a memorable villian from any type of media (books, games, movies, etc.)

[Orks da best]

you can say more then one villian if you please.

For me it would Discord, from mlp:fim season 2, because hes not a sterotype villian, hes the ponies joker, though with a magic as a weapon.

 

[Doitpow]

Game:
Shodan "I see you hacker"
and by association Andrew Ryan
meglomaniacs hiding behind philosophical superiority complexes

Book:

Mr Noboby (cookie?) "you don't understand, the doses have to be very fucking precise."
ever so freaking uncanny

Movie:
HAL 9000

it's got to be HAL, no?

 

[Jonluw]

Obviously.

Games and books?
Uh... you know I have a hard time thinking of anything.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

Shodan, by far.

"L-L-look at you, hacker."

 

[StorytellingIsAMust]

Book?

Godking Garoth Ursuul (Night Angel Trilogy): This guy is the quintessential evil emperor, and he's all the more awesome because of this. He's got literally hundreds of heirs fighting for his throne, he has an obsession with conquest and immortality, he's got a wide and extensive harem, he's got magic that feeds of his life energy, he's got a nation that worships him as a God...yeah, that's pretty memorable.

Comic?

Magneto (X-Men): This guy is the most fascinating villain I have ever read in comics. His only goal is to end the discrimination of mutants at the hands of humans...just like Professor X does. The only problem...he wants to kill all the humans and rule Earth himself because that's the only way he thinks that it's possible to save all the mutants. Plus he's got magnets, and how do they work?

Movie?

Ooh, this is hard. I'll go with Tajomaru(Rashomon). Why? Well, because it's never clear if he's the villain or not. I won't say any more than that because I don't want to spoil this amazing movie classic.

TV (American)?

Sylar (Heroes): There is no better badass. A superpowered serial killer that targets other superhumans by cutting their heads open and stealing their powers? Awesome villain.

Anime?

Shinobu Sensui (Yu Yu Hakusho): You've been protecting humans from demons ever since you were thirteen. You find out that humans have been torturing innocent demons and that your black and white value system is completely wrong. You snap, and decide to kill all humans by opening a portal to the demon realm and allowing the most powerful monsters in all of creation to have their way with the squishy humans. Yet you still honestly believe that you are fighting on the side of justice. Sensui, you are an awesome, awesome, awesome villain!

Game?

GLaDOS (Portal): If you don't know anything about GLaDOS, go play Portal. Now. Easily the funniest villain ever, yet still one of the creepiest and most disturbing.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Vorbis from the book Small Gods of The Discworld Series. You can read any Discworld book in order since the order is very loose (for the most part). Anyway, Vorbis reads almost exactly like many of the other characters of his type: Vorbis is a high priest in the Temple of Om and of course, he's hungry for much more power. During the course of the book, he tricks the main character into helping him usurp the throne of Ephebe. He sends the Cenobiarch (I think) of his own Chuch away, likely to die, and when the main character journeys through the desert, saving Vorbis life by carrying him back to Om, Vorbis responds by knocking out said main-character and claiming that he himself is a Prophet. Vorbis isn't the kind of man who would turn a turtle on it's back just to watch it struggle, he's the kind of person who would turn a God on it's back to watch it writhe.

He's a bastard from start to his Death but the main protagonist never leaves him for dead (spoiler warning: The bad guy dies.)

 

[Brawndo]

 

[octafish]

Richard the Third is my favorite, because well Iago is just too evil.

Oh and Shodan of course...

Good. You've murdered their young... and prevented their escape.

 

[Stein Inge]

A few spring to mind but these are the ones that scared/freaked me out the most:

Brother Justin from the TV-show "Carnivale". Why? Hard to put into words... Just watch the show and you will see!

Herr Starr from the comic "Preacher". A ruthless,power-hungry, sexually "open-minded" executioner for an all-powerful organization called "The Grail". Quote: "Madame Prime Minister, how much would it cost to piss in your mouth? Seriously."

In a game the best villain by far is (as many have said before me) GLaDOS.

 

[tzimize]

Duke Igthorn from Gummibears. Because of the most awesome voice acting since Kain.

The Lord Ruler from Mistborn trilogy (books). Fantastic villain with a great backstory.

 

[Azahul]

The Baron Mannfred von Richtofen (aka, the Red Baron) in the book The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman, second in the Anno Dracula series. An ace fighter pilot (based on the historical flying ace of the same name) who had scores of confirmed kills even before a series of experiments gave the entire Flying Circus the ability to shapeshift into massive bat-things armed with machine guns and capable of tackling enemy planes in mid-air.

