While we’re on the subject of villainy, here’s a challenge: Name the villains (presumably fictional) that you most identify with. My top picks:
How about you?
P.S. Check out Hero Games’ Villainy Amok.
While we’re on the subject of villainy, here’s a challenge: Name the villains (presumably fictional) that you most identify with. My top picks:
How about you?
P.S. Check out Hero Games’ Villainy Amok.
Oct 18 2007
As an equal-opportunity offender, I'm finding it harder and harder to keep up with the competition. After arguing that we should cut health spending in half, Robin Hanson now adds that we should do the same with defense spending:But the simple argument seems compelling: The US with 27% of world product has about 46% o...
Oct 18 2007
Some recent posts on the inequality fuss: 1. Greg Mankiw writes If I were a redistributionist, here is what I might propose: A large fixed payment to every citizen, paid at the beginning of every month, financed by a proportional tax on consumption, such as a value-added tax. Meaning something like this? 2. Will ...
Oct 17 2007
While we're on the subject of villainy, here's a challenge: Name the villains (presumably fictional) that you most identify with. My top picks:Gollum MagnetoHow about you? P.S. Check out Hero Games' Villainy Amok.
READER COMMENTS
Rue Des Quatre Vents
Oct 17 2007 at 2:59pm
Gorden Gekko in Wall Street.
KipEsquire
Oct 17 2007 at 3:13pm
Javert.
Ian
Oct 17 2007 at 3:31pm
Riddler or the Joker
Kimmitt
Oct 17 2007 at 3:47pm
Boromir. Alternately, Mr. Smith from The Matrix.
Tom Tobin
Oct 17 2007 at 4:05pm
Gerald Tarrant from C.S. Friedman’s Coldfire Trilogy.
And ick, Hero? I’ll stick with my lovely and lightweight BESM, thanks. 😉
Greg Bain
Oct 17 2007 at 4:14pm
The South African government in the movie Breaker Morant – Sometimes I just want a good scapegoat.
Gollum is defiantly one of my favorites, so much internal conflict, the desire to be good, and the lust for power he could never have on his own.
I think most people, really and fictional, have these forces at work within them to some degree (maybe it’s just me), and Tolkien did an excellent job of capturing them, I particularly like how these forces appeared in Frodo as well as Gollum.
Barkley Rosser
Oct 17 2007 at 4:32pm
Saruman easily beats either Gollum or Boromir.
Christopher Rasch
Oct 17 2007 at 4:48pm
Magneto — Although I think the psychology of the humans within the comic universe is implausible (I think the mutants would be treated more like rock stars), given that context, his behavior is understandable.
Lucifer — He leads a rebellion against a totalitarian dictator, brings knowledge to a pair of ignorant nudists, and he looks like Elizabeth Hurley. What’s not to like?
Lex Luthor — Although merely human, through brains and hard work, he’s a worthy adversary to an alien who can:
– repel most weapon attacks (including nuclear)
– fly
– shoot laser beams out of his eyes
– reverse time itself
Larry the Liquidator – His speech to stockholders is one of the great defenses of capitalism.
TGGP
Oct 17 2007 at 4:48pm
Does Peter Wiggin qualify?
Delving into formulaic genre crap, I thought Pe Ell from the lousy second Shannara series and Lamprey from Exiles of Colsec were pretty cool when I read them as a lad.
Peter Lorre’s character from M I did not find sympathetic at all. I’ve only seen a little bit of Oz, but Ryan O’Reilly seems a likable bastard.
As for real people, I have to tip my hat to D.B Cooper. Jumping out of a plane with duffel bags full of money is the way to go. Carlos the Jackal was an interesting terrorist who stayed ahead of the law for quite a while. Idi Amin was an interesting dictator. I’ve given props to Marvin “Killdozer” Heemeyer before. I also think that Charles Lindbergh gets a bad rap.
guy in the veal calf office
Oct 17 2007 at 4:54pm
Gollum was a villain? I thought he was just author’s illustration of the Ring’s power on its holder. And ultimately pretty sympathetic. That’s cheating.
For some reason Hernando Cortez comes down to us as a villan, but to me he’s just one of the baddest men to ever live. Cortez left home at 18 for the new world. At 24 he famously burned his boats along Veracruz and proceeded by wit, bravado and, less so, by strength of arms, to conquer the Aztecs and fight off/seduce 1500 Spanish soldiers sent to arrest him. Surrounded and unbelievably outumbered in Tenochtitlan he and 3 others bull-rushed the Aztec lines and killed the chieftan– the Aztecs just didn’t know what to do with him and left the city to Cortez. He amazed everyone by brazeness & guile that defy belief. Gordon Gekko would tremble.
You can find unflattering portraits of him by Bernal Díaz and Bartolome Las Casas, replete with atrocities, sins and vices.
tom
Oct 17 2007 at 5:28pm
Gargamel, Wile E. Coyote
Stan
Oct 17 2007 at 6:08pm
Does anyone ever worry they are more like Gail Wynand than Howard Roark?
Shane
Oct 17 2007 at 6:21pm
Darth Vader in the Star Wars prequels.
