Welcome back to Book Break!
And get ready to get terrified, because in today's episode, we're going to be talking
all about the best villains in literature.
Or I should say the worst villains in literature, the ones that always scared me the most.
So everyone's got their favourites, I won't be able to list them all, so please do leave
a comment below, letting me know which villain from which book always terrified you the most.
But I've got, appropriately, an unlucky number 13 of the ones that I think are the scariest
villains you'll find in any book, to talk to you about today.
But first, let me just show you where I am.
So this is the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies Shop.
This is, strictly speaking, just a shop for monsters.
But they very kindly let me in even though I am just a human.
This is where monsters come to stock up on all their terrifying needs.
So let's have a look around.
So I'm going to talk about my first three villains up here by the death certificates.
So if you want to be officially certified as a member of the undead, the kind staff
at this job will fill out this very morbid death certificate for you.
Love that.
And if that doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will, but probably Iago from Othello.
Because he is one of the most dangerously likeable villains in literature.
Right from the beginning of the play, he really draws you into his plan.
And a lot of his lines are delivered to the audience, but kind of off the side of his
mouth, so you feel like he's talking directly to you and that you're conspiring with him.
So he's a very complex villain, but a lot more just flat out simple and terrifying one
is Shere Khan from The Jungle Book.
So his motive is a lot more simple than Iago's.
He just straight up wants to eat Mowgli.
And throughout the stories that make up The Jungle Book, Shere Khan keeps popping up,
always with some new plan to sink his teeth into Mowgli.
And one more while I'm here, just because these Petrified Mice reminded me of her.
The Grand High Witch from The Witches.
So the Grand High Witch leads a society of witches, whose whole mission is dedicated
to torturing and killing children.
Like, how was that not supposed to terrify us?
Well one of their plans, you may remember, was to turn all of the children into mice
first, so that they could then kill them.
So these mice are giving me the heebie-jeebies.
But they also look delicious, because I love sugar mice.
Now, while I'm standing next to an actual human brain, it seems appropriate to talk
about the cleverest mastermind villain of them all.
And that is of course Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Now if you haven't read the books, you won't know quite how clever Moriarty is as a villain.
We the reader never actually see him up until the story The Final Problem, where he finally
makes an appearance.
Other than that, we just hear about him, or catch tiny glimpses.
Like the one time Watson sees a tall man disappearing into a crowd.
And that makes him so much scarier, never knowing quite where he's going to show up,
and just trusting Sherlock Holmes that Moriarty is capable of evil genius we cannot even imagine.
I'm picking the brain up again for this next one, because I just like holding it.
So, warning, spoilers ahead for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but if you
don't know the twist yet, how?
Don't know where you've been hiding.
But skip ahead a few seconds if you don't want to know that, spoiler, Mr Hyde and Dr
Jekyll are the same person.
And that's what makes Mr Hyde such a terrifying villain.
It's the fact that he's actually just the darkest corners of Dr Jekyll's own personality.
It just leaves you thinking about what kind of monster could be lurking inside your own
brain?
I'm going to put this brain down now, it's giving me the creeps.
OK, I'm glad I put that brain down, otherwise it could have got a bit gory talking about
this next one.
Because the next villain on my list is Hannibal Lecter.
So Dr Hannibal Lecter is charming and suave and very well respected, other than the fact
he has a habit of killing people and eating their bodies.
But in particularly gourmet ways, because he's a classy chap.
To talk about our next vampire villain, I thought it would be appropriate to come over
to the Guts & Garlic Chutney, which by the way, looks delicious.
I may have been in this shop too long and am turning into an actual monster.
So who is the most famous vampire villain?
It is of course Count Dracula.
And a lot of the adaptations paint Dracula in a much more sympathetic light, turning
him into this man pining for a long-lost love, who was turned into a vampire against his
own will.
But if you go back to the source material, you will just find an evil creature delighting
in his own monstrousness.
Which is a million times more scary.
And that leads me onto my next terrifying villain, Judge Holden from Blood Meridian.
Judge Holden is this almost supernatural presence throughout the book.
He's about seven foot tall, he's completely hairless, and seemingly ageless.
We meet him several times across different decades, and he never seems to have aged a
day.
He rarely shows any emotions.
He just stays totally calm amidst all this horrible cruelty, which is what makes him
such a chilling villain.
So for my next one, I'm going to go back to your childhood favourites, and talk about
Cruella DeVil from 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.
Now her surname is literally Devil, and she lives at Hell Hall, so it's not exactly a
secret what we're supposed to think of her.
And I'm going to pick up this, maybe my favourite item in this whole shop.
This is a Vague Sense of Unease, and that is definitely how you feel the second Cruella
DeVil appears in that book.
I mean there's a reason the song says 'If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will.'
Before I tell you my final four, I just want to show you the Post Office here, because
I think it's so great.
So this is a service where humans can come into the shop, and write a letter to the monster
of their choice, and send it in the special post office here.
And then they will actually get a personalised response from their monster.
You can get letters from monsters like Pudding the Gremlin, and Betty the Yeti.
But luckily not one from my next villain, because I would not like to get a letter from
him, and that is Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.
Patrick Bateman is a serial killer who isn't even trying to hide it.
In fact, he often tells people throughout the book about the crimes he's committed,
and they don't even believe him.
And even we're not sure whether to trust him, because some of the people that we've seen
him brutally murder, crop up again later in the book.
But the part that most creeped me out when I read this is the running joke throughout
the book that Patrick Bateman's friends never recognise him.
They're always confusing him for other people.
Meaning that Patrick Bateman, with all of his dark and disturbing desires, could be
anyone.
A very different kind of villain is Mrs Danvers, the stony and spiteful housekeeper from Rebecca
by Daphne du Maurier.
So this is a book about the second Mrs DeWinter.
She comes home with her new husband to find that their house is just haunted by the memory
of his first wife Rebecca.
Who everyone was in love with, and who Mrs Danvers the housekeeper was particularly obsessed
with.
She completely refuses to let the new Mrs DeWinter settle into the house, at one point
even leading her to a second floor window and encouraging her to jump.
And she's also described as having a face that looks like a skull, so that's also pretty
terrifying.
Now of course, I couldn't make a list of literary villains without mentioning He Who Must Not
Be Named, the villain from Harry Potter who is so terrifying that wizards are too afraid
to even say his name without becoming quivering wrecks.
Now Voldemort straight up tried to murder Harry when he was a baby, and has committed
himself to finishing the job ever since.
As well as also trying to rid the magical world of anyone whose blood he doesn't deem
pure enough.
Really solid way to make your villain very very scary, make them a little bit like Hitler.
And finally, my personal scariest villain of them all, because I have a lifelong fear
of the sea and all that dwells in it.
That is the shark from Jaws.
The twenty foot long shark from Jaws that keeps murdering people.
Now the author of Jaws, Peter Benchley, actually became a shark conservationist later in life,
because he felt so bad about the terrible reputation that he had given to sharks, but
it is too late.
I am never going in the sea again, and it's all because of this book.
Now I'm going to get myself some of this Old Fashioned Brain Jam to take home, and I will
leave the link to the Hoxton Street Monster Supplies shop website, so do come and visit.
It's a lot of fun here.
And of course, do hit that subscribe button below, because we post new videos here on
Book Break every Thursday.
And next week, we're doing a round up of all of the best new psychological thrillers, so
you're not going to want to miss out on that one.
And do give this video a thumbs up if you liked it, and leave me a comment with your
favourite villain of all time.
See you next time!