Favorite Villain

Everyone has their favorite villain. Be it from a book, a movie, a show, a video game. Maybe you have multiple favorite villains? Different categories that your favorite villains fall into? Favorite Marvel villain. Favorite Disney Villain. Favorite misguided villain. Storybook villain. Cartoon Villain. Or a simple favorite villain that just wants to see the world burn. There are millions of villains out there from the stories that have been created. So, it would be no surprise if you had multiple favorite villains, but what if you had to narrow it down to just one? Who would you pick?

For the writers out there, you can’t pick your own villain. Yes. I love to hate the villain in my novel, but I’m not going to use this post to try and plug you into wanting to read it. I’ll probably share a post later down the road about my villain, but not this time. If I had to choose my top favorite villain from all the shows and stories out there (excluding mine), I would pick…

Ganondorf Dragmire.

Or Ganon, or just Ganondorf, whichever name you want to use. He’s the main villain from the Legend of Zelda video game series. Now, if you read my post Your Top Genre and Why? You’ll know that I grew up with the Legend of Zelda series. So, I’m quite bias towards it. I grew up watching my brothers defeat Ganondorf and then defeating him myself. He starts off in Ocarina of Time (OoT) as this Gerudo King blessed with the Triforce of Power and he wants to take over Hyrule and command the power of the complete Triforce, but as more games came out, he developed. Skyward Sword revealed that he’s the reincarnation of the series’ primal god of evil: Demise. In Windwaker, it’s revealed that Ganondorf wanted to take over Hyrule in OoT because he was jealous of the land (he grew up in a barren desert while Hyrule was flourishing, so anyone could understand his coveting).

Yet, my favorite version of Ganondorf has got to be from Twilight Princess. This game happens after Ocarina of Time where the hero thwarts Ganondorf’s takeover before it even gets to happen (there’s a lot of timelines and its confusing, and I’m not going to go into too much detail). So, Ganondorf is executed before he even does anything wrong. Yet, Ganondorf still wields the Triforce of Power. It spares him from execution and he’s able to fight back. In the end, Ganondorf gets banished to a place called the Twilight Realm. He’s there for a long time and while he’s there, he plots his revenge, uses pawns to get back to the world of light and ultimately takes over Hyrule Castle. If he can defeat the hero charged with stopping him, he wins the kingdom (which, spoiler: he doesn’t win).

I guess I like the idea of a bad guy getting thwarted by a kid before he even gets the chance to be in the wrong. Then, he comes back with an even bigger vengeance. He’s more calm and methodical in Twilight Princess, manipulating and arrogant even. Not to mention, the boss fight against him is just fun.

Now, Ganondorf is who I would pick for my favorite villain, but what about you? Have you ever given thought to it? Without picking your own characters, who’s your favorite villain?