5:27 "And then he dies" I feel like that sells it a bit short. He used a spell to turn the matter of his body into energy and blew up like a nuke. A great end for a villain, I say.
Oh man, i should have skipped this one of the list (and not read the comments) because i am on the second book (i heard so much shit about those books, i was doubting reading them, and then james mentioned it was his favorite magic system, so i decided to read it to se what the hell it was)
@@saraangel6696 5 months late but what did you think of the second book? I dropped the series because of it... As derivative as it can be, I was thoroughly enjoying the series, but halfway through the second book I just couldn't pick it up again. One part of the book was Eragon taking long, drab grammar lessons for a dead language, and despite my interest in that magic system and in that language, I could barely push myself through that. The other part was Roran wandering around the Spine and whining about Eragon abandoning them, and I couldn't give less of a shit about Roran so I'm pretty sure I skipped some of that. And then, just before I stopped reading, there was that thing, where the baby that Eragon blessed was revealed to actually have been cursed due to his poor grammar, and somehow aged up really fast and was all weird and spooky, and that actually raised my interest, but it just wasn't enough to get me through it. I think the training/grammar lessons were necessary but boring, and, realizing that, the author put in the Roran parts and the part with the weird cursed child to make things interesting, but it just wasn't enough for me. But I was.. either a teen or pre-teen at the time, so I'm not sure how much of that was just me being a kid who likes action and hates grammar lessons. So I'd like to know if it's worth me giving the book another try
@@saraangel6696 The magic system in Eragon is dumb as hell. Characters start "cutting veins in peoples heads" as a killing spell, and only other mages counter it by having barriers in place. It's not even an original system, it's stolen directly from "Earthsea" of all things. Read that instead, much better series. impishidea.com/criticism/the-magic-of-the-inheritance-cycle
yeah. it isnt often that you have a moment like that in a book, where a moment is so impactful and badass. the way that eragon beats him is also really great, original and it makes sense.
Azula from Avatar is my favourite villain. Her scenes are entertaining and scary. When the war concludes Azula ends losing by her redeemed brother Prince Zuko, psychotic, lonely and tragic. You really feel sad how delusional and powerless she becomes
@@QuolashMCDuck This is a video about 'Literary' villains. As in, villains that originate in literature. As in villains that come from books. I love Azula as much as the other guy and she totally makes my top 10 villains list (from all sources). But she does not belong on this list since she comes from a cartoon. And the subject of this video are villains that come from books. Darth Vader and Palpatine are also awesome villains I love. But they don't belong on this list either since they originate from movies that aren't book adaptations.
00:28 - #10 Sauron, Lord of the Rings 01:58 - #9 Galbatorix, The Inheritance Cycle 07:13 - #8 Jake Featherston, Southern Victory 09:53 - #7 T-Rex, Jurasic Park 11:54 - #6 The Sphere, Sphere 14:32 - #5 Saint John, Rot and Ruin 18:15 - #4 Teren Santoro, The Young Elites 23:07 - #3 Winston Duarte, The Expanse 26:04 - #2 Ishamael, Wheel of Time 33:54 - #1 Lord Loss, The Demonata Honorable Mentions 29:38 - Hrathen, Elantris 30:34 - Flagg, The Stand 31:53 - Cthulhu, Lovecraft Mythos 32:28 - Ari, Maximum Ride
I agree what you said about Galbatorix's death not solving anything. I like Inheritance Cycle mostly for that very reason, the details and care the world building has. Many other writers write better worlds, but theirs tend to run by itself after the hero has done his part by defeating the bad guy.
As for Sauron, you gotta admit he has an impressive track record. First of, he is among the most powerful of the Maiar and the most powerful servant of Melkor/Morgoth. While he was just a servant of Melkor in the first age, both second and third were marked by his deeds. He was responsible for the downfall of Numenor, the largest human empire, he created one of, if not the most powerful artifact in Arda at the time, the one ring. He made the nazgul, who were dreaded by everyone as they could be killed by no man. He made sure to use the weakness of Men to his advantage, so that he may endure as long as he did. The mere mention of his name was feared. While he doesn't move much or have interesting motives, he has done things that made him a worthy opponent.
Sauron is the literary villian is due to him being the personification of pure evil, which in itself is a force of nature. He is there to emphasize that theme of intimidation, malovalence, and fear. Tolkien did this to ensure a presence of pure evil is influencing events without requiring a character with a simple or complex reason, rather of more a presence for the characters to be aware of.
Setting aside Sauron's influence on the villains in the genre and the context in which the trilogy was published, I think what makes him work as an interesting antagonist to this day is the fact that he's treated almost as a force of nature looming on the horizon: faceless, unfeeling, unstoppable. While I think it's fair to call him two-dimensional in terms of characterization, I don't think this is necessarily a critique, or the product of poor storytelling. Some villains standout because they have depth that allows for a certain level of empathy, and while you probably don't agree with them, the author lets you understand their motivations. That's great, but I think don't think Sauron is written the way he is because he was created at a time when fantasy villains were still in their nascent stage and Satan was basically the only supernatural villain from which Tolkien could draw (as I've seen argued); as if more mature and complex villains had yet to be innovated in the genre or something. Sauron is an example of a _different_ way to construct a villain, especially a supernatural one. His shadow looms over the story and the world's history and I think to personify him in an attempt to give him more character and "greater depth" would've actually undermined his effect on the entire trilogy. Even the way his spies could be anywhere and his Nazgul are sort of stalking the countryside in FOTR, for example, makes him seem like this diffuse, almost omnipresent entity. His very inhumanity is what makes him, in my opinion, terrifying. He's an impending disaster that can't be reasoned with, like a devastating storm or asteroid, something one could never hope to stop head-on, and so other means must to taken: Frodo's destruction of the ring. It's also why I think it would've been a huge mistake to have added Sauron into Peter Jackson's adaptation at the Battle of Morannon, which they considered at one point, and obviously wasn't in the book for good reason. Besides diverting the tension away from Frodo on Mount Doom, it would've undermined the faceless, shadowy omnipresence that made him work so well.
Sauron is a great force of nature. Sometimes, the greatest antagonists are the ones that can't be bought or reasoned with or even empathized with. Sometimes its compelling enough for a hero to fight a hurricane.
I haven't read LOTR all the way through, but I imagine that the scene with The Mouth of Sauron must be amazing, since, so far, Sauron's basically been a force of nature, but, then, here comes this tiny little pinhead of an orc, strolling carefree straight from The Black Gate to meet the heroes. When he finally gets there, he is the creepiest little critter that they've ever met, and probably kills babies for fun in his spare time... and this is just some lowly servant of Sauron? This is the representative that he sends, as if to say that the heroes are barely even worth his time? Almost like they were trying to go up against a hurricane? And now that it's finally looking right at them... Like I said, I haven't read the books through, but I imagine that that's a pretty good way to show Sauron's immensity.
@@SF-zm2py If I remember correctly--it's been a while--the Mouth of Sauron isn't an orc, but is implied or outright stated to a 'Black Numenorean' that's been twisted into his current form by his master's power. Black Numenoreans were those that fell under the influence of Sauron, eventually leading to the downfall of their island; contrasting with those that stood against him and went on to found Arnor and Gondor. Either way, though, I agree with the main thrust of your comment.
What makes that less impressive is that his parents worked at a publishing firm. Eragon is a work of nepotism. Which isn't to say that it's necessarily bad, but the parts of it that are derivative bullshit would have been rejected in a more meritocratic setting
Yes, & it shows. Eragon is one of two the only two series in my life that I had to DNF. The first was a gross homophobic shit fest, & this one because the third book was godawfully boring. Being young & making something of yourself at such a young age is not always a good thing, especially since it's well known that writer didn't write the first book by himself
Except Galbatorix actually does have interesting motivations/ideology, whatever you want to call it. While Galbatorix himself didn't really believe it all - he was a bitter blood-thirsty madman, he just came up with rhetoric to convince people to support him - he managed to SUCCESSFULLY convert Nasuada (for those unfamiliar, the leader of the good guys, is crowned queen after the bad guy's death). She doesn't advocate going about his goals the same way he did, but she admits he has a damn good point, and something has to be done about it. This is actually a point of significant disagreement between Nasuada and Eragon in the post-victory chapters, iirc they argue about the principle and Nasuada's administration/enforcement of it more than once. One could even make the argument her efforts to regulate magic and control its users are part of the reason Eragon doesn't feel welcome in her kingdom, one of the several things that push him into the east. But yeah, I was completely blindsided with how good the last book was. The first one was a dumpster fire, the second one was a step up while still seriously painful in places, but the third was suddenly actually good, and the fourth one? Where the hell did /that/ come from? Not perfect by /any/ means, but such a significant improvement I was pleasantly surprised, at least.
"She doesn't advocate going about his goals the same way he did" She kind of does though. Both of them lead a bloody rebellion against the standing authority.
