Please help me welcome my fellow Clean Reads author, Brett Armstrong, to the blog today. His new YA urban sci-fi novel, Day Moon, looks fantastic!!
While I
can’t say I’m in the following character’s camps or agree with any of their
ethos, these are the:
Top Ten
Fictional Villains I Feel Sorry For…
by Brett Armstrong
10. Mr. Freeze (Batman the Animated Series|TV) – Victor Fries was just a
scientist trying to cure his wife of a terminal illness when a greedy
industrialist made him permanently seek the cold and lose his wife in the
process. Mr. Freeze can be cruel, but as
a grieving husband whose life-work was ruined, he’s a bit more easy to
sympathize with than a lot of villains.
9. Captain Hook (Peter Pan|Play) – Peter Pan cut off
his hand and fed it to a crocodile which is determined to finish him off… and
we cheer for Peter Pan? It’s really
interesting because JM Barrie’s initial portrayal of Peter Pan makes him seem
like the villain and Captain Hook as “not wholly unheroic”.
8. Bowser
(Mario|Video Games) – Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach, a rival dictator, and
a plumber from Brooklyn (Mario) shows up and starts taking out Bowser’s
children one by one.
7. Cato (The Hunger Games| Book/Movie) – From
birth he was raised to fight in the Hunger Games and when he got there, it was
too late when he realized he wasn’t the prized champion he thought. If he had thought it through, maybe he would
have released Peeta and could have stood in defiance too. Either way he had one of the most horrific
deaths in a story.
6. Smeagol (The Lord of the Rings| Books/Movies)
– He accidentally found the One Ring, killed his best friend, and then turned
into a pale, hunched skeleton of his former self who ate fish raw and had a
terrible cough. Oh, and he went insane
and didn’t remember what potatoes are…
5. Robert Fischer (Inception|Movie) – The entire
premise of the movie is that one businessman fears what will happen when the
son of a rival inherits the family business and wants to have him break up his
company through dream coercion. But Robert
never reveals any evil plans along the way, so we don’t really know if he was
ever going to be so malevolent in the first place.
4. Imhotep (The Mummy| Movies) – So messing
around with Pharoah’s wife was a bad idea all around, but the idea that Imhotep
suffered a lot of horrible things and was doing everything he did for love
makes him seem a little less monstrous than some of the classic movie monsters.
3. Magneto (X-Men |
Movies/Comics) – Magneto’s backstory is pretty tragic. He was a Holocaust victim and once he had
grown up and reintegrated into society, his wife and child were killed in front
of him because he was a mutant. Most of
his schemes do not begin involving extreme violence against normal people (ex.
Asteroid-M) and he often espouses a separatist policy… it just rarely works out
that neatly.
2. Cats in General
(Various| TV, Movies, etc.) – Pete, Sylvester, Tom, Meowth, Shere Khan…
1. Macbeth (Macbeth| Play) – It may be my
Scottish ancestry rising up, or the fact that there was a real Macbeth whose
rule wasn’t characterized as bad by historians, or the fact that evil witches
and an ambitious wife awoke the worst in man who begins the play as otherwise
honorable.
Wow! I am never going to look at Mario games the same. I think that many villains have extraordinary backstories. While we can't condone their actions, we certainly relate to the feelings. Perhaps that's why we all love a good villain so much. They get their revenge rather than waiting for karma to catch up. Cats though... I love cats, and they do get a bad rap!
~Kimber
Day Moon
Tomorrow's Edge Trilogy One
Brett Armstrong
YA Urban Sci-Fi
Clean Reads
March 2017
Project Alexandria is intended to provide the entire world secure and equal access to all accumulated human knowledge. All forms of print are destroyed in good faith, to ensure everyone has equal footing, and Elliott knows he must soon part with his final treasure: a book of Shakespeare’s complete works gifted him by his grandfather. Before it is destroyed, Elliott notices something is amiss with the book, or rather Project Alexandria. The two do not match, including an extra sonnet titled “Day Moon.” When Elliott investigates, he uncovers far more than he bargained for. There are sinister forces backing Project Alexandria who have no intention of using it for its public purpose.
Elliott soon finds himself on the run from federal authorities and facing betrayals and deceit from those closest to him. Along the way, Elliot questions what is real and about truth, relationships and the meaning of freedom and security.
New Novel by Brett Armstrong Eerily Taps
into Today’s Anxieties of What is Real
“Day Moon” follows a
teen’s discovery of a sinister plot that
threatens the world’s reality
Charleston, WV, March 28, 2017 – West Virginia author Brett
Armstrong raises a timely warning in his dystopian thriller, “Day Moon,” about
where current trends could lead if left unchecked.
“’Day Moon’ grabs the reader by the imagination and doesn't let
go! I daresay it's a classic in the making.” – Robert Walker, author of “Random
Violence, Killer Instinct”
About the Author
Brett Armstrong is an award-winning
author of Destitutio Quod Remissio, a
story about the struggles of a Christian Roman senator. All profits from sales
of the book were donated to charity. The author lives in St. Albans, West
Virginia, with his wife and 2-year-old son.
I think Tolkien himself suggested that Smeagol/Gollum was worthy of sympathy.
ReplyDeleteI always felt sorry for him
DeleteIt's really hard not to feel for him. Isildur and Frodo both failed to varying degrees as well when it came to the ring. And especially in the movie with the rangers roughing him up. He just wanted to go fishing!
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