Minderbinder

From Catch-22.

[Richardo]

104. Good one.

Heller foretold the privatization of war through that 28 year-old imbicile.

[JVS]

35. Humbert Humbert

[MrScorpio]

36. Darkseid of the New Gods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkseid

[keroro gunsou]

119. "i am many things, Ka'el...

but here I AM GOD."

that's darkeid for you. delivered perfectly by michael ironside.

[LostInAnomie]

38. Judge Holden in Blood Meridian

Infectiously evil. He draws the evil out of the people he's around.

[DFW]

39. Mr. Diamond and Mrs. Perkins of "Shibumi"

Evil personified.

Father Xavier is pretty contemptible, too.

The story is now a little dated, but still full of great quotes.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

40. Harry Powell, the preacher in "The Night of the Hunter."

:scared:

[WinkyDink]

46. Now, children,.......

[Rhiannon12866]

103. +1!

He STILL scares the wits outta me! :scared:

[SoxFan]

43. Wilhuff Tarkin

It takes a special kind of douchebag to blow up an entire planet just to prove a point.

[ThoughtCriminal]

44. Another Nominee: Cruella de Vil

Skinning puppies for a coat? That is brilliantly over-the-top.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruella_de_Vil

[WinkyDink]

45. Bill Sykes. The Summoner and the Pardoner. Leonard Vole. Rhoda Penmark.

[Forkboy]

48. Henry from Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer.

No emotion, no nothing. And there ARE people out there like him. The ending scene with the suitcase (and it's unspoken contents) is as chilling as it gets.

[Bucky]

49. The international super competant corporate/KKK/mob lawyers conspiracy in Grisham's books

The megacorporations, Klan, and mob, which seem to be interchangeable villains with identical M.O.s in John Grisham's novels are frightening well funded, super competent, use state of the art surveillance technology, hang out in super secret intel-monitoring stations, and employ unlimited numbers of cool, calculating hit men possessed of near flawless professionalism.

[Xipe Totec]

51. Aaron the Moor - Titus Andronicus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE41Kd1hrf8

[ashling]

52. Dick Cheney

yeah, Dick f******g Cheney ... truth is stranger (and eviler) than fiction!

[dixiegrrrrl]

90. and his slithering toad Wolfowitz.

[MilesColtrane]

53. The self-aware supercomputer, AM in Elison's, "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream"

It executes genocide of the entire human race except for five people, which it keeps alive merely to torture.

[Richardo]

84. That story haunted me for a good long time.

:scared:

[MilesColtrane]

92. Me too.

I just started reading Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near".

It's about the point at which computers will begin to design their successors and inevitably surpass the processing power of the human brain.

Of course, Kurzweil puts a "best of all possible worlds" spin on what he predicts, but it makes for some disturbing bedtime reading for cynics like me.

[blue neen]

54. Blue Duck in "Lonesome Dove".

Very, very scary.

[bridgit]

86. Oooh, good one!!

[raccoon]

55. Thenardier and his wife in LES MISERABLES. nt

[ElboRuum]

56. Not evil, indoctrinated into the '80s cultural zeitgeist.

[insanity]

66. Cathy from East of Eden

what a bitch

[seaker]

91. Sorry

I didn't read your post...I totally agree with you.

[ElboRuum]

68. Thoughtcrime in 1984

After dancing around the idea for most of the novel, the appearance of the thought police is the hammer that finally drives the nail home, that there is nothing, not even one's own thoughts and ideas, that are not subject to the scrutiny and approval of authority. Summed, you know only that which we tell you, you like only that which we permit you to like, and you think only those thoughts which benefit and sustain our continued power. You are the dead.

[Hubert Flottz]

69. George W Bush...

[LanternWaste]

70. Alec Baldwin as Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross.

He's on the screen a total of seven minutes and manages to steal the entire movie away from the esteemed likes of Al Pacino and Ed Harris.

I think the reason he stands out with such an absolute clarity as a movie villain to me is because it is precisely this kind of evil that we not only tolerate, but actively promote in our culture.

The banality of evil personified. Many people want (sometimes need) evil overly dramatized because our perception of the zones of good and evil is that they are always trading ground back and forth, muddling the lines and making evil difficult to define in many cases. Other people want to dismiss evil in the individual and place it on a holier scale-- The Literary Concept without equal in non-fiction; the academic evil over which term papers are written and small, quiet dialogs take place over a few cocktails. I however, am more than satisfied to accept the non-dramatic, lesser-than-life, everyday evil as our primary scourge-- simply because even those time when we do recognize it for what it is, we more often than not, defend and justify it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-AXTx4PcKI

[DeltaLitProf]

73. My choices

Ida Falange in Henry James' What Maisie Knew.

Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire

Miss Fellowes in Night of the Iguana

Edmund in King Lear

Leopold Mozart in Amadeus

J. Edgar Hoover in James Ellroy's American Tabloid series

Uriah Heep in David Copperfield

Braxton Bragg and Henry Halleck in Shelby Foote's The Civil War

Samuel Chase in Gore Vidal's Lincoln

Dick Hickock and Perry Smith in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

[GoCubsGo]

74. Ronald Reagan in "Roger and Me"

Co-evil-starring: Roger B. Smith, Robert Schuller, Anita Bryant, Pat Boone

[GoCubsGo]

109. Doh!

For some reason, I got it into my head that this was a "most evil person in a movie" thread. Sadly, those people I listed aren't fictitious characters.

[11 Bravo]

75. Randall Flagg (not the DUer of the same name) was one evil mo' fo' in "The Stand".

[hippywife]

78. He really was evil incarnate.

Let's see ElboRuum make excuses for him. Maybe he was just misunderstood. :eyes:

[TCJ70]

85. That's who I was going to vote for...

...so...+1

[KG]

77. Lord Foul the Despiser. also known as the Grey Slayer, Satansheart Soulcrusher,

Corruption, and Fangthane the Render.

with that many names you know he's super duper evil.

[seaker]

79. Cathy Ames from East of Eden

Most evil woman in literature.

[lib_wit_it]

82. Sauron, from Lord of the Rings.

[bridgit]

87. There's always Frank

[RFKHumphreyObama]

88. Iago in Othello

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

89. The Wicked Witch of the West and Darth Vader.

WTF, people? Do I have to do everything by myself?

[Art_from_Ark]

95. The Evil Doctor Zinn, from Jonny Quest

That guy was pure evil

[Withywindle]

98. Dolores Umbridge, from the Harry Potter series.

Voldemort himself was always kind of abstract, really.

Dolores Umbridge was pure BELIEVABLE evil - sadistic torturer of teenagers (with an implication she got erotic enjoyment from it--really, JKR really did push the envelope there), authoritarian, prudish and power-hungry stomper of independent thought, control freak in pink suits with twee kitten plates in her chambers, and expert in manipulating the system, while still presenting herself as a perfect lady and representative of the government. Which she was. That's how fucked the government was in the later books in the series.

:scared:

[ThomCat]

122. Oh yes.

And willing to wholeheartedly push the official lie about only purebloods being able to inherit magic, so "mudbloods" must have stolen their wand and their magic from someone, with the implication that they killed the person they stole their wands from.

She lined up all the muggleborn for mock trials and imprisonment on what she knew were trumped up charges.

Yes, Delores Umbridge was an incarnation of absolute evil in the Harry Potter books. She just wasn't as splashy as Voldemort about it.

[Zomby Woof]

99. Blue Duck, from "Lonesome Dove"

Could torture his prey in ways that would make Cheney envious. He raped, kidnapped, and killed. Killed anyone and everyone - men, women, children, animals - far and wide. For decades. Then when he finally got caught, he took one more person with him while jumping to his death, not even giving the hangman the satisfaction of securing the noose.

[Heidi]

101. Bob Ewell in "To Kill A Mockingbird." (nt)

[Ishoutandscream2]

105. Yes, +1

Evil and oh so hateable.

[Rhiannon12866]

102. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

(Lord Voldemort.) :scared:

[LynneSin]

112. I nominate Man

They killed Bambi's mom

[Glorfindel]

106. Mason Verger from "Hannibal"

No other fictional character even comes close. Pure, unadulterated evil. He makes Dr. Lecter look angelic by comparison. Gary Oldman played him in the movie, but the character in the book was much scarier.

[YankeyMCC]

110. The Six Fingered man

Just didn't care one wit about the desire of others.

[bookworm65t]

113. Roger Chillingworth

tries to destroy one man and ends up destroying himself.

[txwhitedove]

115. Robert Mitchum as Harry Powell in "Night of the Hunter", based on

a true story. "... a serial killer and self-appointed preacher with the words "LOVE" and "HATE" tattooed on the knuckles of his right and left hands..."

And, Pitt Mackeson in "Ride with the Devil"

[Randall Flagg]

116. ME!

[keroro gunsou]

117. aizen sousuke

manages to stab the sweetest most naive person in bleach not once but twice, ok the second time he used someone else, but it's still pretty cold.

[bikebloke]

120. A little girl in The Fugitive episode "The Witch".

Season 1, Episode 2. Boy, that little girl was a nasty piece of work.

[SteppingRazor]

121. I don't know if he's the most evil, but the best TV villain ever is ...

Al Swearengen in Deadwood. What a cocksucker.