Best written villain/antagonist in the Witcher trilogy (Blood&Wine spoilers)

[Scryar]

Best written villain/antagonist in the Witcher trilogy (Blood&Wine spoilers)

Now that the Witcher series is done, who do you think are the best written villains/antagonists in the whole series?

For me personally O'Dim, Letho and Jaques des Aldersberg stood out as three of the best written antagonists in the gaming industry.
Eredin was also great in Witcher 1 and 2 and if they would have done him justice in Witcher 3, he could have been amongst my favourite villains.
He had the advantage that he appeared in all three games in one way or another, but unfortunately CDP completely dropped the ball with him in Witcher 3.

My top 10 would be:
1) Letho of Gulet
2) Gaunter O' Dim
3) Jaques de Aldersberg
4) Crones of Crookback Bog
5) Shaela/Phillipa in Witcher 2
6) Dettlaff
7) the Wild Hunt
8 . Loredo
9) Henselt
10) Imlerith

 

[Rawls]

For me personally it's O'Dimm.

 

[Guest 3847602]

1. Gaunter O'Dimm
2. Letho
3. Jaques de Aldersberg
4. The Crones
5. Philippa
6. Henselt
7. Dettlaff
8. Emhyr
9. Eredin
10. Syanna
11. Azar Javed
12. Menge
13. Loredo
14. Dethmold
15. Whoreson Jr.

 

[Krull32]

No Words needed...


Letho is very close on the first place also.
But O'Dimm was more charismatic...and evil ofc

 

[hedop]

@thre ad Starter: You seriously have Dettlaff as a bad guy on your list but not Syanna? Guess you are also part of that "Syanna did nothing wrong because she was mistreated so it's okay to have 4 guys killed, use a higher vampire with unforeseen results, plan to kill your sister, risk killing the whole of Beauclair just because someone stole your toy"-fanclub?

For me it's not even close. Hands down O'Dimm.

You can't really call Letho a bad guy or antagonist per se. He was a tool. The antagonist in that case would be Emhyr. Letho was as much a tool as Dettlaff. Sure you can probably criticise their motifs and how easy it was to make them into tools... but in the end they would be considered accessories in any kind of court not more.

The Crones of Crookback Bog... mhhm I dunno that's a tough one. Antagonist sure, villanious behaviour, sure but they were basically content in their little corner of the world and would have not interfered if Ciri hadn't dropped in their swamp and Geralt wouldn't have come to kick their arse. Furthermore they cower before Imlerith... so again accessories... basically the Gestapo of the Wild Hunt.

Sheala is a nobody. She is some sorceress in league with the lodge.. like Triss, Fringilla and who not. She is neither well written in the games nor of any great importance.

Loredo... again... those to me are hillbillys. They might do bad things but they aren't stupidly evil. Had Geralt not dropped in Flotsam and had the situation not been what it was Loredo would continue sitting on his lazy arse skimming the fat of the milk.

The Wild Hunt to me isn't an antagonist per se because they are led by Eredin so you basically have to give those points to Eredin. Imlerith is a tool..

Henselt... who is Henselt? Honestly Foltest has done as much crazy and bad shit as he did, so has Stannis and so has Radovid. It's called being a king.


My list would look quite different from yours:

1. O'Dimm - I mean seriously... he is the devil. Not pretends to be. He is the devil in person. The personification of evil and you can sense that in each of his scenes. It's boiling under the surface so.. yeah hands down the best.
2. If we would take the books into account it would be Imlerith, Vilgerfortz, Philippa or Bonhart. Since we don't it's a close tie between de Aldersberg and Emhyr var Emrys and I do give that one to Emhyr. Even disregarding the books. He is the reason the whole North was plunged into chaos, he ordered several kings killed and he is so powerful that even Geralt doesn't dare lift his sword to cut him down, unlike de Aldersberg. Hence why he takes my second place.
3. de Aldersberg but again only because we aren't considering the books as well... if we were he would rank somewhere on the honorable mentions list.
4. Eredin - I have to give him props for the Witcher 1 and to some degree two because he is leading the Wild Hunt which was a major theme and even at the beginning of Witcher 3 a major threat. So he takes 4th. Again, take the books into account and he easily gets 2nd place.
5. Radovid
6. Djikstra
7. Syanna and only because there is no one else.

