It’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the wonderful blog at The Broke and the Bookish!
This Week’s Topic is: a Top Ten Tuesday rewind!! So I went all the way back to 11/16/10 so I could talk about…. Villains/Criminals/and other Nasties!
Halloween is coming up (shamless plug for the Halloween event that Alyssa (Books Take You Places) and I are planning and want YOU to take part in…) and I want to go back through and talk about my favorite villains. Villains make for great Halloween costumes and go along with the perfectly wicked Halloween theme. Here are my choices (in no particular order):
1. Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series: I have a love/hate relationship with Snape. He’s a great villain mostly because as the series progresses, he grows more and more dynamic and we see the good AND the bad side of him. Snape’s got sass and snark! Plus, Snape is mean with a vendetta, but not really malicious. Although this list is in no particular order, I still think Snape is my number one villain!
2. Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride: Oh Prince Humperdinck. You down-low dirty dog, you. Humperdinck is an EASY villain to hate. He’s a liar. A cheat. A con man. A murderer. He wants to marry the most beautiful girl in the world just so he can kill her – in order to start a war. What is with this guy? I’m saying antisocial personality disorder. I was also tipped off by the creepy-ass zoo that he keeps in the dungeon (yeah, that’s the book, not the movie. Go read it!!!!)
3. Housemaster Vaughn from the Chemical Garden trilogy: I don’t know why but this guy just creeps. me. out. I’m sure for most, he’s probably not one of the worst villains out there. For me? Totally. It was a combination of mad scientist, skeevy old guy, and sadistic prison guard. *shiver* He’s old-guy skeeving on Rhine like he’s nice but kind of hitting on her at the same time, and oh wait, we also want to dissect her body too! Ew.
4. The baddies in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Okay, if you’re one of the people who hasn’t read the book, just in case, I won’t spoil the end for you – but it’s no secret that the villains in this book are more than just villains. They’re MESSED. UP. The book was so good, but so bad at the same time – I loved it, but it was kind of like watching a horrible accident or something. I was horrified, but I couldn’t stop wanting and needing to know more. But don’t let the popular ratings fool you – It’s no feel-good book. There are some sick, sick sickos in this series.
5. “The Authority/Society” from any dystopian: One thing I love about dystopians is putting myself in a future world. The other thing is the classic story of hero/heroine vs the authority. It’s one of those things that are impossible to get away from. It’s all around you. All the time. And generally these are the people who have the power to track you down and make sure you succumb. Creepy.
6. Prentisstown in The Knife of Never Letting Go: Now, I’ve only finished the first book in this series so this is all I know so far, but man, those guys are creepy. There’s always something just off enough that you know something’s up but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Obviously these secrets are revealed later in the book (no spoilers), but I couldn’t help but just be freaked out by this weird town the whole book! Definitely creepy…… Especially Aaron.
7. President Snow from The Hunger Games series: Another seriously creepy old man/authority figure (do I have a problem with old people and/or authority? Maybe I do……) and why does he always use roses to cover up the fact that he smells like blood? And his mouth smells like blood. What is he doing?! Even though it’s not the case, I had the smallest thought of cannibalism which it the worst possible idea to pop into my head, and then I couldn’t shake it.
8. King Randa & King Leck from Graceling: Ugh, what creeps. I hate when villains make the characters do something totally against their will or blackmail. Ew. Not all of the kings are bad or corrupt in Graceling, but apparently a fair few of them are.
9. Dexter Morgan from the Dexter series: Okay, so I confess. I only read the first book in the actual series of books. It was too similar to the TV show (which I had already seen) and I was bored reading the book. Ahh, I hate to say it, but it’s true. Anyway, from what I know of the show, I love Dexter. This is one of the only times I’ve actually rooted for the bad guy! How did they do that? How did they make a serial loveable?
10. Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter series: I just had to include Bellatrix, and Helena Bonham Carter nailed this role in the movies! She’s bad and just deranged. I love it!
Okay, so those are my choices for my top villains. That was actually harder than I thought!
Like I mentioned above, Alyssa and I are putting together this series of Halloween posts starting probably next week sometime and ending on Halloween day. We want YOU guys to help us out. It’s not just us putting up the posts, but we’re sharing anything and everything we can collect from our fellow blogger friends and we’re putting in your thoughts, quotes, and opinions. Send us your favorite Halloween movies, TV episodes, villains; any real ghost stories you’ve experienced, creepy places you’ve been, true facts about Halloween, favorite villains, even guest posts if you have a great story or Halloween event – and of course, any Halloween related book reviews! Either leave me a comment or better yet, send me an email with your Halloween-related ideas! I can be reached at bookaddictsguide(at)gmail(dot)com. We look forward to your contributions!!!
22 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday – October 9, 2012: Top Ten Villains”
Everyone picks Leck and rightly so! Creepy scuzzball.
