Top Ten Tuesday – Paula gets evil with Villains/Criminals/ and other Nasties

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created here at The Broke and the Bookish. This meme was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list complete with one of our bloggers answers. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND sign Mister Linky at the bottom to share with us and all those who are participating. If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Don't worry if you can't come up with ten every time..just post what you can!

Next week Kimberly talks about the top ten best books to read during for the holidays..you know ..all those books that get you in the holiday spirit!  Kids books, adults books, all of them!

So I was pretty excited about putting this together. We may enjoy the good guys but it’s my thought that a great baddy is really what makes a story. There has to be something pretty evil to motivate the hero to defeat them, otherwise…what’s the point? What would Harry Potter be without good ol’ Voldykins? There would be no story, because without Voldemort, there would be no boy who lived, and there would be no issue. So, here’s my Top Ten List of super bad guys. Awesome!

10. Humbert Humbert from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – I love this novel. It gives me the creeps. It puts you in the mind of a bad guy who could really exist. It’s a difficult novel to read because the reader has to face a pretty intense internal struggle to keep reading it. Humbert Humbert doesn’t have magical powers or plans to destroy the world, but he is evil to the core. And the entire time you read the book, he is trying to convince you that it wasn’t his fault. Because his Lolita tempted him. Rating = Yucky.

9. President Snow from The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins – Leader of the Capital that is making everyone’s life a living hell. Constantly threatening Katniss, her friends and her family. He’s a baddy to the max. And I don’t think he ever really felt bad about anything he did, but he was right about the new President being just as bad.   Rating = A jerk.


8. Gideon Graves from The Scott Pilgram Series by Bryan Lee O’Malley – Oh Gideon. Jealous boyfriend to the max. He can’t get over Ramona so he puts together a league of evil exes in order to give her new boyfriend hell. That’s not very nice Gideon. Rating = He’s a pretty bad guy.


7.  Alex from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess – Once again we have the main character of the story, Alex is living it up with his droogs and getting into ultra violence for fun. He thrives off of hurting other people, and that’s just not okay. Although once the government starts “treating” him with the Ludovico technique, you do feel kind of bad for him. They take his favorite thing, Classical Music, and make him feel pain whenever he hears it, which ultimately leads to his demise. That doesn’t change the fact that he still commits crimes. Rating = an ultra hooligan.


6. Big Brother/ World State/ Mechanical Hound  from 1984/Brave New World/Fahrenheit 451 (respectively) – So I grouped these all together because they kind of have the same theme. Government gone wrong. In all of these dystopian novels, the government has taken control of the citizen’s lives and placed them into a world of fear. Big Brother places anyone who questions their power in Room 101, a room where you are harmed by your worst fear. World State over pleases their citizens, so that if they question anything they are given too many pleasures (most often the drug soma) and they overdose themselves, and in Fahrenheit 451, your neighbors and friends are willing to sell you out to the fire fighters who will burn your home and set the terrifying Mechanical Hound on you that chases you until it has the chance to deliver a fatal syringe of drugs to you. Rating = I am SO glad I don’t live there!

5. Ben Cortman from I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – The leader of the vampires that are dying (hah) to kill the last remaining human. His one mission on the planet is to make life a living hell for Robert. Everyday when the sun goes down, he is outside Robert’s house trying to break in, or destroy Robert’s things as much as possible. Rating = pretty terrifying.

4. Mrs. Coulter from His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman – I think what is so scary about her is that she gets Lyra to trust her. When the books start, you think something is wrong with her, but she’s so sweet you just can’t quite figure out what is wrong. Like Lyra you begin to think she’s okay. Then she turns out to be crazy and evil. This is more about the first book, because her character does develop throughout the series, but no matter how much she did change, she always scares me. Rating = I TRUSTED YOU! You’re so evil though.

3. Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie – So I almost put Hook in the top position. He probably is my favorite, but he isn’t the MOST evil, so that kept him down here at 3. As much as Hook hates Pan and the Lost Boys, he isn’t really a threat to anyone else, and that makes him a little less intimidating. But he DOES have a HOOK for a HAND! Augh. Rating = He’s a pirate, that’s scary.


2. Voldemort from The Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling – Don’t hate me for not giving him the top spot. Honestly, I think it’s a tie between these two. Man what isn’t evil about Voldemort. Killed thousands of people. Split his soul into 7 parts. Killed Harry’s parents. Killed a unicorn. Man, he just oozes evil. Rating = …um…he’s VOLDEMORT.


1. Saint Dane from the Pendragon Series by D.J. MacHale – Ok, um. I about to say something that a lot of you may hate. I like Pendragon more than I like Harry Potter. Augh. Don’t hurt me! I started reading Pendragon before I started Harry Potter and just finished the last one this year (I put it off because I didn’t want it to end). Anyway. Saint Dane… think Voldemort but he can shape shift and he is out to control the entire universe. Saint Dane goes onto territories (basically planets) right when they’re at a turning point in their history and tries to influences them (that’s where the shape shifting comes in) to end badly in order to control that world. He’s bad. He’s really bad. And the shape shifting really messes things up for Bobby Pendragon more than once. Rating = Shape shifting evil demon and the number one villain on my list.


Who do you think deserves top spot? Tell us your top ten villains!