tv show

Top 5 Villains

| mlatimerridley
Latimer musing over her Top 5's (kawaii artwork inspired by Miss Wah)
Latimer musing over her Top 5’s (kawaii artwork inspired by Miss Wah)

Latimer: Another one of the Top 5 posts! This time, dangerous villainous villains!

The series comes from the archive of the ‘Top 5 Wednesday’ Tag. This Tag was started by Lainey on Goodreads; here’s the link if you want to check it out: Lainey!

This is a complete list of everyone partaking in the Tag if you want to check them out.

1. The Joker by DC comics

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DC’s the Joker has to be a top villain. No one knows his origin story, he never tells the truth. He’s absolutely crazy, but he’s also incredibly intelligent. He has no loyalties and yet can somehow manipulate those around him to do anything he wants. But the Joker is completely bananas, and as interesting and mysterious as I find him, he’s a villain I’d never want to meet!

2. Dracula by Bram Stoker

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I couldn’t stomach the original Dracula from Bram Stoker. He made me want to hit him with a shovel; the way he manipulated Mina and basically killed Lucy. It really annoys me now when I look at the screen versions of Dracula; he wasn’t sexy, or a fallen hero, he was an absolute narcissistic, megalomaniac. No tears shed when he died… and now I can’t really look at Dracula the same way anymore.

3. Hannibal Lector by Thomas Harris

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Hannibal Lector is a strange one. I always feel like I’m on his side in a way, which it not a comforting thought. I want him to get away, escape and survive (which is bad). He’s an amazing villain, I have a weird soft spot for him; I like him, but he’s a cannibal and a murder, and he’s scary. I’d never want to be in the same room as him. I haven’t watched the TV show, but I’ve seen the finale of season 2; Mad’s Mikkelsen is an amazing Hannibal. I’m still amazed by the vicious intelligence of the character. He worm’s his way inside people’s heads then destroys them.

4. Mr Wickham by Jane Austen

What an absolute arse...
What an absolute arse…

I’ve said it before; I’m a massive Pride and Prejudice fan.

Mr Wickham is the quintessential ‘arsehole villain’. He’s not scary and he’s not powerful, he’s just such an unbelievable jackass. He’s a Jane Austen villain. He’s the sort of guy that if you met him you’d punch him in the nose. Of course, I wouldn’t be afraid to be alone with him, because in a lot of ways, I’d love the opportunity to punch him in the nose.

5. King Joffrery Barathon the First of his Name by GRR Martin

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What a little pain in the ass this guy is. Brilliantly portrayed by Jack Gleeson (he’s an amazing actor, and he’s Irish, by default I’m almost programmed to love him as an actor!).

Joffrery has killed too many people I loved. He’s  malicious, vindictive and stupid – the issue here is when a villain is stupid and has power, his acts of violence are like a bull in a china shop, it’s impossible to predict who will suffer. What a fecker!

Top 5 You’d Like to See Be Movies/TV shows

| mlatimerridley
Latimer musing over her Top 5's (kawaii artwork inspired by Miss Wah)
Latimer musing over her Top 5’s (kawaii artwork inspired by Miss Wah)

Latimer: There are some fantastic BookTubers on YouTube.

One of them is The Readables. She does this great Tag every Wednesday, called Top 5 Wednesday. This Tag was started by Lainey on Goodreads; and it’s basically a weekly prompt of ‘Top 5’s’. Here’s the link if you want to check it out: Lainey!

And this is a complete list of everyone partaking in the Tag if you want to check them out! 

I’m taking some inspiration for posts from this Tag, though I won’t be doing it in any particular order (and it will be on a Sunday!). It’s just for fun, because some of the prompts are quite interesting and force you to think a bit, plus maybe it will inspire me to read a bit more!

For this Tag, I also won’t necessarily be using books as my main basis; I’m going to include characters and situations in graphic novels, comic series, books, TV shows and movies!

So! On to the first Top 5:

Top Books/Comics You’d Like to See Be Movies/TV shows

This is a hard one! But well, let’s see how ole Latimer gets on!

1. The Sandman by Neil Gaiman – TV SERIES

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To this day I have lots of mixed feeling about the series. There were things I loved and things I didn’t, as with all experiences! But I do think it would make a very interesting TV Show. There does seem to be some whispers again that something might be happening with The Sandman in the future, but we’ll wait and see.

