Please tell me who you see as the most interesting Villains in SF/F...

[sologdin]

dr. moreau.

victor frankenstein.

sir breunis sans pite.

marty & daniel.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Sologdin,

I'm surprised you didn't mention Scorpious.

[jagilki]

Frodo.

Stealing a poor guys ring and throwing it in a volcano.

[sologdin]

scot--

i love scorpius, but i can't take him too seriously ever since a lady friend stretched her leather thong undergarments over her face and hissed out insert the rod.

ETA--

i should be smacking myself for forgetting TTO/TNO, though.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Frodo.

Stealing a poor guys ring and throwing it in a volcano.

Technically he did neither (it was Isildur who did the stealing, and Gollum who fell into the volcano).

[jagilki]

Technically he did neither (it was Isildur who did the stealing, and Gollum who fell into the volcano).

Even worse then. He's an incompetent.

[sologdin]

nonono. never back down as a prosecutor. just amend the indictment:

COMES NOW, 500 Internal jagilki Error, district attorney pro tempore for the BOARD, who prosecutes in the hame, under the authority and on behalf of same, gives here this honorable Court to know and be informed that:

FRODO BAGGINS

late of the Shire, and parts thereafter unknown, did at various times, with vi et armis, and odio et atia, in the places aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this honorable Court, commit the following offenses, to wit--

knowing receipt of stolen property;

attempted destruction of property;

trespassing;

conspiracy to commit trespassing,

aggravated battery of vermin,

operating livestock under nefarious influence,

theft of produce;

vandalism of burial grounds;

misappropriation of antiquities,

spoiliation of public grounds & natural reserve areas;

unauthorized entry to national security sites (Mordor);

conspiracy to commit same;

aggravated false imprisonment of a mentally disabled person;

aggravated battery of a mentally disabled person;

aggravated forced labor of a mentally disabled person;

conspiracy to commit trafficking in persons of a mentally disabled person;

terrorism; and

attempted assassination of a sitting head of state.

--contrary to the statute of the State, against the peace and dignity of same.

s/ 500 Internal jagilki Error

(see? easy!)

[The Marquis de Leech]

sologdin, you forgot to mention:

- Assault (he stabbed a toeless foot in Moria, notwithstanding that the owner of said foot had not attacked him)

- Conversion (claiming the Ring at Mount Doom)

- Defamation (as author of the Red Book of Westmarch, he besmirched the reputation of Messes Sauron and Saruman, amongst others).

And since we're at it: Pippin is guilty of Drunk and Disorderly Behaviour (at the Prancing Pony), and Sam is guilty of cruelty to animals (er, Giant Spiders).

[wolverine]

Hmmm...I see The Chairmaker was already mentioned. As was Glotka...

I assume these guys were mentioned too but Jaime Lannister and The Hound are pretty good. I don't know if they qualify though.

[Lord of the Night]

Scorpius (Farscape)

Grey Seer Thanquol (Gotrek and Felix/Thanquol and Boneripper)

LotN

[Sci-2]

Lex Luthor. Personally, I really liked his Justice League Cartoon iteration, a version that extended from Superman: TAS all the way to Justice League Unlimited. His part in the last episode of this series was pure brilliance.

[Migey]

I personally find The Lord Ruler from Mistborn a rather interesting villain. As the series progresses we get a clear sense of motivation and who he is, appreciating his ingenuity, but leaving no doubt that he's still acted as kind of a dick.

[Darth Visenya]

Emperor Palpatine and Littlefinger.

[Grack21]

Orson Scott Card

[Sci-2]

Oh, Darkseid (well up until DC's reboot). Especially loved him in the arc Morrison penned stretching from Mr. Miracle to Return of Bruce Wayne.

[Marcus Cicero]

The Chairmaker - I agree he's a terrible, terrible person, but I think villain needs the structural position of actually working against the goal the reader is sympathetic to, which he mostly isn't. Things are pretty blurry and more complicated than that in Use of Weapons, but still, i'd rather like to have more people who are unambigously the bad guys but are still interesting.

Aw, come on, let's not be so quick to judge the poor bastard. The man was under some extreme circumstances, and he

proceeds to spend the rest of his life attempting to make up for it.

He committed a terrible terrible act, but I don't think he's a terrible, terrible person.

[Datepalm]

He committed a terrible terrible act, but I don't think he's a terrible, terrible person.

how would you define terrible, terrible person?

[sologdin]

define terrible, terrible person

that's what the thread needs. we've already had some discussion about the "villain" as a narrative function that simply opposes the protagonist, but that's really the antagonist.

some have mentioned evil as the appropriate touchstone--so, evil with reference to what? some arbitrary morality drawn from religion ("Do not plant your field with two different kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven from two different kinds of thread" Lev 19:19)? a strict correspondence to one criminal code or another ("evildoers were spotted eating at the white-only lunch counter today!"? victorian-era ladies' behavior manuals? the generic standards of heroic fiction, wherein it's evil to be ugly and surly, and accordingly good to kill ugly, surly persons?

[Serious Callers Only]

Pretty sure i'm forgetting loads of chars. But i'm going to be slightly controversial: the most interesting villain i recall is from a game: Azrael's Tear.

He was the villain only insofar as he was depicted as the most asshole of the assholes you meet.

I say depicted; because he's not even in the game world; he left pre-start of the narrative and all you see about him is what the others think, what he wrote and what he fucked up.

Livia from I, Claudius i agree with.

[Marcus Cicero]

how would you define terrible, terrible person?

For me, a 'terrible, terrible person' would have to commit their terrible acts for selfish reasons without feeling remorse.

Zakalwe feels remorse to an extreme. It permeates every aspect of his post chair making existence. Yeah he's still a fighter, but he's consciously fighting for causes he hopes are good ones in a lifelong attempt at redemption. He doesn't come across as a sociopathic or even a particularly selfish person. As for the act itself; it's important to acknowledge that we don't have all the information. We don't know what cause he was fighting for. For all we know, his faction could have been the justice pursuing freedom fighters. It is safe to assume that he believed in his particular faction's cause. Combine that with his extreme knack for self-preservation, and you have his justifications. It's not like he did it out of sadism.