Round Four: Villains! July 23, 2009

Big happenings going on in the Twilight world, folks.  Big. time. stuff.  With all the Comic-Con hoopla today AND New Moon releasing its fancy new official website full of goodies, it’s hard to tear myself away.  I’m still in the midst of an internal struggle:  Do I want to soak up any clip, picture, interview for New Moon I can, or do I want to wait until I see the movie so that I will be surprised?  It’s a tough choice, one I still haven’t made and one that I’m pretty sure I need to decide soon.  But before I do, I think I’ve still got a few rounds of this battle royale in me, so we’re on to Round 4:Villains Edition!

This round gives us a chance to consider quite a few characters.  In the Twilight series, we’ve got James, Victoria, Laurent, the Volturi…and Jacob.  (I’m kidding about that last one, don’t freak out and send me hate mail.  We’ll discuss it later.)  The Harry Potter series has Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy, (I’m not including Draco because I love him too much, did I mention I think he’s sexy?), Severus Snape (I guess we could argue about this one too, yeah?), Fenrir Greyback (eep!), just to name a few.

In my humble opinion, the best villain in the Twilight series is Victoria.     She is super-scary.  Vengeful, with long, flaming-red hair, a creepy, high-pitched voice, piercing red eyes, those are some good ingredients for a first-class villain.  Part of her creepiness to me is that she kind of sneaks up on us.  You don’t pay too much attention to her in the first book, and then all of the sudden she shows up in New Moon, ready to take somebody OUT.  (As if Bella needed something else to freak out about.  Poor Bella!)  I think it’s cool how she’s always creeping around, testing the boundaries, seeing how close she can get to Bella, seeing how strong the wolf pack is.  THEN when the Cullens come back and suddenly her revenge gets ten times more difficult, what does she do?  Does she give up and run away?  NO!  Does she go cry to the Voturi about it?  NO!  She builds herself an army of newborn vampires. That’s pretty bad ass, I must say.

Now my favorite Harry Potter villain is by far Bellatrix Lestrange.  Voldemort’s right-hand girl, his most-faithful Death Eater…not to mention crazy like a fox.  She’s creepy too, but in the way like, “She’s so creepy I want to be just like her.”  I love her crazy black hair and her ragged witch-clothes.  She’s got a very confident way about her, even when she’s locked up in Azkaban she knows that her Dark Lord will rise again.  She’s a super-powerful wizard, those little Hogwarts kids are no match for her.  And then she goes and kills Harry’s godfather!  Poor Harry.  Then she has to rub it in his face!  “I killed Sirius Black!  I killed Sirius Black!”  That’s just cruel, Bellatrix.  That name too, it’s just so cool, Bellatrix Lestrange.  Awesome.

Since we’re talking about all the villians though, I guess I need consider them all when making my decision.  I think both authors give us some great ones, both series have characters who truly did scare me as I was reading these books.  But looking over the lists above, I think I’m going to have to give it to Rowling again.  My reason being that a lot of her characters cannot necessarily be defined as villains or heroes for sure.  Snape did some evil things, and was questionable throughout the entire series, but does Chapter 33 of Deathly Hallows erase all that?  Is Draco to blame if his hatred of mudbloods has been ingrained in him his entire life?  Sirius Black is incredibly scary in the 3rd book, until you learn that he was framed and is the exact opposite of what everyone thinks he is.  This is why I’m giving this round to JoJo, she has the ability to create multi-layered characters that can be argued for years to come, which is exactly what I plan on doing with my HP-nerd friends until I die.  HARRY POTTER VILLAINS WIN!!!

I’m off for the weekend, camping with the family, but I’ll be back on Monday to finish up this little showdown and declare a final winner!  See you then!

Round 2: Harry vs. Edward!! July 14, 2009

Now this one I’m excited for!  Oh, where do I even start??  Okay here we have two VERY different characters, both very admirable though, don’t you think?  Harry Potter and Edward Cullen.  One is a human boy with magic abilities, one is a 100+ year old vampire trapped in a teenager’s body who can read minds.  One sacrifices all he has to save the entire world, the other spends his days chasing after a very clumsy girl so she doesn’t end up in the hospital AGAIN.

When comparing Edward and Harry, my thoughts go straight to (in my opinion) the best question, who would win in a fight between these two?  This question was asked of Stephenie Meyer awhile back on a Muggle.net podcast, and I couldn’t agree more with her answer.  Harry would not have a chance. Before he could even reach into his pocket to pull out his wand Edward would have torn his head off.  No contest.  Not even JK Rowling could deny this.  Point for Edward!  Even if Harry tried sneak up on Edward while wearing his invisibility cloak (this is where we start to get super-nerdy kids, I hope you’re ready) Edward would be able to not only smell him, but also hear his thoughts a mile away.   (We all know how those Occlumency lessons turned out, Harry.)  The only way Harry would ever have a chance is if he somehow concocted some sort of potion that made him odorless, thoughtless, etc.  But that doesn’t really count, because I’m not talking about some sort of wizard-vampire guerrilla warfare here, I’m talking about hand-to-hand combat.  Although wizard-vampire guerrilla warfare does sound pretty cool…

I know, that was fairly pointless, Harry and Edward would never fight each other!  They’re on the same team!  The good team.  My team.  So what about their personalities?  Who is more likable?  Who would be a better friend?  Better boyfriend?  Well, once again, Edward wins.  Throughout most of the HP books, Harry is moody, whiny and stressed out.  Does he have a lot of outside components in his life causing him to act this way?  Yes.  Does that that mean he can snap at his friends who have been at his side since the beginning?  NO.  Edward can be a little moody too sometimes, but never as bad as Mr. Potter.  Edward has the maturity bonus too.  Harry is boy, Edward is a man.  A man who will never look a day over seventeen.  Someday Harry will grow old, most likely turning out looking very similar to Dumbledore…long beard, wrinkly skin, etc.   Edward’s going to stay gorgeous for all eternity.   Plus I’m pretty positive Edward’s a better kisser.  Even if he is ice-cold.  What’s cooler than being cool??  ICE-COLD!  EDWARD WINS!!!

Author’s note:  I searched through a LOT of pictures of Edward trying to find one of him smiling and failed miserably…

Come on Edward, you just won! At least TRY to look happy!