Best Book Villains: Readers Reveal Their Favorites

Yesterday, Random House (@randomhouse) tweeted, "The #NY rain is making us feel slightly evil, which brings us to ask. Who is your favorite villain in literature?" Random House themselves stated that their current favorite was the Harry Potter series' Lord Voldemort.

They ended up getting a bit of flak for this from other Twitter users who wondered if that was the best they could come up with. A favorite is a favorite, though.

Here is a roundup of the tweets.

Don't see your favorite book villain? Let us know who he/she is in the comments!

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junkiebev said on 18 Wednesday 2011 pm31 12:34 pm: Randall Flagg, The Stand number one with a bullet

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This Book Villain

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Too tame! So evil!

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Comments

[William Boera]

01:32 PM on 06/06/2011

Madame DeFarge "A Tale of Two Cities"

[rebel77]

08:09 PM on 06/04/2011

If youre going to name a villian in Game of Thrones its gotta be Cersei. Littlefinger is just SLIME

[wchaffin]

12:03 AM on 05/27/2011

Thomas Sutpen--Absalom, Absalom!

[hellotiki]

01:35 AM on 05/23/2011

Thomas from Shane Steven's "By Reason of Insanity." Makes Lector look like Santa.

[William Calvert]

11:38 PM on 05/21/2011

The Judge, (Judge Holden) wasn't from "The Road", he was from McCarthy's "Blood Meridian", but he was the all time nastiest villain.

I would say Charles Kinbote from Nabokov's "Pale Fire" is the funniest and most cleverly written villain.

The Wizard of Oz in Gregory Macguire's "Wicked" is extremely unpleasant.

Bill Sykes of Dickens's "Oliver Twist" is the best brute; and Mrs. Clennam from "Little Dorrit" is the coldest mother.

... and Sister Jean of the Angels from Huxley's "The Devil's of Loudon" is one of the most interesting.

[Sine Fonem]

04:35 PM on 05/21/2011

The Judge in "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Ol' Cormac has written a few top 10 nasties hasn't he?

[Hope Richardson]

09:17 PM on 05/20/2011

O'Brian- Nineteen Eighty-four

[karenz20]

11:28 AM on 05/20/2011

Aron the Moor - Titus Andronicus

[TheMuckraker]

02:06 AM on 05/20/2011

The #1 Fan in "Misery"

[szphllps]

11:55 PM on 05/19/2011

Nurse Ratched, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" & Blue Dog(?), "Lonesome Dove"

[doglove]

11:41 PM on 05/19/2011

Quentin P. from Zombie

[John Dav Redux]

09:45 PM on 05/19/2011

No mention of Robert Wringham from "Confessions of a Justified Sinner"? He has them all beat hands down.

[starchildjg24]

09:23 PM on 05/19/2011

Most definitely Sauron. He wiped out thousands and thousands, almost all of civilization on Middle Earth.

[silverblue876]

08:05 PM on 05/19/2011

Some might disagree with my choice but I chose Jean-Baptiste Grenouille from Perfume:The Story of a Murderer as my villain. Note the character from the book, not the movie.

[karenz20]

08:49 PM on 05/19/2011

I thought of him right away... but I read the book s long ago I had forgotten his name.

Yes, really scary.

[tomteboda]

06:56 PM on 05/19/2011

After reading through s many of these good "villains" there are a few missing that had profound impacts on literature and our concept of evil that are neglected. To name but a few:

Grendel and Grendel's Mother (Beowulf)
Napoleon (Animal Farm)
The Red Queen (Alice in Wonderland)
C'thulu (The Call of C'thulu)
Satan (Paradise Lost)
Javert (Les Miserables)

[John Dav Redux]

10:09 PM on 05/19/2011

You actually thought that Satan was the villain in "Paradise Lost"? You should go back and re-read it.

[deweydecimal]

02:51 AM on 05/20/2011

I wouldn't define Satan as the villain in Milton's epic....

[tomteboda]

02:29 PM on 05/20/2011

He was the archetype of the smooth and cultured , slightly "bored" Satan, but evil nontheless.