Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted by The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s theme is All About the Villains. Thinking about it, although I read a lot of thrillers and a lot of quite dark books, very few of them actually have a villain as such, or not one that I admire in any way. Maybe I’m just not reading the right kind of thrillers!
Amy from Gone Girl
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a character quite as messed up as Amy. She is so cleverly constructed by Flynn, that we expect her to be anything other than slightly annoying and that’s what makes it all the more shocking when we find out what she really is, AKA. pure psycho.
Death from The Book Thief
I never viewed him as a villain, but I’ve seen the character described as such in a number of reviews. I suppose it’s impossible to view death as anything other than the ‘bad guy’, despite the beautiful and regretful way he is portrayed here.
Snape from Harry Potter
He is a villain, and always will be. Despite his ability to love, he still chose the Dark Arts, his affiliation was always with Voldemort, he was just blinded by his love. In fact I’d go as far as saying it wasn’t even love, it was a deep obsession and infatuation. He cannot be labelled as ‘good’.
Javert from Les Miserables
Although I’ll admit to never having read the book, despite it sitting on my shelf for far too long, I have see the musical a number of times and Javert is by far my favourite character. Unlike Snape, Javert isn’t actually a villain. He is a policeman, who is sometimes more concerned with doing his duty than doing the right thing, and that doesn’t make him bad at all. I hate when people boo him at the end, it makes no sense to me.
Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events
As creepy as a children’s villain can possibly get. A perfect balance of humour and horror, he is truly chilling, and so brilliantly played on film by Jim Carrey.
I’m really clutching at straws here, so that’s only five rather than ten. I’m looking forward to seeing who other people’s favourite villains are, to give me a bit of inspiration!
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I love that you included Javert! He’s a great villain because he believes so much and then his world just shatters. I love it. I didn’t get it when I first saw it but then someone explained his POV and my heart just broke for him too.
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Ah Snape 😛
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For me, Snape is also a villain. As for Gone Girl, maybe you shouldn’t have included Amy here for spoiler reasons haha 😛 but she was definitely evil (though I wouldn’t use the word psycho to describe her). Nick wasn’t good either, but he was more restrained.
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I thought the majority of people have probably already read it by now, and if not, why not!? 😛 Nick isn’t good but I wouldn’t call him evil at all, I’d just call him selfish and thoughtless.
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Exactly, she wanted to hurt, he just cared about himself. This whole discussion just reminded me how much I loved that book! 😛
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It’s so cleverly written! 🙂
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That’s a great list – I have not read any of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ but I have seen the film, and he was a great villain 🙂
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The books are so great! Thanks for visiting 🙂
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Really great, interesting choices! Interesting what you said about Snape, I never thought about him thst way exactly. But for sure he is s great villain!
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I found it pretty hard to think of ten villains! It was a bit tough to think of book villains – I think TV and Film villains are more memorable for some reason.
While Snape “came good in the end” he is still definitely a bad guy fuelled by hate and jealousy.
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I tend to think of children’s books when I think of the word ‘villain’. TV and Film are definitely more memorable.
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Amy is a good one! I never really thought of her as a villain until just now seeing her on your list.
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Oh, Amy from Gone Girl is a good one! I completely forgot about her. Such a good villain just because she was hard to suspect.
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Amy is NUTS! lol I totally agree, I’ve never encountered such a psycho character before.
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I love that you included Death! I wish I would have thought of it. And Amy. She’s horrible!
My TTT.
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Reading Les Miz now! And Book Thief–great choice. Here’s mine if you haven’t seen it
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Thanks, I’ll have a look now 🙂
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Disagree about Snape, but then I figure you knew someone would! 😀
Great list!
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I’m sure many people disagree, but I suppose that’s what makes him such a good character. He’s so complex, he appeals to people in different ways.
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That is very very true.
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I love Amy purely based on just how much I underestimated her at first and then all of a sudden I faced the realization that she really is full crazy and vengeful. I think what I love most about Snape is that it almost seemed as if he wanted to be pure evil and just couldn’t go all the way.
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I haven’t finished The Book Thief yet but so far I don’t really see Death as a villain either – guy’s just doing his job! Maybe my opinion will change as I go through the book, though. 🤔
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I never really saw him as a villain either, it doesn’t seem to be his choice who dies, he’s just doing his job and is just as sad about it as anyone would be.
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Oh AMY – definitely agree – she is insane and so manipulative… I never really thought of Snape as a villain, but you make a good point why!
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Amy is a great choices. Cold and calculating, definitely one of the greatest villains. Nice list.
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I could rant about this for days, as you very well know, but how anyone could see Snape as a good guy is beyond me. He’s the original friendzone-complainant.
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He was never anything other than a bad person with bad views who had an infatuation with someone.
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Anyone who is so horrible that they are a fourteen year old boy’s worst fear is not a good “but he’s misunderstood” “but he loved Lily really” person!
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Captain Hook in Peter Pan. He’s so fun.
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