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/lit/ - Literature

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23208183 No.23208183 [Reply] [Original]

When thinking of the most truly evil sort of antagonist, what would be more evil with these two types? One would be an antagonist who hates everyone. His minions are his slaves and they only serve him either through fear or manipulation. This antagonist only cares about himself, and he could care less about what happens to his minions as long as he wins in the end.

The other would be an antagonist who is evil, but he loves his minions. He hates everyone who is not one of his minions. But he treats and thinks about his minions as if they are his family. The type of person I am thinking of would be the traditional view of Hitler. Where Hitler hates everyone who was non German but he loved his fellow Germans deeply and wanted the best for them.

I am interested in this because this is something you see in entertainment where someone like Hitler is seen as more evil than someone like my first example who just hates everyone. There is some sort of unique evil that is implied to exist for that person. I have this thought that the reason why a Hitler type is seen as more evil is because that type of evil person is more realistic. Because it would be very hard for someone to become a very powerful person if he treated everyone even his own followers poorly. So it’s more just like a Voldemort type villain is not taken seriously because he is unlikely to exist in the real world.

>> No.23208189
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23208189

>>23208183
He's basically putler that joanne is one smart cookie

>> No.23208198

>>23208183
The first type has never really existed in literature outside of one or two very prominent examples. Even someone like Sauron, who people will think fits your first example, in fact originally waged war against elves and men and dwarves because he felt they would muddy his plans of restoring Middle Earth's beauty. Evil of the first type is more like a force of nature, like entropy. At which point, it ceases to be really evil and is instead recognised as a facet of existence.

>> No.23208204

>>23208189
Except he’s not. Within Harry Potter there is no evidence that Voldemort cares about the pure bloods. Voldemort is a villain who is evil to everyone. Even his followers fear him just as much as the people on Harry potters side.

>> No.23208209

>>23208198
>in fact originally waged war against elves and men and dwarves because he felt they would muddy his plans of restoring Middle Earth's beauty. Evil
This is not stated anywhere in the lotr or the silmarillion. In those books actually it states more clearly he is evil and simply wants to dominate all life. There is nothing to go on that he is some autistic man who needs things orderly

>> No.23208210

>>23208198
Sauron makes the men of numenor worship the devil and make human sacrifices. He then plans to have their entire civilization wiped out. He is certainly evil without any care for anyone besides himself.

>> No.23208256

>>23208209
>>23208210
Sauron repented after the fall of Morgoth but was too afraid to face judgement. His lingering in Middle Earth had something to do with restoration, at least at first.

>> No.23208259

>>23208256
I don’t think there is enough good reason to suppose that from the information we have in lotr. While there are countless notes by Tolkien. Those were not published and so we have no idea if he considered them canon. It’s just as if treating jk Rowling’s comments on the series after everything was published as canon