Great Villains in Fiction

Villains make the world go round. Could you imagine a villainless world? It'd be so boring, mild, timid, and tame. Would we know what we value without having to fight for it on occasion? Villains remind us of these important things and therefor perform an invaluable societal service.  For no good reason, villains have been on my mind of late. It always makes the werewolf smile when the bad guy wins, especially when the villains motives are ambiguous and unclear.

Here are some cinema/literary villains that are more than worth their weight in gold.

Hans Gruber (played by Alan Rickman in Die Hard): Strategic planner, gifted conversationalist, style hound, forward thinker, and cold hearted murderer.

Magua (played by Wes Studi in Last of the Mohicans): Warrior, hunter, sadist, savage cannibal, and consumed by a fiery hatred of the British that burns brighter than the sun.

Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon): Epicurean, psychiatrist, sophisticate, gentleman, and homicidal maniac with a preference for devouring human body parts.

Saruman The White (Played by Christopher Lee in The Lord of the Rings): White Wizard, scholar, thinker, mentor, engineer, petty, and power-hungry murderous traitor.

 Vincent (Played by Tom Cruise in Collateral): Professional, goal oriented, cool, efficient, unflappable, well dressed, and a ruthless trigger man.

Iago (Played by Kenneth Branaugh in Othello): Cool, clever, destructive, jealous, manipulative, and dashingly unsympathetic.

Ozymandias (Played by Matthew Goode in The Watchmen): Driven, accomplished, talented, myopic, brutal pacificst, treacherous, naive, and spiteful.

 

This is list is far from comprehensive. Who are your favorite villains?