Really? I thought that the last book was only about as good as the first one. I feel like a lot of the interesting stuff was glossed over. Also you take that back! Eldest is the best one, almost solely because of Roran. Roran is the best character in the whole story and I lament the fact that the flat Eragon got to be the protagonist
@@trequor Roran is almost more special because he isnt a chosen one with powers. He has a hammer and he has to protect his wife and their child so he fights in the army. Hes a badass
@@bilbobaggins3739 Hell yeah he is. In my opinion the idea of an ordinary man fighting in a fantastical war to protect his wife and child is a lot more compelling than the cookie-cutter revenge motivation of Eragon. That wrestling match with the Urgal was the high point for me
Good video. However I disagree in two aspects. First is Cthulhu, while he is, arguably, evil I think Nyarlathotep makes Cthulhu look like a Boy Scout, as Nyarlathotep is the third most powerful of the Old Ones and is destined to destroy the Earth but doesn't because he enjoys seeing humanity in chaos. Essentially he's the Joker if the Joker had cosmic, mind warping powers and over a thousand different forms. I'd also say Morgoth is more evil than Sauron. I'm also surprised you didn't put Baron Harkonnen from Dune on the list (the one from the books not the God awful movie). As for villains you don't know of that I am quite fond of Nagash and Vlad von Carstein from Warhammer Fantasy, the Chaos Gods from Warhammer period, Lorgar, Erebus, and Konrad Kurze from 40k.
Stop right there, in which world is Vlad the villain? He's unironically one of the most "good" people in the Warhammer universe (better than most emperors for sure)
One more thing about Galbatorix is that the heroes weren’t the ones to kill him; they made him feel all the pain he caused, then he committed suicide. The fact that they had to drive him to that speaks volumes as well as have 100 pages of wrap up.
bruh even just hearing the end of the demonata series summed up makes my heart race!!! I remember reading the final book and the climax during like, silent reading time at the start of my english class and I finished the last book like "How do u expect me to even focus on CLASS NOW?????" shit was like cocaine to 15 y/o me!!! anyway lord loss was great even tho he's the equivalent to a schoolyard bully who doesn't know how to cope with his bad home life
Stupid name aside, I think that the Lord Ruler was a pretty exceptional villain. He was sort of similar to the Emperor from star wars, albeit slightly more redeemable .
My top 10 favorite villains (not restricted to just literature): 10: Enrico Pucci from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 9: Galbatorix from the Inheritance Cycle 8: Mister Freeze from the Batman franchise 7: Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender 6: Thrawn from the Star Wars franchise 5: David Xanatos from Gargoyles 4: Syndrome from The Incredibles 3: Zim from Invader Zim 2: Solf J. Kimblee from Fullmetal Alchemist (manga and Brotherhood only) 1: Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise
Not doing your research on Sauron... his motivations in contrast to Melkor’s make him interesting as an incarnation of evil focused on Order over Melkor’s chaos or evil for evils sake. That’s what makes him compelling is his OCD desire to bring order to the world despite that order being evil. He’s the embodiment of order and progress for their own sake which people today take for granted as good outcomes.
Im curious how you define what makes a great villain vs what is an ok villain. You have two villains on your list that are merely up there because 1. had a couple great scenes and 2. wasn't even a villain but just a conduit that had nothing to do with the characters later choices. And whilst you said some of your choices made the list only cause of their place in fantasy writings history. Now whilst on one hand your made it sound as tho your list was cause of how interesting the villain itself was it kinda seems contradictory to say ones interesting for a mere scene vs what it represents overall or maybe thats the point. Anyway I was curious cause it seems trivializing one villain as a stereotype and praising one who isn't even a villain seemed an odd choice, but it is interesting to hear ones opinion in such a discussion .
Some of my personal favorite villains not on the list (from books) have to be Chaos, from Warhammer Fantasy, Age of Sigmar, and Warhammer 40K. Lorgar is my personal favorite specific villain from 40K, but Horus, Kurze, and Magnus are all amazing as well. To sum it up briefly, there are these beings called the Chaos Gods, the main ones are Tzeentch, Khorne, Nurgle, and Slaanesh, formed out of the emotional energy of people in the material plane, and they all hate eachother, constantly fighting, but what they hate even more than eachother... is everyone else. So they will occasionally pick champions among the mortals to grow their power. In 40K, it's Horus, favored son of the God-Emperor of Man, who along with eight of his brothers, betray their father and take humanity from the height of it's power into the grim-dark hell we all know and love. They're truly fascinating antagonists, especially when you consider outside of AoS (and even then only kinda), there's no real... protagonist. The "Good Guys" of 40K, are an ultra-religious, hyper-zealous, totalitarian state with a population so massive, the individual ceases to hold any relevance. There's good people living within this nation, of course, but even the nicest Imperial citizen will be so radically xenophobic, it's almost impressive. (Even other examples of "Good Guys", the T'au Empire for Example, are totalitarian states under absolute control of a small handful of people). And I didn't even get into Fantasy/AoS, that's what some 30 years and what must be several hundred books gets you for quick summaries, I suppose. So I end with the start to every piece of 40K Media: In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only War.
I dunno if he's a villain as much as he's an antihero but perturabo in the current books has been done extremely well, to serve as one of the most threatening groups of the heresy Whilst also being the least tainted, and even leaving when they were still winning,
I like Kronos from Percy Jackson. I tend to like the charismatic, evil Overlords like him. Spoilers for Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson. Though, you could say the actual main villain was Luke because he actually did most of the work and even Luke wasn’t a typical, pure evil guy, there was a good reason why he did what he did and the decision to merge the two in the fourth book was a genius move on the part of Rick Riordan, as he didn’t leave it at, Luke’s dead, Luke still comes through, even with Kronos’ possession. Possibly my favourite part is how his death actually changes stuff in the world. Unlike in say, Harry Potter, where things get good for everyone, the end of the War actually leads Percy to hold the Gods accountable for the war as it was essentially their fault all of it happened.
One villain who deserves to be on this list is Nicodemus Archleon from the Dresden Files smart and powerful, it takes multiple ancient reality warpers to out maneuver him and he still gets away. Even when his plans are thwarted he still succeeds in some measure.
THANK YOU for recognising the genius of Lord Loss. I skipped ahead and thought the #1 went to Ari at first lol. The Demonata managed to surprise me in a lot of places, but that chess-playing, bloody-flesh-legged horror has stayed with me in perfect detail even while the rest fades. Can't think of another case of the heroes (spoliers) having to team up with the villain where the villain remains a real and present threat throughout. Hell, even in just the first book, the impact he had on the entire line of Gradys!! blah, the more I remember the more I want to go on so suffice to say a worthy top pick.
I just watched a recent video of his saying that Demonata was his favorite series, so I looked here to see if Lord Loss was first, and I am so goddamn glad he was. I freaking love Demonata, and I think it should get so much more respect than it has.
Duarte actually shows up first in the 5th book. Alex goes to meet him to ask some question and he just seems like a fairly standard MCRN officer at the time. Only later(end of the book) do you find out he's actually the mastermind behind everything.
The thing about Ishamael that I love is how he knows he is a nemesis to Rand anyway. Sometimes the latter fought for the Shadow while Elan was the champion of the Light himself. Thinking about it really does make everything else look relativly the same if the two forces in this world can be swapped that easily.
Ishamael came to the conclusion that due to the cyclical nature of the pattern the people never got to be free and everytime they are reincarnated they relive their lives with only minor differences and thus must struggle and suffer again. This is examplified by Birgitte who has lived multiple lives which are pretty much the same and the ending tends to be tragic. His solution was final death and complete freedom from the tyranny of the wheel. What Ishamael really wanted was for life to be unique and death a final state not a cycle of suffering.
You are incredibly articulate! I'm not sure if you had a script going into this, but if you did this on the fly, I'm really impressed with the way you can explain yourself on the fly. It'd be great to get a sense of your criteria for what makes a great villain for you, prior to the listing itself. Understand you probably don't want to dive too deep into that due to time, but even just a "I'm basing this off of how awesome they are, etc", would help.
Hearing you talk about Lord Loss reminds me quite a bit of Stormbringer: the sentient, demonic sword of Elric of Melnibone (of the "Elric" series by Michael Moorcock) and how their story ends.
While I do agree that Eragon's magic system arguably is one of the best ever devised because castors are limited first by knowledge and then by physical cost and I will grant that closing the book by cleaning up as much of the mess as possible is a nice touch, by the time I got through those books I was past ready for it to end. I feel like Paolini was trying to hard to be a spiritual successor to Tolkien by needlessly stretching out his books with ultimately useless and inconsequential filler. It's not that picking up the pieces after the war was a bad thing, it's that he didn't need ten or more chapters to do it.
Yeah there definitely didn't need to be 4 books. A more disciplined writer would have stuck to the originally planned trilogy. Eldest and Brisingr contain too much filler, and as a result Inheritance is playing catch up for the first half. EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm almost positive that the reason is that Paolini wanted another big Varden battle to finish the second book off with. Which necessitated a lot of bullshit running back and forth across Alagesia. He could have cut that shit and had Eragon fighting alongside his masters at Galead (i think that's what its called... it's that city in the north)
I like the book of the hobbit more than the movie of course. But Smaug's character works better for me in the movie. He had more presence and a very amazing ending with the town down in flames. I love watching his fight scene at Lake town with Bard. Also, that they actually introduced us to Bard's children gave smaug's death more depth because we know Bard's son will inherit the title of leader of the survivors, but it came so rushed in the book and we had never herd of the kid before (Guess he was born after?) it feels anticlimatic.
