Question of the week: favorite fictional villain?

Welcome to Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics.

This week’s question: what is your favorite fictional villain?

The inspiration for this question was that I saw a writer complaining about how hard it is to write a book without a villain. It’s not impossible, of course – the conflict of the story might be Man Vs. Nature or two people competing in a sporting event on equal footing – but it is easier to write a book with a villain. And, of course, really memorable villains often become popular characters.

For myself, I think my favorite fictional villain would be Grand Admiral Thrawn from the HEIR TO THE EMPIRE trilogy. He’s an interesting contrast to Darth Vader and the Emperor from the original movies – he’s just as capable of being ruthless as they are, but it’s not his first choice the way it is with someone like Darth Vader. The Emperor and Vader relied on the Force, but Thrawn uses logic and deduction. What he usually does is studies his opponent’s artwork or the style of artwork they favor, deduce their psychological blind spots from that study, and then builds attacks around those blind spots that his opponents will not (indeed, cannot) see coming. He takes the remnants of the Empire from the brink of defeat to the verge of total victory during the trilogy.

I think it works because while HEIR TO THE EMPIRE is still STAR WARS, Thrawn is a completely different kind of villain than Darth Vader & the Emperor, while nonetheless being just as formidable. One way to make your characters more sympathetic is to have them go up against a strong, competent villain.

-JM