Welcome to Literary Hub’s inaugural Ides of March Madness bracket:
The Best Villains in Literature.Article continues after advertisement
Everyone loves a good villain—at least when they’re safely fictional—but which literary villains are the best? And which one deserves the title of the Greatest Literary Villain Of All Time? We need your help to decide. Voting is now open for your favorite villains in literature. Today, we begin with an initial, ignoble group of 64 (selected by our editors after much hand-wringing), and over the next week, we will be narrowing the field until we get to the dastardly winner. Who will it be? Iago or Annie Wilkes? Captain Ahab or Captain Hook? There’s only one way to find out.
Check out the bracket and start voting below:
[Click for a zoom-enabled version]
Rules
You may be wondering: What makes a villain “best”? That, friends, is really up to you. You can vote for the most iconic villains, the most memorable villains, or the most villainous villains. You can vote for the villain you enjoyed reading about the most, or the one that kept you up at night. You can vote for the cutest villain, if that’s your thing. The point is, there are no rules. Villains are rule-breakers, and so are we.
But that said, everyone likes a little bit of structure, so to start with, we’ve separated our villains into four “types”: Authority Figures, Manipulative Bastards, Monsters & Boogeymen, and Anti-Villains. Once we get a winner from each group, they’ll go head to monstrous head.
Voting Schedule
Ignoble Round of 64: Voting open now until Sunday, March 9th at 7:00 PM EST
Round of 32 Assholes: Voting open from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST on Monday, March 10th
Not-So-Sweet 16: Voting open from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST on Tuesday, March 11th
The Hateful 8: Voting open from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST on Wednesday, March 12th
The Drawn and Quarter Finals: Voting open from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST on Thursday, March 13th
The Final Showdown: Voting open until Sunday, March 16th at 7:00 PM EST on Friday, March 14th
And the Best Villain In Literature will be announced on Monday, March 17th!
How To Vote
We’ve got handy voting forms embedded below. They’re a little ugly, like the souls of these villains, but they should get the job done. Simply select the villain you think should advance, and we’ll tabulate the votes at the end of each day.
Authority Figures
(Your boss is probably evil, too.)
O’BRIEN (1) vs. GENERAL WOUNDWORT (16)
(1) O’Brien (George Orwell, 1984)
Our top seed for authoritarians is this extremely memorable villain from one of the most widely read books about villainy. Orwell’s O’Brien combines all the worst villains from the real world into one of the nastiest guys in literature: he’s a fascist, a boss, and a snitch all rolled into one, a sort-of fascist Megazord, if you will.
Weapon of Choice: Lying, Rodents, Party-Members-Only Wine
Grim Prediction: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
2+2: 5
Read: 75 Years of 1984: Why George Orwell’s Classic Remains More Relevant Than Ever and George Orwell’s 1984 is Always Just Around the Corner
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(16) General Woundwort (Richard Adams, Watership Down)
And speaking of police-state authoritarians, you’re not safe from them in the animal kingdom either, if Richard Adams is to be believed. Anyone hoping that a return to nature might mean a more peaceful existence should check out the giant General Woundwort. This iconic mad rabbit king rules systematically and despotically over his warren with an iron paw.
Weapon of Choice: Strict Code of Rabbit Conduct, Biting
Scary Description: “He’s almost as big as a hare and there’s something about his mere presence that frightens you, as if blood and fighting and killing were all just part of the day’s work to him.”
Species Personally Fought: At least 5 (cats, owls, dogs, stoats, rabbits)
Read: On Watership Down, Another Attempt to Stop Humans from Ruining the Planet
THE GENERAL (8) vs. CORIOLANUS SNOW (9)
(8) The General (Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch)
The General of the Universe, as he refers to himself, rules an unnamed nation chaotically and manically. Márquez’s book, with its run-on, stream-of-consciousness sentences, probably brings us closest to what it might feel like to be in the mind of a depraved dictator and — spoiler alert — it’s a horrible place to be.
Weapon of Choice: Fatal Lottery Scams, Cannibalism
Using His Power to Change Soap Operas: “…his eyes moist with tears over the anxiety to know whether that girl who was so young was going to die or not and Saenz de la Barra would ascertain yes, general, the girl is going to die, then she’s not to die, God damn it, he ordered, she’s going to keep on living to the end and get married and have children and get old like everybody else, and Saenz de la Barra had the script changed to please him…”
Age, Claimed: 107-232
Read: Living With Gabriel García Márquez’s Ghost; How to Draw a Novel
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(9) Coriolanus Snow (Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games)
Another leader mad with power is Coriolanus Snow, the devious and cruel baddie of The Hunger Games. His only jobs as the dictator of Panem seem to be wearing fancy outfits, putting down rebellions, and overseeing the Hunger Games, which is powerful IP both in our world and in his. Not a guy you want to get on the wrong side of.
Weapon of Choice: Poison, Symbolic Roses
Cold Calculation: “But that aside, what purpose could it have served? We both know I’m not above killing children, but I’m not wasteful.”
Hunger Games Presided Over: 75
Read: 25 Works of Poetry and Fiction for Anger and Action
NURSE RATCHED (5) vs. MISS TRUNCHBULL (12)
(5) Nurse Ratched (Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
Is Nurse Ratched a villain because of the corrupting pressures of the institution she’s a part of? Or would she be a villainous tyrant wherever she ended up? It’s a real chicken-and-egg situation – though no matter which came first, they’ll both end up in the same psych ward cafeteria frittata.
Maintains Tyrannical Control With: Drugs, Shock Therapy, Wicker Basket of Horrors
Technique: “… [she] taught him not to show his hate and to be calm and wait, wait for a little advantage, a little slack, then twist the rope and keep the pressure steady.”
Electroshocks Administered: At least 5
Read: Literary villains who were actually just suffering from burnout.
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(12) Miss Trunchbull (Roald Dahl, Matilda)
Roald Dahl is very good at names, and Miss Trunchbull, headmaster of Crunchem Hall, is some of his best work. A name full of grinding consonants is perfect for this villain, who sadistically uses her power like a club, all while delusionally telling herself that she is the hero dispensing righteous justice.
