Most despicable characters in books you've read

[rocklobster]

Hey Mods I'm trying it again. I know this is the wrong section. When you see it, could you move it to the book section? Thanks.
Villains. Without them, there is usually no story. We hate them. Sometimes, we like them. So which book characters do you think earn our hatred? Here are mine:
Inspector Javert from Les Miserables. (Wanted to strangle this guy )
Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
[The main villain] and The Comedian from The Watchmen.
Dr. Moreau from The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Nathaniel from The Bartimaeus Trilogy (to him, everyone's a puppet. And he's the dude we're supposed to care about?)
Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter.
The White Witch (or [spoiler]Jarvis[/spoiler] if you prefer) from Narnia.
Screwtape from The Screwtape Letters. (he's a demon, so yeah)
Uriah Heap and Mr. Murdstone from David Copperfield
Fagin from Oliver Twist
Matilda's parents. Oh and Trumble too. Those poor kids.
Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Count Olaf from Series of Unfortuante Events

[bigsleepj]

Only one really comes to mind. The narrator (not sure if he's named or not) of James Dickey's To the White Sea. A homicidal maniac turned US Air Force bomber (who grew up in the Klondike away from humanity) is attempting to escape from Japan during World War II and leaves a trail of destruction behind him, and slowly finds his own mind becoming more and more beast-like. One of the most beautifully written books I've ever read, but disturbing and horrifying.

[Fish and Chips]

Inspector Javert from Les Miserables. (Wanted to strangle this guy)

You dislike Javert, whose only real shortcoming is his ruthless dedication to upholding the law to admittedly crippling extremes, but not the Thé][The main villain] and The Comedian from The Watchmen.[/QUOTE]This post contains spoilers.

[wildpurplechild]

You dislike Javert, whose only real shortcoming is his ruthless dedication to upholding the law to admittedly crippling extremes, but not the Thénardiers.

Oh, not the Thenardiers! I'm reading the book right now and they irritate me so much! Other than the one's Rock listed... Valentine from City of Glass, the Grand High Witch from the Witches, [SPOILER] Jack's sister [/SPOILER]from the land of the Silver Apples, General WoundWart from Watership Down, El Patron from the House of the Scorpion, and Tigerstar from the Warriors series.

[MightiMidget]

Voldemort, Lucius Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter.

Hear hear, though I have a harbored hatred for Harry himself....
John from Jane Eyre...I know he wasn't a bad guy, but. He's higher than Harry on my list.
Dilaf from Elantris (by Brandon Sanderson).
Winston from 1984.
Paul Sheldon from Misery (by Stephen King.)

that's all I can think of at the moment. For the most part, I don't have seething hatred for villains. ops:

[Ante Bellum]

Ooh, I didn't like El Patron. I didn't like Tom, Rosa, or MacGregor either. Especially MacGregor, because he [spoiler]used his clone to replace failing organs.[/spoiler]
Also, Melkor from the Silmarillion, [spoiler]he's basically Lucifer.[/spoiler]

[the_wolfs_howl]

Hmm...most despicable? Well, these are the ones that come to mind:

Lanfear from the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (oh my goodness, she disgusts me!)

"My Lady" from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (wow, I really wanted her to die by the end)

Denethor from The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (he would have doomed his whole kingdom, committed suicide, and killed his son to boot if Gandalf hadn't stopped him)

Mr. Wickham from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (vindictive, charming, and very nearly ruins a foolish girl forever)

nearly all the characters in Lord of the Flies by William Golding (while they force you to realize the depravity in your own heart, they truly are despicable)

Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (what a slimy toad)

...and I would argue against Count Olaf, at least towards the end of the series. One of the points that Lemony Snicket makes in those books is that noble people sometimes do despicable things, and despicable people sometimes do noble things. I found the man with a beard but no hair and the lady with hair but no beard more sinister than Count Olaf by the end.

[Atria35]

Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (what a slimy toad)

Seconded! As well as Hekat from the Godspeaker trilogy. At first I really sypathized with her, but then

[color="Black"]she becomes a totally insane, vindictive, power-hungry woman[/color]

[Shao Feng-Li]

Mr. Tulkinghorn and Mr. Skimpole from Bleak House.

[airichan623]

Mostly Pip in Great Expectations. He's annoying, stuck up, and loses the ability to be nice.


...other than that, I enjoy villians immensly. I am happy when they are defeated, but many times they make me giggle. Besides, whats a good book without a good villian? Like Dolores Umbridge (who reminds me of my evil freshman Spanish teacher) It's whiny and irratating protagonists that irritate me.

