(no subject)

[skygiants]

So, in between the million other books I have on my backlog, I am still sloooowly making my way through a reread of the Cadfael books. I had forgotten that The Virgin in the Ice introduces [spoiler character]! Alas, it also involves a classic example of the "selfishness and complete lack of judgment means APPEALING AND SPUNKY!" heroine, oh man, I am thoroughly on her small brother's side throughout the whole book. When you are fleeing from hostile invaders through the harsh winter with your preadolescent brother and a cloistered nun, that is NOT THE TIME to ditch them both and elope with your boyfriend in the middle of the night! It is the definition of a dumb thing to do! Argh!

While The Sanctuary Sparrow also featured an instance of ridiculous behavior from the Young Lovers that had me tearing my hair out - look, I get that you are young and impetuous, if you want to have sex that is fine, but DON'T DO IT BEHIND THE ALTAR WHILE THE MONKS ARE HAVING SERVICES - I really liked the complicated family dynamics and the darkness of the ending; more importantly, it features probably my favorite murderer of the Cadfael series so far. There are a lot of reasons why and most of them are spoilery, but I can give you a quote: "If I must pull the roof down upon myself, I'll pull it down also upon as many of the innocent as I can contrive to crush with me and not go alone into the ark." Man. I - I am pretty sure that metaphor is ridiculously mixed, and yet I don't even care, so great is the hardcore!

I have to say, I kind of love villains who are so angry at the world that they can face complete and utter defeat and still stick to their furious guns, in full understanding of what they did and their likely fate. My ultimate example of this is probably Aaron in Titus Andronicus; whenever I see a production and they reach the line "If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it to my very soul" -- I seriously get chills down my spine, in the good way.

What about you guys? We all love a well-done villain . . . but what counts as well-done to you? Who are your favorites?

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I usually try to avoid slashing male characters who have preexisting female love interests (unless done in a way respectful to said love interests: see E. Bear's Will Shakespeare, Annie Hathaway, Kit Marley triangle). However, I firmly believe in slashing [spoiler character] with [spoiler character in Brother Cadfael's Penance], not least because [spoiler 1]/[spoiler 2] have enormous amounts of sexual tension, but also because [spoiler 1]'s female love interest is disgustingly foolish!

[skygiants]

Yeah, I was going to say - although I am very much with you in terms of being respectful to preexisting female love interests, I do not blame you in this case in the least! I tend to go easy on silly teenagers, but the levels of bad judgment here are PRETTY EPIC.

Does she, uh, display any more sense at all in Brother Cadfael's Penance?

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

She doesn't actually appear in that book.

[skygiants]

Huh! I am surprised, but can't say I'm disappointed.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Given the design of the plot, it makes a lot of sense that she isn't in the book. I will stop talking now -- BCP is my favorite of the Cadfael books, and since you haven't read it I don't want to spoil it for you.

[skygiants]

I have read it! Just, you know, so long ago that I don't remember a thing about it. :D So spoiler warnings still apply really.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

For a complete change of topic (or: Look, over there, VAMPIRES!...if I had that Fakir and Mytho icon of yours, I'd totally be using it now...), Kage Baker on the 1921 film Nosferatu. (http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=33977#more)

[skygiants]

(Then I will use it for you!)



. . . *STARRY EYES*

Oh man. I adore Kage Baker, I have a bizarre love for Nosferatu (hey, I owe it credit for the best comments I ever received on a paper); this is a perfect combination!

. . . and dude, I totally want to do that Halloween back-to-back film-viewing she mentions now.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

Back in the pre-IMDB days there was an urban legend that “Max Schreck” was an alias, the way Karloff’s first billing as Frankenstein’s monster was simply a question mark, since in German the word schreck means fear or terror. We now know that Schreck was a real actor, if a rather eccentric one ...

Hahaha what! That name is awesome!

[skygiants]

Best is how, whatever the article says, he is so non-terrifying. The poor little guy had to lug his own coffin through the streets of Berlin! Look at this dude, he just needs a hug. (And some fingernail clippers.)

