I read a lot of suspense and mystery fiction filled with villains, but I have to say I don’t generally consider them my favorites when it comes to their characters. It’s hard to like or love to hate a serial killer! So I was a bit stymied by this week’s theme. I could come up with one or two that were complex and interesting, but this is Top 10 Tuesday, not Top Two! So I am taking a bit of a different tack. The following characters (still not 10!) can be classified as villains, but mostly they are just people acting badly (with one or two exceptions). For links to other bloggers who probably have great villain lists, click HERE.
7 Favorite Villains
The I Can’t Believe He’s My Brother-in-Law Villain — Mr. Wickham from Pride And Prejudice.
Devastatingly handsome and charming, Mr. Wickham swept more than one lady off her feet. As Mr. Bennet says, he makes love to us all. One can only hope if there is justice in the book afterlife that Mr. Wickham is suffering from being stuck with Lydia!
Two for One Villains — Mr. and Mrs. Elton from Emma.
More annoying than villainous, these two still make my villains list because of their bad treatment of Harriet. They are also so very insufferable in their snootiness. Speaking of book afterlife, Mr. Elton is taken care of in Mrs. Elton in America. Mrs. Elton, on the other hand, really comes into her own.
Nobody Likes a Pathetic Villain — Willoughby from Sense And Sensibility.
I never understood what Marianne saw in Willoughby. Colonel Brandon is much more of a manly-man! Willoughby bows to the societal winds making him a pathetic villain. He is cute though!
Dastardly Villain You Would Love to Boo — Chance Macy from Jessica Dotta’s Price of Privilege Trilogy.
Chance Macy — boo hiss — is a villain you can really sink your teeth into — literally! From the start I questioned his motives and actions. He gets his comeuppance in the end! Yay!
Is He A Villain or Isn’t He? — Lord Jack Carstares from Georgette Heyer’s The Black Moth.
Accused of cheating at cards, living as a highwayman, Lord Jack is really a good guy in bad guy clothes. The Black Moth, written when she was only nineteen, was Heyer’s first novel written to entertain her ill brother. If you love historical romance, Heyer is a go-to author.
The Really Bad Guy I Just Loved. It Must Be The Clothes — Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert from Ivanhoe.
While I really should have been swooning over Wilfred of Ivanhoe, I was enamored of this bad-boy knight. Is it because he was secretly in love with Rebecca (my name is Beckie) or because my husband’s name is Brian? Or is it that a girl can’t resist a man in shining armor? No clue. But Sir Brian captured my imagination despite his anti-semitism and really bad treatment of just about everyone in the novel. Maybe he was just misunderstood. Also Ciaran Hinds played him and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, my all time favorite Austen novel and all time favorite hero!
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