Obsessive Book Lover's Month of Books - Day Seventeen

[idiosyncreant]

Day 17

Villains you think are awesome?

Lemme clarify that "villain" here is the more fun word for antagonist, not some category of antagonist more specific.

So.

Awesome ones?

Smaug.
The Queen of the fairy folk in The Perilous Gard.

Both of these are just what they are, and that makes them the enemy--clever, inhuman, treacherous by nature. Their pride and disregard for other beings, though, makes their defeat not seem so terrible (though sad). They are part of the book, some of the most colorful characters.

Tacroy in Lives of Christopher Chant
Eris in Webmage
Snape in Harry Potter

None of these three characters are the final archnemesis, and this give them a unique power in the story.
Tacroy is a decent guy caught up in a bad business, and he's being poisoned by the double-dealing--but he's still sweet and empathetic and funny.

Can I have this cover? PLEASE? (Diana Wynne Jones is having better luck lately, but her covers have been unfortunate in previous eras...)

Eris is the Goddess of Chaos, but also a chaste goddess of ... well, she can inflict lust, I'm not sure how to phrase it otherwise, because love seems a little too serious. And her interactions with the young hero oscillate between a meeting of minds (programmer to programmer) and a horrible teasing that usually only shojo girls have to put up with, on a more emotional level.
She's a Grecian Goddess Punk Codemonkey in leather pants. What is more cool than that?
NOTHING, basically.

Professor Snape is a bitter, nasty middle-aged man living out his high school career in perpetuity and exercising his power in unjust ways.
BUT he's perfect for his role. And Harry and his friends are rulebreakers--the fact that he is annoyed by Harry out of the chute is realistic, though not fair.
Of course, this dude didn't hurt my perception of the character:



but aside from that, he is very compelling. No scene with him is *boring* as tooth-grindingly unjust as it may be (and injustice makes my teeth hurt, it's the worst.

And he has his own reasons, and his own fears, and his own secret strengths.

Comments

[beth-shulman.livejournal.com]

Lemme clarify that "villain" here is the more fun word for antagonist, not some category of antagonist more specific. *grin*

Oh, I like Tacroy. And I love Snape. Poor Snape :(

In Cinda Williams Chima's Heir series, there are a lot of villains, but the most fascinating antagonist is a man named Hastings who's on the protagonist's side - or seems to be, who's got this mysterious past and unusual skills.

There's Tom's father (and co-worker, I guess) in The Piper's Son (love love love this one). This is such a brilliant, frighteningly real study in family dynamics. (Not in the US until March, though. I ordered my copy from Australia.)

Mr. Chesney, from Dark Lord of Derkholm. The chief priest from The Goblin Wood, and Coralinda from Mystic and Rider - I seem to like fanatics, oddly enough.

I've discovered that one of the things I like about Jellicoe Road and Long May She Reign is that the enemy that the protagonists are facing are themselves, really. Where there are uncomfortable situations and people who are sometimes nice and sometimes not, but who mostly good people. (This usually only happens in contemporary fiction, though.) And I just realized that in The Cardturner, which is the most recent book that I loved, there's no real antagonist. Except time, maybe. Or luck.

(Also - I haven't read The Perilous Gard. Is it good? And this meme is awesome :)

[beth-shulman.livejournal.com]

Wow, random italics going on up there!