Grabbing a kid from its family and teaching him a bizarre moral code that doesn’t allow you to be close to anyone is bound to screw him up.
Joseph Hertzlinger
Oct 17 2007 at 9:27pm
Professor Moriarty. There aren’t that many mathematician villains.
TGGP
Oct 17 2007 at 10:43pm
Hernando Cortez was impressive, but he’s a piker compared to the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo.
Swimmy
Oct 17 2007 at 11:00pm
I wouldn’t say I identify with Dr. Doom–too nationalistic!–but I find him very sympathetic.
Something similar goes for Phaeton from Exosquad: his cause is entirely justified, but his methods are too evil for me to genuinely like him.
Ah, I’ve got it: Big Boss from the Metal Gear series, especially after playing Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Dennis Mangan
Oct 17 2007 at 11:08pm
The Duke of Alba.
Richard Pointer
Oct 18 2007 at 12:24am
Though not a villain to all, I like: Vlad Tepes.
Mark Seecof
Oct 18 2007 at 12:45am
I dunno about “identify with,” but sympathize with:
Dr. Crippen
Cesare Borgia
Robert E. Lee
and I will probably think of some others.
I don’t hold Cortez to have been a villain.
John T. Kennedy
Oct 18 2007 at 4:38am
Adrian Veidt.
Eccdogg
Oct 18 2007 at 8:16am
+1
Lex Luthor — Although merely human, through brains and hard work, he’s a worthy adversary to an alien who can:
– repel most weapon attacks (including nuclear)
– fly
– shoot laser beams out of his eyes
– reverse time itself
I have allways thought this as well. Plus the bald thing is cool.
Randy
Oct 18 2007 at 8:46am
Jezebel – a typical case of the winners telling the story.
drobviousso
Oct 18 2007 at 9:02am
Magneto – absolutely, no doubt. Especially when he’s in the nation founding, only using violence to protect said nation mode.
Random Choir Boy in Lord of the Flies – Especially at that age, I could relate.
V
Oct 18 2007 at 12:13pm
Ozymandias, villain from Watchmen. I can identify with the notion that if people were led to believe something that was not true, you can make them change their behavior. Not a jab at the current administration or religion, but the idea is appealing. Example: even if cigarette smoking doesn’t cause cancer, if everyone truly believed it, then we wouldn’t have to smell it in restaurants, casinos, see their butts everywhere, produce less tobacco by-products…
Scott W
Oct 18 2007 at 12:20pm
Any villain from Captain Planet…sometimes I enjoy pouring oil into the river for no reason. Or, cutting down trees just to destroy the animal habitats.
Steve Y.
Oct 18 2007 at 3:50pm
Jack Nicholson as. Col. Jessep in “A Few Good Men” (quote from Wikipedia):
shawn
Oct 18 2007 at 6:15pm
…Mr. Darcy? Do I lose my man card for that? but…he’s only a ‘villain’ for a while…
Pete
Oct 20 2007 at 2:36am
While not a villain yet it is just a matter of time. Tyrion Lannister from G.R.R. Martin’s Ice and Fire saga
law and order
Oct 20 2007 at 9:04am
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Enoch
Oct 20 2007 at 9:37am
Brad Dourif in anything but especially Exorcist III, Alien 4, and Lord of the Rings.
J. T. Walsh in anything but especially Red Rock West, Sling Blade, and Breakdown.
Dylan
Oct 20 2007 at 10:41am
Brian Leiter.
Fictionally, Brandin in Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana.
Stephen R. Kaplan
Oct 20 2007 at 12:29pm
The Catholic Encyclopedia says that Cortes murdered his wife by defenestration, even though neither of them was a Czech.
Bill
Oct 20 2007 at 9:15pm
Hannibal Lecter and the killer in Red Dragon both were pretty easy to like
bomberman
Oct 21 2007 at 1:11am
I always thought Mr. Freeze from the Batman:Animated Series was good sympathetic villain. He really got screwed.
Agree with Darth Vader and Magneto too.
ThePhalanx
Oct 21 2007 at 3:32pm
Lord Vader, Megatron or Cobra Commander
Wesley
Oct 22 2007 at 12:23am
In these days of political correctness, without a doubt, my hero would be. . .
RONALD REGAN!
As much as he was vilified, by certain members of our society, he would be the man!
Greg
Oct 22 2007 at 2:51am
Roy Batty (from the Film “Bladerunner”). He was created as a slave, to be used as cannon fodder, and with an artificially foreshortened life even if he should survive combat, I find his response: Escape, travel to Earth, find Tyrell and try to lift the cap on his lifespan exactly what I would try to do in the same circumstances. I find him to be morally far preferable to the reprehensible Tyrell, who used his genius to create a race of slaves in the first place and whose death at the hands of his creation was fitting indeed. And when, with the final act of his life, Batty finally saves Decard, who was trying to kill him, the Tyrell Corporation finally achieved its motto of “More human than human”.
John
Oct 24 2007 at 9:22am
Is V from V for Vendetta a villain or an anti-hero?
If I can’t pick him, I’d go with The Vampire Lestat from Interview with the Vampire, Boba Fett, or Hannibal Lechter.
Comments are closed.