Southern belle with a story to tell. Refreshing iced tea served after literary punches thrown.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Who is the Ultimate Fictional Villain?

The ultimate guide to the ditigal universe and everything (<homage to Douglas Adams) is Wikipedia.  According to wiki,  this is a villain:

"A villain (also known in film and literature as the "bad guy", "black hat", or "heavy") is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historicalnarrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters. A female villain is sometimes called a villainess (often to differentiate her from a male villain). Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot"."--Wikipedia

In your minds' eye, who is the most fabulously evil villain in all of fiction?  I know who mine is.  He's a guy I'm writing about now, in my novel.  Somebody so sensible, caring, and cool on the surface, in fact, the kind of man everybody would like to invite to their holiday party.  He'd be the guy who can always give the perfect toast, dresses impeccably, isn't too handsome, but is nonetheless very attractive, always has the right thing to say and brings the perfect hostess gift every time.  But beneath the G.Q. exterior, lies a sociopath, a man who can compartmentalize his emotions, justify every means to every end, and has the innate ability to use people, twist them ever so delicately, that they never know anything has happened to them until it's far too late.

I'm talking about the character I have created in Frank Deveraux.  And if I had to paint you a picture of what he'd be/look/act like, it would be a combination of these men:

Most Interesting Man in the World/Dos Equis guy^

^Goldfinger, from James Bond movie of same name.  Drinking a mint julep in Kentucky.

^Gordon Gekko from "Wall Street". 

Let me hear your ideas about the perfect villain.  It could be one already created, or it could be one you've dreamed up.  

As for my character, mean ol' Frank, he's a combination of what you get if Gordon Gekko, Goldfinger, and the Interesting Guy all climbed into some sort of futuristic d.n.a. scrambling machine.  

Sad thing is..there is one person alive who is eerily similar to Frank Deveraux.  But you needn't worry about him, dear readers, for he's locked up, and the feds threw away the key (hint).

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