Anyways, I think HBO could do amazing things with this material. The Endless as a character set would be pretty interesting to see in the flesh; the unstable Delirium; wise Destiny, who has a book called the Cosmic Log chained to his hand; bitchy Desire, who is neither man nor a woman (called Sister-Brother by the others) and lives in Threshold, a giant flesh and blood replica of itself; Despair (twin of Desire, nice touch!), who wears no clothes and is always in pain; Death a Goth girl who once a year, for one day, lives and dies as a moral; and the protagonist Dream, the Sandman.

The series spans all of space and time, there’s lots of stories to tell along with the main story arc. There are plenty of crazy out-there concepts that could only come from the mind of Neil Gaiman; and they are very cinematic! It could be a great TV show.

2. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett – MOVIE

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I love this book! These two writers are a perfect complement to one another – you can tell they must have had fun plotting this story out.

The story is about the coming apocalypse which is supposed to happen at the hands of Adam Young, the son of the Devil, who doesn’t know who he really is and doesn’t behave as the Anti-Christ should.

There are four horsepeople (Pestilence is now Pollution because Pestilence had to retire due to the discovery of penicillin; and War is a woman); the unlikely team up of an angel and demon;; and the descendant of Angus Nutter, a witch who predicted all of this happening, all racing to find the Anti-Christ.

This would be such a funny, quirky movie – they could make it in a British film style. I think it would be great.

3. Discworld series by Terry Pratchett – TV SERIES

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Okay, so technically there have been a few TV specials of various different Discworld novels, but I think it would make a great ongoing TV show, with new stories; or even a totally new group of characters set in the Discworld. There could be a new/original main story arc, with the new characters interacting with various classic Discworld characters.

It could be made in the same style as Doctor Who, quirky and off-beat, serious but not serious. It would definitely need Terry Pratchett to develop the new story line though.

4. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier – STOP-MOTION MOVIE

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This would be a get stop-motion movie; made by Laika. It’s the story of the 12 dancing princesses, or a take on that idea.

It’s set in maybe 1600’s Romania. The book follows these five sisters who every night go dancing in the fairy realm with lots of magical creatures, then return home before the gates close between the two worlds. The main character Jaina has a pet frog (more a friend) that she found in the woods; they have a telepathic link to one another.

Trouble starts when her older sister falls in love with a vampire from the fairy world. It would make an amazing stop-motion movie. I just made myself sad now because I’ll never get to see it – *sigh*

5. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – TV SERIES

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This was a really amazing book. It’s full of information and it was a damn struggle to read, but so worth it in the end. I actually need to re-read it, there’s so much in it that you start to forget it almost straightaway.

It covers geology, physics, chemistry and biology and how all the various major discovers in each field were developed; it also has lots of stories about all the quirky and down-right strange people who made all these discoveries and how they did.

It would be an amazing TV series.

Do you guys have any thoughts on what you’d like to see as a movie or TV show?

If you want to start using this Tag, check out the link to Lainey’s thread on Goodreads – anyone can use it!

The Walking Detective

| mlatimerridley
It's all so scary!!
It’s all so scary!!

Latimer: I recently started watching True Detective, a new series starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. I was intrigued because they were in it, and it’s supposed to be a new ‘must watch show’.

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They play two detectives investigating a murder – which appears to be satanic. The episodes swing back and forth between the present day and when the murder happened in 1995 (or 1992?), and it’s about what happened in the investigation and what happened to McConaughey and Harrelson’s relationship as partners.

Some of the weird, extensional monologues Matthew McConaughey gets in True Detective are incredible.  They are pretty dark though, because his character is a dark person with no optimism about the world in general, or himself.

The series moves at, what I can only imagine is the pace of an actual investigation – really slow. I watched the first two episodes at night time (in the dark) and wow, did I ever freak myself out! I realised what a total wimp I am!

The murder is just the tip of the iceberg, and every time Matthew McConaughey finds another ‘satanic’ symbol linked to the murder (these homemade small wicker cages), I keep expecting that a monster is going to jump out – and I’m way more freaked out that the monster will be an actual person, not a boogieman! Yup!

Like in the recent episodes of the Walking Dead, while the zombies are still something to be scared of, it seems like rogue bands of vicious survivors looking for your share of supplies, or your weapons, are the ones you should be seriously afraid of!

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Basically, I think I should now watch a Disney movie, to restore my faith in humanity!