Hi, my name is Ellie Dashwood and today we'll be talking about the top
10 villains in Jane Austen's works.
So a lot of people focus on the Mr.
Darcys of Jane Austen's world.
And there are a lot of them.
However, there's also a lot of villains.
So this week we'll be going over the Austen villains and next week we'll
be going over the Austen villainesses, cause believe me, there are a lot of
villainesses in Austen's world too.
So we'll be counting down from the least worst of the villains to
the worst worst of the villains.
Also warning, there might be spoilers from Jane Austen's books in this.
Because I'm going to be discussing why these villains are villains and
often they're villainousness is not exposed till later in the books.
So spoiler disclaimer.
Number 10 is Mr.
Collins from Pride and Prejudice.
This is Mr.
Darcy.
Don't get them confused.
We often think of him just as a more innocuous, rather awkward character.
Just makes everything awkward.
However, he does have a little bit of meanness to him, when he
comes around to congratulation himself on his own happy position,
after Lydia has fallen from grace.
So that's why Mr.
Collins is number 10 on this list.
Also, he's just super awkward.
And he was kind of mean when he's like, "Nobody else is going to
want to marry you, Elizabeth."
well, he was also wrong.
Number nine is Mr.
Elton from Emma.
Mr.
Elton from Emma was a one-time suitor of Harriet, but he was
actually a suitor of Emma.
She's just...
Emma just thought he was a suitor of Harriet.
But then once Emma calls him out on it, when he's like, "I love you."
And then she's like, "but you like Harriet."
And he's like, "no, I don't.
She's way beneath me."
And then Emma's like, "I still don't like you dude."
Well, after that, we see Mr Elton's true character.
He totally humiliates Harriet at the ball and he's just all around
jerk for the rest of the show.
And he's also married to one of my least favorite Austen
villainesses, which is Mrs.
Elton.
But that is next week.
Eight is also from Emma and it is Frank Churchill.
So we're getting into deeper stuff.
Like Mr.
Collinsand Mr.
Elton is one thing, but we're slowly getting into the
depths of the Austen villains.
So Frank Churchill makes Emma think that he's in love with her and
pretends not to be engaged when he is secretly already engaged and he
is fooling and lying to everybody.
And he is just a liar.
And everyone forgives him in the end, you know, which is always
a sort of an interesting thing.
He is a Austen villain, who everyone ends up liking in the end anyway.
Seven.
General Tilney from Northanger Abbey.
If you haven't read or watch Northanger Abbey, you really should.
I love this version so you can go check it out.
They do a great job of representing General Tilney.
He's just mean.
He is all about money.
He wants his children to marry money.
He's super mean to his children.
He's super mean to everybody.
As soon as he finds out that Catherine Morland doesn't
really have that much money.
He like kicks her out into the middle of the night to ride on
public transportation, which at the time she could totally ended
up dead and he just didn't care.
He's just very greedy and he's not nice.
And he's just not nice.
Number six is John Thorpe who's also from Northanger Abbey.
Northanger Abbey, I realize has a lot of really bad male characters in it.
John Thorpe hopes that marry Catherine Morland himself and is trying
to essentially force her into an engagement that she doesn't want.
He's very manipulative and lying and is trying just to use Catherine for
the money that he imagined she has.
And also when he finds out she doesn't have any money and she turns him down.
He like turns on her really bad.
So John Thorpe?
Nope.
Ain't nobody got time for him.
Another one from Northanger Abbey.
Number five on the list is Captain Tilney.
Who is Henry Tilney's older brother.
Now he is a whole other type of Jane Austen villain.
So far we have the super irritating ones like Elton and Mr.
Collins.
Then we have the ones that aren't super irritating but they're just
sort of mean, or they just lie a lot or they just aren't nice guys.
Like theCaptain Tilney starts this off on a whole other category of
men in Jane Austen's works, which is the guys who are just around
trying to get girls sleep with them.
So Captain Tilney seduces Isabella in Northanger Abbey, and is just
an all around jerk and breaks Catherine Morland's brother's hearts
and uses people and is not nice.
So he's just, that's why he's number five on this list.
If you didn't want to be on the list , he should have been a better guy.
Number four is Mr.
Elliot from Persuasion.
Here's Persuasion for you.
So Mr.
Elliot, let's see.
So even on here, you saw in here somewhere.
Mr.
Elliot is Anne's cousin who is to inherit the estate and he's not very nice.
But at first you don't know that he's like, "Oh, okay."
And he starts like really hitting on Anne.
And you're like, "Oh, maybe she's finally finding love because Captain
Wentworth is busy being dumb."