That's it those are my main antagonists. If we are talking villains and bad guys in general it would probably look like this:

1. O'Dimm
2. Emhyr
3. de Aldersberg
4. Azar Javed and the Professor (they are a team after all).
5. The Crones of Crookback Bog
6. Letho
7. Djisktra
8. Iorveth
9. Radovid
10. Eredin/Wild Hunt
10. Madman Lugos
11. Dettlaff
12. Philippa
13. Stennis
14. Henselt
15. Sheala
16. Loredo
17. Everyone else
18. Syanna

Now, because I said it before. If considering both games and books this is how it would look (again only instigators)

1. O'Dimm/Vilgerfortz - simply because they are both rotten to the core and so evilishly well written
2. Emhyr
3. Leo Bonhart
3. Philippa Eilhart
4. Eredin
5. Avallach
6. de Aldersberg
7. Eredin
8. Stefan Skellen
9. Radovid
10. Syanna

The same ranking again with villains included

1. O'Dimm/Vilgerfortz
2. Emhyr
3. Leo Bonhart
4. Philippa Eilhart
5. Eredin
6. Avallach
7. Letho
8. de Aldersberg
9. The Crones
10. Stefan Skellen
11. Schirrú
12. Radovid
13. Azar Javed/Professor
14. Madman Lugos
15. Stennis
16. Henselt
17. Foltest
18. Sheala
19. Loredo
20. Iorveth (good writing but ultimately not such a bad boy)
21. Dettlaf
22. Homer Straggen
23. Did I forget anyone?
24. No?
25. You sure?
26. Well okay then.
27. I guess I can stop then.
28. Right?
29. Great!
30. Syanna

 

[Holgaroni]

1) Gaunter O'Dimm
2) Letho of Gulet
3) Jacques de Aldersberg
4) Philippa&Sheala
5) The Crones
6) Detlaff
7) Loredo
8) Henselt
9) Azar Javed&The Professor
10) Syanna
11) Menge
12) Radovid
13) Whoreson Junior
14) The Wild Hunt.
15) The White Fart-.. i mean, Frost

 

[lordhovis]

1) Gaunter O'Dimm. He stole every scene he was in and though he lacked in moral complexity he made up for it with threat, charisma, and ethical complexity. There's no character in the series be it the books or games that beats Master Mirror in terms of villainy even though he wasn't Geralt's enemy.

2) Letho of Gulet. A subversive antagonist whose appearance masks wicked cunning. He's complex, understandable and ultimately reasonable. A perfect antagonist for the Witcher.

3) Jacques de Aldersberg. Possessed and driven by a deep despair for a future he can see but cannot change. In many ways a tragic villain, a man who fell to hopelessness.

4) Loredo. One of the most realistic pieces of shit even depicted in a game. He was small and evil yet complex. Filled with self importance, delusions of grandeur, cynical greed and racism yet never for a second believing he was anything other than moral and looking out for his town.

5) The Crones of Crookback Bog. Like O'Dimm they oozed threat yet where he masked it under an affable manner they showed it in gross detail. There's nothing terribly complex about them themselves but the scenes they appear in are unnerving. The music, the way they look, move and speak creates a discomforting horror. They represent the threat and strangeness of the deep places of the world where human feet rarely tread. A shame what the later parts of the game did to them.

 

[OptoNick]

1. O'Dimm
2. Letho
3. Philippa and Sheala in TW2

Also, enjoyed a lot chit-chat with Menge, but his role is too small.
Syanna is good enough, but too close to Renfri.
The Crones are very straightforward Evil - they are interesting not as a villains, but as a cultural reference.

 

[Maerd]

I think there's no question that Gaunter O'Dimm is the best written antagonist character, I would even say in any game, not just The Witcher series. He's just epic. And by some reason Olgierd is not present in the voting list because he's close second. I see him also as antagonist, not merely as O'Dimm's victim: he's both.

Philippa (in TW2 and TW3) and Sile/Sheala (in TW2) are both brilliantly written. And even though as a personality I would have hated Philippa in real life, but, as a story character, I enjoyed every moment of her screen time. Sile was awesome in the TW2. Her personality was written excellently, actually I liked her way more than Triss. I was really angry about what CDPR did with her in TW3. I would have understood if that was a part of plot development but they just did a crappy what I would call "cameo disappearance". I wish there was an option to involve her to be present in the Kaer Morhen with a quest, like Letho.

