My Top Ten Favorite Villians

I decided I needed a break from Nano, so instead of writing a short story during my writing time I did something completely unproductive. So without further ado-

The Villain. The driving force of any good story.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot."

Below I have collected my top ten villains from film and literature.

10. Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmatians) – Perhaps one of the most evil characters ever created, she wanted to kill puppies for their fur. It doesn’t get any more evil. The only reason she did not make it higher on the list is complete and total incompetence.

9. Angelus (Buffy the vampire slayer) – Angelus is cruel for the sake of being cruel, and has a devious mind that always kept him one step ahead of the scoobie gang, until they gave him his soul back, damn scoobie gang.

8. Thread (Anne McCaffery’s Pern Novels) - Thread, an unintelligent organism that falls from space with only one desire, to eat all living things. I’m a sucker for the seemingly unstoppable bad guy, even when the bad guy isn’t sentient. The only thing that kills it is fire, good thing they have all those dragons on Pern or they would totally be screwed.

7. Malice Do’ Urden (RA Salvatore’s Drizzt Novels) – A powerful woman who is constantly in state of war with the other houses of Menzoberranzan, she leads her house in a ruthless struggle to become the most powerful of the noble families. How can you not like a lady who brings her son’s dead father back from the dead as a zombie, for the sole purpose of killing her son. Now that’s what I call evil.

6. Sauron (Lord of the Rings) – The great and powerful evil lord, who for all intents and purposes is a god. He wages a violent and bloody war that nearly destroys all human life in middle earth. You gotta love all powerful evil.

5. Lex Luthor (Superman) – The man with the plan and the money to get it done. The classic oil baron tycoon with a twist, how can you not love him, anyone who can take on Superman again and again and somehow always seems to get away deserves a round of applause. I mean when you get right down to it he’s just guy, and he takes on Superman. If he were up against any other hero they would be toast.

4. Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th) – Jason is the ultimate unstoppable force. You can’t reason with him, you can’t negotiate, you can’t even run. No matter how fast you run or how far, he will catch you. He is one of my all time favorite villains.

3. Iago (Othello) – The ultimate schemer who all other villains are just pale imitations of. Iago plots the downfall of Othello from the shadows, never confronting him face to face, the whole while pretending to be his friend. His reason, not getting a promotion at work.

2. Lord Soth (Dragonlance Series) – The Knight of the Black Rose. One of the fabled Knights of Solamina, whose battle cry Est sularus oth mithas(my honor is my life) brought hope to many and he is a hero of Krynn. Until he falls. As a villian he is cursed with unnatural life for the crimes he committed before his death. Every night he must sit in his ruined castle and hear the story of his dark deeds, of how he was tasked with saving the world but instead he returned home to confront the woman he loved who he, falsely, believed was unfaithful. In a fit of jealous rage he kills her and the cataclysm he could have stopped kills millions. He is a powerful force for evil, who can kill with just a word. He is a villain who shows just how far a hero can fall.

1. Darth Vader (Star Wars) – Once more we see the fallen hero, who has become a powerful force for evil. He is a ruthless killer, who leads the Empires forces with an iron fist. But his story is also one of redemption, even after years of serving evil there is still a spark of goodness in him. He is without a doubt the greatest villian ever.