Everyone loves a charismatic villain, with their megalomaniacal plans for world domination and their outstanding dress sense. What about the jerks though? The villains that are just out and out douche-bags? No elaborate schemes, no gentlemanly crime, just massive assholes selfishly ruining everything for all the other characters.
In what is a surprisingly wide field to pick from, here are the top five villains you keep ro0ting to get killed off – preferably in gruesome ways. Spoilers follow.
1. Shane Walsh (The Walking Dead)
If there’s been a TV character in the last ten years who’s a bigger douche-bag than Shane from The Walking Dead, we’re at a loss. We get that a lot of what he did was to protect his survivor group or win over the women that he loved, but man, after a while it becomes a pretty flimsy excuse for his actions. Shooting Otis in the leg and leaving him to be ripped apart by zombies? Dick move.
He’s also got a short fuse and spent all that time trying to manipulate Lori into falling for him. Oh, and his moral compass is the kind you’d buy from a snake oil salesman. He got his comeuppance of course, but not before he’d made everyone’s lives that little bit worse. The guy was so bad that actor Jon Bernthal is now making a living playing morally dubious jerks.
2. Rachel Duncan (Orphan Black)
A lot of writers think their bad guy has to have some grand plan to control the world or grab power, but Rachel Duncan is the perfect opposite of this. While she’s a power dressing corporate sociopath, Rachel’s main goal isn’t to cover up the sinister clone conspiracy, but to conceive a child of her own. It’s pretty tragic that she can’t conceive of course, but the lengths she goes to for this end make significant inroads into evil jerk territory.
In fact the things she’s prepared to do to her clone sisters (especially Sarah) make her one of the hardest characters to like on television. Child kidnapping? Destroying the one thing that could cure a terminally sick woman? Ordering the deaths of her clone sisters? That’s a pretty long rap sheet.
3. Joffrey Baratheon (Game of Thrones)
You want me to actually write an argument in this section? It’s Joffrey. He’s the biggest dick in Westeros and the worst ruler since Caligula (who at least knew how to throw a party). The guy has people executed just for the lolz, and revels in the chance to make people miserable. There are a lot of Sansa haters out there, but the way he treated her you wouldn’t even tolerate from your own kids.
He laughs at misfortune, throws a murderous tantrum when he doesn’t get his own way and lets his grandfather, mother and uncle do the actual running of the Kingdom while he does his best to antagonise everybody. Why do people go along with this? Because he’s supposedly ‘Royal’. The peasants of Westeros need to rise up and storm King’s Landing in their own October revolution.
4. Barry Dylan (Archer)
Never has so much power been used for such an ignoble purpose. By now Sterling Archer’s arch-nemesis Barry is a superpowered cyborg who notionally works for the KGB. In practice though, Barry has become so unhinged that he basically spends all his time finding ways to ruin Archer’s life – due to a complicated and bitter feud that’s evolved over the course of the series.
Barry now seems to relish every opportunity to make Archer’s life worse. It doesn’t matter how many people get screwed over or how many things he ruins, Barry’s single minded goal of ruining Archer’s life makes him the biggest jerk on the planet.
5. Piper Chapman (Orange is the New Black)
Piper is the villain? What? Isn’t she the main character?
By season three, not only is Piper the villain, she’s also the most selfish jerkiest jerk face in Lichfield. We’re talking about a prison that includes career criminals here, and Piper is its unchallenged queen of manipulation and self-interest. Somehow though, this makes her so much more interesting.
Building a criminal enterprise out of selling worn underwear? It’s pure genius, and while it does boarder on elaborate plan territory Piper is so douchey and selfish about it that she genuinely thinks of herself as a master criminal. Just sit down and think – really think – about how many people Chapman has lied to, tricked or screwed over at this point. She’s a jerk, and somehow it’s working for her.
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