Curated playlist
Male literary villains
- Frankenstein's monsterFrankenstein's monster has no name of his own. Within a decade of the novel, audiences used his maker's name.
- IagoIago has more lines in Othello than Othello himself. The play's villain speaks 1,097 lines.
- SarumanTolkien did not know Saruman existed when he began The Lord of the Rings. He grew out of a plot problem.
- Grand Admiral ThrawnAs his bodyguard turned on him, Star Wars villain Thrawn said it was so artistically done.
- Jacen SoloJacen Solo, Han and Leia's son, became the Sith Lord Darth Caedus. His twin sister Jaina killed him in a duel.
- Gríma WormtongueGríma Wormtongue was captured by the Nazgûl and told them where the Shire was.
- Ramsay BoltonIn 2016, The New York Times called Ramsay Bolton arguably the most hated man on television. The paper also named him the signature Game of Thrones villain, a position that Joffrey Baratheon had held before him. Ramsay is a fictional…
- Captain AhabCaptain Ahab's ivory leg fits into small holes drilled in his ship's deck. He is the whaling captain of Moby-Dick.
- SauronSauron, the villain of The Lord of the Rings, never speaks in the novel. He is almost never seen.
- Judge HoldenJudge Holden may have been a living man, a borrowed name, or only a rumor that one soldier wrote down. The proof that he existed at all rests on a single memoir. More than a century after that memoir was finished, the novelist Cormac…
- GollumGollum began as Sméagol, who strangled his relative Déagol for a golden ring.
- NazgûlThe first Black Rider in The Lord of the Rings was originally Gandalf. Tolkien called it "an unpremeditated turn."