villains
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Growing up, one of the most frightening villains to me was The Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.1 Her complete absence of logic, overwhelming narcissism, blustering stupidity and sadistic punishments2 felt impossible to counter. How could one defeat a tyrant so horrifyingly bombastic, who created their own reality, who invented their own logic that mutated every other sentence and was somehow in command of armed forces3? Writing that all out I’m still petrified of this villain, most especially because to my utter bewilderment, bafflement and befuddlement people chose to follow him her.
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”
Today we’re entering our villain era and climbing to a shelf full of books that follow characters who are more than anti-hero(ines4). These protagonists don’t have redemption stories, there are no misunderstandings or harmless shenanigans gone wrong; here lies true wickedness. Each character has nuance, layers, backstory and motivations but I venture to guess their actions reach depths incomprehensible to us. I hope…
Flip up your collars, unlock your lair and turn off that pesky conscience as you claw through one of these.
BABY TEETH by Zoje Stage
Hanna and her mother Suzette are stuck in a battle of wills. You see, seven year old Hanna wants Daddy all to herself and he is trapped within Mommy’s spell. Because she’s been kicked out of so many schools5 its just Hanna and Mommy alone all day at home while the willfully oblivious Daddy goes to work. Though Hanna refuses to speak, she makes her animosity towards Suzette known at every opportunity though tricks and games like taunting, stealing, throwing tantrums, faking starvation, imitating seizures and creating creepy artwork. When she’s threatened with a new sort of school Hanna ups the ante and the ‘games’ become more sadistic: cosplaying a reincarnated witch, tampering with medications and more to cause Suzette to question her sanity and break her bond with Daddy. As Suzette desperately grapples for help, understanding and control it becomes clear that there will be no sharing of Daddy and home is not big enough for the both of them.
Is this book why I don’t have children? This is some freaky, frightening fun as we alternate between poor, beleaguered Suzette, suffering from Crohn's disease and slowly losing her wits, and the precocious, conniving Hanna who’ll stop at nothing to win Daddy to her side. I enjoyed following each of the POVs; watching Suzette fall into trap after trap created by Hanna’s unique psychology was comedically chilling6. Each of them get deep backstories and are solid foils for each other as Suzette just wants to be a good mother and Hanna just wants to kill her so the interplay is addictive. Though intense, this reads quite funny and campy at times as the budding sociopath manipulates and schemes into Daddy’s good graces while the pathetic, ill equipped Suzette deeply desires to emotionally connect but is way out of her league. Of course this is heightened and unrealistic7, but there is still something satisfying in watching Hanna refuse to be a docile doll of girl, but that eventually morphs into true horror as the workings of her mind build towards a fiery climax.
The sequel, Dear Hanna, just came out but honestly, I was quite disappointed in it. It follows Hanna as a newly married twenty four year old which isn’t nearly as shocking or exciting to follow and I don’t think the story was necessary. This one ended perfectly. Great cover too.
As they made their way up the walk, Hanna spoke again, in her soft new voice. “Do you trust me?” Suzette considered how to respond. It seemed wrong to lie when asked so directly—and it being their first real conversation. “No,” she said.
“Good. They were right to burn me”.
WHITE IVY by Susie Yang
Ivy Lin spent the first five years of her life being raised by her Grandmother Meifeng in China until her parents were able to bring her over to the US. When Meifeng joined the family two years later she instilled in her granddaughter “the two qualities necessary for survival: self-reliance and opportunism” beginning these lessons by recruiting her into a shoplifting scheme. Pairing this guidance with her American upbringing instilled in Ivy a motivation to use these ‘smart’ methods to get what she wanted out of life and that the appearance of her chosen narrative was all that mattered. As an adult she runs into her childhood crush, the all-American and wealthy Gideon, and masterminds her way into an engagement. When an unexpected blast from the past threatens her plans, she questions her choices and capabilities as she realizes the lengths she must go to get what she wants.
