Villains on Trial

[hobsonphile]

This year at Dragon*Con, we are going to hold a trial for various villains of literary science fiction and fantasy. Fun, right? Unfortunately, I'm having trouble deciding which villains I should suggest to our fearless leader, vampry. Any ideas, peanut gallery

Comments

[veritykindle]

Ooh! What a cool idea! What laws would you use for various villains, though -- the laws of villains' cultures/countries/worlds, or the American laws, or the laws of whatever cultures/countries/worlds their heroes were from?

For example, would Scorpius be tried in a Peacekeeper court, or a modern American court? Would Mr. Moriarty be tried in a 19th century British court? Would the Master be tried in a modern American court/ a modern British court/a Timelord court/a 1960s court? (With reasonable assumptions made for various laws for fictional locations.)

I think it might be interesting to have a trial for *heroes*, too. How would John Crichton hold up in a Scarran or a Peacekeeper court? (Or hell, even a modern American court, really.)

Um, sorry, I know that's not what you asked -- I got carried away with the idea. :)

[hobsonphile]

Good questions! I'll bring those up with the mailing list.

[veritykindle]

Lord of the Rings: Saruman; Denethor (Could he be considered a villain? Well, he committed a crime, anyway, so there is something to put him on trial for.)

Morally ambiguous figures for you

[londonkds]

The Shadows

Dukat (fit to plead?)

The Silurians/Sea Devils from Doctor Who

The old school Watchers' Council from Buffy

V from V For Vendetta

Re: Morally ambiguous figures for you

[hobsonphile]

Lots of good media ideas, but any more ideas from the literary side, i.e., from books?

(Bah, I hate this convention's balkanization.)

It occurred to me as I was doing my cardio that perhaps instead of trying main villains, we could try their willing accomplices, who tend to be more, ah, complicated, shall we say.

[hobsonphile]

Do you go to Dragon*Con? If so, you might be interested in joining our mailing list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DCSFLit/

[hobsonphile]

And by the way, I just realized that I haven't put you on some of my, ah, special interest filters. This has been fixed, so you should see more of my journal now. ;)

[selenak]

Okay, non-satanist book villains for you (btw, if comics are counted as books, you can include V whom Londonkds suggested - V for Vendetta was a legendary comic by Alan Moore long before it became a film:

Harry Potter: Petter Pettigrew
Dolores Umbridge (ah, the banality of evil! Also, the defense could go for the "was authorised by the ministery in everything" line)

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy

Lord of the Rings: Smeagol/Gollum

Lord of the Flies: um, every surviving boy on that island except Ralph?

I, Claudius:

Livia (if anyone dares!)

[lone_gunfreak]

Steerpike from the Gormenghast books would be interesting (if enough people are familiar with the books)... you could get into the whole question of an insanity plea, because he has an awful lot of the traits for antisocial personality disorder (though enough of the book is written from his POV that we know he can tell right from wrong, he just doesn't care, which I know is a major sticking point in insanity pleas)