Weapon of Choice: Shot Put, “The Chokey” Closet
Typical Outburst: “You ignorant little slug!” the Trunchbull bellowed. “You witless weed! You empty-headed hamster! You stupid glob of glue!”
Number of Children Hammer-Thrown by Their Pigtails: 1, that we know of
Read: Gluttony: A Reading List
THE WHITE WITCH (5) vs. THE QUEEN OF HEARTS (13)
(4) The White Witch (C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe)
The White Witch is the worst version of that friend who loves winter in a way that verges on weird. She’s villainous for her treatment of kids and for freezing all of Narnia for 100 years, but she did teach a lot of corny suburban kids (me) what Turkish delight is, so she’s not all bad.
Weapon of Choice: Turning Anything Into Stone, Dosed Turkish Delight, Yelling At Mr. Tumnus
Oh, The Humanity: “‘Why, it is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!’”
Haunting Height: 7”
Read: The Best Children’s Books Appeal to All Ages
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(13) The Queen of Hearts (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)
Out of every villain on this list, The Queen of Hearts is probably the villain most beloved by stoners. A playing card come to life, she might seem a bit doddering and toothless as a character, but she is obsessed with executions. I tell ya, this queen likes popping heads more than a teen with bad acne.
Weapon of Choice: Flamingo Croquet Mallet, Puns
Favorite Thing to Scream: “The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with her head!’”
The Queen’s Value in Blackjack: 10
Read: How Lewis Carroll Built a World Where Nothing Needs to Make Sense
RICHARD III (6) vs. WARDEN FENTON HADDOCK (11)
(6) Richard III (William Shakespeare, Richard III)
The big baddie of Shakespeare’s dramatized War of the Roses, Richard will stop at nothing to gain and hold onto power. He kills, schemes, and has people drowned in wine on his way onto the throne, only to be surprised to be left abandoned and friendless.
Weapon of Choice: Blaming Murders on Women’s Beauty, Feigning Modesty
Just Coming Out And Saying It: “And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,/To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —/I am determined to prove a villain,/And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”
Children Locked in The Tower of London: 2
Read: How Three Royal Brothers Ended an English Dynasty
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(11) Warden Fenton Haddock (Tananarive Due, The Reformatory)
There are other bad teachers and bad caretakers on this bracket, but few are as odious as Warden Haddock. Fortunately, and unlike some others on this list, Haddock gets his due at the end. Another win for ghost justice!
Beware Haddock’s: Corporal Punishment, Coverups
Threat to Children: “…as an officer of the state, I will beat you bloody and sleep like a babe at night because it will make you a better man. God himself says so.”
Ghosts Pissed Off: Dozens
Read: Tananarive Due on Reinventing Black Horror
CAPTAIN AHAB (3) vs. THE COMMANDER (14)
(3) Captain Ahab (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick)
The tyrant of the Pequod needs little introduction. A man with a quest that destroys and corrodes everything around him, he’s one of the great bad bosses of literature. Still, you gotta respect his hustle — the man knew how to focus up and grind.
Weapon of Choice: Harpoon, Obsession for Revenge
Notable Insult: “Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me.”
Legs: 1
Read: In Praise of Melville’s Whale Chapters
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(14) The Commander (Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale)
There are some novels that you wish the world could emulate more — The Handmaid’s Tale is one I wish would stop being so relevant. The Commander is a true and complete bastard, who is addicted to his patriarchal power — he isn’t content with his authority as the unquestioned head of household, he also bends Gilead’s rules to create more ways to control and abuse the women in his life.
Patriarchy’s Tools: Scrabble Boards, Privilege
Bad Justification: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, is what he says.”
Number of Real-Life Villains He’s Similar To: Far Too Many
Read: The Handmaid’s Tale Adapts More Than the Novel: Here is America
CARDINAL RICHELIEU (7) vs. MRS. COULTER (10)
(7) Cardinal Richelieu (Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers)
Everyone in this book manipulates women, but the Cardinal is arguably one of the worst offenders: rebuffed by the Queen, he dedicates his entire life and the power of a kingdom to taking her down. Becoming a dick of an ex on a geopolitical scale puts you high in the seeding. Plus the real-life Cardinal Richelieu established the Académie Française, which makes him one of the great grammar scolds in history — also very villainous.
Engineers Intrigue With: Seemingly Endless Minions and Underlings, Messing With Royal Jewelry
Rude Tone: “‘Yes, my friend, yes,’ said the cardinal, with that paternal tone which he sometimes knew how to assume, but which deceived none who knew him.”
Times He Rings A Bell To Summon Henchmen: Dozens
Read: At a Sword Fight with a Modern-Day Swashbuckler (in a Harlem Basement)
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(10) Mrs. Marisa Coulter (Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass)
One of the main villains of the His Dark Materials series, Marisa Coulter is a suave and well-connected agent of the Magisterium. She’s cunning and cruel, but we have to dock her in the seeding for infrequently showing some sympathy for her daughter—sympathy isn’t very villainous at all.
Weapon of Choice: Violent Religious Authority, Her Golden Monkey Dæmon
Unkind Description: “You have never from your earliest years shown a shred of compassion or sympathy or kindness without calculating how it would return to your advantage.”
Witches Tortured: 2
Read: Philip Pullman: I’m Quite Against a Sentimental Vision of Childhood
NAPOLEON (2) vs. THE GRAND HIGH WITCH (15)
(2) Napoleon (George Orwell, Animal Farm)
The most famous animal authoritarian of all time (unless you have some harsh notes for how Big Bird is behaving). The great socialist writer George Orwell spent his entire career asking questions of power, none more important than, “What if a pig were like Stalin?” It doesn’t turn out well, as it turns out.
Levers of Animal Power: Repression, Canine Secret Police, Rewriting History
Fawning Description: “Napoleon was now never spoken of simply as “Napoleon.” He was always referred to in formal style as “our Leader, Comrade Napoleon,” and this pigs liked to invent for him such titles as Father of All Animals, Terror of Mankind, Protector of the Sheep-fold, Ducklings’ Friend, and the like.”
