Top Ten Tuesday: Villains

Posted September 9, 2025 by Nicky in General / 26 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “villains”, which I’m finding pretty tricky to fulfil… but let’s see what I can do!

Cover of The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù Cover of Heaven Official's Blessing vol 8 by MXTX Cover of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Cover of Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey Cover of Magic Triumphs by Ilona Andrews

  1. Shen Qingqiu, from The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu). Well, okay, the original Shen Qingqiu is not that inventive as a villain… and to say we’re talking about Shen Yuan mostly removes his claim to be on this list. But I thought I’d be funny and give a nod to him for anyone else who knows the fandom. The real villain is Shen Yuan’s internalised homophobia and general obliviousness to Luo Binghe’s feelings, though, am I right?
  2. White No-Face (Bai Wuxiang), from Heaven Official’s Blessing (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu). This guy is a genuine villain. No spoilers for his true identity, but he torments Xie Lian and orchestrates his fall from grace, and makes it so that he can’t die no matter what happens to him. Xie Lian suffers immensely just from that, but White No-Face also gets into his head and warps his reality, trying to damage his essential goodness. He’s a hell of a villain, even without getting into the spoilery stuff.
  3. Anaander Mianaai, from Ancillary Justice (Ann Leckie). Anaander is a really fascinating villain, divided against herself due to her many bodies, and somehow managing to hold it all in balance and keep secrets against herself. She’d be run of the mill as a mere tyrant, but her war against herself makes her fascinating.
  4. Melisande Shahrizai de la Courcel, from Kushiel’s Dart (Jacqueline Carey). Melisande is a complicated figure, with her own motivations that from her point of view are perfectly reasonable. She’s a villain because we care about the characters she moves against, and she’s amoral on her way to her planned victory… but if she’d succeeded in her aims, history might’ve cast her as a hero.
  5. Roland, from the Kate Daniels series (Ilona Andrews). This one’s a long story, much of it spoilery for anyone who hasn’t read the whole series. There’s never any doubt, though: Roland will crush anything that doesn’t go the way he plans.
  6. Kossil, from The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula Le Guin). The Nameless Ones are formless, dark and terrifying, but they’re like forces of nature. Kossil is self-serving, cruel, and motivated by worldly power. Her evil is so mundane compared to the dark weight of the Nameless Ones, which… actually makes her more awful.
  7. Governer David Tate, from Feed (Mira Grant). A right-wing conspiracy taking advantage of a zombie plague is all too realistic, so I couldn’t pass this one up. It’s just the tip of the iceberg, of course (further awfulness follows in the later books). But no spoilers…
  8. The Company, from The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells). It looms large over Murderbot’s existence, so much so that Murderbot won’t even say the name of the Company and edits it out of everything it says and remembers. Capitalism’s everything in the Corporation Rim, and arguably the whole system is the villain here, but the Company is certainly a potent avatar of it.
  9. Lancelot, from The Winter King (Bernard Cornwell). It’s rare for Lancelot to be cast as a villain — and admittedly he’s a very petty one — but this one’s memorable because it’s a very unusual choice to portray Lancelot as a small and cowardly run-of-the-mill villain, rather than some kind of tortured hero.
  10. Regal Farseer, from Assassin’s Apprentice (Robin Hobb). Regal’s pretty much never likeable on the page, and his arc is pretty obvious from the outset, so in a way he’s a very obvious and unsubtle villain, and not exactly a favourite of mine. Still, he’s certainly memorable.

Cover of The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin Cover of Feed by Mira Grant Cover of All Systems Red by Martha Wells Cover of The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell Cover of Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

It took me a while, but I did it! I’m very curious what villains other people will name, though I spotted a lot of people going off-piste this week, so far…

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26 responses to “Top Ten Tuesday: Villains”

    • Nicky

      It really depends on the portrayal, in the end! It can be weird when people cast Gawain as an idiot or villain, given I originally read stories where he was a hero.

      Reply
    • Nicky

      I did find that I couldn’t think of the villains in most mystery stories, even though there often is one! It’s just not what’s memorable, somehow.

      Reply

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