This is a well paced, exhilarating character study that tugged me in from the first line: “Ivy Lin was a thief but you would never know it to look at her”. I was thoroughly engrossed in Ivy’s journey, character and psyche as she grows more ruthless and entrenched in her mission but she never feels like a caricature. Maybe you don’t completely root for her, but there’s a sizzling excitment in observing her unique aspects at play. She hides in plain sight as an unassuming, pleasant Asian woman but we get to see her truer self as she manipulates her way into an affluent family. Not an evil genius by any means, rather she’s intensely insular and imaginative, warring with her own sensitivities and complications while utterly dedicated to the pursuit of her endgame. As a child she fixated on the desire to be beautiful like the heroines in her favorite novels as a sort of shortcut to wholeness: “ It seemed to Ivy that outward beauty was the fountain from which all other desirable traits sprung: intelligence, courage, willpower, purity of heart”. The story is gripping, suspenseful and riveting though not action packed. Rather we’re drawn into the decisions Ivy makes as she gets more desperate and unnerved by the appearance of someone who could throw her carefully laid plains in disarray. But, maybe that is what she actually wants?
The book has bit of a cheeky third person narrator that recounts the story in an almost fairy-tale like way at times, giving us insights into Ivy’s motivations, her parent’s backgrounds and the methodical evolution of her character but we’re not directly inside her head. I enjoyed the simple yet terrifically shocking lines that pulled me along and the exploration of themes like race, beauty, class, desire, morality, ambition, inherited family trauma, nature vs nurture combined with the idea that we can never really know someone which make up the sort of psychological character based thriller I go for, especially because Ivy isn’t the only one with secrets.
She never got too greedy. She never got sloppy. And most important, she never got caught. It comforted her to think that even if she were accused of wrongdoing someday, it would be her accuser’s word against hers- and if there was anything she prided herself on other than being a thief, it was being a first rate liar.
VICIOUS by V.E.Schwab
When they were college roommates, Victor Vale and Eli Ever found an odd sort of camaraderie in each other with their superior senses of self and radical ambitions though they may seem like opposites to outsiders. Their fixation on near death experiences and supernatural abilities leads them to experiment on themselves which results in an outcome they never could have predicted. A decade later Victor breaks out of prison, intent on revenge for his former friend’s betrayal, and begins to gather a small team of other powered individuals along the way. Eli and Victor each have their own demons and as classic nemeses, only one can survive.
This is the first in the Villains trilogy with the second being Vengeful followed by the yet to be released8 Victorious. This series has a sort of comic book/dark The Incredibles type vibe and really leans into the diabolical nature its protagonists. The rich enmity between Eli and Victor is thrilling to watch and because neither of them are ‘good’, observing them ruthlessly go after their ambitions as enemies is quite juicy. Each is expertly drawn and distinctive with highly questionable moral codes, murky backstories and individualized motivations that careen them towards an ultimate showdown. There is a bit of a found family element here that does paint one of them as bit more ‘good’ than the other to keep them antagonistic and readers invested in a particular outcome, but each is truly a villain in their quest for power and control. Schwab is an excellent storyteller and this is energetic, creative and full of twists with consistently engaging writing and character work along with some classic superhero homages.
The stark red, white and black covers are perfect.
But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.
The paper called Eli a hero. The word made Victor laugh. Not just because it was absurd, but because it posed a question. If Eli was really a hero, and Victor meant to stop him, did that make him a villain? He took a long sip of his drink, tipped his head back against the couch, and decided he could live with that.
Read any of these?Any other books about villains being villainous you’d like to share? Who was a scary villain of your youth? Go ahead and:
the book obviously. the cartoon was… too cartoonish
lock em up off with their head!
sure they were cards but still
for things like setting the trash on fire or squeezing the class gold fish to death
laugh to keep from crying
hopefully..
schwab is currently working on it so we should get it in the next couple years
Somehow I totally missed this V.E. series, although I have seen the cover several times. I’ll have to add it to the queue!
Baby Teeth sounds very stressful - is there anything more terrifying than a psychopathic child??
The scariest villain to me as a kid was Malificent from the Disney Sleeping Beauty. The way she appeared in the fireplace, the way she toyed with the Prince, her whole vibe. I was terrified of my fireplace at night for years 🤣