Scariest characters in fiction

A pal over at Abebooks is trying to come up with a list of the scariest characters in fiction for some special thing they're going to do.

It's harder than you think. So far they've had proposals for these.

Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist
Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
Dracula in Dracula
The Child Catcher in Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Mr Hyde - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The evil spirit in The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Pennywise the clown from Stephen King’s It
Hannibal Lecter from Thomas Harris’ novels
Big Brother from 1984
Alex in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange
Dr. Christian Szell from Marathon Man by William Goldman
Francis Begbie in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting
Lady Macbeth from Macbeth
Voldemort
Annie Wilkes from Misery
Injun Joe from Tom Sawyer
Iago from Othello
Pinkie Brown from Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock
Norman Bates from Robert Bloch’s Pyscho
Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

It's got a movie tilt, which is probably not bad if you're trying to connect with as many people as possible. I've never read any of the Hannibal novels, but I'm not having Dr. Lector over for dinner anyway.

I'm not sure I read enough scary novels, but my contribution is Cthulhu. I'm not sure if he qualifies as a character, but I know who'd win in a fight with Bill Sykes.

Carrie, Carrie.
Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca.

Tyler Durden from Fight Club
Grendel from Beowulf

Let's not do children's books, though. (For me it would be the mysterious, silent old lady in Goodnight Moon.)

Madame Defarge , Tale of Two Cities

#5 readafew, I was going to say her, but I didn't know if anyone else thought she was scary or if it was just me! Something about those knitting needles.

6 > she had a terrifying sense of purpose, (and those knitting needles)

Dolores Umbrage. People who could exist in real life are always scarier (to me) than demons or ghosts. And that woman was pure evil.

The husband in Stephen King's "The Shining". I can't remember his name, but I remember that as he descended into madness, he scared me half to death.

Viv: it was Johnny or Jack...Jack, I think. I haven't read it or seen the movie in a long while.

How could I have forgotten Miss Havisham, Great Expectations?

#8, AAngel, I agree. I think she was the scariest character in the whole series.

Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me byJim Thompson and Mr. Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Morgoth the Enemy. Sauron the Great. Rakoth Maugrim the Unraveller. I mean, let's quit messing with these wimpy humans.

Ummmm... Mr. Dark is actually a minion of hell or the devil himself. It's never really made clear in the book.

#4 - why not children's books?

the only book character that ever had me really scared was the White Witch - but from The Magician's Nephew rather than the later books...

Characters in books don't normally spook me, but even though it's been twenty years or more since I read it the haunting of Germanicus' house in I, Claudius still lingers. So, my vote for a real life fictionalized character is Caligula.

Mrs. Danvers still gives me nightmares.
Henry VIII, though he was real, as portrayed in historical fiction in his advanced years, was a real monster.

Jack Mort from Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three. I'd put him ahead of any of the other King characters mentioned in this thread. Certainly a better drawn character than the tediously derivative Pennywise.

Nurse Ratchett in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.

I would like to nominate
Decker - Cabal by Clive Barker
Randall Flagg - The Stand by Stephen King
Lord Henry Wotton - The Picture of Dorain Grey by Oscar Wilde

edited to fix wonky touchstones

Pap Finn from Finn by Jon Clinch

The Wickersham Brothers (the monkeys) from Horton Hears a Who.

I know. I know. No Children's books... but I couldn't help myself. Those guys scared the daylights out of me as a kid and they still creep me out as an adult. Seuss knew what he was doing.

For me it's a toss-up between 'The Huntress' and 'The Crooked Man' both from The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly Truly horrible characters.

#24 devenish: You beat me to it, I was going to say The Crooked Man.

I'll go with Frank Cauldhame from The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.

The Walking Dude from Stephen King's The Stand.

Umm...The Grinch. I know you said no children's books but no other character scares me more than he does.

Libby Hatch from The Angel of Darkness by Caleb Carr scared me so much I had to stop reading halfway through and wait a couple of weeks to calm down so I could finish the novel. I was also really scared by the vampire(s) in Salem's Lot.

Others that have already been named: Randall Flagg from The Stand, Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and the evil spirit(s) from The Exorcist. Oh, yeah, and Dracula.

Yes, #29 Storeetllr, Libby Hatch ... she stays with you. Very creepy character, almost bone-chilling. I agree that Dracula is definitely very scary.

Calesta from the Coldfire trilogy by C. S. Friedman.

Pamela Flitton in Powell's Dance to the Music of Time.

(Eeek.)

>16 varielle:

I just watched the I, Claudius as a tv-series. I think that Livia was the scariest character - worse than Caligula. I haven't read the book, though...

Cathy, from Steinbeck's East of Eden. She is introduced in chapter 9 (it begins "I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents") which "creeped me out" so much that I had to read it to my husband, to see whether he had the same reaction. Two days later he said he was still thinking about it.

Angus Thermopyle from The Real Story et al Although to be honest almost all the characters are scary to one degree or another even ( or especially) the "good" ones.

Cthulu......

