From The Vampire Diaries, my favourite villain was Klaus. I love him to this day because of his complexity. He does horrible things, but I still feel sympathetic towards him because he's been traumatised and he still feels this fierce amount of love for the people closest to him.

speaking of the vampire daries i really enjoy klaus as a villan

I need to get on top of my shit and read a leigh bardugo book.

I really like Loki (Marvel) and Crowley (Supernatural). Other than that The Darkling (of course) and I've seen Klaus pop up in the comments so I'm glad to see him getting some love as well.

I completely agree with your choice of The Darkling. Even though I didn't really like the Grisha Trilogy but I ADORED The Darkling! He's my sweet baby trash boy 😂

The darkling is EVERYTHING.

The Darkling made it into my video, too. I think the fact that he masqueraded as a good guy for the whole first book made him an even better villain.

The Joker is without a doubt my favourite villain. I adore him.

The Darkling honestly is so well written there are times I'm like "No, baby don't do this to me" 😂 I'm pretty sure "Trash Husband" is the perfect name for him, like I can't help but love him so much

My favorite vampire diaries villians are Kai,Klaus, and Katherine. They're just awesome.

" he's bad but it's great " 😂😂😂 I love him too so much my favorite villain of all time 😭❤️❤️❤️

Omg Katherine Pierce will always be my top fave. Have definitely run my life asking what would Katherine do? 😂😂

Moriarty from Sherlock TV series

haha Sam I feel like we all knew you were gonna pick the darkling! lol

I'm on the Darkling as well. I remember when I first saw Buffy the Vampire slayer I wasn't such a Spike fan, because I was completely and thoroughly worshipping the heroes and stuff. After I rewatched it a couple of years ago for the first time in a while, I was definitely completely hooked. Hi is an awesome villain, and he has the best humor ever. I need to re-watch it again.

I really liked The Gentleman from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I love how he despises humanity but at the same time finds them so fascinating and at times beautiful. I have a soft spot for villains who don't really want to hurt the hero.

Same, the darkling is and will always be my favorite villain I love him sooo much.

I think it's a true sign of quality writing when an Author makes you hate a villain with passion. However, I think its even more of an accomplished when they make you love the villain. I think that is the one reason I love Shadow and Bone. I've never had so many mixed feelings about a character as I do for the Darkling. It got to the point that I actually found myself routing for him 🙄 He is the one villain I loved more than I hated. And SPOILER ALERT!!! I didn't even want to finish the last book because I knew he was going to die and I ended of shedding tears at the end 💔💔💔

YES TO SPIKE. He will always be my #1. I love a villain with some sort of redemption.

Kind of like how you love seeing Zeus as a villain, I love Julius Caesar in Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy. He's often seen as this glorious, heroic, tragically betrayed figure in pop culture with many of his failings glossed over, but it's waaaaay more complex than that, and Harris does a great job at bringing a different perspective.

Books: Maven Calore (he is despicable) Anime/manga: Zeref Dragneel (I have a lot of feelings) TV: Killgrave (stole every scene he was in, made you love to hate him)

I love how despicable Leck (from Grceling) is. And I adore that he is the link in all the stories of the trilogy.

Hi Sam!! Oh, yes!! Thank you for pointing out Zeus! He is awful and selfish and arrogant. Thank you very much!! And I hug you virtually (in case you are a hug person) for loving Katherine so much. I don't watch TVD anymore but she was one of my favorite characters!! Xx

Sam.... I'd love to see a video about what you touched on re: the Darkling and inner misogyny. I'm always fascinated how the "bad/villainous boy" character (who in real life would probably be in prison, lol) is such a fan favorite. :)

Ha! Love that we both had Spike on our list. Probably my favorite character in Buffy. :D

Yes! Spike and Drusilla are amazing. I love them. I also loved Glory.

Villains are also my favorite thing to talk about! I really enjoyed making this week's #T5W! Ooooh! Spike

Spike is my favorite character from Buffy. I love how funny he is. Now I must go binge some Buffy now.

OH MY GOD IM LIVING FOR YOUR BUFFY COLAB - and I'm 1000% on the Spike fave villain train

what I love about the Night Circus is that people sometimes have trouble figuring out if some people are villains or not

I especially enjoy villains that are portrayed as more dimensional than just being evil and are given understandable motives for their actions by the author. I don't really like villains that are just power hungry and want to rule the world. For these reasons I adore Zane from the Mistborn series and actually kind of shipped him with Vin. He just has so much inner conflict and has led such a bad life that it makes his actions understandable. I also really love to hate Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones. I definitely believe that we need more badass female villains around!

