Best/Favourite SciFi/Fantasy Villain

[Dave]

Okay, your favourite villain, or the character you consider the best villain. Who frightened you the most as a child? Who is the most complex? Who do you love to hate? Who still makes you hide behind the sofa?

There was a very old thread here with a poll and the winner was er... quite surprising. It being Christmas now, there was an old film just shown on TV that reminded me and I just wanted to see if it would still be the same answer over again. So, no cheating and looking at the old thread!

The answer doesn't need to come from film, any media - TV, Books, Games - are acceptable.
And you can be pretty free with the concept of SciFi/Fantasy - you may include a James Bond villain, for instance, but not historical figures such as Adolf Hitler. And I think they need to be humanoid - so you can't have the T Rex from Jurassic Park - but I'll let you decide if that is your choice.

Please add your reasons for your selection. I'm not going to attach a poll because I don't want to give any suggestions upfront, but if it becomes a popular thread then I can add a poll later and we can all vote on it.

Happy New Year,
Dave

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I have a soft spot for Servalan in B7, mainly because Jacqueline Pearce was so good at playing her, and she was so darn glam.

 

[Venusian Broon]

argh, this is so difficult.

I had to get it down to my favourite for each media first...

Games: Definitely Alessa from Silent Hill. I mean after all she caused the whole town to disappear and manifest all those constructions and the horrible things that chased you...but then she had more or less be wronged by the townsfolk, so she'd getting her revenge on them. I also like the fact that you can't defeat her, she lets you go at the end with the rewards/punishments that your actions deserved. So pretty complex for a video game.

Film: The Mothman himself, Indrid Cold, from the the Mothman Prophecies. Basically because he's so elusive and alien, and his psychological games freak. me. out. Indestructible as he's always out there, you only have to chose to listen to him...Again the film hints that he's not really evil at all, just doing what is natural to him, although in reality he is tormenting the Richard Gere character throughout the film.

TV: Ben Linus from Lost for being a bottomless pit of deceit and thus ambiguous regarding what 'side' he was on. I still almost cried when they shot his daughter in front of him...

Books: Sooo many to chose from... Sauron (did so well just being a fiery eye atop a tower), Patrick Bateman the American Psycho (for his extensive knowledge of the 80s and a whole bunch of trivial stuff)...no, I'll go for Palmer Eldritch, the 'devil' at the centre of the universe in PKD's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch...because there was no escape from him at all (or was there?...)

And who comes out on top <VB flips a four sided coin>, by a whisker it goes to Indrid Cold I think, a force of the mysterious and the unknown.

 

[Vince W]

I immediately thought of Sauron as well @Venusian Broon, but Baron Harkonnen is an excellent villain as well as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohaim.

The one that tops the list though is Sergeant Obidiah Hakeswill. What a pyscho.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Umbridge from the Harry Potter books is pretty bad ass, but I agree with Obadiah Hakeswill from Sharpe and definitely Ben Linus from Lost too.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Hakeswill is a good pick, but one that really got the juices of hate flowing for me was Regal, in the first Farseer book.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The Kandy Man from Dr Who wins that one.

Quickly followed by Scunner Campbell from Supergran - he wasn't scary as such just hysterically funny.

There was also a Dame Slap (now I believe Dame Snap) in the Faraway Tree that had me terrified when I was about five.

Also Fenella the Kettle Witch from Chorlton and the Wheelies.

As an adult it's harder to choose but

Alice Nutter in Mist Over Pendle she was the evil head witch who they had to defeat.

 

[Juliana]

Kerry, I was watching HP with the kids the other day and just thinking what a wonderful villain Umbridge is!

 

[reiver33]

Lucas Buck from American Gothic

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

For TV, I would say Kerr Avon, of Blake's Seven. I know some will contend that he isn't a villain, since in the first seasons his actions were always less selfish than his suggestions would indicate, and of course eventually he became the hero of the series. But it's my contention that he was slowly going mad (not to mention bad and dangerous to know) during the final season, though it takes a long time to realize it.