I personally really liked the inhabitance cycle manly because I have yet to find a series that does dragons better. The dragons in that series were awesome and very prominent.
I believe Galbatorix lost his first dragon to Urgal pre-takeover. It was this loss coupled with the dragon riders refusal to grant him another dragon that triggered his descent.
One of my favourite villains from literature has to be Graulas, from the Fablehaven book series. The series is more aligned to the younger side of YA, but it’s by one of my all time favourite authors who makes really good books. It’s essentially about how on earth mythological creatures are real, they are just mostly confined to reserves where they are kept. Graulas is a demon who lives on the reserve of the main characters, but he is very old. In fact, he is in the process of dying. One of the main characters, Seth, finds him and feels terrified of him at first, then bad for him. Graulas warms up to Seth, they talk often, and Graulas trains Seth in a special kind of magic. By about halfway through the last book, Seth finds himself with very potent magical artifacts that also act as keys to the prison that contains almost every demon. One of them can heal any malady. Seth brings this to Graulas, because at this point he sees Graulas as one of his most trusted mentors, and uses it to ease his pain as he is dying. But this is what makes him an amazing villain in my opinion: as soon as he is healed, it doesn’t just ease his pain it restores his vitality and strength, and he immediately attacks Seth. His entire guise as an old, almost considerate demon was just to manipulate Seth into healing him, allowing him to take control and free his kind. Additionally after he is freed, he nearly kills Seth then uses the artifact to heal him, then nearly kills him again, just to torture him, and then leaves him in his cave and goes on to destroy the reserve. It is still to this day my favourite betrayal in any work of literature, and his ending is also very poetic.
I would say that the old starwars expanded universe is also quite good at covering the fall of an empire, and how killing the emperor does not mean the fight is over. I mean in that universe the clean up campaigns last for a good twenty years, and the new republic nearly falls apart five or six times either from political infighting or assaults by the empire. It really presents an intresting idea of a universe where it is incredibly hard to patrol and protect your territory, especially from, at one point, several factions of a former empire. It also is intresting since the new republic indirectly causes several warlords to break off from the empire and conquer large swaths of the Galaxy, making the process of a surrender less likely. It really is an intresting post victory setting.
I would argue that epic fantasy predates LOTR by quite a lot of years. I would count Beowulf as epic fantasy an it's one of the oldest of pieces of literature. Ditto for Greece and other myths about gods and monsters and other usual epic fantasy stuff.
Those are really proto-epic fantasy, like, there's the notable difference all of LOTR was made by a single man, working over many years, while the mythology behind Beowulf and the Greeks is made by thousands of people over centuries. Greeks Especially is like calling the Bible Epic Fantasy, they honestly believed it was all true, at least a large portion of them. These are what enabled Epic Fantasy, that rich religious mythology had to exist before LOTR, but... that doesn't make mean they are themselves.
@@zombielizard218 Most of your reply isn't even relevant. The definition of epic fantasy does not include the amount of writers, the time it took to write it or belief or lack of belief in the reality of the story. I think that you could consider the bible epic fantasy.
The Bible is a religious text arguably can be classified as Mythology. Definetly not epic fantasy. Beowulf and Greek myths are both mythology. Lord of the Rings is epic fantasy. There's a huge difference between them and you definitely can't label them as epic fantasy. The Bible (and Torah and Qur'an) and other mythologies were explanations for how the world came to be and how it operated. Beyond that they often were guidelines for how to live by for the people of the time. Epic fantasy has none of those elements. Mythology might feel like epic fantasy to us, but that's because epic fantasy was inspired from mythology. Hip-hop was inspired by Jazz, but they're not the same genre. Same situation here.
Greek mythology is not epic fantasy; it's mythic fantasy. Which is a related, but distinct genre. Beowulf comes close to epic fantasy, but as the other commentor stated it's more like proto-epic fantasy... actually it's really more like heroic fantasy.
I do wonder why the newest Jurrassic Park keeps the lizard theme though. It's been proven several years ago that dino's had feathers. Like, does no one actually care about the dinos?
Proven? How? It's all speculation... informed speculation to be sure, but speculation none the less. It does make more sense, as having nothing but skin is a great way to freeze to death in the open air, but it certainly isn't "proven"
Sphere, nice deep cut Edit: my understanding of the purpose of the sphere was that it was either an alien or post-human technology designed to test the development of humans who encountered it. Any who were irresponsible/underdeveloped would be destroyed by their own character flaws.
Lol the book goes out its way to dissuade that theory. They comment precisely on how incredibly narcissistic that theory is. Why would future humans or aliens *care* about "testing" humanity?? It doesnt make any sense. The sphere is an incredibly powerful piece of technology in its own right. It's practically a god machine
Where ishamael goes wrong, is hes looking into the future and sees the dark one has an infinite amount of tries to break free. But he fails to look in the past and see hes already had an infinite amount of tries but still failed to break free
10 points to Gryffindor for the T-Rex mention. Much more terrifying than the raptors, the T-Rex combines the coolness of a mindless predatory nature (zombies) with the inherent fear of a larger size, (name your anime/Marvel movie), and it has an inherent weakness (it's reasonable for the protagonists to win or at least escape), plus a troubling back story involving genetic mutation and no real family or socialization to modern life (character development). It really doesn't get the appreciation it deserves.
Permit me to disagree. I'm a huge T. Rex fan. But I think the raptors take it hands down. Even in the books, the park staff asked Hammond that they should destroy the raptors, which of course he refused. It tells you how much they were feared, even when not being even a tenth of the T. Rex's size. Then, on top of that, Harding told Gennaro that, all the troubles they'd had with the two Rexes was nothing if the raptors were loose. And boy, was he right. For more than half of the book, the rexes were loose and only managed to kill about 2 people. When the raptors were freed in the second half, it was a bloodbath.
@@ugomaniac I definitely see your point. I'm a raptor fan as well but, in the universe of the first movie, I think they're akin to the nazgul in LOTR whereas the T-rex is more like a dragon, a large destructive beast that can be slain with a single arrow. The raptors have more intelligence and subtlety but, like the nazgul, I think they get the respect they are owed whereas the t-rex, like drakes or dragons in lotr, does not. So, I'm not arguing against raptors as being the most dangerous threat, only saying that the t-rex is greatly under-appreciated IMO. Also, I'm a small intelligent person more afraid of giant dumb things than I am of relatively small smart ones... Take that as you will.
I always liked Javert from Les Miserables, who is interesting to me, because he’s essentially doing his job, hunting down a criminal, but he spends 17 years going after a man who already served his Sentence, just broke his parole. I am speaking mostly from the musical interpretation, because I have yet to read the novel, but unless it was massively inaccurate, I think it’s enough. I just love how when Valjean frees him, and then risks his life to save the unconscious Marius from the horror of the Failed 1832 Revolt, he just doesn’t understand it anymore and well... dies then and there.
I see you have Eric Flint’s 1632 in the background there. I’m really curious about your opinion on it, and any other books in the series you may have read. I started the series recently and it’s REALLY cool to me.
Even limiting yourself to Lord of the Rings proper, you learn some things about Sauron that make him interesting. He created the One Ring. He made a gamble by putting a lot of his power into the One Ring - an object separate from himself that could be wielded against him (or destroyed, but he never entertained that possibility seriously, so I won’t when describing what we know of him). That is both cunning (because he basically got everyone else to put power into Rings of Power or got them to take lesser ones he had forged, we find out that the Elves will be greatly diminished if the One Ring is destroyed, but that they feel they must do this in the end), but also filled with hubris (because putting all your power into an object that can be separated from you is is a move you make only if you are confident you can never be defeated or have yourself separated from the One Ring). And one fascinating thing is that Sauron is proven to be a bit paranoid at this point in his life. Aragorn basically baits him into making an attack before he had fully prepared his strength because he confronted Sauron and that made Sauron think he MIGHT have the Ring. Sauron had all the advantages over Gondor. He had Mordor, a realm practically impossible for Gondor to force open. His best strategy was to stay put until he had an army guaranteed to overwhelm Gondor. Everyone knows he can produce such an army. And yet he attacks with an army that gets beat because he’s afraid Aragorn has the One Ring. Like I said, there’s stuff there, it’s why Sauron still works as a villain now. He’s not very personal, but he has some personality you can glimpse, and I enjoy that in the Big Evil Dark Lord type, as opposed to the inscrutable ones who are just Dark Lords who want power, not unknowable beings like Lovecraft’s Elder Ones.
A really neat element of Sauron is that we never really meet him. We know him only through the other characters' interactions with him and by the legends that surround him.
Honorable mention:The Lone Power,or the Starsnuffer from So You Want Be A Wizard? By Diane Duane. Because he's Entropy as a concept,rust and fire. Also "Lone" is a better adjective instead of reusing "dark" again.
The thing you see about Galbatorix being an absent but intimidating enemy is how I felt about the Lord ruler in Mistborn. He featured in SO little of the book but omg I nearly died reading the confrontation
I’d recommend Jurassic Park, The Young Elites(tho it may not be a GREAT series, has a GREAT villain), The Sphere, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time(it’s a commitment, so it’s okay to just read a little every time you have nothing else to do and eventually you’ll get into it, it’s an amazing epic), The Stand(Fair warning it’s a Stephen King book, so beware).