Amara from Falling Kingdoms. She is such a good villain in my eyes

my favorite villian is valentine and sebastion morgenstern from the mortal instruments and the Darkling from the Grisha trilogy!

Okay we all have to love The Darkling but I also loved that you included Katharine Pierce. She's such a bad ass.

My favourite villain would be The Captain (Captain Samuel Carver) from The Child Thief, because he's actually not a bad person, but he does a lot of bad things, all because of a great huge misunderstanding. He's just so different and he's actually honestly trying to do good, but what he thinks is good is bad and all that.

Adelina Amouteru, Sebastian Morgenstern, Queen Levana Blackburn, Victor Vale, Kilgrave, Harley Quinn, Scar (yes, from The Lion King), Darth Vader, Rasputin (from Anastasia), Peter "Mr. Scratch" Lewis (from Criminal Minds)

Some of my top favorite villains are: Light Yagami from Death Note Joseph Kavinsky from The Raven Cycle Hrathen from Elantris Great video!!

Kennit from Robin Hobb's Liveship books, Bellatrix from HP, Caine from Gone by Micheal Grant, Mrs Coulter from His Dark Materials, and Loki from any Nose mythology retellings are my five faves, I couldn't put them in order though, I love them all so much!

YESSSSSS BUFFY COLLAB. So here for it.

Yasssss Katherine Pierce!

I can't name five villains but two who terrified me as a child and still do are: 1. Big Brother from 1984, and 2. the pigs from Animal Farm. Especially, Big Brother still gives me the creeps and sends chills down my spine whenever I think about them...

I so relate to seeing Zeus as a villian in retellings like yes plz acknowledge how awful he as a person

Spike and Dru for the win! I loved every moment of them :) I also wanted to tell you I'm currently listening to Shadow and Bone

Ooh, I didn't think about adding TV & movie villains! I planned on doing this video, but for some reason I couldn't come up with 5 book/comics villains that I love/love to hate, just two. For some reason, villains on film work better for me. And I *loove* Spike and Dru, especially Dru!! It's great to see Buffy fans pop up all around Booktube!

i am beyond excited about this buffy collab !!

I love Katherine totally forgot about her but she's such an amazing villain!:D The Darkling had to be on my list too he is the ultimate villain for me:)

I almost included 'The Night Circus' im my T5W video, but ended up not putting it in. Because as I startet thinking about it, about the story and all the different characters and how they interact and which actions lead to which events and changes in characters, I couldn't decide who the villian was anymore. It is really strange and as you say 'The Night Circus' is such an interesting book and everytime I go back I discover something new about it :D

Definitely my favorite villain of all time will always be Sebastian from The Mortal Instruments. Others would be Valentine (TMI also), Count Olaf, Cole Turner from Charmed, and of course as and honorable mention the obvious Joker since I've been reading comics since it was a kid.

I was just sitting here waiting for this video to be uploaded. Every week is the same. Your videos make my Wednesday. I love your picks for 2 and 1. Both are amazing villains and I totally agree with what you're saying.

Off the top of my head the only villain that I can think of that I truly love is Hans Landa from Inglorious Basterds.

So excited for your upcoming Buffy collab video! I adore villain characters as well!

Great list! I absolutely love Katherine Pierce too, so amazing, haha! One of my favourite villains from tv-shows/books is probably Cerci from Game of Thrones, she is just a character I love to hate, and love again! (Plus of course Ramsey and Joffrey, but first and foremost Cerci.) Others are probably Babamukuru (from Nervous Conditions, not the conventional villain but I just hated him all the same), Tom Buchanan, Sauron, and naturally the Joker (especially Heath Ledgers version).

OMG Spike and Dru! I adore them so damn much! I love snarky baddies especially and Dru is so insane. Ugh! So good! I do also love Gloria from S5 I think, but Spike and Dru are definitely the best.

Zeus is one of my favorite villains as well. I will say he is fun to write, because he is slimy and clever and charming but also a complete and utter jerk that somehow in the original mythology, always finds a way to get what he wants.

I personally love seeing Zeus get dragged too 😂. My all time favorite is Cersei from the A Song of Ice and Fire. She is like my queen and I love her but I would hate to actually see her on the throne but she's such a great villain! And I still personally love Klaus from TVD and Originals. Despite everything, he is bae. And I'm currently reading the wicked and the divine (I've read volume 1) and you can't really tell who's the villain or not so far but I loved every character. Seriously. So far I love them all. 😂

one of my faves is Saint Dane from DJ MacHale's Pendragon series. Like he's the best kind, because he thinks what he's doing is right. Not evil just to be evil, ya know?

