By Sadie York
Oftentimes in fiction, antagonists are grown out of a complex nature, stemming from traumatic “villain arcs” which cause them to act in their typical vengeful nature. However, sometimes, literature contains antagonists so wickedly cruel, that they lack a reason for their actions, they simply enjoy causing the suffering of others. Below I have listed “book villains” who have no redeeming qualities, and are simply pure evil.
- Judge Holden (Blood Meridian)
The embodiment of immoralness, Judge Holden represents a wickedness beyond human, with closer qualities to “the Devil himself.” In Blood Meridian, Judge Holden possesses vast knowledge and eloquentness, but commits the most vile atrocities out of pure force and corruption. He believes violence is the ultimate expression of existence, and represents the darkly inherent tendencies of man. Holden acts on his belief in nihilistic philosophy, in which he believes morality is a weak quality of the human species, and brutality is the answer to all.
- AM (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream)
In the end of the human race, AM, an artificial intelligence, tortures the remaining five humans for an endless eternity out of pure hatred and boredom. Repulsed by the human race, and looking down on the species as the “god-like” sentient AI it is, AM keeps these particular humans alive to torture, despite the nuclear wasteland of the world. Beginning as a supercomputer to be utilized as a weapon on the gates of war, AM gained sentience, and wiped out the human race itself. In a subterranean lair, AM punishes these humans in the most despicable, inhumane, ways. Mentally, physically, and spiritually, the humans endure an endless cycle of pain as AM doesn’t allow them the easy way out—death. It turns them into monstrous forms, twists their realities, forces them to endure punishments particular to their fears, all for hundreds of years. And why? A deep, existential hatred for its creators, driven by a desire to inflict endless suffering because AM is, in the end, trapped, immortal, and alone in its own existence.
- Qu (All Tommorrows)
The Qu, described as aliens, or more specifically highly advanced, nomadic, insectoid species, reign terror on humanity as they utilize their mastery in genetic engineering to warp the remainder of mankind into sadistic forms of “life.” In one example, the Qu turned a group of human victims into immobile, sentient cubes, aligned in a brick manner. Intentionally keeping their human intelligence intact, these stacks of flesh cubes were forced to exist as waste filtration units for millions of years. The Qu’s motive was quite simple, believing they were the superior species, and determined to “remaster” all other beings to remake the universe to their preference. Driven by a corrupted ideology, the Qu imposed their “divine vision” on transforming other life into bizarre forms, seeing them as no more than “raw material.”