How about Milton's engaging Satan and Shakespeare's Iago and Claudius - Hamlet's Unc. - I've always found him extremely attractive?
And although we've been here before - Hannibal Lecter - scrumptious!

Jan -- Glad you are feeling better. I watched the movie "The Silence of the Lambs" for the first time a few weeks ago. Is your "Hannibal Lecter" based on the movie or the book? Anthony Hopkins was so perfect in the movie that I am wondering if the "book Hannibal" can even approach his portrayal of the character? I'll find out because I just bought the book at a library sale.

Hmm, I thought I would find it easier to name really good, wicked characters. But on further reflection I realized that many of those I thought of weren't completely wicked; they were more unscrupulous and scheming by circumstance and necessity (specifically I was thinking of Becky Sharp). Oh, what the hey, I'll just mention the ones that popped into my head.
Mrs. Danvers
Henry Faber aka The Needle in Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle
Victor Komarovsky is by far the most intriguing character in Doctor Zhivago, in my opinion
The Jackal in Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal
Dimitrios Makropoulos in Eric Ambler's A Coffin for Dimitrios (original British title: The Mask of Dimitrios)
Milady de Winter and Cardinal Richelieu (Dumas's versions)
Moses Pray and Trixie Delight in Joe David Brown's Paper Moon (original title: Addie Pray)
Rascally Luke Freepot of Fort Phantom Hill and Mr. Wainwright with his fabulous diamond stickpin in Pursuit of Gentlemen, and come to think of it: Drusilla's New York City kinswomen, Aunt Serenity and beautiful cousin Abigail, though maybe not wicked in the strictest sense but certainly having superiority complexes.

How about the talented Mr Ripley?

I have to chime in with Becky Thorpe from Vanity Fair.

Janalyn - and anyone else who hasn't read Thomas Harris - you will be surprised at the elegance and erudition of his prose and his facility for portraying HL, despite his horrible proclivities, as a very seductive - intellectual, philosphical, and glamourous (in its correct definition) protagonist.
Read and enjoy - far more subtle and engaging than the celluloid presentation of his novels.

There's the wonderful Lord Byron himself, of course - the original of the 'Byronic Hero', 'mad, bad and dangerous to know who is not unlike his own creation, Childe Harold:

For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,
Nor made atonement when he did amiss,
Had sigh'd to many though he loved but one,
And that loved one, alas! could ne-er be his.
Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss
Had been pollution unto aught so chaste;
Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss,
And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste,
Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste.
(Canto 1, stanza V)

Valmont from "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Both the movie and the translated book.

Hannibal the Cannibal? I will forever look to the ceiling of an elevator before the doors close thanks to the SOTL movie. Lecter, to me, is Blue Duck aka Manburner (Lonesome Dove), all dressed up. (to be fair, Thomas Harris' books do not appeal to me.)

Some sympathetic villains I have loved:
Gollum - LotR
Medusa from various accounts

Others who I felt were great villains that added substance to the story:
Cathy - East of Eden
General Woundwort - Watership Down

However, one character I have thoroughly despised for having no redeeming qualities:
Rodolphe - Madame Bovary (I'd love to see him imbibe the rat poison)

I cannot wait to read Madame Bovary. I'm going on vacation next week and it is travelling with me.

I think that for a wicked character to be successful they cannot be one dimensional. They need to be complex with the reader always wondering if they can be saved or if there is the slightest possibility of redemption. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't matter but the slight possibility makes the character tantalizing and human.

That was one of the major problems I had with The Kite Runner. **spoilers ahead and you won't understand anything if you haven't read the book: The evil guy (of course he had to be blond and half-German) was so thoroughly evil he didn't seem real. I found him unbelievable, just a cliche. There was one scene near the end when he wants to fight the protagonist (can't remember his name) and tells the guards outside his office that they are to let whoever wins go. This rang false. There is no way that Mr. Evil would have said that to his guards because a) he would never have considered that he might lose and b) Mr. Evil's nature was such that he would have expected them to blast the protagonist if he walked out of there alive. The way he was portrayed in the novel, he had no sense of fairness. He was utterly black.

Frieda mentioned the 'Dark Materials' Mrs Coulter in another thread - I would nominate her partner in crime, Lord Azrael.

Anyanka, it was Janalyn who mentioned the "Dark Materials" characters. I haven't read Pullman, but perhaps I should!

No one yet has mentioned Count Dracula (in Stoker's original and countless spin-offs): he certainly had/has an alluring way about him -- but he might not be redeemable. I'm not really up on Anne Rice's famous vampire (can't think of his name), but I've heard many a reader with a swoon in the voice and a fluttering hand to the heart describe him.

Zeke, the captain of The Narwhal in Andrea Barrett's The Voyage of the Narwhal, could qualify. He gets more and more despotic, yet there is something about him...

Janalyn - are you going to read MB in translation - if so, which one have you chosen - there are subtle differences?
I know this because I taught it as a literary text a few years ago alongside a French teacher with the original - and it was in particular with regard to Randolphe's behaviour ( made him even more of a cad)- and a few oher subtleties lo always caught in all translations.

