Achilles (pronounce A-sheel) from Shadow of the Hegemon. Utterly ruthless, almost took over the world, always had an escape route. And all that at only 12 years old.

Orson Scott Card rocks!

And I'll have to second the nomination for Hannibal Lecter. Even locked in his cell he manages to reach out and touch his enemies. He also feels he is doing the world a favor. He doesn't kill or eat the true heros of the world (like Agent Starling).

Norman Stransfield.

"I like these calm little moments before the storm."

Though I find the term "villian" distastefull, Vincent from Collateral was a truly fantastic character, and was the "bad guy" of the film.

Some obvious ones have been said already, like Lecter. Also Achilles from Orson Scott Card's Shadow-series was there already. I didn't think anyone got him, but there he was. Let's see.. Shodan from System Shock. Norman Stansfield from the movie Leon. Roy Batty from Bladerunner. Jareth from The Labyrinth. Jon Irenicus from Baldur's Gate 2.

Vlad Teppish.

Better know as Vlad Dracul, Dracula.

Why?

Because he's a hero and a villan, depending on who you ask. Not Bram Stoker's vampire, but the original Count.

The Rourke family from the Sin City comics. They're vastly wealthy, influential, ruthless, power hungry and a few of them are one hundred percent insane. Among their ranks there is a cannibal priest, a machiavelian puppeteer of a senator, and a child molester/serial killer. Probably more than that, but those are the ones featured in the comics.

Dawnshadow:

According to what I've read, Prince Vladimir IV (circa 1431--1476) of the Romanian province of Wallachia was more properly called "Vlad Dracula".

His father, Vlad III, was also known as "Vlad Dracul."

The Romanian word "dracul" has been variously translated into English as "dragon" or "devil". "[D]racula" means "son of the dragon" or "son of the devil."

(Actually, the English equivalent of "Vladimir" is "Walter"--however, "Walt the Dragon" doesn't sound quite as intimidating, does it? )

His other nickname, "Vlad Tepes" (pronounced "Shepesh", IIRC), means "Vlad the Impaler". In his youth, he was a guest (actually a hostage) of the Turks. During that time, he learned their favorite torture methods-- one of which was impalement. They installed him upon the Wallachian throne in 1448, but he went into hiding. Eight years later, in 1456, he reclaimed the throne and started a war with them. He also ordered the deaths of thousands of his own people--30,000 in one day.

The people of Wallachia eventually rebelled against him, forging documents that showed him to be an ally of the Turks. As a result, he was arrested in 1462, and imprisoned for 12 years. Released in 1474, he reclaimed the throne in 1476, but held it for only 2 months, finally being decapitated in battle. (Some sources say that he may have been killed by one of his own men, either by accident or deliberately.) His severed head was preserved in a jar of honey, and later presented to the Turkish sultan as a prize.

(BLECCH! I don't know about the rest of you, but I've suddenly lost my desire for sweets. Hope it's only temporary. ))

This information is paraphrased from HOW DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?. (Copyright © 2000 by The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.)

--Foreigner

What did George Lucas do to the Franchise? What can the Jedi do to stop Dr Kholera from destroying the world?

Oops, sorry, mixing my game worlds.

The catch is that boba fett never really did anything cool at all outside of the movies, it was all essentially fanfiction that made him cool!

I'm going to have to throw in a third for Jubal Early. Especially as I best knew the actor who played him as one of the A.D.A's from the first seasons of Law & Order, seeing him as a bad guy was quite an amusing turn.

What made Jubal such a great antagonist was the way he delivered lines like:

I think Molina's performance as Doctor Octopus in Spiderman 2 was unusually good for a superhero movie. It could be due to the writing, which gave him a very human portrayal. He dished out the one-liners right back at Spidey, and his origin story was very well-fleshed out. That, and I'm a big fan of Donna Murphy...

I think that one of the things that makes one great are the defining traits. Certain things that you recall about the villain any time, they always stick with you.

King Kalak just brutally ripping an answer from a slaves mind when the poor slob would've given him the answer in seconds. Then frying his High Templar on the spot for not having the answer before he got there.

Kefka and that laugh!

A nifty name never hurts (lots of 'em have "k's" interestingly)

Once again, why R.A. Salvatore? do you mean Artemis Entreri?
He was one of my favorites. Nice cool professional attitude, but still human enough to get nice and pissed. Cool signature weapons, smart. I think any really good villain has to be pretty smart. Check out Lord Torgo. No one would care if he just whacked everyone with a mace. That would just make him another crazy troll.

Favorite Villain. I'd have to say Verbal from Usual Suspects.

Note that all of the best villains have screen time someone who dosen't appear that much can't be a good villain, they are just another faceless mook. So the real trick of making good bad guys in RPGs is gettting them screen time with the PCs not going 'enough talk already' and shooting him in the forehead.

The best villians are those that appear for the last 5-10 seconds of the show, going,"Mwahahahaha!"

I'd say there are certain numer of villains archtype, and the closer a character get to its archtype, the more efficient he is, the more absolute. Sometimes two or more archtypes can be mixed, but it's not that common. The archtype I can think of are:

- The Mad Killer who kills just because. The lack of common sense make him disturbing, thus efficient. But once the audience considers it will never understand him, there's no longer any interest. It can work, as proved by some movies like 'Psychose' but it requires additional recipes, like hiding him until the end.
Examples: Norman Bates (Psychose), Carnage (Spiderman)

- The Smart Mad Killer, embodied by Hannibal Lecter. He's deeply intelligent but stays compelled to kill. So overused it's no longer fun.