[Dante]

nearly all the characters in Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Now now. What about "Piggy"? Who can really hate Piggy? And now that I'm out of high school to say what I want about the meaning of the book, I feel it showed more about the depravity of a forming civilization, or perhaps puer instinct taken too far to the extreme. Though I hated the book, I felt there was a slightly sharp satire involved, given that the story starts off with the boys being transported by plane under the possible situation of war, only to end the story off with them starting a war amongst themselves.

Perhaps the events on the island satire humanity as a whole, declaring our use of conflict in the name of "civilization" and other things as "childish".

As for my most despicable villains? The Yerks from Animorphs. Most villains can kill you, but few can take take control of you while you watch from the background and then make you do their will, making you partly the villain you've always despised and forever entangling your identities.

Reading this suddenly makes me aware of the true lack of villains in my fictional life. Flatterland lacks a truely defined "villain character" as does Looking Backward (one is a journey through a math world, the other through a naive socialist utopia). I hated all the characters in Of Mice and Men. My current read, Narciissus and Goldmund seems to lack a clearly defined villain character as well, all battles here are internal. There was that one book I read as a kid where his brother had dreams about another kid in Iraq which portrayed the US as the enemy (odd viewpoint there).

There is one more odd one though. Thomas Edison from a book written on Nikola Tesla I once read. While it was declared a non-fiction by the Library of Congress, it went on at the end of the book saying that Tesla came from Mars and was actively communicating with space aliens. Edison was the obvious antagonist, and in his ruthless pursuit of owning the "potential" in the world of electricity, he killed numerous animals and even people (condemned, but some had to be electrocuted multiple times to kill them) to try and show that AC current was more "lethal" then DC current. I've never liked Edison since - independent of how his light bulbs aid in my pursuit of reading.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Now now. What about "Piggy"? Who can really hate Piggy?

<_< Um, yeah, that's why I said nearly all the characters.

The Commander from The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was pretty despicable. An old lecher, really, breaking his own rules and thinking the root of the world's problems is that romance became too easy.

Galen from Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb is despicable too. Unfounded pride in his position though he's really not that powerful, he creates a really unhealthy environment for the young people he's teaching, not to mention beating up a boy he undernourished himself, and then trying to induce him to commit suicide. Pretty despicable, I'd say.

[Peanut]

Dorian Grey from The Picture of Dorian Grey. That dude was very interesting to read about but was just an absolutely vile character by the end of the book.

[Mr. Hat'n'Clogs]

Also, Melkor from the Silmarillion, [spoiler]he's basically Lucifer.[/spoiler]

Also, he killed [spoiler]Fingolfin, which marks the beginning of the book having nothing happy again, if I remember correctly. Fingolfin is the best.[/spoiler]

Also, he's not Morgoth but Feanor is pretty easy to hate.

[Hiryu]

The main character from the catcher in the rye. He's so whiny it's ridiculous.

If there was one person I could kill, it'd be Dolores Umbridge.

Count Olaf is despicable, but it's also funny how he thinks of the brilliant plans.

[armeck]

tashmieren from the banding of the blade series (i'm sure i spelled that wrong)

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Here is a nice quote from Harry Lime, the villain of Graham Greene's The Third Man. To set the scene, Harry is riding a ferris wheel with a friend. Referring to the people below, he says,

Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.

[ich1990]

Oh man, Harry Lime is such a devil. It is really a testament to Welles' acting that we feel pity for him at all.

EDIT: Full disclosure: I have never read the book.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Full disclosure: I have never read the book.

If I'm honest...[SIZE="1"]neither have I.[/SIZE]

[Ally-Ann]

nearly all the characters in Lord of the Flies by William Golding (while they force you to realize the depravity in your own heart, they truly are despicable)

I agree. I am reading "Lord of the Flies" for school, and so far, I hate--- er--- dislike it. Most of the characters are terrible, aren't they?

[Atria35]

I agree. I am reading "Lord of the Flies" for school, and so far, I hate--- er--- dislike it. Most of the characters are terrible, aren't they?

Which is kind of the whole point. It needs to be read as a social study, not as a book where you like or sympathize with the characters.

But I have to say I also felt that way about half of the characters in A Handmaid's Tale. Most were unnamed, invisible beings that were only known by their actions. Some were well-known to the the main character- and you could actually somewhat sympathize with them even though they were unlikeable characters overall. And I even didn't like some parts about the main. But the ones that I well and truly hated never even had a cameo. They were The People who had forced the women into chattelry, who had taken away their freedom, who had torn them away from their families and made them into objects only worthy of having kids.