[gramarye1971]

I think the villains I like best are the soft-spoken ones who don't necessarily make a big production of their villain-status, but who are so utterly convinced of their own position and can explain it in such a calm and rational way that you really, really have to try hard to avoid being pulled into their line of thinking. O'Brien (and also Mr Charrington the shopkeeper/Thought Policeman) from George Orwell's 1984 fit this description, as does Francis Urquhart (*points to icon*) from House of Cards. The moment when you realise that the character who you've grown to like and maybe even respect, who seems so polite and thoughtful and well-meaning and sensible, is actually completely and ruthlessly insane...that's my good-chills moment. ^_^ But that's just my personal preference for villains; other kinds, such as the one you mention above, are good as well.

I suppose this also explains why I really dislike Dolores Umbridge as a villain -- to me, she's so over-the-top in her mannerisms and such that I don't find her plausible. I wish JKR had just picked a few of the characteristics she gave to Umbridge, not thrown together the mock cutesy voice and the physical unattractiveness and the hair bows and the 'hem-hem' and the kitten plates and the Quill Pen of Evil...and so on. -_-;;

[skygiants]

Oooh, yes, I also love that kind of villain - the super-creepy kind that are terrifying precisely because they're so convincing, and it's not just talk, they really believe it.

- oh man, have you read Diana Wynne Jones' Black Maria? Because the villainness in that is my favorite example of the Umbridge-type done right. She's just your little old great-aunt that you roll your eyes at because she wants to make sure things are done just so, but she looks so sweet and helpless that you can't really say no to her little requests . . . and she's old, dear, and a little bit deaf, and it's really so wearing on her when people try and resist her control . . .

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Since you guys mentioned Dolores Umbridge, I started thinking of Thea Sundler in Selma Lagerlöf's Löwensköld trilogy. She's not really an Umbridge type except physically - very plain, slightly toad-like, and very smarmy. (More Uriah Heep, maybe?)

She falls in love with the protagonist's fiancé, and knows she can never have him, but works to become his confidante and poison his mind against the girl. Which works, because she's quite the flatterer and he's very full of himself. You get several chapters from her POV and she's in a sense very understandable and kind of pitiful, except I also kept wanting to squish her under my foot. So she's the kind of villain who's so well written you want to keep her around and so horrible you want her to DIAF, the sooner the better.

Then there are the kinds of villains who are so compelling you stop caring that they're villains. A prime example for me is Profit, where Jim Profit ruined everyone's life and I kept rooting for him, because he was just so damned talented at being bad. (And yeah, I'm an Adrian Pasdar fangirl, but it isn't just that.)

And of course, the kind of villains who are just plain fun - maybe not as well-written, but very watch/readable. Like Ethan in Buffy, who was a sure sign that the episode would be hilarious.

[skygiants]

there are the kinds of villains who are so compelling you stop caring that they're villains

Oh, yeah. The ones who are really such magnificent bastards - I think that may in fact be the TVtropes category - that you just have to stare in fascination. (I always wish that there were more ladies who fell into this category of villainny.)

Ethan is hilarious! Spike kind of fit this category at first too, really, before he became the Lord of Manpain. But yeah, I definitely will give bonus points to a villain who takes such cheery joy in their evil. It's great when people love their work!

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

(I always wish that there were more ladies who fell into this category of villainny.)

Aren't there, though? It seems like a prime role for a woman... though now I can't think of any. Cousin Bette? (I barely remember that film, and haven't read the book.) Lynda Day certainly fit the type on her meanest days.

[skygiants]

I have a hard time thinking of any! Cousin Bette might fit, but it's been ages for me too . . . I feel like too often it falls into the 'woman scorned' category, which has a tendency to frust me.

Wilhelmina Slater, maybe! She's a pretty magnificent bastard.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes! Wili is awesome. I need to finish that season at some point...

[skygiants]

Me too. *sheepish* I haven't seen any past this winter's hiatus.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

You know, I started wondering if perhaps there was anyone else from that vid of mine who'd fit the bill, and I don't know how we forgot the Imperial Romans. Livia of I, Claudius, definitely, and maybe Atia of Rome too even if she was more emotional and less icy. (And thinking of them makes me think of soaps. Surely soaps have some magnificent bastardesses?)

Am now scrolling the HBIC post to see if I can find anyone else, apart from my beloved Lynda.

[skygiants]

. . . . I don't know how I forgot Livia either. Because Livia is AMAZING. (One of these days I really do have to reread I, Claudius.

And, uh, actually see more than the first episode of Rome. I keep meaning to! And then somehow every time I rent it from the library I get through one episode and the nit has to go back.)