Legs Walked On: 4, then 2
Read: Life in Interesting Times: What Orwell Can (and Can’t) Teach Us
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(15) The Grand High Witch (Roald Dahl, The Witches)
One of Roald Dahl’s most frightening books centers around this straight-ahead villain who is plotting to get rid of all children. It’s an insanely sinister character for a children’s book, one that Dahl only slightly undercuts with wacky specifics and world-building. But it wasn’t enough to temper this villain for some: The Grand High Witch kept me up as a kid.
Witch Skills: Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, Ink Spit, Counterfeiting Machine
Typical Vitriol: “Children are rrree-volting! Vee vill vipe them all avay! Vee vill scrrrub them off the face of the earth! Vee vill flush them down the drain!”
Doses Per Bottle of Mouse-Maker: 500
Read: Erica Jong on Roald Dahl’s The Witches
Manipulative Bastards
(Charmers, con artists, and other liars.)
IAGO (1) vs. ARNOLD FRIEND (16)
(1) Iago (William Shakespeare, Othello)
Iago is high up on our list, and an all time manipulative bastard. The first guy to claim that he wore his heart on his sleeve was actually scheming up a storm for no discernible reason—a truly two-faced man. If you ever cringe thinking about the relationship drama you got into in your twenties, rest easy there wasn’t an Iago in your friend group.
Manipulates With: Fatal Workplace Gossip, Handkerchiefs
Wicked Aside: “That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,/And will as tenderly be led by the nose/As asses are.”
Manipulation Count: Contrives at least 3 fights and 1 demotion
Read: Poison in the Ear: Why Iago is the Ultimate Thriller Character
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(16) Arnold Friend (Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?“)
Is there a villain more casually chilling than the perfectly named Arnold Friend, who pulls up to Connie’s house and seems to know all about her, not least that, despite what she imagines, she’s going to get into his car and let him do “just two things, maybe three” to her? As soon as he pulls up, red flags flapping in the breeze, it’s clear what’s going to happen, and still, Connie—and the reader—can only be slowly pulled underwater. There is no way to resist.
Tricks of the Trade: Brand New Paint Job, Commitment to Gaslighting, Stuffed Shoes
The Most Casual Threat: “But why lock it? It’s just a screen door. It’s just nothing. I mean, anybody can break through a screen door and glass and wood and iron or anything else if he needs to, anybody at all, and specially Arnold Friend. If the place got lit up with a fire, honey, you’d come runnin’ out into my arms, right into my arms an’ safe at home—like you knew I was your lover and’d stopped fooling around. I don’t mind a nice shy girl but I don’t like no fooling around.”
Sidekicks: 2 (Ellie, and Ellie’s radio)
Read: One Great Short Story to Read Today: Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
MRS. DANVERS (8) vs. MR. ROCHESTER (9)
(8) Mrs. Danvers (Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca)
Poor Mrs. Danvers. She was devoted to Mrs. de Winter: the beautiful, elegant, fashionable Rebecca. And then she dies, and who should replace her but this mousy little upstart, a nothing of a woman, or at least nothing as compared to Rebecca. How could any detail-oriented housekeeper be expected to tolerate such a thing? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if she just jumped out a window?
Deniably Devious Skills: Sartorial Suggestion, Intimidation, and Other Psychological Warfare
Sounds Nice, Really: “Look down there. It’s easy, isn’t it? Why don’t you jump? It wouldn’t hurt, not to break your neck. It’s a quick, kind way. It’s not like drowning. Why don’t you try it? Why don’t you go?”
Mrs. de Winters served: 2
Listen: Téa Obreht on Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca’s Lesbian Feminist Hero
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(9) Mr. Rochester (Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre)
How handsome and charming does someone have to be for you to forgive them for imprisoning their spouse in an attic? Maybe Jane should have let his bed curtains keep burning.
Undermining His Charms With: Padlocks, A Way Too Credulous Maid, Attempted Polygamy
Dapper Demonics Described: “He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others.”
Personal Prisoner Count: 1 (2 if you count marriage as a prison)
Read: If Jane Eyre Came Out Today, Would It Be Marketed as Genre? and Reading Jane Eyre While Black
LADY MACBETH (5) vs. URIAH HEEP (12)
(5) Lady Macbeth (William Shakespeare, Macbeth)
In a grouping full of eloquent operators, Lady Macbeth is one of the most well-spoken — even overwhelmed by guilt, she’s quotable and convincing. But in the end, it’s her own conscience that gets the best of her — she’s so good at manipulation, that she even manipulates herself.
Lady Macdeath’s Weapons: Drugs for Possets, A Silver Tongue, Quick Apologies for Your Husband’s Ghost Fears
Queenly Quotes: “Hie thee hither,/That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;/And chastise with the valour of my tongue”
Damned Spots Outed: 0, alas
Read: Blood on the Big Screen: A Lady Macbeth Who Does the Killing
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(12) Uriah Heep (Charles Dickens, David Copperfield)
Dickens could really write a bastard, and Uriah Heep is one of his bastard-est — a nasty little toady who is one of literature’s worst people to invite to an office happy hour. Wickfield should have known something was up when this sycophantic teen moved in: he’s a little too okay living in his boss’s house, which is a giant red flag.
In His Law Clerk’s Desk: Full Bottles of Wine, Bad Cheques
First Impressions from Copperfield: “… it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, [Heep’s] sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute at a time…”
Heep’s Prisoner Number: 27
Read: Famous Yet Elusive: On Charles Dickens’s Unstable Reputation
TOM RIPLEY (4) vs. BECKY SHARP (13)
(4) Tom Ripley (Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley)
The talent of Mr. Ripley is his ability to erase himself in order to advance himself—after all, why be Tom when you can be Dickie? Alternately tender and cold-blooded, confident and paranoid, slick and bumbling, desperate and devil-may-care, Tom lives on the edge, but he never looks back.
Skills in a Pinch: Forgery, Impersonation, Charm, Beaning People with Heavy Objects
It’s Called Method: “If you wanted to be cheerful, or melancholic, or wistful, or thoughtful, or courteous, you simply had to act those things with every gesture.”