- The Cold Killer has no feelings, he just kills for very practical reasons. Very predictible, and often beaten in lousy ways by feelings, love and all that, or simply because the heroes suddenly become more powerful than he was. They can also be beaten by luck, but luck does not make good heroes. Like the Mad Killer, better keep them out of reach until the end (best example of this I can think of he's The Day of the Jackal).

- The Puppetmaster. He is dangerous, intelligent, and moreover hidden so he cannot be threatened before the author decide to. Because he's hidden, we learn nothing else about him. Like the Smart Mad Killer, authors tend to give him too much luck in addition to his intelligence.

- The Wealthy has something and don't want to lose it, or to get more (usually wealth, but it can be immortality, a political position, or a loving wife and two children). It's probably the most mundane of villain archtype. He simply works as a villain but often fails to impress.

- The Enforcer believes in something and will do everything for it. Very similar to the Wealthy, except that he does not act for his own profit. He's usually following someone or some ideology. The ideology does not have to be nasty: a mad terrorist can be an enforcer just like the cop who hunts heroes wanted for murder. a personal hate for the enemy of his ideology is also not an uncommon common trait, but the motivation stays the same. Agent Smith is an Enforcer in Matrix (the first movie ; in the sequels, I still don't have a clue as what he was supposed to be).

- The Corrupted, embodied by Darth Vader (in episode 2, 3, 5 and 6 ; in episode 4 he's only a Cold Killer, in episode 1 he's... well... lousy). He brought with him two strong, opposite, concepts, corruption (of the heroes) and redemption (of himself). He works because he is exactly the heroes, just a bit ahead in a potential timeline. Unlike the Wealthy, what did the Corrupted got from life is no longer relevant: the Corrupted is turned toward his past (the future of the heroes), the Wealthy is turned toward his future.

- The Traitor. He's on his way to become a Wealthy or a Corrupted, but he's not yet. Fundamental point is that he starts the story under the guise of a hero or an ally. This nature makes him easily mixed with another archtype, like Puppetmaster or Wealthy. Hard to use in RPG since NPC are too distant from the PC to make effective traitor, and having a PC making implies the player's cooperation.

- The Avenger is somehow a "one-shot" Corrupted or Wealthy. Once his vengeance wil be completed, he'll go back to a normal life. The best Avengers have very good reasons, but it then takes highly moral heroes (or highly paid runners) to feel compelled to stop them. An avenger hunting the spy who killed his terrorist brother in action usually fail to impress the audience. The other way round, it usually fail to convince anybody to stop him.

- The Seducer, logically behind the Corrupted. I can't decide myself if this is a subgenre of the Puppetmaster whose talent would be turned toward the heroes, or an archtype by itself. Note that he has to success against the heroes to work: Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi is a pretty uninteresting character until Luke goes berzerk against his father. Then Palpatine's face lighten, then you suddenly understand who he is (again, note that he is a Seducer only in episode 6, in episode 1,2 and 5, he is a more classical Puppetmaster).

- The Devil, probably the strongest archtype of villain. Unlike the other, it allows little variation except the name, although to be true it could be more or less considered as the absolue form of the Puppetmaster/Seducer. It can be called the Devil, Arhiman, or whatever, it is the pure essence of evil. As a fictional character, he can have lines nobody else can have ; he doesn't have to kill because he is eternal. Unlike the Corrupted, he is simply not on the same plane of existence than the heroes. But giving him a goal to reach within the story's timeframe is a tough point. He's the hardest to write for for an author, and the hardest to play for an actor, let alone a gamemaster.

May latest favorite villain is Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) on the HBO series Deadwood. Though he may be more of an anti-hero than a true villain, depending on how you look at it. Anyway, that character would make an interesting bad guy in a Shadowrun game.

Brick Top from Snatch was a good "righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent". Good street level baddie.

Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface, mang!

Gabriel (Christopher Walken) in The Prophesy.

Brewmeister Smith (Max von Sydow) in Strange Brew. (Just kidding.)

I'm sure there are others, they're just not coming to mind at the moment.

I liked the devil in "The Prophecy." It helps that Viggo Mortensen doesn't really look normal anyway.

torzzzzz:

I *think* you mean "Lucretia Borgia".



--Foreigner

Holy undead thread, Batman.

I would say the Joker but he is sort of boring unless he is voiced by Hark Hamill.

The original Godzilla. You can't beat Godzilla. He was a destructive and unstopable force of nature but at the same time he was very human. Later Godzillas have had beter devolped personalities but they were more anti-hereos than villians. Most later Godzillas saved the Japan as often as they destroyed it. The original is the only member of the group that was an unadulterated and unapologetic destroyer.


Pinhead, I wouldn't classify as a villian. In the first two he was a neutral character. Frank was the real villian. Pinhead simply offers infinite pleasure to those who seek it. The only problem is that the Cenobites are true sadomaschoists and they cannot differientiate pleasure from pain.


I'm surprised that Iago hasn't been mentioned. Sure, he goes out like a punk in the end because he did't kill his wife soon enough but up till that point he was perfect. He is a great example of what a determined face can do.

There's also Medea. She is the central character of her story and thus might be considered an anti-hero but she is really presented more as a tragic villian than a tragic anti-hero. Certainly, her delightfully diabolical actions would be considered villianous by the standards of her time and even moreso by modern standards. The extremes she's willing to go to for her vengence combined with the fact that she gets away with it make her a great villian.