Howdy! It’s time for another Top 5 Wednesday! This week continues a month of freebies, meaning you can pick whatever topic you want for each week in May. As you know, last week I searched the T5W archives and found five topics I was just thrilled about. This week? My top five favorite villains! I absolutely love villains. They’re so fascinating! For this post, I’m going to step slightly outside the realm of books, but you don’t care. You just want to see my answers. So… let’s do it.
- Darth Vader from Star Wars:
Hey, we all get one predictable favorite villain. He’s mine. I mean, he’s essentially a badass cyborg with a flair for the dramatic. The Empire literally rises and falls because of this guy. He’s just… so iconic. I love him.
- The Red Queen from The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen:
What I like about the Red Queen is that we get to read from her point of view. This means we get to see her flaws and secret fears up close and personal. It makes her more human, which makes this one of the most frank looks at a villain I’ve ever seen. She also stands as a direct parallel to Kelsea, the protagonist. She’s just such a cool, complex character. You almost want to root for her. Almost.
- Sebastian Morgenstern from The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare:
This is one villain who’s just balls-to-the-wall crazy. Sebastian does what he does for the sake of chaos. Well, chaos and Clary. He creates his whole evil plan pretty much from boredom. “Well, might as well do something dastardly today.” Sure, he’s got his biases, but they don’t drive him the way they did his father. He doesn’t give a shit about the Shadowhunters. He just wants what he wants and what he wants is destruction.
- Queen Levana Blackburn from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer:
What I like about Levana is how well she embodies the old adage, “The villain is the hero of their own story.” Everything she does— however terrible— is for the benefit of Luna. Of course, she’s also driven by vanity. She wants so badly to be beautiful and beloved. Unfortunately, a glamour can make you pretty, but it can’t make people like you. This is a lesson she doesn’t learn until it’s too late, but even then she was never going to change. Levana is just too stuck in her ways.
- Adelina Amouteru from The Young Elites by Marie Lu:
Talk about a baddie. Even better, she’s the protagonist! Adelina is driven by one thing and one thing only: vengeance. She wants justice for how she and the other malfettos have been treated. And so, naturally, she takes over the country and wages a bloody crusade on its neighbors. As you do. I love watching her embrace her dark side and go full throttle. I love her selfishness and her fury. She’s so deeply, deeply flawed and deliciously nefarious. Queen of my entire goddamn heart.
Who are some of your favorite villains? Tell me about them in the comments!
Strange Storyteller 
Great post! I love villains too, especially female ones. The Red Queen’s one of my favorites, so is Mrs. Coulter from His Dark Materials. And Bellatrix Lestrange! The Young Elites sounds amazing, I’m adding it to my tbr 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had considered adding Bellatrix, but I wanted some variety in the types of villains I picked. I’d categorize her the same way I did Sebastian. I haven’t read His Dark Materials, but I’ve heard such good things I think I’ll have to add it to my TBR.
LikeLike
I really really need to get going with The Young Elites. I love stories about villains and I love the excerpt I read, so why I still haven’t read the full series is beyond me!
LikeLiked by 1 person