Headshot Kills: 3
Read: A Close-Reading of The Talented Mr. Ripley as Coming of Age Story, How Patricia Highsmith’s Mr. Ripley Rises from Genre to Myth, Let Them Be Morally Flawed: In Defense of Queer Villains in Stories, and On the Alarming Conflation of Patricia Highsmith and Tom Ripley… Encouraged by Highsmith Herself
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(13) Becky Sharp (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair)
Becky Sharp is a bit of a tragic villain, as she was born too early to reap the benefits of our contemporary culture’s obsession with scammers. Her lower seed reflects that, on some level, we do have to give her props for trying to marry rich, though her cold and calculating quest takes it way too far.
Entices With: Stock Market Reports, The Latest Info on Frock Fashions
Confession: “I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year.”
Sides Played in the Napoleonic Wars: 2
Read: An (Ongoing) Taxonomy of the Sad Rich Girls of Literature
PATRICK BATEMAN (6) vs. MEPHISTOPHELES (11)
(6) Patrick Bateman (Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho)
The famous yuppie killer of Wall Street was a tough one for us to place — should he be with the manipulative bastards or with the monsters? Bateman would be right at home in both categories, but ultimately we decided that what makes him more iconic is his manipulative obsession with consumption and appearance.
And credit where it’s due: there are a lot of dapper killers on this bracket, but no one has a better skincare routine or mixtapes than Bateman.
In The Bottega Veneta Murder Briefcase: Generational Wealth, Chainsaw
Admission: “‘I’m into, oh, murders and executions mostly. It depends.’ I shrug.”
Business Cards Analyzed: 4
Read: On the Decision to Make Patrick Bateman a Serial Killer and American Psycho and the Rise of Capitalist Horror
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(11) Mephistopheles (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust)
A demon from folklore that Goethe transformed into a play and, later, fodder for endless grad school papers. Mephistopheles is a classic schemer and gambling addict — he’d probably make a good spokesman for a sports betting app.
Demonic Tricks: Poodle Disguise, Dealmaking
Evil (And Weird) Observation: “Blood is a juice with curious properties.”
Deals Made & Lost: 2
Read: A Deal With the Devil: What the Age-Old Faustian Bargain Reveals About the Modern World
HANNIBAL LECTER (3) vs. LORD HENRY (14)
(3) Hannibal Lecter (Thomas Harris, Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, etc.)
When we were putting this list together, we knew immediately that Dr. Lecter would be a top seed. What other villain could turn Fava beans into a scary line? Though real Harris-heads know the famous meal in the book is served with Fava beans and Amarone—not Chianti.
Fillets With: His Memory Palace, Big Culinary Choices
Boiling Him Down: “He’s a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don’t put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell.”
Menu of Victims: 28 killed, 7 eaten
Read: Hannibal Lecter: 20 Years Later; The Silence of the Lambs: The Seminal Serial Killer Novel, and Still the Best
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(14) Lord Henry Wotton (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray)
A sort of 19th-century edgelord, Henry’s goal in life is to shock, arouse, and throw parties so good that they ruin guests’ lives. Henry goads Dorian Gray into becoming a creature of hedonism, using only his witty narcissism and tons of “wrong, fascinating, poisonous, delightful theories.” Yet another reason to tax the rich!
His Dandy Weapons: Eloquence, Generational Wealth, A Poisonous French Novel
What He Tells Himself: “’To be good is to be in harmony with one’s self,’ he replied, touching the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. ‘Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One’s own life—that is the important thing.’”
Dinner Guests Scandalized: ∞
Read: A Close Reading of the ‘Censored’ Passages of The Picture of Dorian Gray
PROFESSOR MORIARTY (7) vs. CATHY AMES (10)
(7) Professor Moriarty (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Final Problem”)
“The Napoleon of crime” was introduced by Conan Doyle as both Sherlock’s worthy enemy, and as a way for Doyle to kill off Sherlock and wrench his writing career back from the famous detective. Moriarty is a planner: he rarely participates directly in his schemes — his villainous skill is his intellect. He is also, chillingly, good at math.
Connives With: An Airgun Cane, “A Treatise Upon The Binomial Theorem”
Sinister-est Threat: “If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.”
Sherlocks Killed: 1/2
Read: How the US Military Decided it Needed its Very Own Professor Moriarty
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(10) Cathy Ames (John Steinbeck, East of Eden)
Cathy is straightforwardly villainous, a stand-in for Satan and Eve, who Steinbeck describes as having cold, emotionless eyes and feet like hooves — just in case the murder wasn’t making her a clear enough villain.
Tears Up the Salinas Valley With: Sex, Arson, “A New Kind of Medicine” (Poison)
Casual Admission: “I could make them do whatever I wanted…when I was half-grown I made a man kill himself.”
Latin Professors Killed: 1
Read: 10 Female Killers in Fiction
HUMBERT HUMBERT (2) vs. DEKE O’MALLEY (15)
(2) Humbert Humbert (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita)
Surely the most eloquent pedophile ever to be immortalized on the page, a delusional, obsessive, disgusting, but ultimately tragic figure, who can swirl up a thousand pretty, if not remotely convincing, reasons why it’s definitely okay for him to have sex with his twelve-year-old daughter-in-law. He’s so awful that you hate yourself a little for marveling at him. And yet!
Call Him If You Enjoy: Long Road Trips, Rape Plots, Sedatives, Objectification
Giving it Away on Page 1: “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”
Ludicrous Narrative Accidents Caused : 1
Read: From Nabokov to Erdrich: Reading Complex Portraits of Criminality; The Pure Pleasure of Reading Lolita‘s First 100 Pages; Lolita: From Transgressive Lit to Pop Iconography
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(15) Deke O’Malley (Chester Himes, Cotton Comes To Harlem)
Reverend O’Malley is a scammer and conman, the nasty reverend at the center of Hime’s best-known Ed Coffin and Gravedigger Jones book. Reverend O’Malley gets a bump in our seeding for being an American classic of villainy: a religious grifter sleeping around and bilking their followers out of cash.
