We’ve all been there. You’re reading a book or watching a play, and there’s that one character you’re supposed to despise with a passion and hate forever, because of their general wickedness and air of corruption. But as you’re watching or reading…a strange and hitherto unknown feeling spreads through your body. You gasp. You’re in shock, astounded and amazed…It can’t be true, can it? You can’t actually LIKE this dreadfully nasty character? The answer is yes, you can. In fact, in my opinion, most baddies are simply misunderstood. Here are five of the finest.
1) The Creature from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Described by good ol’ Victor, his creator as a ‘demoniacal corpse’ and an ‘abhorred monster’, the Creature (or Frankenstein’s Monster as the insensitive know him by) can’t have had it easy in life. How would you like to have been created out of parts of dead people? Me neither! The Creature is in fact just a big, albeit ugly and disgusting baby, wanting to be loved and longing for a mate. The fact that he kills Victor’s family, is a bit of a pyromaniac and perhaps rotting slightly, are facts we’ll keep out of this!
2) Mephistopheles from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
One of the original and best devils in the English canon, Mephistopheles is one of my favourite literary ‘villains.’ Despite the fact he damns Faustus for eternity, makes him give up his soul to Lucifer and is generally a bad influence, Mephy’s like the bad guy next door (down below??), slightly irresistible and strangely repentant for what he’s done. Come on, it’s not like he asked to be Hell’s minion now is it?
3) Voldemort from J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series
No list of loveable villains would be complete without everyone’s fave, Voldemort. If it’s not his annoying laugh, his casual murder of anyone/everyone, or his split soul, it’s certainly the fact he was the attractive Tom Riddle with his equally-as-tragic-as-Harry’s backstory-before-the-snaky-evilness happened. Also, think of all the cheeky wand jokes you can make. Classic.
4) King Richard from William Shakespeare’s Richard III
Some may say this is a strange choice of Shakespearean villain to class as ‘likeable.’ He’s not the best known or the most attractively depicted villain, with his hunchbacked deformity. Yet he’s so flipping funny. Even when he’s making mischief and being a bad ‘un; a prime example being the wooing of the widow of someone he’s just killed, he makes it humorous, and he lets the audience in on his evil deeds too. You’ve just got to like him, he’s told you so much you’re practically his accomplice.
5) Moriarty from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series
The original criminal mastermind and Sherlock’s downfall, Moriarty’s just so clever! Got to love an intelligent man! He’s even more attractive as a villain, as we as readers, never actually meet him. Doctor Watson, the narrator of the tales, never encounters Moriarty himself – he has to rely on the drugged-up Sherlock to describe his encounters with him. Mysterious, a genius and possibly not real. What’s not to like?
Amy Wilcockson
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Pictures sourced from Flickr via Insomnia Cured Here
