It’s one thing to get your audience to hate a villain. That’s relatively easy. Just make them have a particularly punchable face, or have them be cruel to animals. There, you’re done. But making them a character the audience actually grows to like? Now that’s a different sort of trick. How do you combine their evil motives with enough charm to get the audience on their side? And these are villains I’m talking about here, not just conflicted anti-heroes who do bad things. There’s no Walter White or Dexter to be found here.
For this list I searched through shows still airing on TV for the most likable villains I could think of. As much as I love Deadwood’s Al Swearengen, for example, you won’t find him here. Instead, we have these five.
[Photo via FX]
Tywin Lannister – Game of Thrones
Unlike his grandson Joffrey, or the show’s new most evil villain, Ramsay Bolton, Tywin Lannister steals every scene he’s in, and you can’t help but like and respect the man for his cunning and sharp tongue. He’s clever, not cruel, even though with a stroke of his pen, he organizes massacres like the Red Wedding. He’s an exceptional villain for both the show, and his own family, yet you like him all the same.
[Photo via HBO]
Boyd Crowder – Justified
Justified is a show full of pretty likable characters, including the lead hero Raylan Givens, but Boyd Crowder consistently steals the show as a bad guy you actually root for. He’s never usually the main antagonist in a given season, but serves to foil Raylan’s plans nonetheless, and he never does anything all that evil.
[Photo via FX]
Hannibal Lecter – Hannibal
Hannibal seems to keep popping up on all my “best of” lists, and for good reason. He’s a great cook, a charming conversationalist, and a great friend, provided you can overlook his propensity to kill and eat people. Watching Hannibal is a weird experience because you know you’re supposed to want him to die or get caught, yet a part of you wants him to be victorious in the end. That speaks to the charm of the character, but the actor as well. Hannibal manages to seduce you, the audience, the same way he does other characters on the show, which is kind of a cool, yet unsettling experience.
[Photo via NBC]
Kai Proctor – Banshee
Proctor has sparred with Banshee’s faux sheriff Lucas Hood on many an occasion, but when the chips are down, Proctor always has the best interests of his town and his family in mind. He’s a bad guy to be sure with an enormous drug/guns/murder empire, but he’s also kind of a good guy, which is becoming clearer as his character continues to evolve over time.
[Photo via Cinemax]
Klaus Mikkelsen – The Vampire Diaries/The Originals
Klaus may technically be an anti-hero rather than a villain, but I’m going to put him in the latter category considering he’s done some truly terrible things. Despite his claims of loving his family, he’s almost always screwing them over, right before he swoops back in to save them again. He swings violently back and forth between psychopath and decent guy, but you always find yourself hoping that things go his way. They often don’t.
[Photo via The CW]
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