Posted by justin moretti on June 30, 1998 at 23:15:43:
In Reply to: Re: Comments on Vance Villains posted by Martin Read on March 05, 1998 at 04:59:27:
: I would have to vote for the Demon Princes. They have a grandeur of their own. They seem to be amoral, totally egocentric or socially autistic rather than evil as such. Their monomanias are rather admirable in a strange way; nothing they do is on a petty scale and their schemes are carried through with great elan. I think it is the pettyness of the motives and actions of Madame Zigonie and her cohorts in the Cadwal books that makes them so thoroughly despicable.
: Howard Alan Treesong would have to be my absolute favourite. Mad as a hatter of course - but who wouldn't secretly like to emulate his poetic vengeance at his old-school reunion!
Amen to that! I used to READ Book of Dreams at school and wish for the day... His goal, in the end, was not so evil (though it was megalomaniacal - emperor of human space, indeed!) and as one of the other co-respondents to this point said, you almost have to feel sorry for his being thwarted.
I agree to a point on Zigonie and co. from the Cadwal books, except that I have to disagree on the point of pettiness. It was not just the fact that they committed so much evil for what purely appears to be material gain but that they did it TOTALLY unaware (except perhaps for Namour) or uncaring (including Namour) that what they were doing was actually wrong. For example, Floreste's "murder as art" on the remote island.