If you are a fan of sci-fi, you MUST check out The Expanse. Both the books and the TV show. Especially the TV show, which is easily the best sci-fi show I've ever watched. Note that it is hard sci-fi, which I think is the reason why it's more of a cult favourite than a worldwide phenomenon. Not everyone wants to speculate that things might actually get *much worse* for the human race after we colonise the solar system.
Oh, yes! I find him to be a brilliant antagonist because he contrasts so many aspects of the dark side of the force, and thereby goes against the somewhat binary definition of good and evil in the SW universe, while still being a non-ambiguous villain. Ironically his calm and strategic nature makes him an even more effective and dangerous (military) opponent than the Emperor and Darth Vader who both let their pride, passion and aggression cloud their judgement.
More about Ishamael, he didn't switch sides just because he realized that struggling against the Dark One is futile, since eventually he is going to escape his prison and destroy the world, he betrayed the Light because he realized that he has been reborn himself, and that others have been reborn as well, possibly thousands of times. He is meant to, by the Wheel of Time, to be the antithesis of Lews Therin Telamon. To betray the light and to serve the darkness, until the literal end of time. He wants to die, he doesn't want to live anymore. But he can't die, because the cycles of time keep him from eternal peace and final death because he has a role to play, he will always be reborn, just like Lews Therin Telamon will ALWAYS be the champion of light. Or his soul will be, at least. So he only has one choice, to free the Dark One and hope that the Dark One breaks the Wheel of Time and he can finally, truly die. He doesn't want powers, he doesn't want to rule the world. He just wants and ending to the never ending cycles. So he can have peace. But the Dark One isn't capable of giving peace to anyone. Especially not to Ishamael, his eternal champion. So he will always be doomed to eternal suffering, either by the Wheel, or the Dark One. This drives him to such utter insanity that it really can't be explained properly. He isn't really affected by the mind breaking aspects of the Dark Ones powers because he is already so insane a little tingle in the noggin isn't really going to shake him. He is incredibly intelligent, cunning and calculating. He can directly receive the instructions and will of the Dark One. He is cruel and evil, but not for cruelty's nor evils sake. But because it is necessary for it all to end. He knows that the Dark One won't set him free. He knows that it lies when it whispers sweet nothings into his ears. But it's the only hope he has left. He has to have some hope that it will all end. And that hope is the Dark One. Ishamael is a truly tragic characters, because he understands the futility of his own existence.
This list is *fine* for a very specific subset of speculative literature, but I'd love to see a list of best literary villains from a more expansive subsection of literature (i.e. pull from the classics, literary realism, mysteries, etc.) I get that goes beyond the scope of your channel, but if that's the case for this limited list I wouldn't have the title of the video be like this.
27:00 Idk if I can call Ishamael's conclusions are correct. Yes the dark one has infinite tries but it is implied that the Light can continue to defeat him.
I dig the list. For me, I'd have to include the Wendigo from Pet Sematary, Haliax from the Kingkiller Chronicle, and Francis Dolarhyde from Red Dragon. All of them kept me so wrapped up in the story. Oh, and Patrick Hockstetter from IT. That kid is goddamned revolting to the core.
For now, my favorite has to go to Darkstalker, from the Wings of Fire series. His introduction to the arc 2 main books sorta paints him as an "op character that can do anything, do no wrong and everyone loves him", though with the context the book provides, and the scenario's they're set in, it's pretty clear that it's not the right thing, since his methods basically force people to trust him, aside from the few he truly cares for. Speaking of the few he truly cares for... His backstory, told throughout the arc 2 main books, and has its own book which, for me, can stand whether you've seen the context or not. I'm getting sidetracked- Point is, his backstory was enough to make me really, REALLY care where he ends up. The ending to his character, however, isn't... One of Legends. At all. I won't say anything more. Aside from: I will never look at strawberries the same ever again.
Hey man, longtime subscriber, eleventh time shitposter: awesome video, seriously, but you assume we already have a working knowledge of these terms you're throwing around. For those of us maybe a bit new to genre/speculative fiction, or still not quite sure, you know, if it's really right for us, could you (in future videos, I mean; don't go back and edit this one by any means) give us a rundown of the definitions of certain terms like "villain" or "Top-I'm sorry, ok? I'm _sorry._
Little is known about The Chandrian from The Kingkiller Chronicles, possibly because the final book hasn't been released yet which may sadly fill in too many of the unknowns and ruin them as happens entirely too often so they couldn't possibly be on this list as we don't know how their story will play out and we couldn't even hazard a guess. As they are now though they are remarkable effective, they're universally seen as cruel though most cultures dismiss them as a myth which is part of their design, they strive to erase all knowledge of themselves for reasons that aren't entirely clear. And you know what,I could try to explain exactly why they're amazing villains but I could never do them justice, just check the series out for yourself and see what you think, maybe do a video about it at some point. It's an underated series and it deserves more recognition
IMO: 1.Mary Hightower - Everlost 2.Keris Veturia - An Ember in the Ashes 3.Dolores Umbridge - HP 4.The Trashcan Man - The Stand 5.The Seelie Queen - The Mortal Instruments 6.Long John Silver- Treasure Island 7.Nicodemus Archleone - The Dresden Files 8.Nurse Ratcher - OFOTCN 9.The Man With the Scarlet Eye AKA Friend - Swan Song (basically a non-annoying Flagg) 10.Lanfear or Graendal (Ishamael sucks)
I mean sauron works thematically with the struggle the characters going through being that they have to resist the temptations of the ring for greed and power , greed all's was dealt with in the Hobbit, he's the embodiment of thoses temptations of power and greed , also I feel he was semi inspired from the dictators of the wars and times he was written in, he fought in the first war but now I'm the second one he just sits there ordering other people to do things for him, also being pure evil is how the dictators of the time were perceived, so he is a creation of that time period
5:27 "And then he dies"
I feel like that sells it a bit short.
He used a spell to turn the matter of his body into energy and blew up like a nuke. A great end for a villain, I say.
Oh man, i should have skipped this one of the list (and not read the comments) because i am on the second book (i heard so much shit about those books, i was doubting reading them, and then james mentioned it was his favorite magic system, so i decided to read it to se what the hell it was)
Should've turned his body into antimatter to double the explosion's size.
@@saraangel6696 5 months late but what did you think of the second book? I dropped the series because of it...
As derivative as it can be, I was thoroughly enjoying the series, but halfway through the second book I just couldn't pick it up again.
One part of the book was Eragon taking long, drab grammar lessons for a dead language, and despite my interest in that magic system and in that language, I could barely push myself through that.
The other part was Roran wandering around the Spine and whining about Eragon abandoning them, and I couldn't give less of a shit about Roran so I'm pretty sure I skipped some of that.
And then, just before I stopped reading, there was that thing, where the baby that Eragon blessed was revealed to actually have been cursed due to his poor grammar, and somehow aged up really fast and was all weird and spooky, and that actually raised my interest, but it just wasn't enough to get me through it.
I think the training/grammar lessons were necessary but boring, and, realizing that, the author put in the Roran parts and the part with the weird cursed child to make things interesting, but it just wasn't enough for me. But I was.. either a teen or pre-teen at the time, so I'm not sure how much of that was just me being a kid who likes action and hates grammar lessons. So I'd like to know if it's worth me giving the book another try
@@saraangel6696 The magic system in Eragon is dumb as hell. Characters start "cutting veins in peoples heads" as a killing spell, and only other mages counter it by having barriers in place.
It's not even an original system, it's stolen directly from "Earthsea" of all things. Read that instead, much better series.
impishidea.com/criticism/the-magic-of-the-inheritance-cycle
yeah. it isnt often that you have a moment like that in a book, where a moment is so impactful and badass. the way that eragon beats him is also really great, original and it makes sense.
Galbatorix being portrayed by John Malkovich is still one of the funniest book-to-film things I've seen
Azula from Avatar is my favourite villain. Her scenes are entertaining and scary. When the war concludes Azula ends losing by her redeemed brother Prince Zuko, psychotic, lonely and tragic. You really feel sad how delusional and powerless she becomes
She is awesome but she is not really a "Literary" villain.
@@Pelagion98 For me, it's Darth Vader.
@@Pelagion98 because she is in a cartoon and not a book or because she is not a real villain in your opinion?
@@QuolashMCDuck This is a video about 'Literary' villains. As in, villains that originate in literature. As in villains that come from books.
I love Azula as much as the other guy and she totally makes my top 10 villains list (from all sources). But she does not belong on this list since she comes from a cartoon. And the subject of this video are villains that come from books.
Darth Vader and Palpatine are also awesome villains I love. But they don't belong on this list either since they originate from movies that aren't book adaptations.
@@Pelagion98 i just wanted to clarify if it is the "literary" or the "villain" part. so thank you.