It's an Oxford World Classic "A new translation by Margaret Mauldon." I love the cover illustration, see below.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2117446}}

that the painting was done by James Tissor, 1870.

Frieda - I don't think you'd enjoy His Dark Materials since it's a fantasy, albeit one that can be read on many levels. Adults would read it in a different way than adolescents. It's actually based on John Milton's Paradise Lost.

I just ordered the Margaret Mauldon translation online - this minute!- have read the Amazon reviews - many thanks for putting me onto this edition - I'm so glad I asked the question.

Re the character of Rodophe, in Mme B., vile seducer as he is, nevertheless it is into his mind that Flaubert puts the following, sublime observation:

'....human language is like a cracked kettledrum on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, when what we long to do is make music that will move the stars to pity. '

(tr. Margaret Mauldon, p. 170)

Doesn't that make you want to weep?

Dido

Yes - it is an anguish we all share and from which we cannot. iut seems, escape.

- I have posted this previously - and do so now as an echo.
Please do not think me patronising in any way but for anyone who hasn't read Melville 'Billy' refers to the beautiful innocent young sailor in his novella about the British Royal navy - 'Billy Budd'.

(Extract from Melville by Auden)

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table,
And we are introduced to Goodness every day,
Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults;
He has a name like Billy and is almost perfect,
But wears a stammer like a decoration:
And every time they meet the same thing has to happen;
It is the Evil that is helpless like a lover
And has to pick a quarrel and succeeds,
And both are openly destroyed before our eyes.

Jankin,

Thank you for that. I'm going to look up the rest of the Auden poem: I've got a 'Collected Works' but don't remember seeing it in there. Sometimes poets have several 'Collected works' though, and I think Auden was one of those who went off certain things he wrote and tried to expunge them. Anyway, I'll look.

Dido

I went on the Internet and was unable to find Auden's wonderful poem, "Melville" in its entirety. Anyone?

Mary,

I would oblige if I could, but just for now my Dearest Love has secreted my Auden to a place known only unto himself... because I reminded him of how wonderful Auden is by reading him some of the poems.

So anyway, when I find it (I could always ask him), if no-one else has put the poem, I will post it here for you.

Dido

HERMAN MELVILLE
(for Lincoln Kirstein)

Towards the end he sailed into an extraordinary mildness,
And anchored in his home and reached his wife
And rode within the harbour of her hand,
And went across each morning to an office
As though his occupation were another island.

Goodness existed: that was the new knowledge.
His terror had to blow itself quite out
To let him see it; but it was the gale had blown him
Past the Cape Horn of sensible success
Which cries: ÂThis rock is Eden. Shipwreck here.Â

But deafened him with thunder and confused with lightning:
- The maniac hero hunting like a jewel
The rare ambiguous monster that had maimed his sex,
Hatred for hatred ending in a scream,
The unexplained survivor breaking off the nightmare -
All that was intricate and false; the truth was simple.

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table,
And we are introduced to Goodness every day,
Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults;
He has a name like Billy and is almost perfect,
But wears a stammer like a decoration:
And every time they meet the same thing has to happen;
It is the Evil that is helpless like a lover
And has to pick a quarrel and succeeds,
And both are openly destroyed before our eyes.

For now he was awake and knew
No-one is ever spared except in dreams;
But there was something else the nightmare had distorted -
Even the punishment was human and a form of love:
The howling storm had been his fatherÂs presence
And all the time he had been carried on his fatherÂs breast.
Who now had set him gently down and left him.
He stood upon the narrow balcony and listened:
And all the stars above him sang as in his childhood
ÂAll, all is vanity, but it was not the same;
For now the words descended like the calm of mountains -
- Nathaniel had been shy because his love was selfish -
Reborn, he cried in exultation and surrender
ÂThe Godhead is broken like bread. We are the pieces.Â

And sat down at his desk and wrote a story.

W.H.Auden

It might be time for another poetry thread!

Possibly a bit unsophisticated - Severus Snape from the Harry Potter books immediately springs to mind. Complex, enigmatic, frightfully intelligent and accomplished, tall and dark (though not handsome). This is a children's book? Oh dear!

Dido, thanks so much! I really love the work of Auden and this one is wonderful....

My daughters got Frankenstein and The Phantom of the Opera in their stockings this Christmas. Shelley's original (non-cinematographic) monster has always been a fascinating villain for me, as well as old Victor himself, as he wasn't a particularly nice guy in the original story. (Actually, I feel the "monster" is less of a monster than Victor.) I'd never read The Phantom of the Opera before, nor had I seen the play or movie versions, so when I read this last week, I was quite delighted with what droll entertainment it is. I hope my daughter is as entertained. Erik is a fascinating, though "out there" bad guy. However, I must confess, for me, the single most interesting character in this book is the Paris Opera House itself. (Has anyone read _Thrones, Dominations_ by Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh? A theater has a pale similarity to the Paris Opera House in that novel.) I tend to appreciate well-conceived villains. They help me dive ever so much deeper into the story being told. Snape, even more than Voldemort, makes me appreciate Harry, Dracula gives Van Helsing a reason to exist, and what is Paradise Lost without Satan?