I can't believe no one has said VOLDEMORT! I mean come on... he who must not be named! Or Sauron and his evil seeing eye from Lord of the Rings. Total classics!
And don't forget Dolores Umbridge. I don't know that I've ever despised a book villain so much. There was something particularly despicable about someone who acted sweet while hurting our precious Harry.
Oooh, the Brontës wrote some great ones! Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and TWO in Jane Eyre: Aunt Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst. Such good baddies. I love to hate them.
The White Witch from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Always winter but never Christmas!! What a tyrant!
(Honourable mentions: Uriah Heep, Mrs Danvers.)
What was Lewis thinking!
Great to meet you. Agree the white witch is a great villain.
And U-Haul in Demon Copperhead
Hi Tash - aren’t you one of the bad guys from The Last Battle 🤣
That novel has sullied my good name!
George Wickham Pride and Prejudice
Has to be Moriarty surely!
I can't believe no one has said VOLDEMORT! I mean come on... he who must not be named! Or Sauron and his evil seeing eye from Lord of the Rings. Total classics!
And don't forget Dolores Umbridge. I don't know that I've ever despised a book villain so much. There was something particularly despicable about someone who acted sweet while hurting our precious Harry.
Moriarty. Matching the brains & ingenuity of the great S Holmes from London to Alps over decades
Cathy in East of Eden!!! Hands down for me
I just recently finished that book for a first time read and came to say the same!
She was quite literally shocking.
Iago
Oooh, the Brontës wrote some great ones! Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and TWO in Jane Eyre: Aunt Reed and Mr. Brocklehurst. Such good baddies. I love to hate them.
Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove
Captain Jack Randall (Black Jack) in Outlander! So terrible, so flawed, and so well-back-storied
The Man in Black in Stephen King's The Dark Tower.
Hannibal Lechter
Medea is like many people. She was a person who loved and was betrayed. Good people going wrong because of betrayal are the most tragic villains.
Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
Randall Flagg in King's Dark Tower series, The Stand, and others.
Miss Trunchbull and the Wormwood parents in Matilda by Roald Dahl.
Polite Society in The Razors Edge by W. Somerset Maugham.
Cruella de Vil 🤪
I had her too.
William Hamleigh in “Pillars of the Earth.” Hands down the WORST