00:28 - #10 Sauron, Lord of the Rings
01:58 - #9 Galbatorix, The Inheritance Cycle
07:13 - #8 Jake Featherston, Southern Victory
09:53 - #7 T-Rex, Jurasic Park
11:54 - #6 The Sphere, Sphere
14:32 - #5 Saint John, Rot and Ruin
18:15 - #4 Teren Santoro, The Young Elites
23:07 - #3 Winston Duarte, The Expanse
26:04 - #2 Ishamael, Wheel of Time
33:54 - #1 Lord Loss, The Demonata
Honorable Mentions
29:38 - Hrathen, Elantris
30:34 - Flagg, The Stand
31:53 - Cthulhu, Lovecraft Mythos
32:28 - Ari, Maximum Ride
The T-rex? It's just an animal, created unnaturally but still an animal doing animal things. There's nothing evil about it.
Thanks
Where’s jaws if the T. rex is there
Galbatorix dies BECAUSE of Eragon's empathy spell. He sees all the suffering that he caused than kills himself by transforming in a nuclear bomb.
I agree what you said about Galbatorix's death not solving anything. I like Inheritance Cycle mostly for that very reason, the details and care the world building has. Many other writers write better worlds, but theirs tend to run by itself after the hero has done his part by defeating the bad guy.
I mean a world is supposed to run by itself, that's what worldbuilding should achieve
The world is THE reason to like the Inheritance Cycle. Cause lord knows the plot is derivative as fuck... as are most of the characters
I remember that scene where yer one leading the Varden did that trial with the knives. Probly one of my favourite characters
As for Sauron, you gotta admit he has an impressive track record.
First of, he is among the most powerful of the Maiar and the most powerful servant of Melkor/Morgoth. While he was just a servant of Melkor in the first age, both second and third were marked by his deeds. He was responsible for the downfall of Numenor, the largest human empire, he created one of, if not the most powerful artifact in Arda at the time, the one ring. He made the nazgul, who were dreaded by everyone as they could be killed by no man. He made sure to use the weakness of Men to his advantage, so that he may endure as long as he did. The mere mention of his name was feared. While he doesn't move much or have interesting motives, he has done things that made him a worthy opponent.
Is the desire to make the world perfect and better an intetesting motive?
Calling the T-rex a giant lizard. I thought Jurassic Park taught you not to call them that.
Fuck the (Paleontology) Police.
Ha yeah.
They are reptiles, right?
@@emiledlund9559 Dinosaurs are closer to birds.
@@timrosswood4259 Reptiles and birds are basically offshoots from the same creatures
Sauron is the literary villian is due to him being the personification of pure evil, which in itself is a force of nature. He is there to emphasize that theme of intimidation, malovalence, and fear. Tolkien did this to ensure a presence of pure evil is influencing events without requiring a character with a simple or complex reason, rather of more a presence for the characters to be aware of.
Sauron represents the übermensch and the will to power.
@@timrosswood4259 Wtf lol, Sauron has nothing to do with Nietzsche's philosophy.
@@skepticmonkey6923 Are you sure about that?
@@timrosswood4259 Uh yes actually lmao, i mean i guess you culd arguably apply this to any villain whos really strong lmao
Setting aside Sauron's influence on the villains in the genre and the context in which the trilogy was published, I think what makes him work as an interesting antagonist to this day is the fact that he's treated almost as a force of nature looming on the horizon: faceless, unfeeling, unstoppable. While I think it's fair to call him two-dimensional in terms of characterization, I don't think this is necessarily a critique, or the product of poor storytelling. Some villains standout because they have depth that allows for a certain level of empathy, and while you probably don't agree with them, the author lets you understand their motivations. That's great, but I think don't think Sauron is written the way he is because he was created at a time when fantasy villains were still in their nascent stage and Satan was basically the only supernatural villain from which Tolkien could draw (as I've seen argued); as if more mature and complex villains had yet to be innovated in the genre or something. Sauron is an example of a _different_ way to construct a villain, especially a supernatural one. His shadow looms over the story and the world's history and I think to personify him in an attempt to give him more character and "greater depth" would've actually undermined his effect on the entire trilogy. Even the way his spies could be anywhere and his Nazgul are sort of stalking the countryside in FOTR, for example, makes him seem like this diffuse, almost omnipresent entity. His very inhumanity is what makes him, in my opinion, terrifying. He's an impending disaster that can't be reasoned with, like a devastating storm or asteroid, something one could never hope to stop head-on, and so other means must to taken: Frodo's destruction of the ring. It's also why I think it would've been a huge mistake to have added Sauron into Peter Jackson's adaptation at the Battle of Morannon, which they considered at one point, and obviously wasn't in the book for good reason. Besides diverting the tension away from Frodo on Mount Doom, it would've undermined the faceless, shadowy omnipresence that made him work so well.
Sauron is a great force of nature. Sometimes, the greatest antagonists are the ones that can't be bought or reasoned with or even empathized with. Sometimes its compelling enough for a hero to fight a hurricane.
I haven't read LOTR all the way through, but I imagine that the scene with The Mouth of Sauron must be amazing, since, so far, Sauron's basically been a force of nature, but, then, here comes this tiny little pinhead of an orc, strolling carefree straight from The Black Gate to meet the heroes. When he finally gets there, he is the creepiest little critter that they've ever met, and probably kills babies for fun in his spare time... and this is just some lowly servant of Sauron? This is the representative that he sends, as if to say that the heroes are barely even worth his time? Almost like they were trying to go up against a hurricane? And now that it's finally looking right at them... Like I said, I haven't read the books through, but I imagine that that's a pretty good way to show Sauron's immensity.
@@SF-zm2py If I remember correctly--it's been a while--the Mouth of Sauron isn't an orc, but is implied or outright stated to a 'Black Numenorean' that's been twisted into his current form by his master's power. Black Numenoreans were those that fell under the influence of Sauron, eventually leading to the downfall of their island; contrasting with those that stood against him and went on to found Arnor and Gondor. Either way, though, I agree with the main thrust of your comment.
@@Len124 Cool!
What makes Inheritance Cycle even more impressive is that the author was a teenager when he first started writing it.
but unfortunately it shows, as eragon is far weaker than the other 3 books in the series
What makes that less impressive is that his parents worked at a publishing firm. Eragon is a work of nepotism. Which isn't to say that it's necessarily bad, but the parts of it that are derivative bullshit would have been rejected in a more meritocratic setting
Yes, & it shows. Eragon is one of two the only two series in my life that I had to DNF. The first was a gross homophobic shit fest, & this one because the third book was godawfully boring. Being young & making something of yourself at such a young age is not always a good thing, especially since it's well known that writer didn't write the first book by himself
Except Galbatorix actually does have interesting motivations/ideology, whatever you want to call it. While Galbatorix himself didn't really believe it all - he was a bitter blood-thirsty madman, he just came up with rhetoric to convince people to support him - he managed to SUCCESSFULLY convert Nasuada (for those unfamiliar, the leader of the good guys, is crowned queen after the bad guy's death). She doesn't advocate going about his goals the same way he did, but she admits he has a damn good point, and something has to be done about it. This is actually a point of significant disagreement between Nasuada and Eragon in the post-victory chapters, iirc they argue about the principle and Nasuada's administration/enforcement of it more than once. One could even make the argument her efforts to regulate magic and control its users are part of the reason Eragon doesn't feel welcome in her kingdom, one of the several things that push him into the east.
But yeah, I was completely blindsided with how good the last book was. The first one was a dumpster fire, the second one was a step up while still seriously painful in places, but the third was suddenly actually good, and the fourth one? Where the hell did /that/ come from? Not perfect by /any/ means, but such a significant improvement I was pleasantly surprised, at least.
"She doesn't advocate going about his goals the same way he did"
She kind of does though. Both of them lead a bloody rebellion against the standing authority.
i thought the first two were good too. They had major flaws but by no means 'dumpster fire'.
Really? I thought that the last book was only about as good as the first one. I feel like a lot of the interesting stuff was glossed over.
Also you take that back! Eldest is the best one, almost solely because of Roran. Roran is the best character in the whole story and I lament the fact that the flat Eragon got to be the protagonist
@@trequor Roran is almost more special because he isnt a chosen one with powers. He has a hammer and he has to protect his wife and their child so he fights in the army. Hes a badass
@@bilbobaggins3739 Hell yeah he is. In my opinion the idea of an ordinary man fighting in a fantastical war to protect his wife and child is a lot more compelling than the cookie-cutter revenge motivation of Eragon.
That wrestling match with the Urgal was the high point for me
Good video. However I disagree in two aspects. First is Cthulhu, while he is, arguably, evil I think Nyarlathotep makes Cthulhu look like a Boy Scout, as Nyarlathotep is the third most powerful of the Old Ones and is destined to destroy the Earth but doesn't because he enjoys seeing humanity in chaos. Essentially he's the Joker if the Joker had cosmic, mind warping powers and over a thousand different forms. I'd also say Morgoth is more evil than Sauron. I'm also surprised you didn't put Baron Harkonnen from Dune on the list (the one from the books not the God awful movie). As for villains you don't know of that I am quite fond of Nagash and Vlad von Carstein from Warhammer Fantasy, the Chaos Gods from Warhammer period, Lorgar, Erebus, and Konrad Kurze from 40k.
Archaon is pretty good too, in my humble opinion.
@@zombielizard218 Good to see another man of culture. Who do you think is the bigger asshole? Erebus or Nagash?