Scams With: Print-outs for a Fake Non-Profit, Hired Gunmen
What They’re Saying Around Harlem: “O’Malley didn’t run and all the hiding he’s been doing is behind the Bible.”
Number of Girlfriends Played Against Each Other: 2
Read: Don’t Make Graves: The Essential Harlem Detectives
Monsters & Boogeymen
(Run! Hide!)
JUDGE HOLDEN (1) vs. CRUELLA DE VIL (16)
(1) Judge Holden (Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian)
Our top seed is a character with the flaws and excesses of a human, but the core devotion to evil and mystical aura that you only find in religious texts: the Glanton gang’s brutal Judge Holden. Huge and hairless, he’s like a violent Mr. Clean. Holden is a truly hateful and haunting character — eerily well-mannered and intelligent, but with a lust for carnage and a hatred of all birds because their freedom personally insults him.
In His Saddlebags: Homemade Gunpowder, Fiddling, A Violent Worldview
Outlook: “War is god.”
Number of Reddit Threads Trying to Articulate Exactly What Holden Is: ∞
Read: Blood Meridian’s 10 most McCarthian sentences, Harold Bloom on Cormac McCarthy, True Heir to Melville and Faulkner, and Nine of the Most Violent Works of Literary Fiction
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(16) Cruella de Vil (Dodie Smith, The Hundred and One Dalmatians)
Another character making the case for higher taxes on the rich is Cruella de Vil, a monstrous and wealthy woman who is only using her vast resources to cause pain, mostly to dogs. She’s sadistic, and a pyromaniac too — at some point in the novel she stops to watch a building burning down. And as if her desire to skin puppies isn’t enough, she also brags about having a car with the loudest horn in London.
Weapon of Choice: Bad Fashion Sense, Fire
Sinister Aesthetics “Lovely lovely dogs. You’d go so well with my car, and my black-and-white hair.”
Dalmatians stolen: 15
Dalmations bought: 84
Read: Sympathy for the de Vil: Reading Beyond Likeability
[Judge Holden approximation via]
PENNYWISE/IT (8) vs. ALEX (9)
(8) Pennywise/It (Stephen King, It)
It is an interdimensional alien malevolence with nearly limitless powers, but mostly known as Pennywise The Dancing Clown — I imagine It feels a lot like the band Oasis, bitter about the one hit song that made them famous. Because It isn’t just a clown, It has tons of other, equally frightening forms: flying leeches, a blood fountain, swirling lights that make you insane, and more. A reminder that even villains that live to eat kids can contain multitudes.
Weapon of Choice: Shapeshifting, Knowing Exactly What You Fear Most
Looks Scary: “And George saw the clown’s face change. What he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams; what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke.”
Next Year Pennywise Should Return: ~2040
Read: Hanging Out with Pennywise and My Grandmother’s Ghost and The Literature of Creepy Clowns
vs.
(9) Alex (Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange)
Alex is an iconic villain, seared into literary culture with his sadism and his daffy language, Burgess’s invented Russo-English patois Nadsat. But for as fun as he is to quote, Alex is a teen monster, gleefully violent, out of control, and unrepentant. Not very horrorshow at all.
Tools for Dratsing: Laced Milk, Chain
What He’s Skazating: “What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolence.”
Favorite Lovely Ludwig Van Symphony: 9th
Read: “If A Clockwork Orange Can Corrupt, Why Not Shakespeare and the Bible?”
KURTZ (5) vs. THE TROLL (12)
(5) Kurtz (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness)
A thoroughly evil man, Kurtz uses a mandate from a colonizing corporation to fashion himself as a mad demigod who rules over a cruel African outpost. Conrad’s novella was based on his own experiences on a Belgian steamer, and Kurtz is likely an amalgam of various violent Europeans who terrorized Africa—he’s one of literature’s most indelible sociopaths.
Weapon of Choice: Exploitative Colonial Capitalism, Monologues
Famous Last Words: “The horror! The horror!”
Kilometers He’s Hidden Himself Up River: >65
Read: “Invasion is a Structure Not an Event.” On Settler Colonialism and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
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(12) The Troll (Victor Lavalle, The Changeling)
Victor Lavalle is a horror master, weaving modern fairy tales that shy away from happily-ever-afters or mawkish lessons. The Changeling is full of very human terrors, but it also features a great monster: a child-eating Norwegian troll squatting in the woods in Queens. Huge, smelly and a lot closer to your apartment than you’d like, it’s a very New York beast.
Skills: Stowing Away on Norwegian Boats, Dark Web Video Performances
Nasty Body Art: “From here he saw its greenish skin with collected dead leaves and clots of dirt: tiny bones—from squirrels or birds—were embedded in its flesh like pins in a pincushion.”
Distance Between Norway and Forest Hills: 3,600 miles
Read: 10 Works of Literary Horror You Should Read
RANDALL FLAGG (4) vs. MR. HYDE (13)
(4) Randall Flagg (Stephen King, The Stand)
Flagg is a sinister mainstay in the Stephen King Extended Universe, appearing in a lot of his books and going by over a dozen nicknames: “The Dark Man,” “The Hardcase,” “The Tall Man,” and “The Walkin’ Dude.” Flagg makes his first appearance in The Stand as the charismatic and ruthless tyrant of post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. He’s a compelling messiah of violence and terrible powers, which is why he’s so high in our seeding.
Weapon of Choice: Public Executions, Balls of Fire, Forcing Motorcycles Off The Road
Horrifying Visage: “He was known there, and even the maddest of them could only gaze upon his dark and grinning face at an oblique angle.”
Age (If Applicable): 1,500
Read: Why Nature Always Makes for the Best Antagonist
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(13) Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
Mr. Hyde is an enduring representation of all our dark sides. The upstanding Dr. Jekyll tries to let off some steam by chemically transforming himself into a wicked version of himself to indulge his baser desire—basically the Victorian era equivalent of having a few frosés and subtweeting people.
Tools of the Transformed: Changing Last Wills, Heavy Cane
Hyde Looks Bad: “He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why.”
