By Paul Honke – OPINION

Villains are just everywhere: in comic books, literature, video games, Disney, movies, anime, manga, or TV Shows. Why do we love villains so much? Sure, in real life we want them gone, but in the fictional world we love what they do. Is it because the worse the villain is, the better the hero has to be? Or, is it the fact that deep down inside we all want to be a villain? Or, is it that fictional villains– whether they are stereotypical, tragic, or just plain insane–are fun to watch? To me, it’s just that they are fun to watch. Here is a top-10 list of the greatest fictional villains that I have come across. (By the way, you might want to listen to “When You’re Evil,” by Voltaire. It goes really well with the mood when you are reading this.)

10. Lady Macbeth from Macbeth

Let’s hear it for the girl! She decides her husband isn’t ambitious enough, so she hatches a wacky scheme for him to kill the king to secure the throne for the MacBeths. Mr. MacBeth has second thoughts, so she taunts him and questions his manhood until he goes and stabs Duncan to death. He freaks out completely and returns to her, leaving his whole mess behind him. Sighing with a “when you want a job done right you have to do it yourself” kind of attitude, she visits the scene of the crime and plants bloody daggers on Duncan’s servants. They should be good to go, right? Wrong. Old MacBeth goes on a murder spree, killing the guards that Lady MacBeth framed for Duncan’s murder, Banquo, everyone in MacDuff’’s castle (including his children) and probably the family dog. Dang this women has issues.

9. Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars.

Now the regular Star Wars fan might be like, “Hey why didn’t you put down Darth Vader? He destroyed a planet, destroyed the Jedi Order and rebuilt the Order as well.” I put down Palpatine because Vader was just a pawn for this guy. In the end, Vader became something of a martyr. Emperor Palpatine is pure evil. He masqueraded as an harmless senator in the Jedi Order. He turned Anakin to the dark side. How many shows are there where a force of evil actually succeeds in corrupting a CHOSEN ONE? Plus he is an old man that could whoop you if he wanted to. He is also a diabolical genius, manipulating people for years. And lastly, he looks like the Pope for Pete’s sakes. It’s like saying that the Pope became evil and began a conquest to rule the universe. (Emperor Palpatine = Evil Pope)

8. The shark in Jaws.

Bad things come with the phrase, “Just when you think it’s okay to go back into the water.”  This gigantic, white shark, by himself, caused widespread fear of sharks. That alone gets him on this list. That, and he has an awesome theme song. By the way, is it just me, or are the first notes in Jaws the same from Dvorak’s 9th symphony to the New World 4th movement?

7. Frollo from the Hunch Back of Notre Dame

Where do I begin with this guy? He kills an innocent woman, tries to dump her baby in a well, locks him up in a cathedral, lusts for women, gives freedom in exchange for sex, and thinks himself as a good Christian. Sounds like a 19th century Bill Clinton and Bill O’ Reilly to me (Sorry I needed to get a Clinton and Reilly joke in here, I just had to). Seriously out of all Disney villains this guy just tops the list. What I like is that he isn’t really a character that meant to be in a kids film. Don’t believe me look at his song “Hellfire” and tell me if he belongs in a kids movie.

6. HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Without of a doubt, Hal is a form of evil that man has created. Designed initially to help the crew through their time in space–only to kill most of them. Out of all of the villains on this list, HAL is one of the scariest. He is a machine that can have emotions, as well as a truly one-track mind, only caring about the mission.  He will do anything to complete the mission. He can read lips, which means that no one is safe from him. What is scary about him is that he shows that when mankind’s technology gets developed to the point where we can make sentient machines, they will eventually turn on us.

5. Lad Russo from Baccano!

This villain is without of a doubt the least known of my top-10 villains, mainly because he is from a anime. First off, I will say that Baccano is an anime series that I completely recommend; you will love the English dub. Now Lad Russo is a man who I will call the Joker of the 1930’s America. He is a hitman from a mafia and is, well, to put it into plain words, incredibly insane. This guy is like a child waiting for Christmas, if Christmas was killing people. That is all this guy wants to do, kill people. And he has his own reason for it. He wants to kill people who never see it coming, or think that they can’t die today. Lad Russo, despite being insane, is truly a lot of fun to watch and you will love this guy despite his actions, which include killing people on a train, “killing” a kid (don’t worry, the kid is immortal) and deciding to show that just because you’re immortal doesn’t mean you can’t feel pain.