But then you start to find out that he is plotting and his real
big dream is to prevent Anne's father from getting remarried.
So Anne's father can't have a son who will inherit the state instead of Mr.
Elliot.
And Mr.
Elliott even promises to make his uncle's new girlfriend, his mistress
and keep her in London and away from his uncle so that there will be no heir.
Meanwhile, he's going to marry Anne, which is just so much double crossing and evil
plotting, and having mistresses in London.
And that is why he's on this list of villains.
Number three is Henry Crawford from Mansfield Park.
Mansfield Park is I believe probably one of Jane Austen's lesser
known works probably partially because it was a really big book.
It goes on for a long time.
I really sort of avoided reading this book for a long time
because I'm like, "I don't know.
It doesn't seem that interesting."
But, should you really ever doubt Jane Austen's literary genius?
No, no, you should not because I've read it and I loved it.
And this is one of my favorite Jane Austen books now.
In it, we meet Henry Crawford.
Who is an interesting character because unlike the next two gentlemen, we're
going to discuss in this video, he's rich.
He has enough money to live a comfortable lifestyle.
He doesn't have to seduce anyone for their money or anything.
He's just sort of goes around, seducing people for the fun of it.
And of course he falls madly in love with Fanny, who is the very
pure in character in Mansfield Park.
But Fanny's like, "Um, I seen you already like really flirting
inappropriately with all my cousins.
And that's really super awkward now that you're all like saying
you're in love with me and just, no, no, that's not going to happen."
But he doesn't want to take no for an answer.
So he tries to become a better man.
And he's like, "why don't you love me?"
Anyway, needless to say, he tries to win Fanny over it.
And she keeps being like, "But I know you to be a guy low moral character."
And he's like, "no, I'm changing."
And then he runs off with her married cousin and has an
affair with her married cousin.
And totally ruins the family's peace and equanimity.
They're all like in total drama.
Helps everyone appreciate Fanny a whole lot more.
But that is why he's number three on our list because A, he's just
sort of a scoundrel all the time.
B, he runs off with her married cousin.
And three, I think the reason I ranked them so high on this
list too, is because I genuinely think he was in love with Fanny.
But, he's too much of a scoundrel to be like, "I'm going to be true to Fanny."
He just instead runs off and has an affair, which is sort of sad in itself.
Number two is the very, very famous one, Mr.
Wickham from Pride and Prejudice.
Oh, Mr.
Wickham, you probably seen in the Dashie Notes episode, I just did about regency
marriage and eloping to Gretna Green, that he is the one who had Lizzy's
younger sister run off with him to elope.
But then he didn't elope with her and actually marry her.
He just had her shack up in London and ruin her life and
all of her family's life too.
And this isn't the first time he tried to do that either.
He already tried to seduce Darcy's younger sister, because she was rich.
I mean, this is just, he's just not a nice guy, Mr Wickham.
And that is why he is number two on this list.
Now for the number one villain in Jane Austen's works.
After going through all the villains, I was like organizing
them into worseness levels.
And for some reason, even though some of these other ones, have
done a lot more stuff, but I think the really the worst one is Mr.
Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility.
And not only did he seduce a 15 year old, get her pregnant and then leave her.
But then he went and made like Marianne fall in love with him.
And she was genuinely in love with them.
And then he like broke her heart.
Not only when it came out that he got a 15 year old pregnant, but also
because he ran off and he married Miss Gray with her 50,000 pounds.
Which is just so sad for everyone.
Again, then he didn't even like his wife, he's like speaking ill of his wife later.
He's like, "Oh,I don't even like her."
So he has now hurt the girl he got pregnant, hurt Marianne and hurt his
wife, but now she's stuck with him.
And too, he's just so...
I don't know if he's irritating.
He's like going around spouting poetry, but in reality, he's just like the
most unromantic guy we know because he doesn't understand what true love is.
He doesn't understand caring about another person really is.
He's kind of in love with himself mostly because I think he has like this mental
image of himself that he's not a villain.
But he really is.
Just watch this movie or read this book and you'll see how bad Mr.
Willoughby is breaking Marianne's heart.
And that is why he's number one on this whole list.
So those are the top 10 villains from Jane Austin's novels.
I hope you've enjoyed going over them and their horrible exploits with me.
Next week, we'll be talking about the villainesses because there are a lot
of very bad girls in Jane Austen's works and we'll get to talk about them.
Make sure to subscribe to my channel for more videos and also go over and
check me out on Instagram @elliedashie.
More links in the bio down there, or the description.
Whatever you call that thing.
Anyway, have an awesome day and also comment below, who do you think is the
worst Austen villain out of all of these?