LIT MADNESS: THE WORST VILLAIN IN ALL OF LITERATURE

In honor of March madness, the LitHub website put together a bracket of the worst villains in literature. Sixty-four villains faced off against each other. The list included – and you’d better be up on your reading – Nurse Ratched, Miss Trunchbull, Richard III, President Snow, Cruella DeVil, Kurtz, Randall Flagg, Mr. Hyde, Sauron, Mrs. Danvers, Lady Macbeth, Hannibal Lecter, Becky Sharp, Javert, Gollum, Captain Hook, Carrie, Frankenstein’s Monster, and many more. The final four: O’Brien, the bad guy from 1984; Sauron, ruler of Mordor in Lord of the Rings; Hannibal Lecter, from Silence of the Lambs; and Satan, from the Bible. And the winner is… the worst villain of all time, the Hissy Award goes to… O’Brien, from the novel 1984, who initially appears to be a sympathetic ally to the hero Winston, but ultimately orchestrates his capture and brutal indoctrination.
* I thought for sure Satan would take it after his performance in the talent portion of the competition.
* The person who picked the most winners gets a trophy. Everybody else gets a library card.
* We just lived through a billion dollars of non-stop movie marketing, and The Wicked Witch of the West in the Oz books isn’t even mentioned? Ouch!
* Lex Luthor is infuriated that comic books weren’t included, and has vowed to destroy LitHub.