Fannish5: Evil Five By Five

[selenak]

Name your five favorite evil characters.Now often one person's evil character is another misunderstood one's, so it's a given this choice is subjective. My personal criteria for favourite evil character, as opposed to favourite villain (different thing, really) is that this character does not have a redemption arc and/or sacrificial death. (This

Comments

[selenak]

I haven't written exclusively about them, but they're an important part in My Best Enemy, my meta about several examples of that type of pairing and why it appeals to me. ("My best enemy" is how the Doctor introduces the Master to Sarah Jane in "The Five Doctors".)

Fanfiction-wise, again, no story exclusively focused on the relationship, but it plays an important part in a bunch of crossovers:

Time After Time
(That's DW/Babylon 5)

Game, Set and Match
(DW/Blake's 7, in which the Master meets Servalan)

Nowhere Man
Torchwood/DW/DS9, in which Garak is stuck with team Torchwood during the year that wasn't; it's my big Owen exploration, but the Doctor/Master relationship is a crucial plot point.

Patterns
My meta disguised as fanfic about Harriet Jones, the Brig, and the Doctor as Three and Ten and why he reacts as he does, but again, his relationship with the Master is an important plot point

[ffutures]

Servalan featured in the dreams of a lot of guys of my generation. I can forgive her quite a lot, but no way would I want to be anywhere on the same planet as her, let alone a more intimate relationship.

Livia and the Master definitely, and the Shakespeare version of RIII works - provided you don't look at the facts.

Don't know American Gothic - can I have Ethan Rayne instead.

[selenak]

the Shakespeare version of RIII works - provided you don't look at the facts

Absolutely. As I said, I'm a Ricardian. Shakespeare's R is an entirely fictional character and enjoyable as such. (Though also responsible why a lot of people have trouble letting go of the Tudor propaganda version to this day. I'll resist quoting The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on that.)

Ethan Rayne is fun, but the other four would have him for breakfeast, surely?

[airie_fairy]

"the plastic daffs in Autons might might have looked gloriously ridiculous but they did the killing job quite efficiently."

Those things are legitimately scary to me. They seem silly and then they kill in a no frills way that taps into a highly realistic death fear -- just clamping down over the mouth and nose. I was shocked.

[night_train_fm]

'they seem silly and then they kill in a no-frills way that taps into a highly realistic fear'

Huh. Sounds like the "What're you gonna do, sucker me to death?" scene a few decades early.

(I need to check out more of 3's episodes).

[selenak]

They definitely made more of an emotional impression than the "whoops, did I just destroy a third of universe by accident?" nonsense in Logopolis!

[kalypso_v]

Watching I, Claudius last time, I was struck by the two murders we see Livia perform in person; both times, Sian Phillips sold me the idea that she really was sad afterwards. With Marcellus, maybe it's because it's a young life wasted, or maybe it's the first time she's done it; with her husband, I think she does genuinely care for him, however irritating he can be. So I think she does lose something, the person she would prefer to have been if what she chooses to regard as necessity hadn't forced her to be who she is. And I think she believes all along that what she's doing to achieve her ends is damnable; she just puts off facing it until the very end.

[selenak]

I'll have to rewatch the Marcellus scene because I don't remember regret there on her part, but I have no doubt she cared for Augustus (beyond the power he gave her, I mean); the scene where she gets drunk in the garden while he doesn't die makes that point well before she actually gets around to killing him. I also believe her when she tells Claudius decades later that was the hardest thing she ever did. But you know, caring for someone who has enabled you to co-rule an empire and loved you isn't exactly difficult (plus the other examples I gave have people they care for as well); it doesn't negate both her purposeful destruction of lives (when they stand in her way) or her casual cruelty without necessity (towards Claudius as a child and teenager, for example). I love Livia as a character, but I don't think "evil" is too harsh a word in her case.

[kalypso_v]

It's the moment when she says "No... but I could."

I don't mean that Livia is an admirable character, or that her professed aims justify her means. But I was surprised to find her a touching one on my last viewing, and well before her death scene. I do like my villains to have weaknesses, or emotional chinks in their armour (which is why I find the SuperServalan of some fanfic as dull as SuperAvon). While I enjoy Livia as a brilliant plotter, I enjoy her even more if she does it all believing that she has an immortal soul which faces damnation, but that she'll just have to work out a way to deal with that when she gets there. She's got a vision, whether you share it or not; whereas (looking at my icon) I don't think her Soprano namesake is ever driven by more than petty malice. Despite which I love her too.

[andraste_oz]

Livia is so, so wonderful - such a wonderful performance, for all the reasons you mention. I love that Sian Phillips makes you feel that she knows exactly how everyone will jump and what they want, including Caligula - and then the terror in her eyes when she's dying and realises that she did get Caligula right but she underestimated him.

I love I, Claudius so much - there are so many other great performances in it, including that wonderful scene where Livia is talking to Augustus as he dies and you can see the moment the light goes out in Brian Blessed's eyes. Even the sheer difficulty of keeping one's eyes open for that long! I couldn't do it.

[selenak]

Oh, Augustus' death scene is hands down my choice for most impressive death scene on tv despite stern competition, both for Brian Blessed's acting (which makes one weep in frustration "if he can do that, what's he been doing shouting his way through decades?!?) and for Sian Phillip's in Livia's monologue.

I, Claudius is one of my favourite tv shows of all time, and I have adoring meta somewhere.