[Ally-Ann]

Also, I didn't enjoy reading the Iliad by Homer at all. It was very, very graphic and it bored the heck out of me. How can something graphic be boring, you ask? Well, it can. The book was written in old english and it was extremely angsty. I know I haven't listed the characters I disliked like I'm supposed to, but there are too many to list. I didn't even finish the book. Same thing with The Trojan War (except for the fact that I finished it).

[Atria35]

The book was written in old english and it was extremely angsty.

Read it with a modern translation. The Iliad alternately freaked me out, disgusted me, and made me read with great anticipation.

[Fish and Chips]

<_< Um, yeah, that's why I said nearly all the characters.

I agree. I am reading "Lord of the Flies" for school, and so far, I hate--- er--- dislike it. Most of the characters are terrible, aren't they?

Which is kind of the whole point. It needs to be read as a social study, not as a book where you like or sympathize with the characters.

There are only five named characters who matter in Lord of the Flies: Ralph, Piggy, Jack, Roger, and Simon.

Jack and Roger are complete monsters. Ralph, Piggy, and Simon are all valiant or commendable in some way despite their various shortcomings. If you don't think there are any sympathetic characters in Lord of the Flies, I don't think you're actually reading it.

And to keep this thread going, Captain Aardvark]Aarfy is portrayed through the majority of the book as sort of the perfect gentlemen, obedient to his superiors, polite to his friends, respectful of the locals. There's even a scene where he returns to a cafe from seeing a young woman to safety from the sexual advances of some much more rowdy officers. The man even carries around a pipe. He radiates pure class.

Then you reach the last few pages of one of the penultimate chapters in the book where you find Aarfy's universally accepted persona is simply a very carefully crafted suit and mask for a completely amoral individual whose only concern is what people think of him and how that comes back to benefit him. He protected that one girl earlier because she came from a well-to-do family he wanted to impress his good name upon; here, however, he comes across a girl with no connections that no one knows, and doesn't see a problem with quietly raping her and then pushing her off a building to her death to keep her from talking. When confronted by his atrocity by Yossarian, he simply smiles calmly and responds, "Oh, no, no one's going to take in Aarfy. Not good old Aarfy."

And he's right. The military police show up shortly to arrest Yossarian instead, for going AWOL, respectfully wishing Aarfy a good night as they exit the hotel room.[/spoiler]TLDR; Aarfy is a bad man and I do not like him.

[bigsleepj]

The villain from Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (can't name him since that would be a spoiler). Let's just say that you'd never think a character laughing could be so sinister.

[Silent Seraph]

As for my most despicable villains? The Yerks from Animorphs. Most villains can kill you, but few can take take control of you while you watch from the background and then make you do their will, making you partly the villain you've always despised and forever entangling your identities.

Good show my friend, also I'm surprised no one else has mentioned him (and I've only read the first book) but yeesh no one's mentioned Darken Rahl from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, i mean the guy gets one answer from sticking a knife in someone's guts and yet enjoys it? Oh, him and his extremely disgusting friend/assistant who has some issues with little boys, enough said.

[mysngoeshere56]

Is this only for villainous characters? If so...

The Volturi in the Twilight Saga. Granted, even the "good guys" really don't have much to show for noble merit, but the Volturi were exceptionally despicable. I was soooo mad when they...

[spoiler]...killed Bree the way they did. It wasn't her fault things wound up that way...[/spoiler]

If non-villainous characters count...

The entire cast of "A Tale of Two Cities". Save Sidney, as he's the only believable character. The others are either too horridly mean (especially Madame Defarge) or too perfect to be true.

[TopazRaven]

Well, I think I read way to many books meant for kids and teenagers judging from my list, but here we go!

Voldemort/Tom Riddle and Dolores Umbridge [Harry Potter]
The White Witch [The Chronicals of Narnia]
Tigerstar, Darkstripe and Sol [Warriors]
Metal Beak, Nyra and Skench [Gaurdians of Ga'Hoole]
Count Olaf [A Series of Unfortunate Events]
Capricorn, Basta and the Adderhead [Inkheart]
Lord Vladeran [Fell]

Lol, see? Told you. I need to read more books meant for adults. xD

[FllMtl Novelist]

Well, I think I read way to many books meant for kids and teenagers judging from my list, but here we go!

My mother is over 50 years old and she prefers to read children's books. Do not be ashamed. XD

Question that I really should have asked when the thread was younger: may I list characters I hate even if they aren't actually villains?

[Destroyer2000]

Hm...good call on Mr. Wickham.
Leareth [Magic's Promise Trilogy]
Falconsbane [Mage Wind's Trilogy]
Emperor Charliss [The Mage Storms Trilogy]
Ancar [Arrows of the Queen]
And yes, these are all part of a larger series. Lol.