Fictional characters who appall but fascinate you

Like Al Swearengen, from Deadwood:



I can't get enough of him.

Any others?

n/t

He's a real cocksucker.

n/t

He was a real person, too. But Ian McShane's portrayal of him is so fun to watch

character in a current series. And pulls off such a rich, complexity-laced script so second naturedly. And he's so fucking funny, I can't help but laugh with the sociopath. :spank:

to a webpage about the real Al Swearengen.

http://www.digitaldeadwood.com/historylink/people/swearengen.html

I lived in Deadwood for a number of years before it became a casino town. Our house was a stone's toss from Mt. Moriah cemetery, where Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane are buried. Deadwood has a fascinating history. I've tried to watch the tv show "Deadwood," but it doesn't ring true to me...maybe in part because of all the foul language in the show, including the word "cocksucker." I'm not a prude. It's just that I don't think profanity was as pervasive then as it is now.

How unfortunate.

The swearing is all fictional artifice. Its incessence would normally turn me off, but the writer, David Milch, integrartes it so literarily, I think it works.

Thanks for the link! :hi:

http://www.deadwood.org/OfficialGuide/GamingHalls/Index.cfm

Deadwood has always been a tourist town, especially in the summer. I performed in "mellerdramas," which was a hoot. I have many great memories of Deadwood before the casinos moved in. One of them, for some odd reason, was the time my sister and I headed out to shop and ended up spending the afternoon getting mellow on beer and listening to the band warm up in Saloon #10, where Wild Bill met his fate. Now casino limos and tour buses are about the only vehicles on the street. Yes, it is sad.

Is there a residential section to Deadwood anymore? Thanks for indulging me! :hi:

is the closest. It's about 40 miles SE of Deadwood.

Yes, there are still people living there. Some estimates say there are about 1300 and others say 1800. Lead (pronounced Leed) is a sister town to Deadwood, so the estimates may include Lead.

Here's a good article about the pros and cons of the gambling industry in Deadwood.

http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=1743

(edited to change SW to SE. Duh.)

Was there visiting last month - never lived there like FrogMarch. We're big Deadwood fans, so after I got my dude ranch vacation in south central Wyoming, my SO convinced me to drive 9 hours north and east to Deadwood.

The casinos are pretty awful -- lots of the attractive types usually found in casinos, puffing away, pulling the levers. Streets are mobbed during the early evening.

But we had a really interesting time there, had dinner at "the Gem" (located at the site of the original Gem, supposedly), and above Saloon #10, had drinks at the Bodega, hiked around Mt. Moriah cemetary (Seth Bullock's grave is WELL above everyone else's, by his order). I was really altitude sick anyway, so I was cursing Seth for his vanity!

>" It's just that I don't think profanity was as pervasive then as it is now."

I wonder - what are you basing that belief on? I mean, in the wild west people shot each other left and right, crime was pretty rampant, it was no church social.

I suspect that it "didn't ring true" because 99.9% of the western genre films avoid the use of any profanity - we'll hang you from the highest oak but we won't call you a cocksucker :)

(this is not intended to be critical of you personally, I'm just saying, how would you know?)

Not surprisingly, you won't find a lot of profanity among written records from that period; of course, fewer people kept written records back then, and those that did were less inclined to use such language.

There's a good article on the subject somewhere in the universe; I'll try to dig it up.

In any case, I think David Milch integrates the swearing really effectively, and it all actually enhances the script.

who live or lived around Deadwood agree that the foul language used on the show doesn't ring true for the period.

Here's a USA Today article about the topic:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-05-02-deadwood-cursing_x.htm

(snip)

But he (Rick Slatta, author of several books on cowboys) says Deadwood is the other extreme. "Cowboy and frontier types — these were vulgar people. I think HBO, in typical Hollywood fashion, has taken some social element and exaggerated it 100-fold."

"Men might say 'damn' ... or call each other 'bastard' or 'son of a bitch,' " but not the more modern cussing heard on Deadwood, says Frederick Bozeman, who has researched gold rush life in Montana and is working on a book due out in the fall.

Verifies says, "There are some letters that I have seen in history accounts. I know Wild Bill used the word damn. And Jack McCall (Hickok's killer) was reported to say, 'Take that, damn you.' "

She suggests that the profanity is being used to show class lines. And it's true that Deadwood's classiest character, a widow named Alma Garrett, never swears. "My personal feeling is that David Milch is really trying to separate the upper classes from the lower classes, and the profanity is probably somewhat of a literary device."

After all, this is television. This is entertainment in the 21st century.

~~

that they are REALLLLLY fooling themselves if they think that there wasn't cursing then. It was a freakin western frontier town, not high-society london

was scarier. Hannibal Lecter is too relatable to terrify me... but I guess that wasn't my original question. :D

SPOILERS

His actions are appalling, but his conflict when he tries (but can't) kill Dumbledore intrigued me.

:D

he's my favorite HP character.

What is that, a cocktail in his hand?

You know the one... way too much money, way too many drugs and he kills and eats young men. Disgusting but kinda facinating....


Actually, the ex boyfriend, the drunk junkie with AIDS - When I grow up I wanna marry him. But he's not really the villain of the piece...

So I'm going with the cannibal dude....


Khash.

Sounds like a winner in the same way as Peter Jackson's Bad Taste or some Rob Zombie flick (you know, the clown/clerk at the convenience store?)

just over a week ago somebody was recommending her book on Courtney Love, & the plot of 'Exquisite Corpse' sounds right up my street.

played by Ian Richardson in the House of Cards trilogy (which is available on DVD in the US)


http://www.tvheaven.ca/fu.htm

Putting some stick about - I love the phrases they used to use on that show :D

And I thoroughly enjoyed the political intrigue and the devious scheming of Urquhart in the House of Cards trilogy. Having said that, this is actually one of the rare occasions where I enjoyed the BBC’s adaptation of “To Play the King” and “The Final Cut” much more than I enjoyed the novels of the same name. I have a feeling that the reason for this is that Dobbs had never intended to write a sequel to “The House of Cards” but the BBC transformed the story of his first novel so that he had to write a second. And then they changed the story of his second novel so that he had to write a third. If you read Dobb’s second and third novels, you’ll find that there is a lack of consistency and continuity from the first novel (and in the third novel from the second novel) whereas the BBC series keeps the consistency and continuity in its interpretation of the story.

But Ian Richardson was nothing short of magnificent as a villain

after being told similar things by people who have. The BBC trilogy is so perfect in my mind I don't really want to go screwing with it.

mainly his cold intellect.

But it's the favorite of an ex- of mine who also happens to have a master's in math. Hmmm....

It is a chapter in the Brothers Karamazov but is widely available on its own.

I don't know about the math connection and Dostoevsky - I would think psychologists and philosophers would be fascinated with his characters.

From the movie Azumi. Perhaps the greatest movie villain ever. So deliciously evil you cannot take your eyes off him. Pity about what happened to his head though. Kinda cuts down on the chances of a sequel with him in it.

I'll have to look out for it. Got my villain mojo on today...

I was kinda disappointed with the movie though, especially after Versus. Still I'll definately be checking out the sequel which came out on DVD last month.

(& for interested Brits -- Play.com have Azumi in their 2 for £12 (along with the special edition of La Haine and other good stuff))

a low-life hustler whose exploitation of human psychological foibles is fascinating yet repulsive.

It's been years since I even thought of that movie, but he's a good one!

but mesmerizing

DeNiro's character in Raging Bull

one point for you

If so, he is quite gross.

The actor Robert Walker played Bruno, who is able to convince a stranger he meets on a train to let him kill the stranger's unfaithful wife, in return for which the stranger agrees to kill Bruno's father. Bruno uses the sheer force of his personality and his wit and charm to get a complete stranger to agree to enter such an intimate conspiracy with him. Raymond Chandler supposedly co-scripted the screenplay.

And played believably insanely wonderful by Walker.

I especially prefer the homoerotic british cut.

Villains are so much more interesting than heros. I'll have to ask my Hitcock-loving mom about that one.

though fascinated, yes. Hmm. I'll have to think on this one.

Euron "Crow's Eye" Greyjoy. A pirate and rapist who may have committed fratricide. And for some reason I want to learn more about him...

who the fuck I was talking about. I hope he's not dead (I just started book 4 the other day so I don't know yet) as I need resolution on the Sandor-Sansa subplot.

Too cool to kill. Smart money says he winds up working with Brienne, seeing as how they both have the same general objective.

and I made the 'rookie' mistake in regards to George RR Martin's ASoIaF: "Don't get too attached to any of the characters."

There's such an aura of menace about him... He's almost Republican.

The vile,brutish lowlife cad who is the soccer captain on Footballers Wives.Disturbingly hot.

I mean really..

:eyes:

Omar on "The Wire." Also Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale.
Vic Mackey on "The Shield."

of the characters on The Sopranos.

LeStat, from "Interview With the Vampire"

The Mummy! (the new movie versions)

And Paulie, Silvio, and Christopher, too. What a brilliant written and acted series. I think Ralph has been among the most effectively sociopathic character so far.

Child killer, child molester, rapist, hideously burned, with knifey-finger-claws... could you GET worse...

And yet there's something eerily attractive and powerfully sexual, and charismatic about him. Genuinely creepy stuff.

:hi:

David Bowie's character in "Labyrinth".

The fact that he had socks stuffed in his tights?

:rofl:

There goes my whole fantasy!!! :cry:

No, really -- it wasn't the crotch bulge so much as it was something else I can't really describe. Definitely evil, but "dressed up" evil, to the point of being almost appealing. I wish I could articulate it better, but I did find the character weirdly fascinating.

I consider motivation, too... but yeah, he was like...wildly histrionic.... all like "SHABANG WAHOO HERE'S MY CASTLE AND WATCH ME JUGGLE BITCHES" right in your FACE, and you're like...wow. :rofl: that's all I can think of to describe it.

Kind of...larger than life.

Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!

(I said that a lot when my son was two!)

David Bowie in tights... :loveya:

fascinating fellow, thoough probably a former spy with alot of blood on his hands, attempted genocide and murder are on his rap sheet.

;)

Not the BS series, but the one from the book.

I can't give away the appalling part (the end of the movie's a bit of a twist) but even knowing what vile scheme he and the other islanders were up to, he's still hot as hell and a very compelling character.

I'm gonna have to check it back out.

Vic Vega is the guy that cuts the cop's ear off while dancing to that "Stuck in the Middle" song.

The Butcher...well if you've seen Gangs of New York, you know who he is.

Soon it's gonna get to the point where Travolta & Mann are too old for it to be a worthwhile venture. (And he's still yet to make 'Inglorious Bastards' & 'Grindhouse' plus the mysterious 'Mandarin Movie'.

& may I recommend another 'Butcher' - Philippe Nahon in I Stand Alone: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157016/

from david copperfield.

Although why that oily little SOB would first come to mind is a mystery.

Don't ask me why, I gots the hots for him.

Now, whether we want to analyze that is for a whole 'nother forum! :D

Daniel Day Lewis rocks!

:thumbsup:

Cool-headed, reasonable and completely loyal; but if he shows up at your front door, you KNOW you're fucked.

since he killed Adriana. His capacity to do that really drove home the evil side of all of Tony's sidekicks.

He can be a major asshole but I adore him. I've got a major crush.

makes my skin crawl

I've never seen it, if that's to what you're referring. Or is there something else out there I'm missing?

The assigner.

What a well-drawn character.

from American Psycho

for someone to mention that prick.

:hi: DU!

From Stephen R. Donaldson's "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever".

I just started reading the series about a week ago. I'm guessing this is as 'likeable' as he's ever going to get, isn't he?

Two of those were fictional characters within fictional characters... you never met them.

all of them brilliant.

And as for the written word: Kathy (or is it Kate or am i way off) from East of Eden.

That name is soooo familiar...

Maybe one of my top 10 of all time.

"He lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. "Rat on your pop, and Keyser Soze will get you." And no-one ever really believes."

Yes, I know, it was an awful movie...but he was soo deliciously creepy...



same thing in A Knight's Tale.



(No really, I don't just watch cheesy mainstream movies...I swear!)

Ooh, and Sephiroth too, excellent villain!



(edited to make the pictures work)

He sucks, but still kinda kicks ass.

Best. Villain. Ever.

I loved watching him suffer at the end. But you couldn't help but admire his degree of clever ruthlessness.

What a bastard--a little too much villain for me to want to let him off with the 'Rogue' label--but what a smooth talker.