Attempts Before Dr. Jekyll Perfects His Potion: Hundreds
Read: The Birth of an Immortal Literary Character: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
ANTON CHIGURH (6) vs. ANNIE WILKES (11)
(6) Anton Chigurh (Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men)
Cormac McCarthy has the honor of having two of his psychopathic creations appear in the monster division of our seed—the man had a genius for madness. A ruthless killer for hire, Chigurh is spookily emotionless. No man can stand in his way. But cars on the other hand…
Weapons: Cattle Bolt, Coin
Lonely But Alive: “I have no enemies. I don’t permit such a thing.”
Coins Tossed: 2
Read: Scene of the Crime: The “Coin Toss” From No Country for Old Men
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(11) Annie Wilkes (Stephen King, Misery)
One thing that these kids today don’t understand is that before social media, it took a lot more work to keep up a troubling parasocial relationship. Annie Wilkes deserves your respect as well as your fear—she’s violent and murderous, but also a devoted reader and fan. That being said, she gives some of the worst manuscript notes I’ve ever seen.
Weapon of Choice: Ax, Blowtorch, Medication, Toxic Fandom,
Plan to Keep Her Favorite Author Abducted: “If they caught them they made sure that they could go on working . . . but they also made sure they would never run again. The operation was called hobbling, Paul, and that is what I’m going to do to you. For my own safety . . . and yours as well. Believe me, you need to be protected from yourself. Just remember, a little pain and it will be over. Try to hold that thought.’”
Number of Paul Sheldon Novels She Obsessed Over (Pre-Abduction): 8
Read: The Depths of Stephen King’s Misery
SAURON (3) vs. KARLA (14)
(3) Sauron (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings)
The Lidless Eye, The Monster from Mordor, The Rascal with the Rings—Sauron’s the all-seeing Orcs’ mate you love to hate. As readers, we’re told very little about Sauron’s appearance and we never meet him, but we see his presence everywhere. He’s a pervasive evil influence corrupting Middle Earth, a hazy darkness with vast influence. The one thing he seems incapable of doing, though, is holding onto jewelry—take off your all-powerful rings before a swordfight, dude! It’s like swimming with your wedding ring on: don’t do it!
His Horde Includes: Nazgûl, Uruks, Easterlings, Haradrim, Trolls, Tolkein Nerds Correcting Factual Inaccuracies in Articles Like This One
The Eye Gazes on Thee: “Its wrath blazed like a sudden flame and its fear was like a great black smoke, for it knew its deadly peril, the thread upon which hung its doom.”
Rings To Rule Them All: 1
vs.
(14) Karla, (John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley’s People)
Le Carré’s fictional Soviet master spy is a genius of espionage. He’s immensely talented and is a prodigy when it comes to spying, respected on both sides of the Iron Curtain. And unlike his British counterparts, he’s a true believer in the intellectual stakes of the Cold War, seemingly immune to self-doubt and cynicism.
Tools of Tradecraft: Cold War Zeal, Recruitment, Conniving to Have His Bosses Killed, Camel Cigarettes
Flawed Foe: “There is Karla the professional, so self-possessed that he could allow, if need be, ten years for an operation to bear fruit…Karla the old spy, the pragmatist, ready to trade a dozen losses for one great win. And there is this other Karla, Karla of the human heart after all, of the one great love, the Karla flawed by humanity.”
Years Spent in the Gulag: ~3
Read: How John le Carré Reinvented the Spy Novel
SUBURBAN ENNUI (7) vs. RUFUS WEYLIN (10)
(7) Suburban Ennui (Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road)
What’s more terrifying than realizing that the call is coming from inside the house? Realizing the call is coming from the house. Long before hating your hometown became a mainstay of Warped Tour, Yates criticized and satirized the malaise of living close to the city. Both of Yates’ main characters are fixated on their geography — whether the suburbs are the cause of the Wheelers’ unhappiness or the scapegoat they blame for their unhappiness, it looms ominously over the dysfunctional couple.
Weapon of Choice: Dreariness, Conformity, Car-Focused Infrastructure
The View from the Windshield: “…homes look as weightless and impermanent, as foolishly misplaced as a great many bright new toys that had been left outdoors overnight and rained on. Their automobiles didn’t look right either–unnecessarily wide and gleaming in the colors of candy and ice cream, seeming to wince at each splatter of mud, they crawled apologetically down the broken roads that led from all directions to the deep, level slab of Route Twelve. Once there the cars seemed able to relax in an environment all their own, a long bright valley of colored plastic and plate glass and stainless steel–KING KONE, MOBILGAS, SHOPORAMA, EAT…”
Percentage of Americans Who Describe Their Home As Suburban: 52% in 2017
Read: The Terror Around the Corner: The Enduring Appeal of the Suburban Gothic; White America Facing Its Ghosts: The Slow Unraveling of a Nation’s Suburbs; Why Do We Hate the Suburbs?
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(10) Rufus Weylin (Octavia Butler, Kindred)
Weylin is the spoiled, selfish, and brutish villain in Butler’s classic time travel novel. His casual cruelty is shocking, but the real depths of his depravity are in his delusions–Weylin repeatedly insists that he is actually kind and benevolent, but that his hand is forced into brutality. He’s a bad man in a terrible system, a noxious combo.
Weapon of Choice: Petulant Arson, Blackmail
No Loyalty: “If Rufus could turn so quickly on a life-long friend, how long would it take him to turn on me?” “Strangely, they seemed to like him, hold him in contempt, and fear him all at the same time.”
Time Traveled: 161 years
Read: How Octavia Butler’s Kindred Became a Novel
COUNT DRACULA (2) vs. RIDGEWAY (15)
(2) Count Dracula (Bram Stoker, Dracula)
The king of vampires is, of course, right near the top of our monster seeding, and I suspect that the Count’s influence, renown, and spookiness are going to take him far in the tournament. It’s hard to overstate just how iconic this character is: can you imagine our culture without charismatic bloodsuckers? Stoker’s novel set the template: What starts as an innocent international real estate deal gets quickly out of hand as Dracula arrives in London and makes life hell for a Victorian polycule and a poor young man who just wants to eat bugs.
Veapons Ov Choice: Transformation, Neck Biting, 50 Boxes of Dirt
First Sign of Trouble: “But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.”