What about the house from House of Leaves? Or Frankenstein's monster?

@ 36:

Azathoth & Yog-Sothoth (from H. P Lovecraft's various short novels/short stories)

The Judge in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian

I'm feverishly reading (Woman in White) and have concluded beyond a doubt that the scariest character in fiction is Count Fosco. He's so utterly charming and yet as poisonous as a rattler... He's like an evil, meticlously dressed, hugely fat Columbo, who knows everything even as he feigns ignorance.

While i agree with Grendel in Beowulf, i'd go with the gold-hoarding dragon in Grendel who fits my idea of a larger-than-life villain acting as a black hole sucking in everything in its vicinity.

No mention of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness? He's sort of the everyman of scary characters, since it's so clear that he could be you.

And there is always Mephistopheles from all the different versions of Faust - he gets around, and has many guises. We need some good devil characters in here.

40> oooh, so true! I was truly scared of what plot he would conjure up next! I'd agree with Nurse Ratchett being terrifying though.

But really, I think the first character(s) that really had me scared in literature were the Nazgul (and by extension, Sauron himself). When they're sniffing around the trees in the Shire... gives me shivers just thinking about it!

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in A Christmas Carol

Nazgul are a great answer Liz! I agree with that one!

I'll add Okonkwo from Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. The man was full of such anger and self-righteous indignation that I was always dreading what he might do to his family and friends at any moment. Even for a patriarchal society, his pride made him almost misogynistic.

The Shrike from Dan Simmons Hyperion books.

I think Lovecraft's scariest character was the old man from The Picture in the House. After I read that story, I could hear his weird, jagged monologue looping in my head for hours afterward.

Ligotti, like Lovecraft, isn't really known for his characters, but I think John Doe from The Frolic is one of the creepiest serial killers I've seen in fiction.

How 'bout Croup and Vandemar from Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman?

47> What about the eventual real bad character in Neverwhere (trying not to spoil for people who haven't read it - but go and do so soon, because it's a great book!)? That was kind of scary too...

Wolf Larsen in Jack London's The Sea Wolf. Even in his pitiful state at the end, I kept wanting to tell the other characters to keep away from him.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - though I know well enough to avoid deals with fairies.

Lolita from Nobakov's 'Lolita'
Patrick Bateman from Ellis' 'American Psycho'
The Judge from Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'

The psych killer guy in No Country for Old Men scared the bananas out of me. Then I saw the movie and the actor scared me even more.

I thought the Dementors in Harry Potter were as desturbing as He Who Shall Not Be Named

The little kid, Gabe, in Pet Cemetary freaked me out (but little kids turned evil usually get me. I was afraid of Cathy in East of Eden too.

John Irving wrote a children's book within A Widow for One Year and he published it later on its own called A sound like Someone Trying Not to make a Sound and I guess the character that spooked me was the sound itself.

Was his name Gabe or was it Gage? And yes, I agree, he was mega-creepy. I used to own this book, but I lent it out and it was never returned. However, the little boy was so creepy that I've never cared to replace this book.

You're right, it IS Gage! Creep fest!

Quilp from The old curiosity shop
Mr Jones from Victory
Mr Osmond from Portrait of a lady

Dracula. Maybe not one of the scariest characters of all time, but the way he scares the other characters in the book, he's the apocalypse personified.

I'll put in a vote for Cathy, from Steinbeck's East of Eden. she sure scared the heck out of me.

Also Madame Defarge in, Tale of Two Cities

And any charater that is in a position of power over people. And abuse that power for no particular reason. Claggart the Master at arms in Melville's Billy Budd comes to mind. Or Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in Sharpe's Tiger, the big one Archdeacon Claude Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

How about Kurt Barstow, the Vampire in Stephen King's Salem's Lot?

The cop in Stephen King's Desperation. The way he read that Miranda Right made me actually stop in the middle of my reading!

I second Pennywise the Clown and Randall Flagg from It and The Stand.

I was also going to say Cathy Trask from East of Eden and the Walking Dude from The Stand How about also Ingrid Magnuson from White Oleander and Boone Waxwell from Bright Orange for the Shroudby John D. McDonaldHow about Zena from The Robber Bride

Jane Seymour's portrayal of Cathy Trask was particularly scary, seeing a beautiful woman behave so wickedly. The line that still stands out for me was, "I've done things that would make your blood turn to spit." Yikes!

O'Brien in Nineteen-eighty four
"Bayonet Bill" Wooster in The One-eyed man by Larry L. King

Newman King from The Store was really freakin' creepy.

Uriah Heep from David Copperfield also was a sleezeball. I kept screaming at the book for them not to trust him. They didn't listen to me, though...

I'm with the others in here who have pointed out Randall Flagg from The Stand. And I think it's also been said that Mr. Dark from Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes is a particularly scary character.

The first character I remember being scared of from a book was Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I believe that was the first scary book I read (besides Poe) Right around the sametime I read Candyman by Clive Barker... Candyman scared the bejesus out of me, too.