I was speaking generally about the worship of villians, not specifically here. The Lecter phenomena is bizarre to me.

I find villains fascinating for a couple of reasons. First, they do things that I would never do, things that I can barely think of doing, and that's a weird kind of escapism for me, a vicarious thrill. Second, they give me insight into actual real evil that exists in the world. I spent hours as a child trying to work out why the Justice League always beat the Legion of Doom and it led me to contemplating selfishness and the good of the many and blah blah blah, it's interesting to me.

Lost doesn't have any villains, now, unless Ethan comes back from the dead. Which is also interesting, ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, though we haven't seen as much pushing of personal boundaries (eitehr towards good or evil) as I would like.

Yeah. If there weren't villains, and well-written ones at that, we'd all just be sitting around twiddling our thumbs and thinking, gee, wasn't that an entertaining night watching other people play cribbage on the shiny box.

Sawyer is a dick. An asshole. And an interesting character.

Locke is a crazy. A manipulator. And an interesting character.

So I like them. As characters. I like their actors because they're able to play that complexity and interest me.

Yeah. If there weren't villains, and well-written ones at that, we'd all just be sitting around twiddling our thumbs and thinking, gee, wasn't that an entertaining night watching other people play cribbage on the shiny box.

Well, it's good to know we'd still have ESPN2.

Heh. Oh, no, professional poker has villains (coughPhilHellmuthcough).

First, they do things that I would never do, things that I can barely think of doing, and that's a weird kind of escapism for me, a vicarious thrill.

Heh.

My evil twin would lie and steal,
And he would stink of sex appeal.
All men would writhe beneath his scythe.
He'd send the pretty ones to me.

And they would think that I was he.
I'd hurt them and I'd go scott free.
I'd get no blame and feel no shame.
Cos evil's not my cup of tea.

The Magnetic Fields. God, I love Stephin Merritt.

Yeah. If there weren't villains, and well-written ones at that, we'd all just be sitting around twiddling our thumbs and thinking, gee, wasn't that an entertaining night watching other people play cribbage on the shiny box.

Except to me some of the most interesting stories in the world have no villain at all; just the conflict that comes from having decent people at odds with each other. I think Austen was the greater writer than Dickens, even though I love them both, and Austen barely had villains; Wyckham was as close as she came, and mostly he was just weak.

I disagree. Mr. Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility seduced a maiden, then abandoned her pregnant with his illegitimate child. He then went on to flirt heavily with Marianne, knowing full well he wasn't free to marry her, and that in turn nearly led to her death.

Austen certainly considers him a villain.

Oh, and Mrs. John Dashwood is unquestionably a villainess.

I'm pretty sure that Catherine Moreland's eventual father-in-law in Northanger Abbey counts as a comic villain.

And P&P certainly has its share of people less thorougly destructive than Wickham but just as odious -- Miss Bingley, Lady Catherine De Bourgh, that vile little toady Mr. Collins. The last is just unpleasantly simultaneously cringing and smug, but the first two actively despise the heroine and do their best to thwart her happiness. And the conflict between them and her, and Darcy's pulling away from them and their view of the world and growing to see Elizabeth clear and whole, provide much of the meat and grit and forward motion of the story.