Victims: ~15
Read: The 52 Best, Worst, and Strangest Draculas of All Time, Ranked
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(15) Arnold Ridgeway (Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad)
The sinister slavecatcher from Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel is an all-too-real villain of American history: a brutal racist empowered by degrading, legal institutions of violence. As Whitehead writes of the slave patrollers, “In another country they would have been criminals, but this was America.”
Tells On Himself With: Defensive Narratives About Property, Daddy Issues
Looks Bad: “Ridgeway was six and a half feet tall, with the square face and thick neck of a hammer. He maintained a serene comportment at all times but generated a threatening atmosphere, like a thunderhead that seems far away but then is suddenly overhead with loud violence.”
Number of Times Cora Kicks Him in The Face: Not enough, but at least three
Read: The History of the United States According to Colson Whitehead
Anti-Villains
(They might be villains, but it’s complicated.)
SATAN (1) vs. THE KID (16)
(1) Satan (John Milton, Paradise Lost)
Is evil incarnate just a misunderstood bad boy? Our top seed in the anti-villains category is the Western embodiment of wickedness, whom Milton treated with more depth of character and contradiction than anyone else in his poem. Milton’s Satan is still a fallen angel who corrupts Adam and Eve with sin, but as readers, we feel his alienation and frustrations. It turns out even Satan struggles with big decisions.
Weapon of Choice: Army of Fallen Angels, Apples
Reasoning: “Here we may reign secure, and in my choice/to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:/Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
Number of Furies Fierce As: 10
Read: Satanic Sympathies: On the Demon Depictions That Helped Jamie Quarto Write Two-Step Devil
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(16) The Kid (Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree)
Whether you read it as an allegory about the environment or as an allegory about parenthood (or both), this kid is clearly out of hand. He takes and takes and takes with no care for anyone other than himself until the entity that loves him most is utterly depleted, in fact destroyed, and for what? He’s just going to grow old and die like the rest of us.
Weapon of Choice: Emotional Manipulation, Fossil Fuels
Of Course You Do: “I am too big to climb and play” said the boy. “I want to buy things and have fun. I want some money.”
Times He Wanted More: 4
Read: Somebody finally fixed the ending of The Giving Tree.
MISS HAVISHAM (8) vs. CALIBAN (9)
(8) Miss Havisham (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations)
If anyone’s looking for a fan fiction idea, I would love to see a remorseful Miss Havishman survive and become a wellness influencer who uses therapy-adjacent buzzwords to explain herself and atone for years of manipulation. Because though for most of this novel she’d be right at home alongside our bracket’s manipulators, her heart isn’t fully in it. It’s always clear that her cruelty and bitterness are symptoms of her break from reality. She deserved better, like a career doing sponcon for text therapy services and CBD drinks.
Puppet Strings She Pulls: Limited Wardrobe, Making Her Trauma Other Peoples’ Problem
Mission Statement: “Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!”
Stopped All Her Clocks At: 8:40
Read: I regret to inform you that Miss Havisham, Dickens’ embittered crone, is actually only . . . 40.
vs.
(9) Caliban (William Shakespeare, The Tempest)
Caliban is another character that deserved better. Half man, half sea beast, but always the pawn, Caliban is the non-human-shaped man-creature living on The Tempest’s island. Throughout the play he threatens violence and rebellion, but always at someone else’s command. And for his efforts, he’s humiliated and insulted over and over. Caliban should have been left to chill on his island in peace!
Magic: Love of His Mother, Sharp Tongue
First Line Is An Insult: “As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed/With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen/Drop on you both! A southwest blow on ye/And blister you all o’er!”
Number of Legs: 4
Number of Voices: 2
Read: Caliban Never Belonged to Shakespeare
BELOVED (5) vs KING SHAHRYAR (12)
(5) Beloved (Toni Morrison, Beloved)
Beloved is a symbol and victim of many of America’s darkest institutions and histories, and the discord and wickedness she sows in Sethe’s life is small in comparison to America’s sins.
Creates Chaos With: Her Anger, Growing Larger and Larger
Haunting Arrival: “All day and all night she sat there, her head resting on the trunk in a position abandoned enough to crack the brim in her straw hat. Everything hurt but her lungs most of all. Sopping wet and breathing shallow she spent those hours trying to negotiate the weight of her eyelids.”
Sethe’s House Number: 124
Read: Toni Morrison’s Powerful Vision of a Revival as a Ceremony for Healing Black Bodies
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(12) King Shahryar (One Thousand and One Nights)
What if a guy who has some real issues with women gets way too into the lore of one, specific story? Today, that guy might be a weirdo who wreaks havoc on niche subreddits, but back in the day, he was a mad king who was repeatedly tricked by cliffhangers.
Kingly Flaws: Fickleness, Murderous & Toxic Ideas About Marriage
Nobody Likes The King: “The report of this unexampled inhumanity spread a panic of universal consternation through the city.”
Date of the Oldest Text of the Nights: Early 9th Century
Read: How 1,001 Nights Opened Paths to Infinite Story Possibility
JAVERT (4) vs. THE EARTH (13)
(4) Javert (Victor Hugo, Les Miserables)
On the D&D alignment chart, Inspector Javert is Lawful Neutral: he believes what he’s doing is right and correct, because, well, it’s the law! How could upholding the law be villainous? Even when you’re bending over backward to obsessively hunt down a man who broke his parole after serving hard time for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family. After all, that man is a criminal. He can’t be also a good person. Because if he is a good person . . . what kind of person is Javert?
Weapon of Choice: Justice
ACAB: “Javert had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was in the galleys. As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,—those who attack it and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these two classes; at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung. He entered the police; he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was an inspector.”
Jean Valjeans Identified: 2
Read: Inspector Javert: The Archetypal Cop with an Obsession
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(13) The Earth (N. K. Jemisin, The Broken Earth series)
This is a series about what happens when the Earth claps back at humans and we’re putting Earth as an anti-villain because… we get it. Not to get all guy-with-a-sign-that-says-“repent”-on-it, but we humans have done a lot to deserve Earth’s ire. We can only hope our real reckoning is as well-written as Jemisin’s books.