Jacques de Aldersberg was also awesome character from TW1 with well written dialogues and his motivations were well developed. TW1 plot is still second only to HoS.

The Crones are the best antagonists of the base TW3 game. I really liked dialogues involving them. Also the sad ending (aka bad ending) with the last crone was epic, the most well-written of all endings, which I really liked. It's so powerful emotionally that I think it sent many people into depression when they got it... which means it's just brilliant. I tried other endings. They didn't have any impact on me at all, felt like they were added as afterthought for adolescent fans not to get upset too much.

Loredo in TW2 was also well done. Nothing special but solid character.

Other antagonists? They are not worth mentioning in the best list (I consider only games, not books). I'm not a fan of Letho's character writing, he's just OK in my books. New antagonists in Blood and Wine: Dettlaff and Syanna were boring and uninteresting.

So my list will be:

1. Gaunter O'Dimm
2. Olgierd von Everec
3. Philippa (TW2+TW3)
4. Sile (TW2)
5. Jacques de Aldersberg
6. The Crones
7. Loredo

 

[RiseOfRose1]

Only played W2 and W3

1. Gaunter O'Dimm
2. Letho Of Gulet
3. The Crones
4. Phillipa & Sile
5. Loredo
6. Dettlaff
7. Wild Hunt
8. Madman Lugos
9. Henselt
10. Radovid

 

[OrangeApple]

No Words needed

i don't think there can be a better version of the devil* himslef. O'Dim is defiantly the best villain, and possibly the best written villain.

 

[ammarmar]

@hedop

Stop with your crusade already, or you will never get the Aerondight. You obviously lack in the "compassion" department.

 

[Krull32]

i don't think there can be a better version of the devil* himslef.

True.
I really like how the CDPR writers managed to put this kind of (D)evil into one single character.

Btw, some people should read more carefully before start complain...again ....
Syanna is in the list and was from start ...

Apart from some nonsense, everyone who has a different opinion about Syanna, is automatically part of her fan club ?
it's getting better and better .... .... :clap:

 

[hedop]

@hedop

Stop with your crusade already, or you will never get the Aerondight. You obviously lack in the "compassion" department.

What crusade? Got Aerondight everytime.

 

[ShinGnosis]

I personally find it interesting when people try to do good, but they take it too far and end up doing evil instead, I think it makes for more interesting villians than villains who are simply "evil"... examples might be a knight who follows his vows to the letter... a soldier who slaughters beyond the call of duty... a good ruler who punishes bad deads to harshly.... case in point... Jaques de Aldersberg.

But I did enjoy Gaunter O'Dim and pretty much everyone on the list immensely.

 

[jj284b]

Technically, O'Dimm was the hardest antagonist Geralt ever faced... and even in Slavic lore, nobody ever beat the devil with his plays... yet, Geralt did

 

[FixFallDamage]

O 'dimm is the only good villian in the game. I genuinley found him to be quite terrafying . That scene in the brothel where he kills that drunk eith a spoon and when you visit the blind professor that olgierd hired both made me shit myself. All the other atagonists were boring. Eredin, and the wild hunt were poorly written and didnt feel menacing to me at all.

 

[Hicks233]

O'Dim hands down. The personal focus of Hearts of Stone traded the large scale "epic" main storyline for an intense and specifically focused one. As much as I enjoyed Blood and Wine I think they hit the high point in terms of a main storyline generally with Hearts of Stone. O'Dim was just superb. Chilling, charismatic and endlessly creepy.

Dethmold was superbly creepy and I'd have liked to have seen him get some more screen time. Sile was a right conniving bitch, she was utterly brilliant though. Her voice actress in the English version is particularly good - Nicola Walker. Letho was compelling and stole the scene each time he appeared.

Dettlaff was underused. For someone that is given to extremes of emotion but has a lot of charm we didn't get to experience much of him.

The Wild Hunt were in general underused. I don't think they were particularly bad, just underutilised.

Javed/de Aldersberg/Professor made for a good combination. Didn't hugely stand out but they got the job done.

Syanna was dreadful though - a petulant nuisance causing extreme damage. The "very bad" ending was achingly fitting.

 

[Troldierman]

O'Dimm without a shadow of a doubt. No idea how the same creative team can come up with such a mundane antagonist like Dettlaff in the following expansion. And less said about Syanna, the better.

 

[killkenny1]

My top 3 - Gaunter, Crones, Letho.
Unfortunately don't remember much from TW1...