In his more human form, the Baron was still pretty badass. His brother was a murderous bastard, but at least that man had a sense of humour. The Baron was just a soldier, who fully expected to die before the war ended. He was an interesting, seems pretty one dimensional at first, but his biographer (Edgar Allan Poe) managed to wheedle and tease some emotion out of the guy by the end of the book, which leant an interesting perspective on his character.

As a lesser note, Jack the Ripper in the first book of that series was also pretty cool, but that was mostly because I'd read Dracula and it was rather chilling to see what had been a somewhat heroic figure in one book turn into a total psychopath in the "what if" scenario. Dracula himself in the same book was pretty awe-inspiring, I vastly preferred the tone Anno Dracula took with portraying himself as a power-hungry barbarian rather than the suave, sophisticated look he often gets given. Given that the character (in Anno Dracula, certainly) is supposed to be the historical Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), that made a lot of sense, and made for a pretty nasty character.

 

[Roberto Hadi]

Game: Director Starkweather from Manhunt. Voiced by Brian Cox. It's a little like Glados (A voice comenting your actions, sarcastic disposition...), but EVIL. And also Pigsie from the same game is very "memorable".
Tv: Ryan O'reilly and Adebisi from Oz.
Manga: Retsudo Yagyu from Lone Wolf & Cub.

 

[Furioso]

Anime?

Shinobu Sensui (Yu Yu Hakusho): You've been protecting humans from demons ever since you were thirteen. You find out that humans have been torturing innocent demons and that your black and white value system is completely wrong. You snap, and decide to kill all humans by opening a portal to the demon realm and allowing the most powerful monsters in all of creation to have their way with the squishy humans. Yet you still honestly believe that you are fighting on the side of justice. Sensui, you are an awesome, awesome, awesome villain!

Agreed, that entire season was a morality mindfuck, especially with that kid with the video game based powers. Also Toguro for his sheer power, the glasses, and how he chose to handle going to the spirit world

 

[Tree709]

I've always loved Kane from the tiberian plot line of C&C (Not counting 4!)The man has an IQ through the roof, managed to get most of the worlds population to follow him as through he were a god (you can't kill the Messiah!) and he CAN'T DIE; not from age (he's at least 200 years old), and not from weaponry (an ION canon in space shot him and he was back in the net game).
What makes him best is how grand his plots are without really revealing what it is he's trying to accomplish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKy4BdOVsZI

 

[StrixMaxima]

The vampires in the "I am Legend" book, by Richard Matheson. The barely appear, but their presence, physical, unseen or metaphorical is just oppressing. A metaphor to many of our modern maladies.

Also, Iago, in Shakespeare's Othello. What a fascinating character, and what wondrous text.

In movies, I think the best villains of all time are the Nihilists from "The Big Lebowski". I also love Christopher Lee's Draculas. He barely speaks in most of the Hammer Cycle movies, but he has a presence that's fantastic.

In games, my heart goes to all goblins, orcs and random enemies that ever graced our screens. You are the greatest, folks.

 

[mikey7339]

you can say more then one villian if you please.

For me it would Discord, from mlp:fim season 2, because hes not a sterotype villian, hes the ponies joker, though with a magic as a weapon.

That was Q, he just got tired of harassing the Enterprise and decided to go screw with another universe.

And somebody has something to say to all the other villains listed here...

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Nightmare Moon
Darth Vader
Dr Evil
Sauron
Dr Robotnik/Eggman
GLaDOS

 

[Roofstone]

Obviously.

Games and books?
Uh... you know I have a hard time thinking of anything.

This, obviously.
My fav villain ever.

 

[Dejanus]

Book: Norman Arminger in S. M. Stirling's Dies The Fire, takes a special kind of crazy to turn the greater Portland area and most of Oregon and Washington state into a neo-Norman feudal kingdom after a Technology disrupting cataclysm. That special kind being absolute genius.

Movie: The Replicant Roy from Blade Runner, that soliloquy is one of the best ever written.

Game: Teryn Loghain from Dragon Age. Textbook example of a heroic figure who does evil things out of understandable paranoia and prejudice, yet has good intentions. Reading his back story in The Stolen Throne and seeing who he has become by the time of Origins is very revealing. Your Origins character can't really help but see him as a monster, the player may have a better perspective. I just love how both the good and evil in the man are present simultaneously, neither downplayed for the other.

Anime: Depending on how you view him, Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass. Mainly because he would be the hero in any other story, and manages to be vaguely sinister and despicable here. His foil in the anti-hero protagonist Lelouch provides some great dichotomy.

 

[phats_cocks_strangla]

Oh man, I gotta say mines Shitload from John Dies at the End, I cant wait for the movie, shit looks intense