One of my favourite villains ever: Amarantha from ACOTAR. She's fucking CRAZY. Another villain/antagonist I like is Magneto from X-men - he is so thoroughly fleshed out, and his actions are fully justifiable given his history and point of view. I love the shit out of him.

The Regent from Captive Prince and Joffrey Baratheon are some of my faves - but not in a "gosh, I adore this awful evil baby" kind of way. More in the sense that their hideously painful deaths would please me greatly :') There's something so satisfying about an evil character who you can just wholeheartedly DESPISE.

I'm determined to participate in T5W soon! Villains that I loved to hate was the Commandant and the Warden from A Torch Against the Night. I listened to it on audiobook and the narrators voice was perfectly creepy for the Warden.

The Night Circus did everything right! (Seriously, it did every single trope right! You think it's going to be The Hunger Games in a circus, and it's NOT!)

The mercenaries from Warbreaker. I don't remember their names, but I loved how funny and evil they were

ok you really need to watch or read naoki urasawa's monster. it's an anime/manga but tbh it's more like a TV show. all of the characters r morally grey and complex especially the villain who I think is honestly the best character I've seen in anything ever.also a review of it after you've finished it would be great!

I've been rewatching Buffy over the last month! ^_^

I agree with you on Katherine so much she is the reason i watched the vampire diaries and the reason i couldn't watch it after she died! The same can be said with Klaus and him leaving the showI love him so much because of the humanity he shows with Caroline i love my evil babies and otp!

You should do a top 5 Wednesday with the topic "naughty or nice" and talk about your top 5 favorite morally gray characters

I would love to see your recommendations on books with morally gray main characters :) Hope you'll make this type of video someday xx

This may come as a surprise to many people when I say this, but my favorite villain is Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers.

my favorite villain has to be Moriarty from Sherlock

katherine pierce is ICONIC

literally I might have to film a longer version of this because I didn't even include comic book/manga/tv villains

Sebastian Morgenstern from the second half of the Mortal Instrument Series. He's a pretty sick dude but I actually kind of sympathized with him at times because really I think he was just a lonely person, along with other things. I don't know, just an interesting villain.

Christopher Carrion from the Abarat series by Clive Barker. Sulepis from the Shadowmarch series by Tad Williams. Morgra from The Sight by David Clement- Davies

I love to hate Prince Cel and Queen Andais from the Merry Gentry series by Laurell K Hamilton. They are so cruel and twisted - and yet can have moments of regret or sadness. So good ;-D

I knew going into this video I would encounter the Darkling, so naturally I clicked on it immediately.

I still havent read the books but I knew...I was thinking you may as well start with the darkling:P imma jump on them books 2017!

Katherine, yesssss! Omg I love her so much, she's such a queen! I love Glory from Buffy, I think she's my favourite Big Bad, even though the way they finally defeated her was kind of lame.

Aaaw, Katherine! ❤️❤️❤️

I love Klaus from TVD. OG vamp badass

I hate to correct you, but I really need to explain something, regarding ZEUS, who was indeed the good guy/god: It was Zeus's commitment to sire halfgods with human females. Since the moment, when Pandora opened the box, humankind was endangered. Not only did all the diseases and wars kill humankind, the other gods were playing with humans, like they were toys. So Zeus - who sees himself as the father of humankind and gods and although he LOVED his wife - was forced to sire halfgods, which were basically "gods who wandered on earth in the shape of humans". He had to sire MANY, so that they can protect humankind effectively from the gods. Also, unlike his godly siblings and children, he really did care for his halfgod offspring and did everything to protect them, but it was tricky. He couldn't bluntly interfere, he needed to trick many gods and people, in order to protect his offspring. But at the end, all his actions had the purpose FOR humankind (and against the gods, that's why the gods kind of hated him). His wife and sister Hera knew and respected Zeus's purpose as the father of humankind, but nontheless, she was very jealous and did horrible things, BUT, neither was she evil. In fact, she was the goddess of family love and married life. She just ... was angry sometimes, haha. The other gods let Zeus be what he is, because without Zeus's offspring, humankind had died long ago. But it's wrong to assume, that he was entirely good, he did had his evil side, because NO GOD was purely evil, or good. And also: You need to understand antic greek ethics: When Zeus was giving a human woman (or man, or any other creature. Zeus was pansexual) his interest, it was A TOTAL SIN, THE WORST SIN OF ALL FOR GREEKS, to refuse a god, or LOVE in general. Because no man and also no god is allowed to put himself over love. That is what the greek storys tell us: In the end, we are all flesh who love. And who can't love, is lost forever. If you really want to know more about Zeus, I would recommand reading all of the historybooks and the tales of Homer or Ovid, especially Ovid, who is my favorite. Not wikipedia or novels.

