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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
For me, it would be GLaDOS.
Portal 2 spoiler
She deleted the one remaining human part of herself because it was just too much to deal with. She releases you at the end of Portal 2 as a path of least resistance measure because "killing you is hard."
What about you, what is your favorite media villain?
Here are the test results: You're a horrible person. That's what it says. A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that.
Me reading these comments:
Sorry I had to
His superiority complex is tangible
Gul Dukat was the better villain in my eyes. At least he was way more interesting than Kai Winn.
My vote as well.
He constantly finds the piece of humanity within whoever hes talking to and then tries to manipulate it.
Its hard to top Gul Dukat.
The great thing about Dukat is that he frequently finds his own humanity. You keep thinking that this time he'll do the right thing and start his path to redemption, but he never does. He always chooses to do the wrong thing even though there's clearly good in him and you're always disappointed and even surprised when it happens. He's like the anti-Zuko.
I think the counter to that is that they completely dropped the ball with her toward the end of the show. She went from, I think, a great allegory for a religious right wing capitalizing off her people's suffering but in a way she could genuinely warp her beliefs into thinking was for the greater good...
... to, I mean, come on... Having her go totally crazed with power wasn't the problem; it's that it was stupid, totally unearned MacGuffin power.
Prince Arthas Menethil from Warcraft.
[Quietly sweeps WoW:Shadowlands under the rug]
Dudes villian arc is perfect, his fall is entierly of his own making. Playing as him in Warcraft 3, you follow his reasoning and by the time the corruption sets in, its far too late. In the expansions, you play as him in full BBEG mode. Lastly, WoW:Wrath of the Lich King had him as the capstone boss of one of the best expansions and 15 years of buildup.
And they never expanded on his character ever again...
Best cinematic cut scene ever. Succeeding you
But Homer! On your way out if you want to kill somebody, you would help me a lot.
Honestly, he was such an amazing boss
Sorry for such a "capeslop" answer, but:
He definitely gets a mention. I wish they actually explored what Kingpin wanting to "change the city" meant, though, because the disney+ shows make it seem like he just wants to sell weapons and be rich. They really took a crap on his character after endgame / season3 of Daredevil.
All the netflix DD villains were just golden. What a ride.
Primal Fear:
Aaron Stampler, and his defence attorney Martin Vail.
Omar Little, The Wire
“I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It’s all in the game, though, right?”
I would not have thought of Omar as a villain. The man even takes a stand against criminals killing people not in the game.
GLaDOS is mine, too.
(spoilers ahead, play it if you haven’t)
In my first playthrough, I didn’t see it coming, and I felt like she was my friend. That was a relationship twist I’ve never had in a game, and I really appreciated what they did there.
If favorite is a villain whose motivation was pure and got perverted by his obsession and still awesome:
General Woundwort
If favorite = one i hate the most, it is a tie between:
Joffrey
Ramsey
If favorite is a villain who is cool as hell it is a tie between
Voldemort
Hans Gruber
Scorpius from Farscape is a fantastic villain. He was meant to be a one off villain of the week for a clip show. By the time the episode was finished it was a two parter that had only a few seconds of clips, and instead set up the plot elements that would drive the rest of the series, with Scorpius at the heart of it all.
He's one of the rare genius villains that's actually written well enough to seem smart. He's ruthless but not unreasonable. He's horrific, but also charming. He's a bottomless pit of hatred and vengeance, and yet he is cold and calculating, perpetually in control. I've heard him described as mirror universe spock turned up to 11 and I kind of agree.
Plus, we also get Harvey.
See also: David Xanatos. Imagine if Bruce Wayne put all that effort and planning into villainy, mad science and sorcery, theoretically for money but really just for the fun of it. Now give him an Iron Man suit and the voice of Jonathan Frakes. He's an evil genius that's so good at what he does that his name is literally synonymous with plans can only end in a win.
Biff Tannen, because we should have seen the signs.
OP asked for media villain, not real life…
There's something genuinely compelling about SHODAN.
They're malignant, objective evil, yet when they talk about their goals and ambitions, they seem almost benevolent, which makes them even more unsettling.
It's like something telling you to calm down while it's sawing off your legs to replace them with mechanical versions because it's "improving you".
You didn't ask to be improved.
I've always been fond of Magneto. He's a dick about it, but I see where he's coming from.