(Warning Baccano! is extremely violent with blood and gore. Just thought I’d tell you.)

4. Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies

This guy is a tragic villain. First off, no one would help him when he drowned. (Or get him psychological help when he saw his mother’s death. Watch the newest movie.) This causes him to rise from the grave and gain vengeance upon all who helped bring his death, and anyone else who reminded him of it. Despite his actions, you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy as he was deformed when he was younger and was constantly insulted because of it. He is what many people fear: that one incident will cause a new serial killer to be born. Jason has taken a lot of abuse over the years, being drowned, shot, sliced, and even being sent down to hell. Always tragic and always immortal, Jason Voorhees will forever walk the paths on the lake, leaving corpses everywhere he goes.

3. Light Yagami from Death Note

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” truly applies to this guy. A straight-A student and a genius who wants to get rid of crime in the world stumbles upon a Death Note where if you write someone’s name in the book, they will die. So he takes up the name Kira (killer in Japanese) and starts killing criminals all the while saying he will become the God of the New World (God complex much?). The problem is that afterwards he becomes corrupted to kill any one that stands in his way, such as cops, detectives, L (arguably his best friend).  His corruptions leads him to manipulating a girl that likes him. Plus he has a good villain laugh (watch the Japanese dub for that). But one of the best parts about him is whether his methods were right. Should we immediately get rid of evil? Or do we let the law judge that? Either way, Light created a truly mind-boggling and awesome villain.

2. The Joker from Batman

I absolutely love the Joker. Insane, fun to watch, and incredibly funny. He is very similar to Lad Russo but the Joker has absolutely no qualms about what happens to him. In the legendary Dark Knight Returns, he breaks his own neck… just to screw with Batman one last time. Not only that, but let’s look at his significant kill count. He killed Jason Todd (the second Robin), shot Batgirl and paralyzed her from the waist down, and killed Jim Gordon’s second wife. Last but not least, he nearly destroyed the entire universe (read Emperor Joker). This guy has caused so much damage everywhere he goes. All he wants is chaos and anarchy and has an unhealthy obsession to make Batman see the world as he sees it. What is also great about the guy is that we have no idea about his past. Sure, there have been some origin stories (most used is the Killing Joke’s origin tale) but according to the Joker,“Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I am going to have a past I prefer it to be multiple choice.” (Line taken from “The Killing Joke.”)

The Joker, the most fun loving yet the most dangerous.

1. Magneto from the X-men

This villain is without a doubt the most complex. He is the number 1 enemy for the X-men (next to Apocalypse), yet there are times when he is the most human of all of the villains. What I love about this guy is that despite his actions, he has a very reasonable cause for them: to stop the persecution against mutants. To most people, he is a villain, yet at the same time he does have a just cause, and will do anything to accomplish it. Another complex thing about the guy is that he is still the best friend of his archenemy Charles Xavier, they only have conflicting views on how mutants should be in the world. In Magneto’s case, he wants them to be the dominant species after humans’ jealousy caused persecution among his kind. This is even more reasonable after you learn that when he was young he was in a Jewish concentration camp. One of the most amazing things is in the Secret Wars Saga in the comics where the Beyonder (watch Spiderman Two to know about him) gets two teams, one good and one evil. Magneto was placed on the good guys’ side due to the fact that his causes are just. But he is going at it the wrong way. Magneto is one of the few characters in all of comic book history to lead the X-men for a while. So yeah, despite his terroristic actions, he is still a character that can be a good guy and occasional anti-hero.

And that is my top-10 villains list, combining a greedy character, a manipulator, a force of nature, a hypocrite, a nightmare come true, a sociopath, a tragic character, a good-turned-corrupted evil, a being who is madness incarnate, and a complex character.

If you’re reading this, tell me your top 10 villains. All are welcome.