Best &Worst SF/Fantasy/Action Villains (in terms of success)

[me_in_japan]

philistine

TCofTC are good. Miserable, granted, but good. Don't let the names of the characters or the places put you off - they really are very well written fantasy books, and the Land is very well realised.

A quick summary, without spoilers:

Books 1-3: a bloke from the really real world gets whacked by a car in a suburban american street, passes out, and wakes up on top of a mountain in a fantasy land with magic and whatnot. Being of a rather cynical point of view, he decides that its all in his head and he's really lying in a hospital somewhere. This opinion is strengthened when his leprosy (yes, he has leprosy) miraculously begins to get better. Bah, humbug, sez Thomas.

He has a variety of adventures and kinda saves the land from Lord Foul, a generally all round bad chap who is actually more of a god/opposite half to the creator. He's trying to destroy the arch of Time and thereby escape boring old reality. Our Hero (TC) manages to stop Lord Foul from escaping, but does not do much else.

Book 4-6: TC returns to the land, which by now he believes in. This time around, a woman, Linden comes with him. If anything, she's even more grumpy than TC is. By now, many hundreds of years have passed in teh Land and (oho) it turns out that Lord Foul is now in charge and doing very well, thank you very much. Hes still trying to destroy reality, but in the process has taken complete dominion of teh land, screwed with the nature of nature, and generally made everone miserable for countless generations. He has also completely corrupted all the Good Works that TC did in books 1-3 and is now quietly laughing at him behind his back. TC tries real hard and eventually returns things to something approximating normal. Then he (SPOILERS). Meanwhile, Lord Foul is still ok.

Books 7-9 : Dunno yet. Book 9 isnt out yet, and I havent read 8 yet. Book 7 is just as miserable as 1-6, though, and Lord Foul is still alive and fething with the nature of life as we know it. This time hes broken...time.

So, all in all, undefeated, I say. Sure, its taking a while, but he's a god, he has all eternity to play with.

[Primarch]

And yet every time his plans are foiled by a leper.....
Oh wait, he has magic powers because of his wedding ring.

The book was dull as dishwater, and I found TC's first few actions upon arrival into the Land quite unnecessary.
"Hmm, this must be a dream, so I'm going to ##############"
What kind of dreams does this guy usually have?

Anyway, whilst it is not the worst book I have ever read (15 Hours from the Black Library if anyone cares), it does rate in my top ten.

[Colonel Voss]

15 hours isn't even close to the worst IMO. Some of the Battletech novels were atrocious and Battlefield Earth was the book that just wouldn't die (too bad I had agreed to read it for homework). In fact, I now have my worst villian, Terl, the head of security in the book.

[me_in_japan]

The book was dull as dishwater, and I found TC's first few actions upon arrival into the Land quite unnecessary.
"Hmm, this must be a dream, so I'm going to ##############"
What kind of dreams does this guy usually have?

aha. you only think this was unnecessary because you didnt finish the books. WHat happened when TC first came to the land is an absolutely central plot element, with repercussions that last far past the first book.

So there

[ashmie]

The Joker did that nasty pencil trick in the last Batman.
That was horrible!

[Konrad]

The Joker did that nasty pencil trick in the last Batman.
That was horrible!

Which makes him one of the best. Nothing the Joker did in that movie made me smile (except for the nurse's outfit, that was funny) he was just pure, unrestrained, something worse than evil.

[Mike the Pike]

Is 'Rubbish' the word you were looking for Konrad?
As well as failing over and over again to vanquish Batman and reign in terror over Gotham City the latest incarnation of Mr. J was just so 'meh'. IMHO
I don't wannna speak ill of the dead but that portrayal was sooooo over hyped and hardly worthy of the acclaim it received. The writers simply took a well known character and put it in a blender with the a heaped cupful of 'Naughties-Horror-brutality' et voila, one uninspiring villain.

[Miggy Smallz]

You guys have no taste at all. I guess this'll teach me to stray from the RP boards! -scurries back-

[ashmie]

I disagree. I missed all the hype about that actor for some reason and watched the Batman film cold not realising who he was and was totally impressed by that performance. I do agree that the hype ruins it somewhat though. The Joker is a very hard role to play scary as he's such an idiot.

[ashmie]

Maybe GW are the biggest villains repackaging everything over and over again. Money for old rope.