Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten villains who are just as compelling as the heroes

top ten tuesday                villains

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c.j.'s selections                         ten ten ten
one		The Darkling The Grisha trilogy - Leigh Bardugo  What a fantasically vicious man.  First on my list of psychopaths, the Darkling is a masterful actor, able to control the narrative and use people's darkest secrets and greatest desires as strings for a marionette master.  He's got enough humanity to pull for sympathy, and enough bloodthirst to be truly terrifying.
two		Lord Gargaron  Court of Fives - Kate Elliott  He's the man you absolutely love to hate.  Ramsey Bolton, meet your young adult counterpart.  Gargaron is the kind of man who will do anything for power, whether it means murdering his own kin or burying people alive.  He's a mental match for Jessamy, which makes him truly formidable, and his cruelty always has a purpose, which keeps him from being a one-dimensional baddie.
three		The Jackal  Red Rising - Pierce Brown  There are loads of fabulous villains in this series, but the Jackal is one of my favorites.  He's the perfect foil for Darrow, the representation of everything Darrow could become if he stepped over the right (or wrong) lines.  Vicious, psychopathic, the kind of killer who likes to play with his food, he's always a chess game ahead of the competition and stylish to boot.
four		Queen Red  Splintered - A.G. Howard  Red is cruel and complex, a study in villainry.  Her motives are tangled, her backstory rich, and her methods delightfully macabre: vicious man-eating flowers, blood spells, evil toy armies and carefully-worded curses.  She's a suitably sinister counterpart for an edgy Alice.
five		The Necromancer  Something Strange and Deadly - Susan Dennard  This guy decided it was a grand idea to raise an army of the undead in Victorian-era Philadelphia, and that was just the start.  The true nature of this chilling chap can't be described without giving much away, but it's enough to say that Dennard has crafted a classic dramatic villain with abundant flair.
six		Tom Riddle  Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling  I am Lord Voldemort.  There are few scenes in literature as chilling as that.  Yeah, I said it.  Riddle is the ultimate megalomaniac, a genius whose self-assuredness if both his strength and downfall.  Although, after Cursed Child, I have some questions for old Tom...
seven		The Witch of the Waste  Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones  You won't recognize her in the movie, because her character is totally different (and better) in the books.  She's an enigmatic villain working in the shadows, spinning curses out of sonnets--because she's just that classy.  To elaborate on the layers of her clever scheming would be to spoil.  Just read it.
eight		Saint Dane  The Pendragon series - D.J. MacHale  This guy is a psychopath to rival Kilgrave, brutally cold and callous.  He thrives on sowing chaos around the multiverse and he knows exactly which threads to pull to get people to destroy themselves and each other, leaving his hands clean--after all, he only nudged.  MacHale writes his manipulative brand of genius flawlessly.
nine		Count Olaf  A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snickett Olaf is just as integral to the books as the three orphans he torments.  He's a masterful creation of fiction, a special blend of over-the-top narcissism and chilly callousness that makes him equally fascinating and dangerous.  His ludicrous disguises and plots are the backbone of the series.
ten		Tyler Durden  Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk  Durden is both villain and hero, savior and destroyer.  He's the mastermind behind Fight Club and the impetus for the narrator's violent transformation.  He's the perfect psychopathy (because clearly I have a type), charming and devilishly witty while also being astoundingly unpredictable.