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Best incarnations of Evil in fiction


Sci-2

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When it comes to fiction, I would also nominate both Lord Foul (For Fantasy) and Tony Soprano (For a more realistic take on evil.) Lord Foul is the Despiser and I think Donaldson does a great job of making you understand his motivations.

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Since the thread includes characters from television and film as well as books I would add Walter White and Michael Corleone.

Michael Corleone is a Shakespearean Tragedy. A good man corrupted by his family history. No matter how hard he tries to distance himself from it and do the right thing, they keep "pulling him back in". Ultimately it costs him his brother, his daughter, his soul and his life. Tragic, but not truly evil.

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Doing evil things does not necessarily make one evil.

Well, it kind of does, especially if the main reason he's doing them is that he enjoys it. Yeah, sad backstory, blah blah, but an explanation is not an excuse.

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I personally would consider almost all of Abercrombie's character's from The First Law series evil. I would also consider them all heroes as well. What made those books so brilliant for me was the detail in which the author went into explaining the motivations of each character. There really was no "good" guys or "bad" guys.

As far as the best villian in literature, I would have to say Braum Stoker's Dracula only because of the immense cultural effect of that character.

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I personally would consider almost all of Abercrombie's character's from The First Law series evil. I would also consider them all heroes as well. What made those books so brilliant for me was the detail in which the author went into explaining the motivations of each character. There really was no "good" guys or "bad" guys.

As far as the best villian in literature, I would have to say Braum Stoker's Dracula only because of the immense cultural effect of that character.

I don't think I'd count Luthar, Logan, Ferro, or Ardee as evil. Bayaz is certainly evil, and, as I said, I'd count Glokta as evil.

The characters in Best Served Cold are considerably worse.

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Well, it kind of does, especially if the main reason he's doing them is that he enjoys it. Yeah, sad backstory, blah blah, but an explanation is not an excuse.

I think it's important to consider the Law-Chaos axis as well. Now imagine a wheel....

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Oh yeah, that's a good one. What about Swerengen though?

Swerengen? What about fucking Hearst and Cy Tolliver? Swerengen was just your average thug compared to them (and as Mikael says, hes just so damn likeable)

this thread has got me interested in watching the Sopranos all the way through. I've only seen the first season, and gave up after that.

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Michael Corleone is a Shakespearean Tragedy. A good man corrupted by his family history. No matter how hard he tries to distance himself from it and do the right thing, they keep "pulling him back in". Ultimately it costs him his brother, his daughter, his soul and his life. Tragic, but not truly evil.

we always come to this point when we discuss evil. Michael Corleone willing does evil. Repeatedly. He murders and steals. Constantly. It may be tragic how he got there but I don't see how he's not evil.

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I don't think I'd count Luthar, Logan, Ferro, or Ardee as evil. Bayaz is certainly evil, and, as I said, I'd count Glokta as evil.

The characters in Best Served Cold are considerably worse.

We can banter back and forth about the evils of Logan and Ardee, They were clearly pointed out though, You start becoming really fuzzy when you lump Ferro in your non evil category, and you have completely lost it if you didn't get the evil in the Bloody Nine.

They were all evil people, and they were all righteous. That was the beauty of the work.

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