Stop right there, in which world is Vlad the villain? He's unironically one of the most "good" people in the Warhammer universe (better than most emperors for sure)
But yeah, nagash is a really well designed asshole villain :D
So much wrong info. Nyar isn't an old one at all. He's an outer god, and he is the weakest among them, being their errand boy.
One more thing about Galbatorix is that the heroes weren’t the ones to kill him; they made him feel all the pain he caused, then he committed suicide. The fact that they had to drive him to that speaks volumes as well as have 100 pages of wrap up.
bruh even just hearing the end of the demonata series summed up makes my heart race!!! I remember reading the final book and the climax during like, silent reading time at the start of my english class and I finished the last book like "How do u expect me to even focus on CLASS NOW?????" shit was like cocaine to 15 y/o me!!! anyway lord loss was great even tho he's the equivalent to a schoolyard bully who doesn't know how to cope with his bad home life
I love the detailed explanations you gave of each novel. Even the works I was not familiar with I felt like your point of view was well versed.
i was pretty young (9-10) when i read Eragon, and honestly its what got me into fantasy in general
I'm glad Hrathen ended up on this list as an honorable mention, as he's indisputably the best villain BrandoSando ever wrote.
Stupid name aside, I think that the Lord Ruler was a pretty exceptional villain. He was sort of similar to the Emperor from star wars, albeit slightly more redeemable .
Straff Venture is up there too...
And Ruin was really creepy in the mindfuckery he did to Zane and Spook, even if he was otherwise a more generic evil deity
Sadeas, moash, and szeth from the stormlight archive are very good too
My top 10 favorite villains (not restricted to just literature):
10: Enrico Pucci from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
9: Galbatorix from the Inheritance Cycle
8: Mister Freeze from the Batman franchise
7: Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender
6: Thrawn from the Star Wars franchise
5: David Xanatos from Gargoyles
4: Syndrome from The Incredibles
3: Zim from Invader Zim
2: Solf J. Kimblee from Fullmetal Alchemist (manga and Brotherhood only)
1: Darth Vader from the Star Wars franchise
Thrawn is very good
Weeb
Not doing your research on Sauron... his motivations in contrast to Melkor’s make him interesting as an incarnation of evil focused on Order over Melkor’s chaos or evil for evils sake. That’s what makes him compelling is his OCD desire to bring order to the world despite that order being evil. He’s the embodiment of order and progress for their own sake which people today take for granted as good outcomes.
Well a lot of people dont know that
Im curious how you define what makes a great villain vs what is an ok villain. You have two villains on your list that are merely up there because 1. had a couple great scenes and 2. wasn't even a villain but just a conduit that had nothing to do with the characters later choices. And whilst you said some of your choices made the list only cause of their place in fantasy writings history. Now whilst on one hand your made it sound as tho your list was cause of how interesting the villain itself was it kinda seems contradictory to say ones interesting for a mere scene vs what it represents overall or maybe thats the point. Anyway I was curious cause it seems trivializing one villain as a stereotype and praising one who isn't even a villain seemed an odd choice, but it is interesting to hear ones opinion in such a discussion .
Some of my personal favorite villains not on the list (from books) have to be Chaos, from Warhammer Fantasy, Age of Sigmar, and Warhammer 40K. Lorgar is my personal favorite specific villain from 40K, but Horus, Kurze, and Magnus are all amazing as well.
To sum it up briefly, there are these beings called the Chaos Gods, the main ones are Tzeentch, Khorne, Nurgle, and Slaanesh, formed out of the emotional energy of people in the material plane, and they all hate eachother, constantly fighting, but what they hate even more than eachother... is everyone else. So they will occasionally pick champions among the mortals to grow their power. In 40K, it's Horus, favored son of the God-Emperor of Man, who along with eight of his brothers, betray their father and take humanity from the height of it's power into the grim-dark hell we all know and love.
They're truly fascinating antagonists, especially when you consider outside of AoS (and even then only kinda), there's no real... protagonist. The "Good Guys" of 40K, are an ultra-religious, hyper-zealous, totalitarian state with a population so massive, the individual ceases to hold any relevance. There's good people living within this nation, of course, but even the nicest Imperial citizen will be so radically xenophobic, it's almost impressive. (Even other examples of "Good Guys", the T'au Empire for Example, are totalitarian states under absolute control of a small handful of people).
And I didn't even get into Fantasy/AoS, that's what some 30 years and what must be several hundred books gets you for quick summaries, I suppose.
So I end with the start to every piece of 40K Media: In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only War.
Speaking favourably of the Chaos gods
YOU HERETIC
I dunno if he's a villain as much as he's an antihero but perturabo in the current books has been done extremely well, to serve as one of the most threatening groups of the heresy Whilst also being the least tainted, and even leaving when they were still winning,
I like Kronos from Percy Jackson. I tend to like the charismatic, evil Overlords like him. Spoilers for Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson.
Though, you could say the actual main villain was Luke because he actually did most of the work and even Luke wasn’t a typical, pure evil guy, there was a good reason why he did what he did and the decision to merge the two in the fourth book was a genius move on the part of Rick Riordan, as he didn’t leave it at, Luke’s dead, Luke still comes through, even with Kronos’ possession. Possibly my favourite part is how his death actually changes stuff in the world. Unlike in say, Harry Potter, where things get good for everyone, the end of the War actually leads Percy to hold the Gods accountable for the war as it was essentially their fault all of it happened.
One villain who deserves to be on this list is Nicodemus Archleon from the Dresden Files smart and powerful, it takes multiple ancient reality warpers to out maneuver him and he still gets away. Even when his plans are thwarted he still succeeds in some measure.
Nice and enjoyable video, James, thanks
When you reach 1 mill subs, i can brag about being within the first 20k! Cant wait! Go go go!
THANK YOU for recognising the genius of Lord Loss. I skipped ahead and thought the #1 went to Ari at first lol. The Demonata managed to surprise me in a lot of places, but that chess-playing, bloody-flesh-legged horror has stayed with me in perfect detail even while the rest fades. Can't think of another case of the heroes (spoliers) having to team up with the villain where the villain remains a real and present threat throughout. Hell, even in just the first book, the impact he had on the entire line of Gradys!! blah, the more I remember the more I want to go on so suffice to say a worthy top pick.
I just watched a recent video of his saying that Demonata was his favorite series, so I looked here to see if Lord Loss was first, and I am so goddamn glad he was. I freaking love Demonata, and I think it should get so much more respect than it has.
Thanks for the spoiler list ♡
And another positive video o.o you're spoiling me!
Duarte actually shows up first in the 5th book. Alex goes to meet him to ask some question and he just seems like a fairly standard MCRN officer at the time. Only later(end of the book) do you find out he's actually the mastermind behind everything.
Florac yeah, that part is quite cool
Florac Duarte is a really good villain.
Zuko is in the background.
No, he's in our hearts.
@@JamesTullos He is in his honor.
James Tullos What’s the black scarf thingy with winged sticks on it next to Zuko though?
The Creature from Frankenstein is atop a mountain somewhere standing above every other villain ever.
@@megashark1013 you fool. Dr Frankenstein was the villain of Frankenstein
You kind of forgot that we actually have Palpatines backstory in the prequels.
The thing about Ishamael that I love is how he knows he is a nemesis to Rand anyway. Sometimes the latter fought for the Shadow while Elan was the champion of the Light himself. Thinking about it really does make everything else look relativly the same if the two forces in this world can be swapped that easily.
Ishamael came to the conclusion that due to the cyclical nature of the pattern the people never got to be free and everytime they are reincarnated they relive their lives with only minor differences and thus must struggle and suffer again. This is examplified by Birgitte who has lived multiple lives which are pretty much the same and the ending tends to be tragic. His solution was final death and complete freedom from the tyranny of the wheel. What Ishamael really wanted was for life to be unique and death a final state not a cycle of suffering.
i love how there's a T-Rex in this list :')
Technically, we do see Duarte in book 5. Alex met with him about the ships disappearing in the rings.
You are incredibly articulate! I'm not sure if you had a script going into this, but if you did this on the fly, I'm really impressed with the way you can explain yourself on the fly. It'd be great to get a sense of your criteria for what makes a great villain for you, prior to the listing itself. Understand you probably don't want to dive too deep into that due to time, but even just a "I'm basing this off of how awesome they are, etc", would help.
Hearing you talk about Lord Loss reminds me quite a bit of Stormbringer: the sentient, demonic sword of Elric of Melnibone (of the "Elric" series by Michael Moorcock) and how their story ends.
The fact that you even brought up demonata so much respect
thank you king
While I do agree that Eragon's magic system arguably is one of the best ever devised because castors are limited first by knowledge and then by physical cost and I will grant that closing the book by cleaning up as much of the mess as possible is a nice touch, by the time I got through those books I was past ready for it to end. I feel like Paolini was trying to hard to be a spiritual successor to Tolkien by needlessly stretching out his books with ultimately useless and inconsequential filler. It's not that picking up the pieces after the war was a bad thing, it's that he didn't need ten or more chapters to do it.
Yeah there definitely didn't need to be 4 books. A more disciplined writer would have stuck to the originally planned trilogy. Eldest and Brisingr contain too much filler, and as a result Inheritance is playing catch up for the first half.
EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm almost positive that the reason is that Paolini wanted another big Varden battle to finish the second book off with. Which necessitated a lot of bullshit running back and forth across Alagesia. He could have cut that shit and had Eragon fighting alongside his masters at Galead (i think that's what its called... it's that city in the north)
What you said about the ending of Eragorn could be said about the Hobbit and Smaug too. Nice you killed the villain, here is a bunch of stuff to fix.
I like the book of the hobbit more than the movie of course. But Smaug's character works better for me in the movie. He had more presence and a very amazing ending with the town down in flames. I love watching his fight scene at Lake town with Bard. Also, that they actually introduced us to Bard's children gave smaug's death more depth because we know Bard's son will inherit the title of leader of the survivors, but it came so rushed in the book and we had never herd of the kid before (Guess he was born after?) it feels anticlimatic.
I personally really liked the inhabitance cycle manly because I have yet to find a series that does dragons better. The dragons in that series were awesome and very prominent.
Your intro is good!!!
I like your videos, they help me think. THANK UUUU ....
I believe Galbatorix lost his first dragon to Urgal pre-takeover.
It was this loss coupled with the dragon riders refusal to grant him another dragon that triggered his descent.
One of my favourite villains from literature has to be Graulas, from the Fablehaven book series. The series is more aligned to the younger side of YA, but it’s by one of my all time favourite authors who makes really good books. It’s essentially about how on earth mythological creatures are real, they are just mostly confined to reserves where they are kept. Graulas is a demon who lives on the reserve of the main characters, but he is very old. In fact, he is in the process of dying. One of the main characters, Seth, finds him and feels terrified of him at first, then bad for him. Graulas warms up to Seth, they talk often, and Graulas trains Seth in a special kind of magic. By about halfway through the last book, Seth finds himself with very potent magical artifacts that also act as keys to the prison that contains almost every demon. One of them can heal any malady. Seth brings this to Graulas, because at this point he sees Graulas as one of his most trusted mentors, and uses it to ease his pain as he is dying. But this is what makes him an amazing villain in my opinion: as soon as he is healed, it doesn’t just ease his pain it restores his vitality and strength, and he immediately attacks Seth. His entire guise as an old, almost considerate demon was just to manipulate Seth into healing him, allowing him to take control and free his kind. Additionally after he is freed, he nearly kills Seth then uses the artifact to heal him, then nearly kills him again, just to torture him, and then leaves him in his cave and goes on to destroy the reserve. It is still to this day my favourite betrayal in any work of literature, and his ending is also very poetic.
This list is awesome
Interesting picks. I would be curious of your top 10 favorite heroes/protagonists along these lines.
I would say that the old starwars expanded universe is also quite good at covering the fall of an empire, and how killing the emperor does not mean the fight is over. I mean in that universe the clean up campaigns last for a good twenty years, and the new republic nearly falls apart five or six times either from political infighting or assaults by the empire. It really presents an intresting idea of a universe where it is incredibly hard to patrol and protect your territory, especially from, at one point, several factions of a former empire. It also is intresting since the new republic indirectly causes several warlords to break off from the empire and conquer large swaths of the Galaxy, making the process of a surrender less likely. It really is an intresting post victory setting.
I would argue that epic fantasy predates LOTR by quite a lot of years. I would count Beowulf as epic fantasy an it's one of the oldest of pieces of literature. Ditto for Greece and other myths about gods and monsters and other usual epic fantasy stuff.
Those are really proto-epic fantasy, like, there's the notable difference all of LOTR was made by a single man, working over many years, while the mythology behind Beowulf and the Greeks is made by thousands of people over centuries. Greeks Especially is like calling the Bible Epic Fantasy, they honestly believed it was all true, at least a large portion of them.
These are what enabled Epic Fantasy, that rich religious mythology had to exist before LOTR, but... that doesn't make mean they are themselves.
@@zombielizard218 Most of your reply isn't even relevant. The definition of epic fantasy does not include the amount of writers, the time it took to write it or belief or lack of belief in the reality of the story. I think that you could consider the bible epic fantasy.
The Bible is a religious text arguably can be classified as Mythology. Definetly not epic fantasy. Beowulf and Greek myths are both mythology. Lord of the Rings is epic fantasy. There's a huge difference between them and you definitely can't label them as epic fantasy. The Bible (and Torah and Qur'an) and other mythologies were explanations for how the world came to be and how it operated. Beyond that they often were guidelines for how to live by for the people of the time. Epic fantasy has none of those elements. Mythology might feel like epic fantasy to us, but that's because epic fantasy was inspired from mythology. Hip-hop was inspired by Jazz, but they're not the same genre. Same situation here.
Greek mythology is not epic fantasy; it's mythic fantasy. Which is a related, but distinct genre.
Beowulf comes close to epic fantasy, but as the other commentor stated it's more like proto-epic fantasy... actually it's really more like heroic fantasy.
the old ones represent inevitability of death, insanity, and general vileness..
The t-rex a villian? To paraphrase Dr. Alan Grant
"They're not monsters, they're animals."
Best. Intro. Ever.
I do wonder why the newest Jurrassic Park keeps the lizard theme though. It's been proven several years ago that dino's had feathers. Like, does no one actually care about the dinos?
Proven? How? It's all speculation... informed speculation to be sure, but speculation none the less. It does make more sense, as having nothing but skin is a great way to freeze to death in the open air, but it certainly isn't "proven"
Sphere, nice deep cut
Edit: my understanding of the purpose of the sphere was that it was either an alien or post-human technology designed to test the development of humans who encountered it. Any who were irresponsible/underdeveloped would be destroyed by their own character flaws.
Lol the book goes out its way to dissuade that theory. They comment precisely on how incredibly narcissistic that theory is. Why would future humans or aliens *care* about "testing" humanity?? It doesnt make any sense. The sphere is an incredibly powerful piece of technology in its own right. It's practically a god machine
The intro was beautiful.
Im kinda sad that galbatorix wasn't higher, but i can be happy knowing he's on the list.
I LOVE that trex river scene
I really loved Marie Lu's books. Really interesting and a good read.
What about Griffith?
TG 125 Griffith is fantastic.
Pretty sure by now King Taravangian is the new top villain by Brandon Sanderson (and maybe even in the top 10)
Where ishamael goes wrong, is hes looking into the future and sees the dark one has an infinite amount of tries to break free. But he fails to look in the past and see hes already had an infinite amount of tries but still failed to break free
10 points to Gryffindor for the T-Rex mention.
Much more terrifying than the raptors, the T-Rex combines the coolness of a mindless predatory nature (zombies) with the inherent fear of a larger size, (name your anime/Marvel movie), and it has an inherent weakness (it's reasonable for the protagonists to win or at least escape), plus a troubling back story involving genetic mutation and no real family or socialization to modern life (character development).
It really doesn't get the appreciation it deserves.
Permit me to disagree.
I'm a huge T. Rex fan. But I think the raptors take it hands down.
Even in the books, the park staff asked Hammond that they should destroy the raptors, which of course he refused. It tells you how much they were feared, even when not being even a tenth of the T. Rex's size.
Then, on top of that, Harding told Gennaro that, all the troubles they'd had with the two Rexes was nothing if the raptors were loose.
And boy, was he right.
For more than half of the book, the rexes were loose and only managed to kill about 2 people. When the raptors were freed in the second half, it was a bloodbath.
@@ugomaniac I definitely see your point. I'm a raptor fan as well but, in the universe of the first movie, I think they're akin to the nazgul in LOTR whereas the T-rex is more like a dragon, a large destructive beast that can be slain with a single arrow.
The raptors have more intelligence and subtlety but, like the nazgul, I think they get the respect they are owed whereas the t-rex, like drakes or dragons in lotr, does not.
So, I'm not arguing against raptors as being the most dangerous threat, only saying that the t-rex is greatly under-appreciated IMO.
Also, I'm a small intelligent person more afraid of giant dumb things than I am of relatively small smart ones... Take that as you will.
@@melaustin3305, ok, I see where you're coming from.
The emperor is introduced in the 5th/2nd movie to make Vader less bad looking
Hell yeah perfect for Halloween?????
I always liked Javert from Les Miserables, who is interesting to me, because he’s essentially doing his job, hunting down a criminal, but he spends 17 years going after a man who already served his Sentence, just broke his parole. I am speaking mostly from the musical interpretation, because I have yet to read the novel, but unless it was massively inaccurate, I think it’s enough. I just love how when Valjean frees him, and then risks his life to save the unconscious Marius from the horror of the Failed 1832 Revolt, he just doesn’t understand it anymore and well... dies then and there.
Oh damn I have the same Zuko print!
I see you have Eric Flint’s 1632 in the background there. I’m really curious about your opinion on it, and any other books in the series you may have read. I started the series recently and it’s REALLY cool to me.
Where didya get Zuko Honor poster? I need to have that for myself
Didn‘t Galbatorix start going on a rampage out of grief because he lost his dagron?
