Some time ago I found a reddit topic named “Who are your favorite fantasy villains?” (You can read it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/8cxc6u/who\_are\_your\_favorite\_fantasy\_villains/)
One of the comments answered this:
>Favorite, as in written so vile that they were able to draw the most visceral and palpable hate out of me would probably be Griffith (Berserk.)
Then I have a lot of favorites that I have a ***wide variety of nuanced feelings toward***. Jaime, Cersei, and Glokta are all fantastic, ***insomuch as they can be called villains***. They all do pretty shitty things, but ***they have realistic motives***, and ***they wouldn’t consider themselves villains***, (***and neither would some readers***.)
And I’ll just say, the (Abercrombie) character that I assume /u/MikeOfThePalace is talking about is also great.
So, this person thinks that Griffith from Berserk is the most vile and hateable character in the fantasy genre but at the same time has nuanced feelings for Jaime, Cersei from ASOIAF and Glokta from The First Law and doesn’t really consider them villains despite the things they have done.
So, do you agree or disagree with this statement?
by AmphibianJolly8699
10 Comments
I think Cersei is definitely more of a villain than Jamie is, but that might just be because Jamie was fleshed out earlier than Cersei was.
There are no villains in ASOIAF.
Cersei is. Having realistic motives is like… okay? I mean, if it involves having children killed for political gain and power to fuel her own vanity. That is realistic and she is still a villain. It’s clear as day.
Jaime reforms somewhat. That doesn’t mean he was ever a great person. But he visibly has at least some conscience and you can see him sometimes deciding to do the right thing.
He had to make hard decisions that obviously caused him hardships.
I would still say he is still somewhat of a villain, but nowhere near as bad as Cersei, who is constantly making calculated evil as fuck decisions just because she is greedy and proud.
Glokta… probably also a villain, though closer to Jaime than Cersei. He still has a bit of a soul left, maybe.
Glokta is absolutely a villain, he is willing to do whatever means necessary and doesn’t care about cost, willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives. Sure, he justifice his actions that its his job or the greater good but that doesn’t negate the collateral damage.
Not bashing on Glokta, one of my favorite characters.
Jaime and Cersei have shown on two different occasions that they are willing to kill children to get what they want. Compare that to Ned. I think you can see who clearly are the villains in this story.
Glotka the torturer?
The author of A Song of Ice and Fire uses moral ambiguity a lot, mostly because his larger deal is trying to subvert his readers’ expectations.
So in Tolkien, the orcs are always bad guys. They’re always bloodthirsty, ugly, stupid, destructive, aggressive . . . just kill them on sight. No good will come of letting them live.
But imagine if a band of orcs left Sauron. They never wanted to fight in his war and just want to be left alone. They set up camp in a deserted place, begin a stable community, engage in mining or farming to support themselves, and begin raising a new generation of children that are not exposed to the cruel circumstances that made their parents into monsters.
Now imagine that the Rohirrim discover the settlement and immediately wipe it out, no questions asked, allowing no survivors.
Who then is the villain?
It’s like that with Martin. His characters say and do awful things, but they didn’t get there in a vacuum. They were either damaged early on or the context in which they existed demands some extreme behavior to thrive. In that sense, Jamie and Cersei are antagonists more than they are villains.
Same thread, again and again and again. Wild how much you obsess about this topic.
No.
Both novels are not traditional “hero’s journey” where the hero and villains are clearly defined.
Instead the books are closer to “feigned history” – where invented historical events are described from multiple points of view in a fantastic worlds.
History rarely has “villains” and “heroes” (with some rare exceptions). Just different people, clashing with different agendas and motivations.
Whether someone is a villains or a hero is up to interpretation. It’s like asking whether Napoleon or Alexander are villains or heroes. They are neither. Or both. Depends on who you ask, and at what time.
Just because we get to see some positive traits in them doesn’t mean they aren’t villains. A character can be as nuanced as the writers wants, I don’t think anyone would disagree that people who hurt children on purpose are villainous. Sure they can have their good moments and their journey of discovery and what have you. It doesn’t erase their past acts, they just need to atone for them and keep on the straight and narrow. What can I say, the road from absolute villain to nuanced complexity and a very checkered past is hard.