Ming the Merciless
as played by Max von Sydow in the 1980 film Flash Gordon
Ming is this potentially goofy over-the-top villain, but Sydow's portrayal makes him dignified, threatening, majestic and malevolent, never laughable.
I've always liked Dr. Doom a lot. Never had a good adaptation in movies, but he's great in the comics.
One of my favorites as an adult, and one that scared the living shit outta me as a kid. Jude Doom from who framed Roger Rabbit.
Idk who my all time favorite is, but I just finished rewatching Clone Wars and man I had forgotten how much I liked Hondo Ohnaka
Maul: “Filth! You will pay for your insolence!”
Hondo: “Insolence?! We are pirates! We don’t even know what that means.”
Favorite Sci-Fi Villain: SHODAN from System Shock/System Shock 2
Favorite Fantasy Villain: The Nothing from Neverending Story
Favorite Bond Villain: Elliot Carver from Tomorrow Never Dies because the writers touched on something quite prescient here about media moguls wanting to control society a la Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg.
Favorite Disney-esque Villain: Raphael from Baldur's Gate III for his "Raphael's Final Act" song.
Favorite Actual Disney Villain: Lord Hater from Wander Over Yonder
Favorite Action Villain: Hans Gruber from Die Hard
Andrew Scott as Moriarty he was so fun
Are you still there?…
I don't hate you
Shigaraki Tomura, Boku no Hero Academia.
For starters, he’s this regular emo kid (about 19-20), except he’s got like a dozen disembodied hands grasping him from his torso and arms to his head and face.
The reason for the hands is pretty bizarre. Spoilers for the second half of season 5:
Tap for spoiler
He killed his whole family, including his sister, parents, and grandparents, and was adopted by the world’s greatest villain, who preserved the hands and attached them to him to remind him where he came from.
Oh, his super power? “Decay.” Anything he lays all five fingers on turns to ash. It’s as awesome and terrible as it sounds. What’s worse? Final season spoilers:
Tap for spoiler
Decay wasn’t originally his power. The greatest villain can steal and give out powers. He actually took Shigaraki’s original power and replaced it with Decay. He set him up for failure and then adopted him to turn him into a monster.
The author, Horikoshi Kohei, is a huge Star Wars nerd. If Shigaraki Tomura sounds like “anime Darth Vader,” that’s intentional. Except when “anime Luke Skywalker” tried to turn him back to good, final season spoilers:
Tap for spoiler
It doesn’t work. Shigaraki tells Midoriya he’s too far gone and gives him a message to tell his best friend, another, minor, villain he played League of Legends with — I’m not kidding, they drop that name — and Midoriya delivers the message. Which is basically that right up to the end, he wanted to destroy everything. The message has the intended effect of showing the younger man that he was wrong.
And the kicker? Minor season 5 spoiler:
Tap for spoiler
Shigaraki Tomura wasn’t even his name. Shigaraki was the family name of the villain who adopted him. His birth name was Shimura Tenko — he was also the grandson of Midoriya’s mentor’s mentor.
Note that all names use the Japanese naming convention of giving the family name before the given name (e.g. “Lincoln Abraham”), and the show is known outside of Japan as My Hero Academia.
Edit: I also like GLaDOS. YSK she’s also in Cyberpunk 2077, if only in spirit. Ellen McLain reprises her role and reuses some lines while voicing a psychotic robotaxi. I assume, with permission from Valve (who probably loved the cameo).
The Prophet of Truth from Halo 2. Cunning bastard, one of 3 prophets at the helm of an immense alien civilization, manages to get the other two eliminated, apppropriating all the power, creating a martyr and exacerbating the passion against the human enemy in the process, observes that one caste (the Sangheili) is a little too smart to keep buying his lies so replaces them with a more brutish, loyal caste, the Jiralhanae...
Killmonger from Black Panther. He had a pretty valid perspective, for the most part
Handsome Jack.
Best hero to villain in a game yet. Plus dude had charisma for days so even though he was a clear cut asshole you couldn't help but love his antics.
Joe Morden in Babylon 5. I do not know much about the actor, but he was cast perfectly.
Oh, it's you. It's been a looong time; how have you been? I've been really busy being DEAD. You know? After you murdered me? Look, we both said a lot of things you're going to regret, but I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster.
I find... we'll just say "the villain" of Undertale compelling, but it's one of my favorite games so I'm a little biased.