My TTT: http://shelversanon.blogspot.com/2012/10/top-10-tuesday-rewind-top-ten-bookish.html
OH my goodness, I agree with almost all of these! YES for Snape as a villain (I know lots argue that he’s not, but I agree with you, he totally was for most of the series), and I love that you have Humperdinck in there. And OH MY WORD how freaky are those Prentisstown men? And that preacher that I’m pretty sure was a zombie, because he just WOULD NOT DIE? *shivers* That book creeped me out.
Bellatrix is totally a villain to be on this list. Scary. I agree completely that Helena Bonham Carter nailed the role in the HP roles.
I have a love/hate relationship with Snape as well. He is not a nice guy, but when I went to the midnight release part for HP7, I was totally sporting Trust Snape stickers.
Snape is one of my favorite fictional characters ever! Great list!
Check out my TTT.
Sandy @ Somewhere Only We Know
I did villains as well, and we have some overlap. I think a lot of us are pretty creeped out by Snow! He really makes for a chilling villain.
Love the nod to The Princess Bride!
I just read The Knife of Never Letting Go, and I have books two and three on order.
The Dexter books and the TV show diverge from each other greatly after the first book. You’ll see cases pop up in the TV series that were in the books as weekly storylines, but you won’t see the entire plot of a book in the TV series. Spoiler–Doakes is stil alive in the series…and still has *most* of his parts…
Ooooohhhhh how every interesting!! Maybe I should check those out then. Thanks!!
there is also no LaGuerta in the books anymore, either, as the book kills her off, but the show did not.
Snape is one of my favorite characters ever. I really like complex and flawed characters who, like most people, are neither bad nor good but a mix of both! Chaos Walking has a pretty great villain, the Mayor, as you get further on in the series. He’s one of those you hate and like at the same time. Also, I really disliked the Dexter books, too. That was one case where the TV show beat the books!
Love, love, love this list! I absolutely agree with Snape and Bellatrix. 😀
what a great topic and truly inspired picks. i love/hate snape, he’s such a difficult character, so nuanced and multi-layered. i argued with Maggie about Snape, because I still dislike him, but i respect him in a sense. anyway, also, bellatrix is all kinda scary. scarier than moldy voldy for sure. and Snow, Geez! that dude’s all kinda messed up.
and now i guess i have to read whither and the knife of never letting go.
Great picks & a perfect topic choice with Halloween coming up. Housmaster Vaugh is a total creep & I love that Bellatrix made your list!
Great list! I really don’t like Hosuemaster Vaughn, he gives me the heeby jeebies! Another Harry Potter Villian I absolutely could not stand was Umbridge. She made my skin crawl! As for Dexter, I LOVE Dexter (even though I am behind 2 seasons in the show). I read the first2 or 3 books, and honestly, I agree the first book is almost exactly like the first season…until the end, which was a surprise to what actually happened. I can’t wait for your Halloween posts, and I should be emailing you soon!
Yay, I’m so excited!!! Yes, please send me anything and everything Halloween related! And spread the word, if you could. It’s been hard getting a hold of people and although we’re making an official post tomorrow as far as participation goes, we really want to find more people to throw us some ideas/stories! 🙂
OMG Vaughn is just so creepy to me! I can’t wait to see what happens in the last book. Fever ended so CRAZY.
I can’t believe I forgot about Umbridge!!! I just wanted to punch her haha. She was absolutely terrible! Especially since she acts all sweet and is a total terror!
Oh these are fabulous choices! I think the best bad guys are ones like Snape- the people who are so bad you want to hate, but somehow have a weird affection for. I love and hate Snape so, so much! I feel like that about Linden in Wither, too. I know he’s dad is the real evilpants, but he’s still OK with the girls being locked into the estate and only having freedom allowed by the men of the house–and yet, I feel for him. Then again, I had not an ounce of like for Prez Snow and was sad that Katniss didn’t do something truly horrifying to him in the end. He so deserved it.
We both chose villains this week, and I love your choices so much! We have several baddies in common, including Vaughn who I think is very creepy. Can’t wait to read Knife of Letting Go sometime.
Thanks, Lucy!! The Knife of Never Letting Go was really good, and I just picked up the second book in the series which I’m hoping to get to this month. Ooh I’ll have to go check out your list too! I can’t wait to see who you picked.
Have you watched the Letters from the Rose Garden extra feature on The Hunger Games DVD? If not, it’s this letter that Donald Sutherland wrote to the director about President Snow, explaining more about how he saw Snow. It was crazy interesting, especially reading it and then going back and reading the books. It gave a whole new look at Snow’s “evil.”
I also love that you included the whole of Prentisstown. Wait until you get further into the series; the lines become so blurred over who is good and who is bad that you end up questioning EVERYTHING. And I totally feel I could comment on just about all of these; all are SO super creepy. Not all bad, but CREEPY, which is almost worst!
Ooo neat topic! I love it. Bellatrix and Prince Humperdink would be on my list too.
I love/hate Snape as well. And I’m also not team James or whatever. They were both jerks.
My TTT
I LOVE that you have Prince Humperdink on here. For real. I liked the movie significantly better than the book but he is an awesome villain. I want to marry Professor Snape, I really always loved him..he came second only to Sirius ::sobs:: and Bella is obvs amazing. This was a fun post to read :]