Also, he looked fabulous in black leather, and his smile always reminded me of a shark. (I remember a friend saying that when Avon flashed his pearly whites you always knew there would be blood on the walls.)

For books, I would suggest Steerpike, who puts the ghastly in Gormenghast.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ooooh, Avon is an interesting choice. One of my fav sff characters ever and definitely closer to a baddy than a hero but, then again, he possibly did enough...

I love the line in the last episode where he gives a nod to the slow madness of the last series and refers to himself (obliquely) as a psychopath. Really well done...

 

[Mirannan]

One of the best villains (arguably, with some anti-hero mixed in because her victims are always the worst of scum) IMHO is the Queen of Pain from the OA setting. Something about a hideously mistreated and then hugely boosted into the state of being a transapient demigod...

 

[Rodders]

Scorpius from Farscape was a superb villain. (If I had to go with one, he'd definitely be my favourite.)

I loved the Shadows from B5 too (although that was more for the look of them and their technology.)

The Inhibitors from The Revelation Space books.

As a Star Wars fan, I'd have to say Darth Vader.

The Necromorphs from Deadspace for Games.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Scorpius is very good. It'll be interesting to see how Farscape goes when it returns.

 

[Dave]

Thanks for your excellent suggestions. My apologies - I searched for the old thread here and there was never a poll taken on this board, but it was a radio station poll I was thinking of from 2004.

And the Winner was the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which I found very surprising.) I can't remember all the others but it was a film poll only, and not restricted to SFF, so the Joker appeared, but also Hannibal Lector, Anton Chigurh, Nurse Ratched and Annie Wilkes.

Personally, I don't know who would be my top. Certainly, the Joker (Heath Ledger), Darth Vader, the Terminator, Servalan, Sauron would all feature in my top ten.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Thanks for your excellent suggestions. My apologies - I searched for the old thread here and there was never a poll taken on this board, but it was a radio station poll I was thinking of from 2004.

And the Winner was the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which I found very surprising.) I can't remember all the others but it was a film poll only, and not restricted to SFF, so the Joker appeared, but also Hannibal Lector, Anton Chigurh, Nurse Ratched and Annie Wilkes.

Personally, I don't know who would be my top. Certainly, the Joker (Heath Ledger), Darth Vader, the Terminator, Servalan, Sauron would all feature in my top ten.

Actually the child catcher still gives me a visceral verging-on-nausea type feeling (helped massively by meeting the creation as a young child watching the film no doubt.) I also somehow associate him with the taste/feeling of eating undercooked potatoes. I'm sure psychologists would have a field day exploring that. So I can see why it's up there.

But in terms of best baddie, no - as you could probably tell I like 'em complex, ambiguous and to be 'the best', practically unstoppable. The child catcher is a 1-D character and was outsmarted by a bunch of kids in the end.

Now you are going to say, hindsight!, but I always got the whiff of the child catcher off Jimmy Saville as well when growing up, so always was tepid about 'im fixing it.

 

[BAYLOR]

Kane the immortal Mystic Swordsman in Karl Edward Wagner's novels . Kane is an antihero/ Hero/ villain. The books are coming back into print in august 2015. He is a really cool character.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

It's already been said, but... Steerpike, from Gormenghast!

 

[Mouse]

I'm definitely agreeing with Scorpius. And I'll add Braca too cos I love the Scorpy/Braca relationship.

Nobody's mentioned Alpha from Dollhouse. Alan Tudyk as a bad guy and a really bloody scary bad guy. Brilliant.

Erm... I can think of a couple from non-SFF so I won't mention those. Can't think of any others at the mo. Maybe Krang from TMNT. Because who doesn't love a talking brain that travels around in the stomach of a giant man-robot thing.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Lucas Buck from American Gothic

I'm definitely agreeing with Scorpius.

These.

But also I'd have to vote for Anna from the reboot of V, apart from the fact that she was so cool (literally), she's actually the only villain I can think of who realised her objective and won!

But no list of mine would be complete without Emperor Palpatine and Darth Maul

pH