27 Of The Most Evil Character In Fiction Literature

Evil people have this in common: they’re controlling. But it’s not all about controlling you. They often feel downright uncomfortable and powerless if they aren’t in control of every aspect of their lives. Evil people come from all sorts of places, often ones you wouldn’t expect. Evil can be defined, but it’s hard to pin down. Simply put: an evil person is someone who engages in malevolent behaviors. Some argue that they’re immoral, sick, depraved, or wicked, but those words are hard to define. Immorality to one is normalcy to another.

We find them everywhere we look. Evil is not a cosmic accident. It does not just happen. Evil is not an idea or a concept; it is a deliberate action or inaction. Evil people are persistent, gregarious, intense, clingy, and fake. In a lot of ways, they’re like boomerangs. No matter how hard you throw them out of your life, they always wind up circling back around to you.

In the list below, you’ll find 27 of the most despicable characters in fiction literature. A couple is just plain fun evil, but be prepared to be exposed to the epitome of evil qualities. If you haven’t read some of the belowmentioned titles, then you’ll be guaranteed for an interesting ride along the way. Only 2 of the titles below are free with the rest being commercial ones, so feel free to go to your nearest library to explore or just purchase it through any of your favorite online book stores.

Take note that the list below comes with a short description which may be a BIG SPOILER for some. So proceed with caution, but if that’s the last thing on your mind, scroll down and enjoy! Oh yeah, don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

1. Judge Holden from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (The patron saint of evil if not the devil himself.)
2. Iago from William Shakespeare’s Othello (His manipulative prowess is unmatched in the way he plants ideas in Othello’s head and how he changes the course of the narrative. He is ruthless, remorseless, cunning and unapologetically evil.) [Download free ebook]
3. Cathy Ames in John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (No remorse and the only thing she seemed to enjoy was ruining peoples lives.)
4. Nurse Ratchet from Ken Kesey’ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (A despicable, heartless character.)
5. Teatime from Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather (Nailed a dog to the ceiling ‘so it wouldn’t bark’.)
6. Carcer from Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather (Has no motivation apart from ‘just to cause as much pain as possible’.)
7. Patrick Hostetter from Stephen King’s IT (In the book not the movie – “he was disturbing as hell”.)
8. Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events (He gave me nightmares for years because of what he did to the Baudelaire kids.)
9. Miss Trunchbull from Roald Dahl’s Matilda (The cruel and evil headmistress of Crunchem Hall school.)
10. Morgoth from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings (Created war And violence, endlessly disrupted creation, created orcs through sheer torture and malevolence, poisoned the trees that lit the world, caused a series of events which divided the elves, committed genocide, brought about the corruption of mankind, created dragons and Balrogs, turned the noble and orderly Mairon into Sauron, and ensured that evil forces would plague Middle Earth for millennia. He is evil incarnate.)
11. AM from Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream (Book does such an amazing job of portraying genuine raw brutal hatred.)
12. Baron Harkonen from Frank Herbert’s Dune (Rapist and a mass murderer.)
13. Mrs Coulter from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (The woman is in charge of a giant kidnapping ring, cuts the SOULS from children, cuts the souls from her staff, tells everybody it’s all cool and for their own good and for the good of humanity and then she flips it when her own daughter ends up in the machine.)
14. Blackjack Randall from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander (Less than zero redeeming qualities and the single most repulsive character you’ll ever encounter.)
15. Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar from Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (They may just be the embodiment of every cruel and vicious thought that mankind has had in it’s history.)
16. Livia from Robert Graves’ I, Claudius (A pragmatic evil. She’s not evil for the sake of pure evil; everything she does is meticulously planned to achieve exactly the results she wants.)
17. O’Brien from George Orwell’s 1984 (The personification of the madness and despicability of totalitarianism. He is both the narrator and embodiment of Evil As Lie – as the act of tearing apart the human being, and inverting truth for the sake of destruction as an end in itself.)
18. All the characters from V. C. Andrews’ Flowers In the Attic (Enough said.)
19. The Man in Black from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower (The most sadistic person you’ll ever had the displeasure of following. Brings someone back from the dead just so they can traumatize their friends about the horrors of the afterlife.)
20. Randall Flagg from Stephen King’s The Stand (It’s like Darth Vader and the Emperor – one is the true power behind everything evil, but one serves as the re-occurring face of it.)
21. Patrick Bateman from Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (The starving rat with the brioche cheese, straight up the woman’s… Brutal.)
22. Rasheed from Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns (A misogynistic abusive jerk who had pretty much zero redeeming qualities.)
23. General Woundwort from Richard Adams’ Watership Down (The rabbit who ran his warren like a Stasi commander.)
24. The Bank from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath (The ultimate sanctioned destroyer of livelihoods with no recourse, no accountability and no humanity.)
25. Danglars from Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo (What a bastard!)
26. Alex from Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (He’s part of a gang that goes around committing acts of ‘ultraviolence’- basically assaulting random people and other gangs – gets arrested for murder, and then takes part in and experimental treatment that makes the thought of crime/sex abhorrent. Evil is charming and manipulative.)
27. Napoleon from George Orwell’s Animal Farm (When they sold Boxer the horse to make him into glue to buy whiskey.) [Download free ebook]