Best Book Villains (In My Opinion)

This list consists of some of my personal favourite villains. There are so many wonderfully evil villains out there that it was difficult to choose, considering that this list probably changes every couple of days. But as of right now this is the list. These are the villains that either in childhood or whatever I am now I was either terrified of, or hated beyond all reason. I chose them based on my personal experience when reading about them.  I decided to only do a top 5 because I am having trouble deciding who the next five will be. I may have to re-read some old favourites.  Also there may be some spoilers so beware.

Sauron from The Lord of the Rings & The Silmarillion

Sauron as he appears in the film adaption of The Hobbit (One of the few things I liked in the film)

In the three LOTR books we never see a physical manifestation of this character, but he is still the scariest thing around. The very mention of this character’s name strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies, even speaking the “Black Speech” of this character brings pain to elves. J.R.R Tolkien described Sauron as being “Less evil than his master (Morgoth)” but the reason his is higher than Morgoth on this list is because from the first moment I learnt about this character as a 12-year-old, I was terrified of him, and when I read The Silmarillion and read about all the horrible things he’d done as a Lieutenant to Morgoth, I knew Sauron was going to be my favourite villain for a very long time. Cruel, Clever and extremely powerful, Sauron sits at the top of my Villains list.

 

Queen Jadis “The White Witch” from The Chronicles of Narnia

A very vivid memory from my childhood is my mum reading me The Magicians Nephew, and the description of the dead city of Charn, and the evil queen who destroyed it just so she would win the war, is something that has stuck with me. Jadis is the ultimate personification of evil. With Satan being only one of the figures this character was based on, Jadis is violent, sadistic, and completely narcissistic. She has no concept of empathy or loyalty and no compassion. She is basically pure evil…But you should definitely read this series to your younger relations, as The Chronicles of Narnia is pure Good Vs Evil and a must have in your childhood bibliography.

The scene were Diggory awakens the witch is still quite frightening to me today. Also Tilda Swinton did an amazing job of capturing the queen. (Quick fangirl moment for Tilda)

 

Morgoth (Melkor)  from The Silmarillion

In J.R.R Tolkien’s world, Morgoth (or Melkor as he was previously known) was the first dark lord and is the Primordial source of evil in stories universe.

Similar to Satan, Morgoth rebelled against his creator. He then spends the whole of the first age of the world being evil. He kills, murders and tortures. He steals the Silmarils, which causes all sorts of problems, and he destroys the two lamps of the Valar, which causes huge catastrophes.

Morgoth was the boss of Sauron. That’s how evil this character is and there was no way he wasn’t going to make it to the top three in this list! The only reason that Sauron, his lieutenant, is higher than him is because I didn’t read The Silmarillion until a few years after I’d read the The Lord of the Rings and by then Sauron was already a huge presence in my mind. If Morgoth and Sauron would have fought each other, then Morgoth would have won. However, Sauron had three books were his name was spoken in pure fear, Morgoth only had one book and a few letters published by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son.

Satan from Paradise Lost

Even though there are actually many compelling qualities to this character that make him extremely interesting to the reader, I don’t think Satan could ever be called anything but a villain. It probably seems strange to have the literal Devil as number three on the list of villains, but my agnostic hat is firmly on, and I am treating Lucifer as a strictly literary character, and only judging his actions that are mentioned in Paradise Lost. Sorry if that offends anyone.

Satan is a master manipulator, he convinces his army that their choice to rebel against God and get exiled from Heaven was the right choice, he tricks the angel Uriel with a disguise, and he convinces Eve to betray God by eating the forbidden fruit. The reason Satan isn’t higher on the list is because even though he is an extremely interesting and complex villain, he isn’t actually as frightening as some of the others, but the reason he is in the top five is because, well he is SATAN! He is the original rebel/villain! It would be insulting to have him any lower!

 

Sebastian Morgenstern from The Mortal Instruments  

The only YA villain to make it into the top 5, and for good reason. In The Shadowhunter Chronicles there are a whole host of villains to choose from, but for me the best villain has to be the 17-year-old Shadowhunter. As a result of pre-natal demon experiments and a punishing upbringing Sebastian is cruel, possessive, and extremely bloodthirsty.

Like his father, he is a master manipulator, which adds to the danger of his character. His birth name is actually Johnathan, but he dismissis that name as a act of rebellion against his parents.

Cruel and vindictive Sebastian is the cause of so much pain from book 3 to 6 of The Mortal Instruments, however even as I hated Sebastian, (and I mean hated as in shouting at the book), there was something intriguing about him, there was this sense of loneliness and inevitability about his evil nature that made him a pretty tragic villain. The events of City of Heavenly Fire were so perfect in capturing the complexity of Sebastian, that I would go as far to say that not only is Sebastian one of my favourite villains, if I was to make a list of YA villains, he would probably be number one.

 

To be continued….

With five spaces left and so many wonderfully evil villains out there I’m going to need to do some re-reading and reviewing. If anyone has a suggestion leave a comment.

Also, there may be some MANGA villains showing up in the next list….