From the Archives: The Best Villains Ever

Veronica sez: One from the Archives today...I vote for Ming the Merciless myself:

So. Who's the best fictional villain of all time?

I know, it's impossible to answer, but it's a great conversation starter. In fact, next time you find yourself in an awkward silence with several people you have no idea what to say to, give it a shot; it's clutch. 

What I love about this subject is that it gives us a reason to scroll through our internal Rolodexes of awesome movies and epic novels, a chance to remember and relive those characters. Pennywise the clown scared the sh*t out of me. I was twenty. I never looked at drains the same again. 

But does scariness make a villain great? For some people. I put up the question to my FB crew last night in preparation for this blog and got so many novel, witty and contrasting answers that it made me think. What makes a villain great...to everybody? One of my best friends came up with a great line that I told him I was going to steal. Jesse DeStasio commented, "The real menace comes from having a part of us slightly agree with them [villain]." Isn't that true? Colonel Jessep from A Few Good Men comes to mind for me, but there are so many others.  

Maybe it's because I was such a wuss when I was growing up (everything gave me nightmares) but I liked villains that were scary but...funny. One of my all time favorites is the Kurgan from The Highlander movie. He was this huge, scary-looking, predatory immortal who could only die if his head was cut off, but he was funny in a grotesque kind of way--leering and blunt. He had personality; I can still hear his deep, gravelly voice and I saw that movie several eons ago. 

It was pointed out to me by Mr. DeStasio (he takes his movies seriously, even had a list of this very subject in his phone already to go) that the Kurgan's flaw is that we can't sympathize with him. Maybe so. But he's still one of my favorites. 

Then you got your creepers. Javiar Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men anybody? He was good. Quintessential Darth Vader? Hans Gruber in Die Hard? Lord Foul in the Unbeliever series? I could fill three pages and I bet you could too, but there's a secret ingredient that they all have, an overlapping theme that ties them together. Ready for it? *drum roll* 

They all evoke emotion. 

They make us feel. Whether it be fear, anger, outrage, horror, fascination, dread--take your pick. Without emotion, a villain is just a car without an engine. A guitar without strings. Captain Crunch without the crunchberries. And that's no good.   

Here's some of the votes I got last night:

1. Frank Booth in Blue Velvet (never seen)
2. The governor in The Walking Dead (I've only seen the first season)
3. Maleficent in Maleficent
4. Vincent in Collateral Damage (never saw)
5. Smurf Cody in Animal Kingdom (never saw)
6. Heath Ledger Joker in The Dark Knight (I saw this one!!)
7. Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs
8. Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter
9. Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest
10. Wicked Witch of the West Wizard of Oz

And of course, in keeping with the theme of Here Be Magic: Sauron

Feel free to add. :)

Afflicted with wanderlust at the age of seventeen, Steve has lived in seven states, served briefly in the U.S. Air Force as a Pararescue Trainee, and has a profound aversion to mint chocolate ice cream.

Author of the Last of the Shardyn trilogy:

Book I  Drynn, 

Book II Through the Black Veil

Book III Blood Sworn

No Slurping Tuna Juice

Somebody once told me that writing fantasy was the hardest of all genres to write. Back in the days before I knew any better, I casually dismissed such babbling nonsense and planned on writing the greatest fantasy epic in the history of the universe.  

I mean, how hard could it be? I was a freaking Dungeon Master for crying out loud; creating worlds was as natural to me as a cat slurping tuna juice from the bottom of a can. It's what I lived for. I'd spend months making a campaign--going to the library to research medieval villages and geography, pouring over blueprints of ancient cities, I'd even create personalities for the blacksmiths and tavern owners and mercenaries who would be inhabiting my world, even if my players never even brushed shoulders with them (which did aggravate me, I'll be honest). Bottom line: I was born to write fantasy. Fuggedaboutit is what I said.

Oh, the naivety of the unwritten. 

The first strike against me was starting at the mature age of twenty-one, working as a bartender in West Hollywood, CA. I had the same dilemma every night: Go home and write like a good boy, or...go out for a bit of debauchery. I'll buy you a cup of coffee if you can guess which one I chose...hence, the fourteen years to complete my first book. True story. Fortunately, I have a learning computer (my best Arnold impersonation) and it only took me ten months to write the second, but the fact remained that writing fantasy was waaaay more difficult than I thought it would be, and writing a sub-genre even more so. I write urban fantasy by the way. I didn't actually know that when I was writing Drynn, but that's what I'm told.

Be that as it may, in a nutshell, here's why fantasy, and all of its derivatives (which are plentiful), is so hard to write successfully. 

First, you have to have all the usual suspects--larger than life characters, a kick-ass plot, pacing and rhythm, proper structure--and all the other nuggets necessary to the craft of novel-dom. And THEN, you create your world that not only must be appealing--organic and fresh--but also allows the reader to suspend their belief in reality. It's like how a figure-skater makes all those twirls and spins look effortless. It's an illusion. Any practitioner of the arts knows that that's the trick; making something really hard look easy. I'm so glad I didn't know any of this before I embarked on my epic journey. I'd like to think it wouldn't have made a difference.   

Words are inadequate to properly convey the journey from idea fragment to published novel, it's something only someone else who's done the same can feel, but lemme tell you, there's nothing like typing the words "the end" at the end of a manuscript. Except maybe for winning the Lotto Jackpot. I digress. The point is, fantasy authors are a special breed of writer, even within literary circles. So the next fantasy writer you see..hug them!  


A quick premise of the first book Drynn of my trilogy: 

The heroes of two worlds, Earth and Earth's magical twin Theia, reluctantly join forces to fight the Lord of the Underworld. 

In its essence, I blended my two favorite genres--one part horror, Stevie King style and three parts good old fashioned fantasy.


Here's a couple of reviews I've gotten:  

"Reads like vintage Dean Koontz--fast paced and suspenseful." --DD Barant, author of the Bloodhound Files series. 

"A deep gripping story that tickles the reader with This. Just. Might. Someday. Happen..."--Linnea Sinclair, author of the Dock Five Universe series. 

So the next time you have a hankering for a tuna salad...

Steve out. 

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