I wouldn't count the sphere as a villain
Even limiting yourself to Lord of the Rings proper, you learn some things about Sauron that make him interesting. He created the One Ring. He made a gamble by putting a lot of his power into the One Ring - an object separate from himself that could be wielded against him (or destroyed, but he never entertained that possibility seriously, so I won’t when describing what we know of him). That is both cunning (because he basically got everyone else to put power into Rings of Power or got them to take lesser ones he had forged, we find out that the Elves will be greatly diminished if the One Ring is destroyed, but that they feel they must do this in the end), but also filled with hubris (because putting all your power into an object that can be separated from you is is a move you make only if you are confident you can never be defeated or have yourself separated from the One Ring).
And one fascinating thing is that Sauron is proven to be a bit paranoid at this point in his life. Aragorn basically baits him into making an attack before he had fully prepared his strength because he confronted Sauron and that made Sauron think he MIGHT have the Ring. Sauron had all the advantages over Gondor. He had Mordor, a realm practically impossible for Gondor to force open. His best strategy was to stay put until he had an army guaranteed to overwhelm Gondor. Everyone knows he can produce such an army. And yet he attacks with an army that gets beat because he’s afraid Aragorn has the One Ring.
Like I said, there’s stuff there, it’s why Sauron still works as a villain now. He’s not very personal, but he has some personality you can glimpse, and I enjoy that in the Big Evil Dark Lord type, as opposed to the inscrutable ones who are just Dark Lords who want power, not unknowable beings like Lovecraft’s Elder Ones.
A really neat element of Sauron is that we never really meet him. We know him only through the other characters' interactions with him and by the legends that surround him.
Honorable mention:The Lone Power,or the Starsnuffer from So You Want Be A Wizard? By Diane Duane. Because he's Entropy as a concept,rust and fire. Also "Lone" is a better adjective instead of reusing "dark" again.
10:56 T-Rexes are not lizards
I feel like Winston Duarte and Ishemael would have a very interesting conversation
The thing you see about Galbatorix being an absent but intimidating enemy is how I felt about the Lord ruler in Mistborn. He featured in SO little of the book but omg I nearly died reading the confrontation
What about Lord Voldemort?
Not watching, because I have read barely any of these books yet.
Would you recommend all of them?
I’d recommend Jurassic Park, The Young Elites(tho it may not be a GREAT series, has a GREAT villain), The Sphere, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time(it’s a commitment, so it’s okay to just read a little every time you have nothing else to do and eventually you’ll get into it, it’s an amazing epic), The Stand(Fair warning it’s a Stephen King book, so beware).
@@enziorobin Thanks! I'll put them on my list.
I watched the stand as a young girl....
Oh man I still get shivers...
If you are a fan of sci-fi, you MUST check out The Expanse. Both the books and the TV show. Especially the TV show, which is easily the best sci-fi show I've ever watched. Note that it is hard sci-fi, which I think is the reason why it's more of a cult favourite than a worldwide phenomenon. Not everyone wants to speculate that things might actually get *much worse* for the human race after we colonise the solar system.
HELLO! Where's Thrawn?!?
Oh, yes! I find him to be a brilliant antagonist because he contrasts so many aspects of the dark side of the force, and thereby goes against the somewhat binary definition of good and evil in the SW universe, while still being a non-ambiguous villain. Ironically his calm and strategic nature makes him an even more effective and dangerous (military) opponent than the Emperor and Darth Vader who both let their pride, passion and aggression cloud their judgement.
Matthew Jury I mean, in the original books he is definitely the villain, however as time has gone by he has become more of an anti hero.
More about Ishamael, he didn't switch sides just because he realized that struggling against the Dark One is futile, since eventually he is going to escape his prison and destroy the world, he betrayed the Light because he realized that he has been reborn himself, and that others have been reborn as well, possibly thousands of times. He is meant to, by the Wheel of Time, to be the antithesis of Lews Therin Telamon. To betray the light and to serve the darkness, until the literal end of time.
He wants to die, he doesn't want to live anymore. But he can't die, because the cycles of time keep him from eternal peace and final death because he has a role to play, he will always be reborn, just like Lews Therin Telamon will ALWAYS be the champion of light. Or his soul will be, at least.
So he only has one choice, to free the Dark One and hope that the Dark One breaks the Wheel of Time and he can finally, truly die. He doesn't want powers, he doesn't want to rule the world. He just wants and ending to the never ending cycles. So he can have peace. But the Dark One isn't capable of giving peace to anyone. Especially not to Ishamael, his eternal champion. So he will always be doomed to eternal suffering, either by the Wheel, or the Dark One. This drives him to such utter insanity that it really can't be explained properly. He isn't really affected by the mind breaking aspects of the Dark Ones powers because he is already so insane a little tingle in the noggin isn't really going to shake him.
He is incredibly intelligent, cunning and calculating. He can directly receive the instructions and will of the Dark One. He is cruel and evil, but not for cruelty's nor evils sake. But because it is necessary for it all to end. He knows that the Dark One won't set him free. He knows that it lies when it whispers sweet nothings into his ears. But it's the only hope he has left. He has to have some hope that it will all end. And that hope is the Dark One. Ishamael is a truly tragic characters, because he understands the futility of his own existence.
This list is *fine* for a very specific subset of speculative literature, but I'd love to see a list of best literary villains from a more expansive subsection of literature (i.e. pull from the classics, literary realism, mysteries, etc.) I get that goes beyond the scope of your channel, but if that's the case for this limited list I wouldn't have the title of the video be like this.
I’d like to know you take on omnius and Erasmus from the dune prequels. Not perfect but I really liked Erasmus throughout the expanded books.
What I sometimes see people gloss over is that sauron was sort of a secondary villain in LOTR, the real villain was the ring
The premise of the demonata is basically the same as the premise of Pact as far as the setting goes.
This man put a dinosaur over Sauron.
27:00 Idk if I can call Ishamael's conclusions are correct. Yes the dark one has infinite tries but it is implied that the Light can continue to defeat him.
I dig the list. For me, I'd have to include the Wendigo from Pet Sematary, Haliax from the Kingkiller Chronicle, and Francis Dolarhyde from Red Dragon. All of them kept me so wrapped up in the story. Oh, and Patrick Hockstetter from IT. That kid is goddamned revolting to the core.
That thing Inheritance does where the story continues for hundreds of pages even after the plot is completed is also exactly what LotR does.
I love Flagg, he is basically the modern evolution of Sauron!
Captain Kennet from the Liveship Traders books by Robin Hobb.
For now, my favorite has to go to Darkstalker, from the Wings of Fire series. His introduction to the arc 2 main books sorta paints him as an "op character that can do anything, do no wrong and everyone loves him", though with the context the book provides, and the scenario's they're set in, it's pretty clear that it's not the right thing, since his methods basically force people to trust him, aside from the few he truly cares for. Speaking of the few he truly cares for... His backstory, told throughout the arc 2 main books, and has its own book which, for me, can stand whether you've seen the context or not. I'm getting sidetracked- Point is, his backstory was enough to make me really, REALLY care where he ends up. The ending to his character, however, isn't... One of Legends. At all.
I won't say anything more. Aside from: I will never look at strawberries the same ever again.
God I'll never forget those chess games.
Hey man, longtime subscriber, eleventh time shitposter: awesome video, seriously, but you assume we already have a working knowledge of these terms you're throwing around. For those of us maybe a bit new to genre/speculative fiction, or still not quite sure, you know, if it's really right for us, could you (in future videos, I mean; don't go back and edit this one by any means) give us a rundown of the definitions of certain terms like "villain" or "Top-I'm sorry, ok? I'm _sorry._
Little is known about The Chandrian from The Kingkiller Chronicles, possibly because the final book hasn't been released yet which may sadly fill in too many of the unknowns and ruin them as happens entirely too often so they couldn't possibly be on this list as we don't know how their story will play out and we couldn't even hazard a guess. As they are now though they are remarkable effective, they're universally seen as cruel though most cultures dismiss them as a myth which is part of their design, they strive to erase all knowledge of themselves for reasons that aren't entirely clear. And you know what,I could try to explain exactly why they're amazing villains but I could never do them justice, just check the series out for yourself and see what you think, maybe do a video about it at some point. It's an underated series and it deserves more recognition
Treize Khushrenada - Gundam Wing : a vilain you'll love to hate. Watch the serie.
Ok i did not expect The Demonata to be in this list, much less MY FUCKING BOY LORD LOSS TO BE NUMBER 1.
IMO: 1.Mary Hightower - Everlost 2.Keris Veturia - An Ember in the Ashes 3.Dolores Umbridge - HP 4.The Trashcan Man - The Stand 5.The Seelie Queen - The Mortal Instruments 6.Long John Silver- Treasure Island 7.Nicodemus Archleone - The Dresden Files 8.Nurse Ratcher - OFOTCN 9.The Man With the Scarlet Eye AKA Friend - Swan Song (basically a non-annoying Flagg) 10.Lanfear or Graendal (Ishamael sucks)
KITTY!
I mean sauron works thematically with the struggle the characters going through being that they have to resist the temptations of the ring for greed and power , greed all's was dealt with in the Hobbit, he's the embodiment of thoses temptations of power and greed , also I feel he was semi inspired from the dictators of the wars and times he was written in, he fought in the first war but now I'm the second one he just sits there ordering other people to do things for him, also being pure evil is how the dictators of the time were perceived, so he is a creation of that time period
Calling dinosaurs lizards, reeee
I think you should REALLY read some warhammer stuff. Also, nice video.