Top Ten Criminals, Villains and Degenerates

In no particular order:

1. Jarlaxle from R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt series and now his own Sellswords trilogy. Jarlaxle is a male who survived in a female dominated society by forming his own mercenary group. He’s innovative and intelligent. He might even turn into a good-guy one day.

2. Draco Malfoy from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I love a villain who’s not all bad. Draco just had a bad father who followed a bad man. In the end, he sees the light. I like redemption.

3. Bertha Antoinetta Mason, aka: Mrs. Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. I don’t know what’s worse than having a crazy lady standing in the way of your true happiness.

4. Lucy Steele from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Speaking of crazy ladies… well, she not actually crazy. She’s just an opportunistic b*&%^, who gets in the way of Elinor and Edward’s happiness.

5. George Wickham from Jane’s Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I don’t think he’s all bad. He made some bad choices and had to give up his desire for love and replace it with the need for money.

6. Gollum from J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord Of The Rings. What can I say about Gollum? His obsession brought about his destruction.

7. Count Olaf from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. He’s just plain nasty.

8. The man in black/Walter o’Dim/Marten Broadcloak/Randall Flagg from Stephen King’s The Stand, The Dark Tower series, etc. He’s the man of many faces. He wreaks havoc, though for a moment, he loved his enemy’s mother. He’s the ultimate villain for King, I think, as he keeps using him in many different books.

9. Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984. He is the unseen villain, the omnipresent but never met force. His representative in Winston’s story is O’Brien. Someone who watches and uses your own inner most thoughts against you.

10. Hatsumomo from Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. She is vindictive and spiteful. I felt sorry for her only for a moment, she lost everything. Mostly, though, I hated her.


Honourable mention to Voldemort.  I figured he'd be on a few lists though, so I didn't need to write about what a crazy bad guy he is.

After reading my list, I think that I like villains who have some kind of redeemable quality to them, something that makes them not all bad. I also like villains that are just totally, plain evil, something to be afraid of. Who’s your favourite baddie?

Memoirs Of A Geisha

Memoirs Of A Geisha was simply fabulous. The story draws you in. Don’t let the length daunt you. I have actually known people who will not read novels longer than 400 pages, especially if the type is small. With this story, it does not matter. You want there to be more words. You want to know everything about Sayuri.

Arthur Golden fools you into believing that Sayuri is a real person. You want to believe that these ‘Memoirs’ are real. I am sure you’ve heard by now that they are not. Our sweet, little Chiyo never existed. If you don’t know at the beginning, Golden tells you plainly at the end. He describes where the story came from and how he came to know the world of Geisha.

Feelings become confused reading this novel. A Geisha isn’t a princess. Her happy ending is not the big wedding and living happily ever after. There is only so much a Geisha can hope for and a fairytale ending is not possible. A Geisha is not a prostitute, though some lesser Geisha have prostituted themselves. Their virginity is also sold to the highest bidder. But that isn’t all. They spend their whole lives training and learning. The good ones may only have sex with a handful of men their whole lives; potentially as few as two.

A Geisha isn’t free. It is rare for one to go off and get married. Being a Geisha is something they are born into or sold into. It is romanticized, but the reality should not be ignored. That is what Golden gives us; a deep look into the real life of Geisha.