Favourite Shakespeare Villain?

[The Marquis de Leech]

if you think Iago is Shakespeare's most motiveless villain, you've obviously unfamiliar with Titus.

Aaron the Moor makes Iago look like a Saint.

Yes, but one expects more from a major character in Othello (which enjoys the status of one of Shakespeare's Four Great Tragedies) than from one in Titus Andronicus (which is remembered for the pies).

[The Marquis de Leech]

But then, Titus was an earlier play. If you believe Shakespeare is one person, then it's obviously when he was going through his angsty stages of writing, which we all go through.

It's not so much angsty, so much as a glorious piss-take of Jacobean Revenge Tragedies, which were a dime a dozen at the time.

[sologdin]

yeah, i read it as almost a student's exercise in senecan tragedy. it's great, but yaknow not O or M or KL.

[PhoenixFlame]

Titus Andronicus is one of my favorites, probably because it's the redheaded stepchild. Some of the verses are so moving, but the play itself is hilarious for its glorious melodrama. Plus, Titus is my favorite Shakespeare film. Anthony Hopkins dancing around in a chef's hat O_O. It's not as beautiful or intricate as some of his others, but I'm attached. Tamora is a great villainess. Unlike Aaron, she had a reason to want Titus dead. A nasty woman, but far from motiveless. .

[GoodGuyA]

Caliban!

....

Nah, I kid. He's a miserable pile of rot. I'd go with MacBeth, mostly because I just love the vigor imbued in him throughout the play.

[James Arryn]

OT, but like Richard III, for obvious reasons MacBeth as per Shakespeare is entirely unlike MacBeth as per history.

[nightingalefive]

I love Edmund from King Lear.

"Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"

[sologdin]

Caliban!

i run the other way with that one, too. caliban and ariel are the dispossessed slaves of heinous imperialist prospero.

[Jolene Brown]

I love Edmund from King Lear.

"Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"

Inspiration for Ramsay? :)

[GoodGuyA]

i run the other way with that one, too. caliban and ariel are the dispossessed slaves of heinous imperialist prospero.

Then again, Antonio is somewhat of an interesting nasty fellow. Perhaps it says a lot that I find the prelude sequences to The Tempest far more interesting than the story at hand, but the story of his overthrowing of Prospero is quite fleshed out in the workings of the play. He's nowhere near the best though, since he fails to kill anyone!

[MrsManderly]

and let's not forget the bear in "Winter's Tale" - as in "exeunt pursued by a bear"

Surely an inspiration for The Bear and the Maiden Fair :drunk:

[Jaime's Wench]

Inspiration for Ramsay? :)

Edmund was far too suave, though. He's meant to be something of a heart throb.

[Old-Growth]

OT, but like Richard III, for obvious reasons MacBeth as per Shakespeare is entirely unlike MacBeth as per history.

Richard III was framed! The account of his doings on which the play was based was something of an exercise in Tudor propaganda. :-)

[Old-Growth]

That said, I vote for Iago as well simply because the scene in which he persuades Othello of Desdemona's adultury is a masterpiece of persuasive discourse. Modern politicians and such at their best could not do as well :-)

[James Arryn]

Richard III was framed! The account of his doings on which the play was based was something of an exercise in Tudor propaganda. :-)

I suspect you're being sarcastic, but I'll bite.

1) re: the actual crime of the PITT, there's little evidence to connect him. Just an assumption re: motive, but which leaves some pretty hefty unanswered questions itself. And motive lies there for many other reasons.

2) More importantly, even if you suppose Richard guilty (I think he's about as likely as anyone else, more than most) it wouldn't mean what Shakespeare painted it to mean. This was the Wars of the Roses; family killed family all the time, and child-kings had caused immeasurable damage in living memory. None of the rest of the evidence we have about Richard's character...loyal, bright, brave, kind, well regarded, etc. fits with the portrayal. His throughful and considerate rule almost single-handedly turned the North from a Lancaster recruiting ground into a Yorkist stronghold, and the Northerners of that time weren't easily impressed.

That and the trust Edward put in him at a remarkably young age, his military career and the rest are the antithesis of the monster WS made him out to be. If he engaged in some harsh real polituque, he would merely be falling in line with his contemporaries. AND self-preservation; if the Woodeville's got a hold of the power Edward specifically didn't want them to have, Richard wouldn't have been long for the world. He's sort of, in my mind, a combination of Tyrion and Ned.

All that said, his bastardization probably falls closer to the mark than MacBeth's. Aside from getting the odd name right, almost nothing of the dramatic king resembles the true person, who reigned for, I think, the 2nd or 3 longest run of any Scottish monarch in history, was secure and popular enough to go in progression to Rome as king, and all that in an extremely turbulent time. Additonally, almost everything about Duncan/MacBeth were inverted. MB was the older man, his wife was the rightful monarch, Duncan had had MB's father murdered and sent assassins who failed to do their same to MB and wife.

Then, after that failure, and very shorly into his reign he invaded MB's territory to secure it, where he met MB in battle and was killed. Nothing like the story.

Which doesn't make it less amazing. Just, as you say, politically sensitive to the times WS wrote in. Although in other ways he was actually something of a rebel (Catholic, for example).

[Old-Growth]

A little of both, perhaps. The prof who taught the Shakespeare course I took my senior undergraduate year (Spring 1970) was pretty clear about the point about Tudor propaganda: the play Richard III was less than factual. As for WS being a Catholic, that could be rather hazardous while Elizabeth was still alive, so I am a wee bit skeptical. Maybe he flew under what passed for the radar at the time :-)

Also thanks for the info about Macbeth, its been too long, and I am not all that clear now about the relationship to what is known about the history.

[Jaime's Wench]

A little of both, perhaps. The prof who taught the Shakespeare course I took my senior undergraduate year (Spring 1970) was pretty clear about the point about Tudor propaganda: the play Richard III was less than factual. As for WS being a Catholic, that could be rather hazardous while Elizabeth was still alive, so I am a wee bit skeptical. Maybe he flew under what passed for the radar at the time :-)

There is only very speculative evidence that WS was RC, though there's evidence to suggest he was more than one person and rather a number of courtiers/nobles of Elizabeth and James' reign. I wouldn't say many of the bigger plays have suggestions of Catholicism in them. In the case of Macbeth, there's quite a lot of puritan overtones.

[andrew_]

For anyone who's interested, a different and a bit crackpot film on the truth of WS and authorship of his plays, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521197/

Although I don't really believe it to be plausible, it was still an interesting take on an old conspiracy

[Darth Richard]

For anyone who's interested, a different and a bit crackpot film on the truth of WS and authorship of his plays, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1521197/

Although I don't really believe it to be plausible, it was still an interesting take on an old conspiracy

a BIT crackpot? That's like calling Loose Change or the We DIdnt land on the Moon people a BIT crazy. :P

[Old-Growth]

If we are going to discuss the authorship question, we should start a separate thread. For what 'tis worth at present however, I entertain a highly modified Oxfordian hypothesis, namely that the 17th Earl of Oxford was not the author of the poems or plays, but rather a mentor for the young actor from Stratford, who helped him develop his remarkable abilities and helped him with information used in the plays. Does The Merchant of Venice display knowledge of that city that at the time only one who had been there would be likely to know---as the original Oxfordian, J. Thomas Loony claimed? Oxford, who lived there for six months, could tell Shakespeare what he needed to know. And Oxford is known to have had a considerable interest in the theatre, otherwise he would never have been considered as a candidate for the authorship in the first place.

This is to be sure just a hunch, but having read a bit about what passes for the debate about this matter, I do rather like it. :-)