I considered putting the Night Circus in my top 5 - but I didn't think it applied because I didn't feel there were truly "villainous" characters, because I feel like villainy requires a malicious quality that those people didn't have. They were just negligent of human emotion and uncaring. But - it was a close thing. I very nearly put that one in there.

Oh god, I thought I was alone loving katherine

To be completely honest, i have never found book villains that i have really really loved. Voldemort and Bellatrix were obviosly great. I always found Voldemort's story trully fascinating and Bellatrix was fun and badass, but i never felt WOW I LOVE VOLDEMORT SO MUCH. The only villain that has EVER made me go "wow, that girl is pure evil but she is so fucking good at it", is Azula, from Avatar the last airbender. Im for real a fan. I even have a tshirt with her blue fire exploding from her body.

Yes!!! I love Katherine so much, she was wronged in the show the way they had her go out. But I love her so much. She's my number two, my number one is Naughty John from The Diviners cause he is straight up scary. Also A from Pretty Little Liars, The Joker from Batman and The Falconer from the Lies of Locke Lamora, I know he wasn't the main villain but he was still excellent and pretty funny

Sam, have you done a video of your favorite Hades/Persephone retellings?

I think you might be my TV spirit animal. I'm a huge fan girl of Buffy, VD, and The Walking Dead. I'm surprised you didn't mention that show since it has the best villains though.

Generally, the villains that I really enjoy are the ones that are on their own one-person crusades. They have a strong sense of morality, but their definitions/vantage points on morality just aren't quite the same as everyone else's; for instance, the pirate queen in "The Abyss Surrounds Us" (whose name is escaping me at the moment). she is brutal and does legitimately terrible things, but she seems to genuinely believe that she is in the right; that she's trying to help people who have been screwed over by the system find a place in the world and have a chance at life--a chance that the "moral", lawful system isn't giving them.

My fave Buffy villain is Angelus, followed by Dru.

Pause video....Darkling better be on this list! :-)

The Lord Ruler from the Mistborn trilogy, but I won't say why specifically because spoilers.

my favorite Buffy villain is glory

Regina Mills/The Evil Queen (does she count as a villain?), Rumplestiltskin (OUAT), Levana Blackburn, The Will (Saga), Nefarious (Ratchet and Clank) and Vendra Prog (Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus).

Omg I just filmed my video and just talked about Buffy and TVD ( most of my villains are vampires)

Hi I'm new to watching booktube.. have seen a few of your videos. I am really into mythology as well and now I want to read the Hades/Persephone retellings.. Also, I noticed that you have Three Dark Crowns on your shelf.. what is your opinion on that? I thought the idea was great but the execution was horrendous. Did you leave a review on goodreads?

Megatron

"Zeus is the ultimate fuckboy." -Ancient Greek Proverb/Sam, telling it like it is. Spike and Drusilla though. I love them so much. That was the first time I actually liked a villain in fiction, because I was a very good little girl who always hated the villains because they did bad things but then when I watched Buffy (I was probably like 10 or 11) I found myself rooting for Spike EVEN when he was still totally evil and it had me very confused. Spike probably started my love for villains. This is a weird one, but I also really love/hate Frollo from the Disney movie Hunchback of the Notre Dame (my fave Disney movie tbh, forever bitter that Esmeralda is not an official Disney Princess because that is just bs let's be real she's great). Like not in the sympathetic/attractive villain kind of way because he is just completely and utterly despicable, but I found him so terrifying as a child and I kinda still do, mostly because his character is actually pretty realistic, people like that really actually existed, and in a way, still do. Plus Hellfire is just a magnificent song, let's be real here.

I love The Darkling but I really disliked the good guys in that book so that I was more on his side so im like, do I love him because he was the only light in a book I might have really not liked? TV Villians beat book villians any day, Katherine is my bae, my eveything, my queen, my ultimate love, I just hands down love her which meant what happened to her made me devastated forever and the show was just never the same. That show does do some ultimate villians though, like the Michaelsons and Kai and you just love them. Supernatural is also another, especially for female villians like Meg, Ruby, Lilith. Just yes, give me them all.

Negan from TWD comics. Loki from the MCU. Kilgrave from Jessica Jones.

Not really a villain, more of grey area character with murky motives and machinations (ooh surprise alliteration hehe)... Lord Vetinari from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I love him SO MUCH!

Cersei Lannister, 'cause... Queen! Cinder from the Kingkiller chronicles and Ruin from Mistborn.

Love me some Katherine Pierce!