Favorite/most memorable villain?

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It will be said that, while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of the twenty-four. In so far as this is true in the modern world, it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. Serious-minded persons, for example, are continually condemning the habit of going to the cinema, and telling us that it leads the young into crime. But all the work that goes to producing a cinema is respectable, because it is work, and because it brings a money profit. The notion that the desirable activities are those that bring a profit has made everything topsy-turvy. The butcher who provides you with meat and the baker who provides you with bread are praiseworthy, because they are making money; but when you enjoy the food they have provided, you are merely frivolous, unless you eat only to get strength for your work.

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Boem wrote:

People are utterfly fascinating and beautifull which justifies this world being called a heaven even if just for show.
Their decisions amaze me most of the time and i think of myself as having a fair grip on how things operate which simply pushes me forward to look and learn more.

The game of life is grand and worth every minute :)

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Charan wrote:

Indeed I can. I already mentioned one: David Xanatos in Gargoyles, which wasn't a BAD plot but definitely had the taint of Saturday Morning Cartoon holding back a very devious, cunning individual. This is probably the most common reason for a great villain in a bad plot: target audience. The writers know they have to adhere to certain rules but then they pit the Heroes against a much more superior Villain who HAS TO LOSE IN SOME REALLY DUMB WAYS. You'll see this over and again in not just cartoons but also comics and lower-end TV shows like the CW comic adaptations. And perhaps it's more noticeable there because so much of it is plot-driven rather than more nuanced things like dialogue and theme.

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Charan wrote:

On the flip side, you can get away with fairly standard villainy if the rest of the work is great. Again, I feel that's because there are other things going on and you don't really need a great antagonist to keep things interesting. Note that I switched from 'villain' to 'antagonist'. Once you pierce the skin of the hero/villain dichotomy you naturally arrive at the meat and bones of narrative: all villains are antagonists, but not all antagonists are villains. I think, in fact, that 'interesting villain' is almost a contradiction in terms. Once they become interesting, I start to see them less as a simple 'villain' and more as other terms we've mentioned here, such a anti-hero or antagonist. Even when that character is as blatantly evil as Satan. Again: who is ever the villain of their own story?

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Charan wrote:

Which brings us back to that ripsnorter by Bearky (...I am really struggling to come up with a good diminutive of BearCares).

I laughed my half arse off when I saw him call erd a Jedi, because I too remember that rant and was like '...this guy is either brilliant or doesn't read'

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Charan wrote:

but then I also remembered I'd somehow missed mention of Shakespeare in the same rant (in my defence it was a single line under a rant about Lucas' Prequel-era Jedi, which is a bit like hiding a piece of lobster under instant mac n cheese; if you'd referenced Filoni's work, things have been different).

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Charan wrote:

Total left-field villain: the man who called his boy 'Sue'.