Weapon of Choice: A Periodic But Cataclysmic Season
A Warning: “…different choices have always been possible.”
Remaining Continents on Earth: 1
Read: The Moral Arc of N.K. Jemisin’s Universe Bends Toward Apocalypse
WOLAND (6) vs. GOLLUM (11)
(6) Woland (Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita)
Bulgakov’s Woland is a “foreigner” on a visit to Moscow, and he is also literally the devil, though much nattier (depending on your opinion of berets and poodle-headed walking sticks) and more honorable than said creature is usually portrayed. He wants to amuse himself (or rather be amused by the pranks of his ungodly entourage), he seeks to expose mankind for what it is, and to punish the stupid and unworthy, but otherwise he’s basically a nice guy. Relatable!
Favorite Toys: Omniscience, Trickery, a Good Party
There’s Logic For You: “What would your good be doing if there were no evil, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are cast by objects and people. There is the shadow of my sword. But there are also shadows of trees and living creatures. Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light? You are a fool.”
Eye Colors: 2
Read: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita
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(11) Gollum (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings)
At the risk of sounding like a terrible ‘90s comic whining about marriage: Gollum’s not inherently a bad guy, he’s just been corrupted by a ring. And not to mention that he’s named after the horrible sound his throat makes — mortifying! Imagine being named for your worst physical tic? No wonder Gollum got so bitter and villainous.
Tools of Lurking: Eating Fish Horribly, His Precious
Vow: “Thief, Thief, Thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!”
Age At The Time of The Ring’s Destruction: ~600
Read: Is The Lord of the Rings a Work of Modernism?
MOBY DICK (3) vs. CAPTAIN HOOK (14)
(3) Moby Dick (Herman Melville, Moby-Dick)
Look, this whale didn’t ask to be part of this whole revenge story. Moby kills a lot of people but he’s just trying to not get stabbed to death. You’d probably do the same.
Weapons: Intelligent Malignity, 90-Foot Whale Body, At Home In The Sea
Smart Fish: “….yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale’s infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an unintelligent agent.”
Number of Ideas About What The Whale Symbolizes: Thousands (I know the correct answer but I swore I wouldn’t tell, sorry.)
Read: The Literal (and Figurative) Whiteness of Moby-Dick; Moby-Dick‘s Powerful Message for the Atomic Age
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(14) Captain Hook (JM Barrie, Peter Pan)
There are a lot of reasons to hate Peter Pan’s nemesis (not the least that he kills a lot of natives in the original text), but what’s been lost in the Disney-fication of Hook is that Peter is the one who chopped off Hook’s hand and then fed it to the clock crocodile. So much to say that this crook with the hook has got a pretty good reason to hate Peter Pan.
Wrist Attachments: The Eponymous Hook, Cigar Holder
Sinister Description: “His eyes were the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly…He was never more sinister than when he was most polite…”
Hands: 1
Read: Why Does Hollywood Keep Returning to Peter Pan?
CARRIE (7) vs. MEDEA (10)
(7) Carrie (Stephen King, Carrie)
King’s debut has a banger of a villain: Carrie, slayer of bullies, ravager of hometowns. Carrie is abused at home by her religious mother and abused at school by cool kids, so it’s no surprise she torches everything in her path.
One question I’ve always had about this book: why does the school have such huge, explosive gas tanks? Do all schools have so much fuel stored on-site?
Weapon of Choice: Telekinesis, Unresolved Trauma
An Unheeded Warning: “Did any of you stop to think that Carrie White has feelings? Do any of you ever stop to think? Sue? Fern? Helen? Jessica? Any of you? You think she’s ugly. Well, you’re all ugly.”
Known Dead in Chamberlain, Maine: 444
Read: Girls, Interrupted: A Reading List of Female Madness; Embrace Your Monstrous Flesh: On Women’s Bodies in Horror
vs.
(10) Medea (Euripides, Medea)
Before Gone Girl and all the country songs about keying your ex’s pickup, there was Medea, taking charge in a man’s cruel world. Like others in the anti-villain division, Medea takes her revenge too far, but the target of her anger – her unfaithful Argonaut husband – definitely deserves it.
Weapon of Choice: Robe & Crown Poison, Big Knife
Vengeance Vowed: “…and, lo, he sets me free/This one long day: wherein mine haters three/Shall lie here dead, the father and the bride/And husband—mine, not hers!”
Place in Athens’ Dionysia Festival Competition: 3rd
Read: How Ancient Tales Became a Rallying Cry for Modern Women
FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER (2) vs. LONG JOHN SILVER (15)
(2) Frankenstein’s Monster (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)
We all have issues with our parents to a certain extent, but the Creature’s issues with Victor Frankenstein take the cake. Victor refers to his creation as a “vile insect,” “abhorred monster,” “fiend,” and “abhorred devil.” Not a loving parent.
After all that, the Creature, who is sensitive, well-read, and a vegetarian on moral grounds, tries desperately to fit in, but is shunned, chased, and shot. Naturally, he swears vengeance on all mankind.
Weapon of Choice: Fists, Eloquence
Heel Turn: “Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good – misery made me a fiend.”
People Killed: 3
Classic Books Read: 3
Read: How Reading and the Thirst for Knowledge is at the Heart of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; 200 Years of Frankenstein On Stage and Onscreen; Nature and Human Nature in Frankenstein; “An Unnatural Body”: Queerness, Monstrosity, and Frankenstein
vs.
(15) Long John Silver (Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island)
Long John is the classic pirate: murderously-minded, peg-legged, and parrot-shouldered. He’s mutinous and violent, but harbors a tenderness for the main character Jim — maybe the real treasure is the friendship we made along the way, while marooned and killing each other.
Shivers Timbers With: A Big Knife, Treasure Map
Murd-Arr-ous Intent: “Only one thing I claim—I claim Trelawney. I’ll wring his calf’s head off his body with these hands, Dick!”
Share of the Treasure: £420
Alleged Age of His Parrot: ~200
Read: Beyond Treasure Island: A Brief Introduction to Pirates in Fiction
Thanks for voting! See you in the next round!