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Rome is pretty fun, though it does use sex and violence in place of actual drama a bit too often. Atia's awesome, though, as are Servilia and Octavian (both the teenaged and adult versions).

My book on TV soaps had a bunch of suggestions I haven't actually seen (like Alexis Carrington) and also made me nostalgic for Margareta in Swedish 80s soap Varuhuset. I just have to indoctrinate you with a scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXrudofQXhI). Translation:

"Karin and I have already discussed a model."

"Yes, Karin has discussed many things, sure. But we will do something."

"I don't like this. Is it a coup?"

"Coup? Don't use such big words. This is a crisis situation. You have to understand that. And... now it concerns you."

"Yes, well, I won't agree to this."

"I think you will."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... take ladies' fashion, for instance. There's a danger that we'll have to change the manager of that department. Unless we can reach another conclusion, you and I. It would be a pity, wouldn't it, if Ingrid wouldn't get to show what she can do for more than a few months?"

[ethelflaed.livejournal.com]

I. . .think that's the first positive thing I've ever seen anybody say about Titus Andronicus! Wow. ^^;

The Cadfael books! It's been. . .a seriously long time since I read those, geez. I remember really liking them but insisting on reading them in order. . .and one particular book was either always checked out or just missing, so I never progressed past a certain point.

Shakespeare villains are always kind of incredible, but I think my favorite has to be Iago; his flipping back and forth between personalities is simultaneously very funny and terrifying. Edmund from King Lear is also a favorite. . .though, since he has a concrete motivation I think he is less viscerally scary than Iago, who does some awful things for. . .essentially no reason.

Figuring out what makes a good villain is kind of hard, though, as what is terrifying in one story may be laughable in another. Characters that easily live double lives and that regard other people mostly as tools are, I guess, the most consistently frightening. Characters that also know how to play on a person's strengths to cause their downfall are kind of scary, too, though for some reason I can't think of any right now.

Drosselmeyer of Princess Tutu is probably one of my very favorite villains, though, simply because he has no moral compass whatsoever.

[gramarye1971]

Drosselmeyer of Princess Tutu is probably one of my very favorite villains, though, simply because he has no moral compass whatsoever.

If he does have one, it's probably Jack Sparrow's compass that points to whatever you happen to desire most at the time....

[ethelflaed.livejournal.com]

He always puts me in mind of the Player from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (from the "blood, love, and rhetoric school" of storytelling - with an emphasis on the "blood"):

"Deaths for all ages and occasions! Deaths by suspension, convulsion, consumption, incision, execution, asphyxiation and malnutrition! Climactic carnage, by poison and steel—! Double deaths by duel—!"

[skygiants]

Titus Andronicus is on the INSANE CRACK and I will never deny it. But I have a fondness for ridiculous Jacobean tragedies - incest! bloody hearts waved around on sticks! poisoned tennis rackets! - and Titus falls squarely into that category. There are several parts of it that are pretty awesome, but that line is definitely my favorite.

Heh - that's what always happens to me with long mystery series! But now I have two massive library systems at my disposal, so I hope that I will be able to get through them all without too much frustration.

Iago is pretty amazing as a villain, and it's always fascinating to see how people play him, and how they try and get at his motivations when he doesn't give us any reasoning that we can believe. (Aaron from Titus is actually kind of the pre-Iago, except that it's a little easier to extrapolage motives for him.)

HAHAHA DROSSELMEYER. I maintain that Drosselmeyer's moral compass points consistently to LULZ.

[ethelflaed.livejournal.com]

To be honest, the main image of Titus Andronicus that has always stuck in my mind is the conversation where somebody smashes a fly casually, and the main character erupts into this spasm of rage:

Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!
Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;
A deed of death done on the innocent
Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;
I see thou art not for my company.
[. . . .]
How if that fly had a father and mother?
How would he hang his slender gilded wings
And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly,
That with his pretty buzzing melody
Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.

I don't know whether the speech or the response ("it looked like Aaron!" "oh, it's okay then") made this so hilarious to me at the time, but it is always the first thing I think of whenever I remember that play.

[skygiants]

Hahaha yes! THAT IS BECAUSE TITUS IS A LUNATIC.

I also, I have to admit, giggle guiltily at poor Lavinia writing out her super-important message with a giant stick in the dirt while everyone stands around trying to sound out letters.