The Macallan, though, on second thoughts, bring the Brora too.

Several thoughts:
If comics by certain authors count (Clairmont, Moore, Miller, Gaiman, Smith etc), as well as certain RPG Sourcebooks, then:

The Kingpin (Wilson Fisk): He, after brute force fails, blows up Matt Murdock's house, disbarrs him, and all in all takes him apart psychologically, piece by piece by piece, untill he's a battered, beaten, shell, and then beats the crud out of him with his bare hands, dumps him in a bag, and has him tossed in the East River. The only reason he survived the whole thing was, after he escape from the bag he ended up in front of the mission where his mother was a nun. If he hadn't, then he would have probably died of hypothermia. And it was just business, never personal.

Deus: See "Shadowrun: Renraku Arcology Shutdown". Deus makes the AI from The Matrix (expecially if you've seen "Second Renaissance") look like really, really, really nice people who you'd like to meet and have a close friendship with. He makes Neuromancer look nice.

Oh... and Cordilia Ransom from the Honor Harrington novels. Mean and Evil through-and-through.

Quite right about the Kingpin there, Count Zero. I'm not sure about the 'just business, not personal' thing though. With arch-enemies, it's always personal.



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The inimical is often more instructive than the benign.
So between screams, try to pay attention.
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If your talking about comic book villains then surely the Joker and Lex Luthor are way up the list.

Steerpike is pretty villainous I'll admit, though the character I loathed in those books was Swelter.

For sheer creepiness I'd go for Webster in 'Gibbon's Decline & Fall'



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Some days I see the point

Well, I'm back....at least I think I am. I don't have any comic book villains to add, although I do have a literary one. Jude Hathorne (or is it Hawthorne?) from "The Crucible." Not greedy, but definitely villainous. For a greedy villain from the same work, I'd have to go with Abigail Williams.

Anyone else here read "The Crucible"??????

Best Regards,
~Antonio Salieri~

PS. If I were you, I would ignore the post exactly six ahead of mine..... Just a minor suggestion....

Yep, but not seen the movie.

Abigail was a character that it was so easy to get angry with.

Hmmm, Aganemnon wasn't a very nice man. Sacrificing a daughter for good weather.



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The inimical is often more instructive than the benign.
So between screams, try to pay attention.
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And Medea wasn't that brilliant either, though Jason was seriously out of order...



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If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.

Dibs wrote:

> If your talking about comic book villains then surely the Joker
> and Lex Luthor are way up the list.

* Lex Luthor would definatly fit in the "greedy" vein. Though, if you're going for greedy, then so would Mr. Slick from Daredevil. Slick had The Kingpin killed ala-Julius Caesar, found out who Daredevi's identity was, and then put a contract out on Matt Murdoch. However, he kind of forgot about one person... Vanessa Fisk, Kingpin's wife, who came back, and had a little housecleaning, where all of Slick's supporters, including Vanessa's son, were "clipped". Slick got away though... he made it into the Witness Protection Program by supplying them with Matt Murdoch's identity.

* Joker would certainly fit in the "evil/psychotic" file. See "Batman: The Killing Joke" by Alan Moore for more on this...

* Bullseye as of the "Guardian Devil" storyline that Kevin Smith wrote. Bullseye is hired by Mysterio to, as part of his plot to drive Daredevil mad by attacking his faith, to retreive this baby who Mysterio has, through two channels and fake identities, told is both the Antichrist, and Jesus. Matt has put the baby in the care of his mother for the time being while he consults the one man who can clear this whole thing up (Doc Strange). Well, Bullseye tortures and mutilates every nun and homeless person in the mission. Finally, Daredevil arrives, they fight, and Bulleye leaves with the baby. However, before Bullseye leaves, he kills DD's girlfriend, Karen Page, with DD's own club. Why? No reason.

* From Anime & Manga I'd toss in to the mix Legato Bluesummers and Millions Knives from Trigun. Legato uses his mental powers (which he has because Knives attached Vash's arm to him) to force an entire gang of, essentially, bandits, to kill themselves (to be specific, he had them kill each other). When the rest of the gang came for revenge, he forced one half to kill the other half, then dig the dead half's graves and bury them, and then draw lots to see who, of the other half, survived and had to bury those of the other half who had to kill each other.

I admit, I haven't read quite enough of the Thurdsay Next novels to be certain, but I'm fairly confident that even Acheron Hades might draw the line there... but then again, it takes a certain bit of nihilism to do that, and Acheron is most definatly not nihilistic.

Top villain in the world of the written word?

Me. Just as soon as I get that biography written about me.

I've also read the Crucible, and I agree, Abagail is quite evil. What makes her so evil is the fact that she is just a kid or early teens.

Alex in A Clockwork Orage

Don't think greed was so much involved, but for loathability I'd say Umbridge from HP5.

Gotta agree there. I know someone at a high school who secretly calls their administrator Umbridge.

Hey Sarah - our cherubs come tomorrow. Have they descended on you yet?
('Spect not, since Virginia has some kind of after Labor Day law, also known as the King's Dominion Law.)

Nope. Not until the day after labor day. It seems nice now, but it means we get out at the end of june, which is not so good.

No one has mentioned Snape yet. One of my absolute favorite characters, even if he is detestable.

I'd have to go with Heathcliff...not necessarily greedy, but he really went to great lengths to get revenge on...um...what's-his-name. Hareton?

Not mentioned already I would have to say Claggart from Melville's "Billy Budd" needs to be on the list!

So should:
Mr.Kurtz (Conrad's Heart of Darkness)
Uriah Heep (Dicken's David Copperfield)

I'd put Dorian Gray there too.

Melkor/Morgoth or Sauron from the Tolkien legendarium?

Blofeld for definate.

Gormenghast any good? I didn't get into it....



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'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland