VILLAINS QUIZ

[Anonymouṡ No.19791223]

[Anonymouṡ No.19791231]

Let's see how fast the /lit/ egregore can crack these quotations. One hundred skin-crawlingly loathsome individuals (60 men, 19 women, 4 animals, 17 other) to be identified!

Mostly serious literature. (Some children's books. Some trash.)
About half-a-dozen non-English-language works.
Proper nouns redacted as appropriate.

Hints on request.

(Needless to say, men of honour don't use wise uncle Google to post answers from books they haven't read.)

[Anonymouṡ No.19791237]

1.
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:—
“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!”


2.
"Was there any truth at all in all that yarn?"
She hung her head. Dampness glistened on her dark lashes. "Some," she whispered.
"How much?"
"Not — not very much."


3.
He predicted a better world to come, where all men would be brothers and their buildings would become harmonious and all alike, in the great tradition of Greece, "the Mother of Democracy." When he wrote this, he managed to convey — with no tangible break in the detached calm of his style — that the words now seen in ordered print had been blurred in manuscript by a hand unsteady with emotion.


4.
But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested ******, with thick black eyebrows and a queer accent, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish smile.


5.
...a thick squat soft man of no establishable age between twenty and thirty, with a broad still face containing a tight seam of mouth stained slightly at the corners with tobacco, and eyes the color of stagnant water, and projecting from among the other features in startling and sudden paradox, a tiny predatory nose like the beak of a small hawk.


6.
The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.


7.
It seemed to her she did not have to look for the pebble. She just moved her throwing arm and the palm of her hand fitted nicely over the smooth, oval shape. How could a smooth, oval stone be lying there, not under the mud or even under the grass but on top where your throwing arm can find it without looking? There the stone was, fitted to the hand as she peered past the creamy handfuls of meadowsweet and saw the mother and chicks paddling busily down the brook.


8.
"Some of my very best friends are enlisted men, you understand, but that's about as close as I care to let them come."


9.
Look, where he comes. Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow’dst yesterday.


10.
She caught his mood, and something he said caused her to laugh. Then the two of them were laughing together, senselessly, as if they both were children. Suddenly the door to the study came open, and the hard light from the living room streamed into the shadowed recesses of the study. ****** stood outlined in that light.
"******," she said distinctly and slowly, "your father is trying to work. You mustn't disturb him."

[Anonymouṡ No.19791250]

11.
Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll, skin like flesh-coloured enamel, blend of white and cream and baby-blue eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils — everything working together except the color on her lips and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.


12.
"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare!"


13.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' door
Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'


14.
"I got a treatment for women that try to run away," he said casually. "I cut a little hole in their stomachs and pull out a gut and wrap it around a limb. Then I drag them thirty or forty feet and tie them down. That way they can watch the coyotes come and eat their guts."


15.
As that great bulk lowered itself into the bath the waters rose perceptibly and when he had submerged himself to the eyes he looked about with considerable pleasure, the eyes slightly crinkled, as if he were smiling under the water like some pale and bloated manatee surfaced in a bog while behind his small and close-set ear the wedged cigar smoked gently just above the waterline.


16.
The high-shouldered boy, who had taken no part in the excitement, pulled out a small pipe of knotted worm-wood and filled it deliberately. His mouth was quite expressionless, curving neither up nor down, but his eyes were dark and hot with a mature hatred.


17.
Even as a child she had some quality that made people look at her, then look away, then look back at her, troubled at something foreign. Something looked out of her eyes, and was never there when one looked again.


18.
He peered at me with great curiosity in his puckered eyes.
"You have less frontal development than I should have expected," said he at last. "It is a dangerous habit to finger loaded firearms in the pocket of one's dressing-gown."


19.
"I gave you all — "
"And in good time you gave it."


20.
None of the ladies knew what to make of ******, and though he was courteous and amusing and seemed destined to become a person of importance, he made them feel uncomfortable, in some obscure way, as if he were not quite human. None of them enjoyed taking him to her private room. My mistress ******, for one, successfully avoided doing so on every occasion, and without incurring his hostility. ****** told a queer story: how one evening she had fallen asleep while ****** was in bed with her and, suddenly waking up and finding herself alone, had seen a large rat scuttle from under the coverlet and out through the window.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791260]

21.
Mrs. ****** would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked ******, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him 'for his good' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome.


22.
"Listen carefully, ******," ****** said. "Observe the plans within plans within plans."
****** nodded, thinking: This is more like it. The old monster is letting me in on secret things at last. He must really mean for me to be his heir.


23.
In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told he was a *raconteur* of repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different caste from his crew.


24.
"Well, and what was to happen after that, ******?" asked ******. "Make sure you tell us everything, because we know a good deal already. Let her alone, ******," he added. "She can't talk if you keep cuffing her, you fool."


25.
He brushed his clothes most scrupulously twice a day invariably, and was very fond of cleaning his smart calf boots with a special English polish, so that they shone like mirrors. He turned out a first‐rate cook. ****** paid him a salary, almost the whole of which ****** spent on clothes, pomade, perfumes, and such things. But he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men; he was discreet, almost unapproachable, with them.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791268]

26.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost — the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield...


27.
“Ah, the others!” returned ******. “They’re a nice lot, ain’t they? You say this cruise is bungled. Ah! By gum, if you could understand how bad it’s bungled, you would see! We’re that near the gibbet that my neck’s stiff with thinking on it."


28.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.


29.
On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never working in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was not her fault, if the warning were fruitless. She is never to blame in any such instance.


30.
“Ef I jes had a quarter,” ****** says, “I could go to dat show.”
“En ef you had wings you could fly to heaven,” ****** says. “I dont want to hear another word about dat show.”
“That reminds me,” I says. “I’ve got a couple of tickets they gave me.” I took them out of my coat.
“You fixin to use um?” ****** says.
“Not me,” I says. “I wouldn’t go to it for ten dollars.”
“Gimme one of um, Mr ******,” he says.
“I’ll sell you one,” I says. “How about it?”
“I aint got no money,” he says.
“That’s too bad,” I says.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791274]

31.
I looked at the man by the workbench now. He was short and thick-bodied with strong shoulders. He had a cool face and cool dark eyes. He wore a belted brown suede raincoat that was heavily spotted with rain. His brown hat was tilted rakishly. He leaned his back against the workbench and looked me over without haste, without interest, as if he was looking at a slab of cold meat. Perhaps he thought of people that way.


32.
"I am studying the art of patience."
"'Tis a noble virtue."
"To drive six snails before me from this town to Moscow; neither use goad nor whip to them, but let them take their own time; the patient'st man i' th' world match me for an experiment: an I 'll crawl after like a sheep-biter."


33.
The Thing cannot be described — there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A mountain walked or stumbled. God! What wonder that across the earth a great architect went mad, and poor ****** raved with fever in that telepathic instant?


34.
The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense
Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd
The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,
How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,
And whiter than the sheets!


35.
"Hey, ******," he asks, managing to slur both words.
"Yes, ******," I say, drawing near.
"Why are there, um, copies of the Style section all over the place?" he asks tiredly. "Do you have a dog? A chow or something?"

[Anonymouṡ No.19791284]

36.
He walked rapidly, rundown bootheels clocking against the paved surface of the road, and if car lights showed on the horizon he faded back and back, down over the soft shoulder to the high grass where the night bugs made their homes... and the car would pass him, the driver perhaps feeling a slight chill as if he had driven through an air pocket, his sleeping wife and children stirring uneasily, as if all had been touched with a bad dream at the same instant.


37.
"'Well,' thought I, 'if they're such fools, I will get ahead of them and teach them a lesson. One ill turn deserves another.' It would have been a sharper lesson, if only you had given me a little more time and more Men. Still I have already done much that you will find it hard to mend or undo in your lives. And it will be pleasant to think of that and set it against my injuries."


38.
Then another voice entered the cavern. It was deep and resonant, powerful enough to fill the air without effort, and somehow deadly, as if an abyss were speaking. "Back, ******!" it commanded. "This prey is too great for you. I claim him."


39.
****** looked across at ******.
"Which finger do you use least, Mister ******?"
****** was startled by the question. His mind raced.
"On reflection, I expect you will say the little finger of the left hand," continued the soft voice. "******, break the little finger of Mr. ******'s left hand."


40.
****** took from somewhere among her wrappings a very small bottle which looked as if it were made of copper. Then, holding out her arm, she let one drop fall from it on to the snow beside the sledge. ****** saw the drop for a second in mid-air, shining like a diamond. But the moment it touched the snow there was a hissing sound and there stood a jewelled cup full of something that steamed. The Dwarf immediately took this and handed it to ****** with a bow and a smile; not a very nice smile. ****** felt much better as he began to sip the hot drink. It was something he had never tasted before, very sweet and foamy and creamy, and it warmed him right down to his toes.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791295]

41.
"I have pressed the first lever," said ******. "You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap onto your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue."


42.
"You work hard, madame," said a man near her.
"Yes," answered ******; "I have a good deal to do."
"What do you make, madame?"
"Many things."
"For instance — "
"For instance," returned ******, composedly, "shrouds."


43.
My grandmother was a consummate actress, and the outward purity of her conduct, the sharpness of her wit and the graciousness of her manners deceived nearly everybody. But nobody really liked her: malignity commands respect, not liking.


44.
“Do not urge her, madam,” said ******. “It is not fair to urge her in this manner. You see she does not like to act. Let her choose for herself, as well as the rest of us. Her judgment may be quite as safely trusted. Do not urge her any more.”
"I am not going to urge her,” replied Mrs. ****** sharply; “but I shall think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her — very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and what she is.”


45.
****** knocked on the door. The knob turned. It was locked. ****** picked up a heavy glass ashtray. He couldn’t get his hand across it, and he had to hold it by the edge. He tried to think just for two seconds more: wasn’t there another way out? What would he do with the body? He couldn’t think. This was the only way out. He opened the door with his left hand. His right hand with the ashtray was drawn back and down.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791307]

46.
****** seldom holds his head upright. He tilts it as he asks a question, as though he were screwing an auger of curiosity into your face.


47.
"The pale faces make themselves dogs to their women," muttered the Indian, in his native language, "and when they want to eat, their warriors must lay aside the tomahawk to feed their laziness."


48.
I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!
“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?”


49.
"What did she use the cottage for?" I asked; "it looked quite furnished. I thought from the outside it was just a boathouse."
"It was a boathouse originally," he said, his voice constrained again, difficult, the voice of someone who is uncomfortable about his subject. "Then — then she converted it like that, had furniture put in, and china."
I thought it funny the way he called her "she." He did not say ****** or Mrs. ******, as I expected him to do.
"Did she use it a great deal?" I asked.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, she did. Moonlight picnics, and — and one thing and another."


50.
****** held out her hand to him, which he kissed tenderly.

“But,” said he, as he retired as quickly as possible from the reproaches of ******, “I must not play the fool. This woman is certainly a great liar. I must take care.”

[Anonymouṡ No.19791313]

51.
****** began gathering specimens of the fruit for her, handing them back to her as he stooped; and, presently, selecting a specially fine product of the 'British Queen' variety, he stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth.
"No — no!" she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her lips. "I would rather take it in my own hand."
"Nonsense!" he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in.


52.
"Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss?"


53.
****** heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight and he had to hold on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather than fight.


54.
The door quickly opened
On fire-hinges fastened, when his fingers had touched it;
The fell one had flung then — his fury so bitter —
Open the entrance.


55.
"Let us recapitulate — now that all is clear. A person who was at the Three Boars earlier that day, a person who knew ****** well enough to know that he had purchased a dictaphone, a person who was of a mechanical turn of mind, who had the opportunity to take the dagger from the silver table before Miss ****** arrived, who had with him a receptacle suitable for hiding the dictaphone — such as a black bag, and who had the study to himself for a few minutes after the crime was discovered while ****** was telephoning for the police. In fact — ******!"

[Anonymouṡ No.19791319]

56.
"But, ******, you couldn't do such a thing! They are alive... You owe everything... The King made you his deputy... Your fealty... It would not be true! ****** has always treated you with such scrupulous justice..."
He said with cold eyes: "I have never asked to be treated with justice. It is something which he does to people, to amuse himself."
"But he is your father!"
"So far as that goes, I did not ask to be born. I suppose he did that to amuse himself, also."


57.
****** went into my mind. He walked smoothly here and there, and looked with interest at all the pock marks he had created in one hundred and nine years. He looked at the cross-routed and reconnected synapses and all the tissue damage his gift of immortality had included. He smiled softly at the pit that dropped into the center of my brain and the faint, moth-soft murmurings of the things far down there that gibbered without meaning, without pause.


58.
As they went through the hall, a most beautiful white Persian cat dashed past them and ran upstairs. Mrs. ****** admired it.
“I don’t like her much,” said ******. “I’d drown her if she wasn’t so valuable."


59.
“Now, wolf,” said he, “afore I kill you like any other beast — which is wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for — I’ll have a good look at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!”


60.
Backward, from the apex, his head slanted down to his neck and forward it slanted uncompromisingly to meet a low and remarkably wide forehead. Beginning here, as though regretting her parsimony, Nature had spread his features with a lavish hand. His eyes were large, and between them was the distance of two eyes. His face, in relation to the rest of him, was prodigious. In order to discover the necessary area, Nature had given him an enormous prognathous jaw. It was wide and heavy, and protruded outward and down until it seemed to rest on his chest. Possibly this appearance was due to the weariness of the slender neck, unable properly to support so great a burden.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791328]

61.
“I am not particularly interested in anyone’s opinion,” ****** answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak for our climate... and especially if one has a natural propensity that way,” he added, laughing again.


62.
"What happened to her?" ****** said.
"They spoilt her looks. She lost one eye. They splashed vitriol on her face."
****** whispered, "Vitriol? What’s vitriol?" and the lightning showed a strut of tarred wood, a wave breaking and her pale, bony, terrified face.
"You never seen vitriol?" the Boy said, grinning through the dark. He showed her the little bottle. "That’s vitriol."


63.
****** recoiled, his dark face ashy. The jewel was no longer crystal-clear; its murky depths pulsed and throbbed, and curious smoky waves of changing color passed over its smooth surface. As if drawn hypnotically, ****** bent over the table and gripped the gem in his hands, staring into its shadowed depths, as if it were a magnet to draw the shuddering soul from his body. And as ****** looked, he thought that his eyes must be playing him tricks. For when ****** had risen up from his couch, the priest had seemed gigantically tall; yet now he saw that ******'s head would scarcely come to his shoulder. He blinked, puzzled, and for the first time that night, doubted his own senses. Then with a shock he realized that the priest was shrinking in stature — was growing smaller before his very gaze.


64.
"All the so-called wisdom of ****** is not worth one line from the least paragraph in the Septateuch," said ******.
"May we not study the works of the infidel in order to be more alert to the ways of heresy?" said ******, surprised at himself.
"Ah. A persuasive argument, ******, and one that the inquisitors have heard many times, if a little indistinctly in many cases."


65.
A pity, he thought, as he signed his name. It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose — well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily de-condition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes — make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere; that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, ****** reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791337]

66.
"New way?" I said. "What's this about a new way? There's been some very large talk behind my sleeping back and no error."


67.
The line hissed and crackled as if the call were coming from a long way away. The voice at the other end of the phone was unfamiliar. “Mister ******?” it said. “Mister ******?”
“Yes,” he said. And then, delighted, “You can hear me. Oh thank God. Who is this?”
“My associate and I met you on Saturday, Mister ******. I was enquiring as to the whereabouts of a certain young lady. Do you remember?” The tones were oily, nasty, foxy.
“Oh. Yes. It’s you.”
“Mister ******. You said ****** wasn’t with you. We have reason to believe that you were embroidering the truth more than perhaps a little.”
“Well, you said you were her brother.”
“All men are brothers, Mister ******.”


68.
"He talked with me, ******. I suppose he talked to all of us. You, and ******, whatever there is of ****** to talk to. He can't really understand us, you know. He has his profiles, but those are only statistics. You may be the statistical animal, darling, and ****** is nothing but, but I possess a quality unquantifiable by its very nature." He drank.
"And what exactly is that, ******?" ****** asked, her voice flat.
****** beamed. "Perversity."


69.
The mighty Emperor of the dolorous realm
Rose forth, from mid-breast upward, out the ice;
And as a giant's proportions overwhelm

My own, so equally his arm sufficed
To dwarf a giant. Mark then what vast extent
The whole could boast, whose part was such a size!


70.
We got out; and leaving him to hold the pony, went into a long low parlour looking towards the street, from the window of which I caught a glimpse, as I went in, of ****** breathing into the pony’s nostrils, and immediately covering them with his hand, as if he were putting some spell upon him.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791346]

71.
The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder as they turned the end of the street. The lawyer, looking forth from the entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal with. He was small and very plainly dressed and the look of him, even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher’s inclination. But he made straight for the door, crossing the roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his pocket like one approaching home.
Mr. ****** stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he passed. “Mr. ******, I think?”


72.
His manner and his command of our language may also have assisted him, in some degree, to establish himself in my good opinion. He has that quiet deference, that look of pleased, attentive interest in listening to a woman, and that secret gentleness in his voice in speaking to a woman, which, say what we may, we can none of us resist.


73.
****** stood near the drop-hole waiting, but with his back turned as if he were not waiting.
"Well," he said to the men playing cards, "here comes a very strange beast which in all tongues is called a fool."


74.
"I could kill you like this," ****** whispered. "Just press and press until you're dead. And I could say that I didn't know it would hurt you, that we were just playing, and they'd believe me, and everything would be fine. And you'd be dead. Everything would be fine."
****** could not speak; the breath was being forced from his lungs. ****** might mean it. Probably didn't mean it, but then he might.
"I do mean it," ****** said. "Whatever you think, I mean it."


75.
"He would have looked very well as a priest: the shabby, gnomic variety one sees in small Italian towns. Little wiry chap, with silvery hair and bright brown eyes and plenty of wrinkles. Or a schoolmaster, he could have been a schoolmaster: tough — whatever that means — and sagacious within the limits of his experience; but the small canvas, all the same. He made no other initial impression, except that his gaze was straight and it fixed on me from early in our talk. If you can call it a talk, seeing that he never uttered a word. Not one, the whole time we were together; not a syllable."

[Anonymouṡ No.19791353]

76.
Dont be afraid, said ******. It doesnt hurt so bad. It would hurt tomorrow. But there will be no tomorrow.


77.
“Kill? Who said anything about killing? I would kill *him* if he was here; but not her. When you want to get revenge on a woman you don’t kill her — bosh! you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils — you notch her ears like a sow!”


78.
As for myself, I walk abroad o' nights,
And kill sick people groaning under walls:
Sometimes I go about and poison wells;
And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves,
I am content to lose some of my crowns,
That I may, walking in my gallery,
See 'em go pinion'd along by my door.


79.
That night ****** sang more sweetly and talked more pleasantly than she had ever been heard to do in Park Lane. She twined herself round the heart of Miss ******. She spoke lightly and laughingly of Sir ******'s proposal, ridiculed it as the foolish fancy of an old man; and her eyes filled with tears, and ******'s heart with unutterable pangs of defeat, as she said she desired no other lot than to remain for ever with her dear benefactress.


80.
Do not, she counseled herself, do *not* look toward the alligator purse.
The door was flung open. Holding the jamb in his two hands to steady himself against the train's motion, ****** stood before her. His somber tie was pulled awry, and sweat glistened on his forehead. He glared at ******.
"I can smell them," he said.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791357]

81.
When ****** picked himself up and looked about him — he found himself in a place that he had never seen before, although he had lived all his life in the house.
It was a very small stuffy fusty room, with boards, and rafters, and cobwebs, and lath and plaster.
Opposite to him — as far away as he could sit — was an enormous rat.


82.
She smiled then, the sweetest, saddest smile you ever saw. I thought of the five patients, the three little children, Mrs. ******, ******, and myself. It didn't seem possible that anybody that could be as nice as she was when she wanted to be, could have done those things.


83.
"What?" said ******. "I can't hear you." ****** never took a bath. He never even washed. As a result, his earholes were clogged with all kinds of muck and wax and bits of chewing-gum and dead flies and stuff like that. This made him deaf. "Speak louder," he said to ******, and ****** shouted back, "Got any more stupid ideas?"


84.
I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.


85.
"I see you haven't heard," ****** said softly. "I'm Mr. ******'s new business agent. I'm handling his business affairs for him. His business with stubborn jackasses like you." Then he said what showed ****** had coaxed him to it. "You're a damn fool, ******. But what can you expect from a breed?"

[Anonymouṡ No.19791365]

86.
Of course the pics were ten years out of date, but this was still the man. Gray and bony, well over six feet tall, with swinging arms and a peculiarly rapid gait. And his face. It had a ravaged quality, eaten away; as if, ****** conjectured, the fat-layer had been consumed, as if ****** at some time or other had fed off himself, devoured perhaps with gusto the superfluous portions of his own body.


87.
You think I'd trade places with you?
Yes. I do. I'm here and you are there. In a few minutes I will still be here.


88.
Miss ****** stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She was there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel nor mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. ******, but she was there most for ******; and no moment of my monstrous time was perhaps so extraordinary as that in which I consciously threw out to her — with the sense that, pale and ravenous demon as she was, she would catch and understand it — an inarticulate message of gratitude. She rose erect on the spot my friend and I had lately quitted, and there was not, in all the long reach of her desire, an inch of her evil that fell short.


89.
"No, ******. I'm the jury now, and the judge, and I have a promise to keep. Beautiful as you are, as much as I almost loved you, I sentence you to death."


90.
I did not know what to say to her, and I was terrified that she would recoil in horror at the sight of my sword and fuligin cloak. But she smiled and actually seemed to admire my appearance. After a moment, when I said nothing, she asked what I wanted; and I asked if she knew where I might buy a mantle.
"Are you sure you need one?" Her voice was deeper than I had expected. "You've such a beautiful cloak now. May I touch it?"

[Anonymouṡ No.19791370]

91.
"There are good times coming. I will get the box tomorrow and then we will divide the money, right here on this table."
"*We* will get the box," I answered, saying the first word with great care.


92.
****** was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement in the grass behind ******. He knew that mongooses in the garden meant death sooner or later for him and his family, but he wanted to get ****** off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and put it on one side.
"Let us talk," he said. "You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?"


93.
What have you then done, that I have not surpassed by a million of degrees? You have seduced, ruined several women: but what difficulties had you to encounter? What obstacles to surmount? Where is the merit that may be truly called yours? A handsome figure, the effect of mere chance; a gracefulness, which custom generally gives; some wit, it's true, but which nonsense would upon occasion supply as well; a tolerable share of impudence, which is solely owing to the facility of your first successes.


94.
You taught me language; and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!


95.
That left ******. He could find no sympathy for that fucker. A psycho who used sharpened knitting needles when he went to sort some poor cunt out. Less chance of hitting the rib cage than with a knife, he’d boast.

[Anonymouṡ No.19791383]

96.
The anchor was instantly dropped, and the chain ran rattling through the port-hole. ****** continued at his post in spite of the presence of the pilot, until this manoeuvre was completed, and then he added, “Half-mast the colors, and square the yards!”
“You see,” said ******, “he fancies himself captain already, upon my word.”


97.
"Yes, but he isn't the only one who needs peace, ******. I can't feel sorry for him. He's lucky. He's through, now. It's all decided for him. I wish it was decided for me. I've never been any good at deciding things. Even about selling out, it was the tart the detective agency got after me who put it in my mind."


98.
His thick, heavy, languid, lustreless black hair fell down behind his ears on to his shoulders, in that musicianlike way that is so offensive to the normal Englishman. He had bold, brilliant black eyes, with long, heavy lids, a thin, sallow face, and a beard of burnt-up black which grew almost from his under eyelids; and over it his mustache, a shade lighter, fell in two long spiral twists.


99.
"Back! daughter of Babylon! Come not near the chosen of the Lord. Thy mother hath filled the earth with the wine of her iniquities, and the cry of her sins hath come up to the ears of God."
"Speak again, ******. Thy voice is wine to me."


100.
And the incorruptible ****** walked too, averting his eyes from the odious multitude of mankind. He had no future. He disdained it. He was a force. His thoughts caressed the images of ruin and destruction. He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable — and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world. Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men.

[Anonymous No.19791431]

Great work!

[Anonymouṡ No.19791766]

>>19791431
Well, maybe people are beavering away at them. Or maybe not.

[Anonymous No.19791779]

>>19791223
1 is Dracula

[Anonymous No.19791918]

>>19791223
12. Bilbo Baggins
40. The White Witch

[Anonymouṡ No.19791947]

>>19791779

[Anonymouṡ No.19791952]

>>19791918
12 — Well, right book. Bilbo's not actually the villain though.
40 — Yep.

[Anonymous No.19791957]

Sheeeeeeit too much word

[Anonymous No.19791969]

>>19791952
>Bilbo's not actually the villain though
I disagree

[Anonymous No.19792380]

47. Magua

[Anonymouṡ No.19792393]

>>19792380

[Anonymouṡ No.19793357]

Quick bump before bed.

A few miscellaneous hints:

76 & 87 are the same author.
50 & 93 are the same original language.
5 & 19 are by authors with the same first name.

[Anonymous No.19793376]

>>19791383
>Everyone complaining about low effort threads
>OP takes 30 mins to post his thread
I don't think this counts as low effort so here's a bump even though I'm not going to play the game.

[Anonymous No.19793399]

>>19791250
13. Is either Coriolanus or Titus Andronicus. It sounds too petty/spiteful to be Caius Marcus so I'm going to guess it's from Titus and it's the Moor.

[Anonymous No.19793414]

>>19791250
>As that great bulk lowered itself into the bath the waters rose perceptibly and when he had submerged himself to the eyes he looked about with considerable pleasure, the eyes slightly crinkled, as if he were smiling under the water like some pale and bloated manatee surfaced in a bog while behind his small and close-set ear the wedged cigar smoked gently just above the waterline.
Judge Holden (Blood Meridian).

[Anonymous No.19793465]

>>19791969

[Anonymous No.19793514]

>>19791295
41 is O'Brien from 1984.

[Anonymous No.19793551]

>>19791260
22 could be Rabban Harkonnen
>>19791319
56. Tyrion Lannister?
>>19791328
64 makes me think of Terry Pratchett, Small Gods?
>>19791365
90 I believe is Jolenta from Claw of the Conciliator

[Anonymous No.19793585]

>>19793465
very nice

[Anonymous No.19793818]

>>19793551
22 is Feyd, Rabban only plays minor role in books.

90 is actually Agia, Jolenta is not really a villain, but rather a victim, like those insta thots that get pozzed by botox and surgeries, because they were sold false hope.

[Anonymous No.19793849]

>>19791383
96 has gotta be my boy Danglars

[Anonymous No.19793969]

17 - Cathy from East of Eden
22 - Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from Dune
35 - Patrick Bateman from American Psycho
40 - I assume the evil witch in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I'm very ashamed to say that that's all I know.

[Anonymous No.19794710]

>>19791223
Fun thread.
16. Steerpike! Still not sure what to make of Gormenghast, I've yet to read the rest of trilogy. Parts of it were fun but others were just too ridiculous, which didn't fit with how dark the overall story is.
38. Mad at myself for not getting this, I guess mentioning leprosy or white-gold would have been too easy.
74. Looks familiar, is it maybe Ender's older brother from Ender's Game?

[Anonymous No.19794727]

>>19794710
shit I forgot 8. knew it was from Catch-22, did have to look up exactly which character. I remember copying that exact paragraph down when I read it.

[Anonymous No.19794777]

26 Satan
69 Lucifer

[Anonymouṡ No.19794835]

>>19793399
Well deduced.

[Anonymouṡ No.19794870]

>>19793414

[Anonymous No.19794894]

>>19791268
28. Gloucester

[Anonymouṡ No.19794925]

>>19793514

[Anonymous No.19794943]

>>19791250
11 is Nurse Ratched
Not 100% sure, but that's my best guess.

[Anonymous No.19794982]

>>19791346
74 is Ender Wiggin's older brother, Peter Wiggin .

[Anonymouṡ No.19794991]

>>19793551
>>19793818

22 — Right series. Obviously two people talking so it's a matter of which you think is the main focus. I was intending The Baron. It's from the first book in the series.

56 — No. This is a tough one I think because it sounds so much like modern fantasy. It's an older book.

64 — Yes. The jokey tone of the last line is pure Pratchett.

90 — Right series, but yeah, it's Agia, from the first book. Not sure you'd call her completely a villain. But I love evil women anyway so my judgement is probably skewed.

[Anonymouṡ No.19794994]

>>19793849

[Anonymouṡ No.19795029]

>>19793969

17 — Yep.
22 — There are two people talking so it's a question of which you pick I guess. I meant the Baron.
35 — Of course. Others may get this but you got it first.
40 — Yep.

[Anonymouṡ No.19795048]

>>19794710
>>19794727
16 — Yep.
38 — Yep. Not sure it's that easy. Loads of lesser books have bits that sound just like this.
74 — Correct. Peter.
8 — Yep. Loads of good lines I could have used. "The Colonel certainly did not intend to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him."

[Anonymouṡ No.19795057]

>>19794777
Correct. And checked. Two quotations for the price of one character.

[Anonymous No.19795059]

>>19791313
52 is Mephistophilis from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus

[Anonymous No.19795067]

>>19791370
95 is Begbie from Trainspotting, sorry should have included this in my previous post

[Anonymouṡ No.19795069]

>>19794894
Correct, although by that point of course he would be calling himself King Richard.

[Anonymouṡ No.19795113]

>>19794943
Correct. What a bitch she is.

[Anonymous No.19795117]

>>19791237
1. The guy from house of usher?
6. Shylock
15. The Judge
I feel like I know the last one too.

[Anonymous No.19795139]

6. Shylock from Merchant of Venice
26. Satan, Paradise Lost
28. Lady Macbeth?
52. Mephistopheles from Dr Faustus?
69. Satan from Dante's Inferno?
94. Caliban from Tempest

[Anonymouṡ No.19795144]

>>19795059
Correct.

(The line before is maybe more famous, I guess, where Faustus says, more or less, "OK, so if you're the devil, why aren't you in hell?" and he says: "Why, this *is* hell, nor am I out of it.")

[Anonymouṡ No.19795200]

>>19795067

[Anonymouṡ No.19795220]

>>19795117
1. — Nope. Roughly the right period, but not Poe. Someone already got this, somewhere.
6 — Yep.
15 — Yep.

100 is pretty hard I think. It's the very end of the book which maybe makes it memorable, but the book is not that well-known, so...

[Anonymouṡ No.19795252]

>>19795139

6 — Yep
28 — No, although the tone (murderer feels remorse) sort of fits Macbeth. Someone already got this one.
52 — Yeah. (Marlowe, not Goethe.)
69 — Yeah.
94 — Yep. (These days they say he isn't really a villain, but he seems like a villain to me.)

[Anonymous No.19795263]

>>19791250
11. Nurse Ratched
12. Smaug
16. Steerpike

[Anonymous No.19795270]

>>19791365
87 is Anton Chigurh

33 is Cthulhu

[Anonymous No.19795294]

>>19795252
nice. I haven't actually read Goethe's, just Marlowe's and Mann's

[Anonymous No.19795371]

37 is Saruman

[Anonymouṡ No.19795403]

>>19795263
Yes, yes, and yes.

[Anonymouṡ No.19795462]

>>19795270
Correct. Two new answers.

87 was tough I think, because these lines weren't in the film (if I remember correctly).

[Anonymouṡ No.19795470]

>>19795371
Yep. Now you've got it, everyone will say oh yes of course.

[Anonymous No.19795696]

Dumb animeposter

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.19795753]

Surprised no one here recognized 2 from The Maltese Falcon

[Anonymouṡ No.19795873]

>>19795753
Correct. You *might* guess it from the film, since it has that scene almost exactly as written.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.19795900]

>>19795873
The film is great too, Lorre was especially perfect for Cairo

[Anonymous No.19797372]

>>19791223
How many do we have?

[Anonymouṡ No.19797476]

>>19797372

29 found so far:

1 — Dracula (Dracula)
2 — Brigid O'Shaughnessey (The Maltese Falcon)
6 — Shylock (The Merchant of Venice)
8 — Colonel Cathcart (Catch-22)
11 — Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
12 — Smaug (The Hobbit)
13 — Aaron (Titus Andronicus)
15 — Judge Holden (Blood Meridian)
16 — Steerpike (Titus Groan)
17 — Cathy Ames (East of Eden)
22 — Baron Harkonnen (Dune)
26 — Satan (Paradise Lost)
28 — King Richard (Richard III)
33 — Cthulhu (The Call of Cthulhu)
35 — Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
37 — Saruman (The Return of the King)
38 — Lord Foul (Lord Foul's Bane)
40 — The White Witch (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
41 — O'Brien (1984)
47 — Magua (The Last of the Mohicans)
42 — Mephistopheles (Doctor Faustus)
64 — Vorbis (Small Gods)
69 — Lucifer (Divine Comedy)
74 — Peter (Ender's Game)
87 — Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men)
90 — Agia (The Shadow of the Torturer)
94 — Caliban (The Tempest)
95 — Begbie (Trainspotting)
96 — Danglars (The Count of Monte Cristo)

Several of the remaining are /lit/ favourites: 4,10,25,30 especially.

[Anonymous No.19798028]

>>19797476
10 is Edith from Stoner

[Anonymous No.19798044]

>>19791237
4. Humbert Humbert from Lolita

[Anonymous No.19798056]

>>19791268
is 30 from the sound and the fury.
Also, fantastic thread OP. Thanks for taking the time to put this together

[Anonymous No.19798157]

>>19791237
3 is Ellsworth Toohey from The Fountainhead.

[Anonymous No.19798170]

posting in based thread

[Anonymouṡ No.19798286]

>>19798028
Yup. Wrecks her own child just to hurt her husband. What a cutie.

[Anonymouṡ No.19798298]

>>19798044
Sure is. Can't forget that cesspoolful of rotting monsters.

[Anonymous No.19798315]

58. Cruella de Vil

[Anonymous No.19798321]

Which ones haven’t been answered?

[Anonymouṡ No.19798325]

>>19798056
Yup, it's Jason all right. The best part is when Luster can't afford the 5 cents to buy a ticket so he just throws them on the stove in front of him rather than give him one.

[Anonymouṡ No.19798347]

>>19798157
Yep. Not an easy one but maybe the stuff about buildings was a nudge in the right direction.

[Anonymouṡ No.19798354]

>>19798315

[Anonymouṡ No.19798405]

>>19798321
There's a summary of answers so far a few posts up, then people have got a few more since then. So just have to subtract.

5, 7, 9
14, 18, 19, 20
21, 23, 24, 25
etc
Some are probably impossible without hints, looking at them. But most are OK.

[Anonymouṡ No.19798670]

Okie last bump before bed. Another hint to be going on with:

The four animals are rat, snake, rabbit and tiger.

[Anonymous No.19798796]

>>19791237
Is 7 Briony from Atonement?

[Anonymous No.19798819]

>>19791268
26 is Hamlet and 30 is Jason from The Sound and The Fury?

[Anonymous No.19798826]

>>19791274
35 is Patrick Bateman

[Anonymous No.19798842]

>>19791284
Is 36 Chigurh?
40 is the white witch

[Anonymous No.19798856]

>>19791313
52 is Satan from Paradise Lost?

[Anonymous No.19799194]

bump

[Anonymous No.19799357]

>>19791319

59. Orlick - Great Expectations

>>19791319

62. Pinkie - Brighton Rock

>>19791370

92. Nagiana the cobra - Rikki Tikki Tavi.


Any guess on my nationality, lol.

[Anonymous No.19799363]

101.
Where's the nigger?

[Anonymouṡ No.19800056]

>>19798796
It does sound a bit like that, but no it isn't. It is a late-20th-century English novel, but a bit earlier than Atonement. It's fairly obscure. Probably the hardest on the list. I don't know why I picked it; I must have been mad, since the author has a much more obvious villain to choose. Oh well.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800078]

>>19798819
26 — No. It's Satan from Paradise Lost. (A couple of people got it already so I'm not giving anything away, haha.)
30 — Correct. Someone got the work earlier, but not the name of the friendly fellow himself.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800090]

>>19798826
Why, yes it is!

[Anonymouṡ No.19800101]

>>19798842
36 — No. Chigurh is on the list but elsewhere. Someone already found him. No-one's got 86 yet. He's some kind of supernatural entity.

40 — Yep.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800113]

>>19798856
No, but it absolutely could be. Maybe that's one of the red herrings on the list. A creature saying in blank verse how he was thrown out of heaven is pretty much exactly Satan from Paradise Lost, I agree. But he's elsewhere (someone already found him).

52 is (sort of) the same character from another author. Someone already found it but I accidentally mis-numbered it when I posted the big spoilered list of everything known so far. It's Mephistopheles from Marlowe's Doctor Fausus.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800133]

>>19799357

59 — Yep
62 — Yep
92 — More or less. I meant Nag( the one talking). Nagaina is his wife (the one creeping up behind Rikki.)

I thought the English ones might well prove tricky, given most people here are probably American.

[Anonymous No.19800138]

>>19791237
7 Sophy

>There isn’t anyone to help you. Only me.
>And I’m the Beast. . . .
>Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! . . .
>You knew, didn’t you?
>I’m part of you?
>Close, close, close!
>I’m the reason why it’s no go?
>Why things are the way they are?

[Anonymouṡ No.19800154]

>>19799363
Ah, I was waiting for someone to start extending the list. The only tricky bit is being sure the character isn't on the list already. I don't recognize this one offhand but will ponder. (It's quite short so might be in more than one book I suppose.)

[Anonymouṡ No.19800246]

>>19800138
Hmmm. Sophy is a girl's name. But you quoted Lord of the Flies. And there ain't no girls in Lord of the Flies.

[Anonymous No.19800394]

Few that I don't remember directly but are educated guesses:

43. Livia - I, Claudius
67. Behemoth - Master and Margarita
98. Captain Hook - Peter Pan

[Anonymous No.19800403]

>>19800246
Give me the points sir, Sophy is the correct answer.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800437]

>>19800403
Sophy is indeed the name we're looking for. But does a first name alone identify an individual?

I'd like to give you the points. But without a surname or a book title, or at least a hint thereto, I don't know.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800448]

>>19800394
43 — Yep. I guess "the narrator's evil grandmother" narrows it down a bit.

67 — Nope. The author I'm quoting does have a habit of "adapting" better men's stories, but usually they're very old stories.

98 — No, but not a bad guess. It's pretty obscure. Now that this guy
>>19800403
has (sort of, maybe) got #7, #98 might be the hardest one outstanding. Or one of the hardest. Of course, the gentleman you mention might be hiding elsewhere in the list...

[Anonymous No.19800492]

>>19800437
Stanhope, Darkness Visible by the same author of (the more well known) Lord of the Flies

[Anonymous No.19800525]

>>19800448
I'll answer #98 later if nobody else has it yet

[Anonymous No.19800539]

I mean to say that I have the answer for number ninety-eight and shall produce it at a later time, today in fact, if nobody else has gotten it.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800578]

>>19800492
Correct. Of course I have no idea if you're the same guy, but it's pretty unlikely there are two people on lit who have read Darkness Visible, so...

[Anonymouṡ No.19800673]

>>19800539
OK I'll hold off on giving a hint for that one. I wonder which *is* the hardest one then, if it's not #98? Put it another way, if they all end up getting got, which will be the last? #82 or #97, maybe.

[Anonymous No.19800698]

Great thread

[Anonymous No.19800718]

>>19791237
1. Dracula?

Cool idea OP. Too tired to look at anymore will look tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.19800762]

>>19800448

Ahh fuck, 23 is captain hook.

While we’re on pirates, 27 is nautical and colourful so I’m going to guess Long John Silver, Coral island. (I’ve not read the book but I have seen the Jim Henson adaptation).

Is guessing okay btw? My hit rate isn’t fantastic lol.

[Anonymous No.19800765]

>>19800762

Damn, I mean Treasure Island obv.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800769]

>>19800718
Yep. You're 100% so far. Try #2 tomorrow morning.

[Anonymouṡ No.19800972]

>>19800762
23 — Yep. "Crew" is a useful pointer haha
27 — Yep, good guessing. Sometimes seeing the film is very useful. Not so much with the Muppets though haha

[Anonymous No.19801579]

>>19791313
51 i'm pretty sure is alec d'urberville (tess of the d'urbervilles)

[Anonymouṡ No.19801641]

>>19801579

[Anonymous No.19802037]

>>19791383
98 is Svengali from Trilby by George Du Maurier

[Anonymouṡ No.19802068]

>>19802037
Indeed it is. Weird little book. No-one remembers it now but it gave not one but TWO new words to the language:

— Svengali (sinister person who manipulates someone else)

— Trilby (cool hat)

[Anonymous No.19802378]

This is a really cool thread, cheers!

Can I ask how long you’ve been putting this together and why?

How did you select your villains?

Got anything similar in the works for another day?

[Anonymouṡ No.19802998]

>>19802378
It took a couple of days off & on. I just thought of characters I didn't like, haha. Then I hunted around at random for the last dozen or so.

I was idly collecting material for another one but dunno when I'll do it. I have about sixty at the minute.

[Anonymous No.19804287]

This is a good thread for recs, sad I could only get one. I need to read more.
(bump)

[Anonymous No.19804362]

>>19802998
You don't like Patrick Bateman?

[Anonymouṡ No.19804604]

>>19804362
Well, he has his good and his bad points I suppose.

Anyway, last bump before bed. A few more random hints:

18, 21, 57, 63 are short stories
88 is a novella
97 is a stage play

45, 46, 85, 93 are much more well-known through film adaptations

25 & 61 are by the same author
42 & 70 are by the same author