A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - R Is For Red Skull And Ravonna Renslayer

 Today I am talking about two villains from the MCU. I only know them from the films, not having read those comics in particular, so those are the versions I will discuss. 

Red Skull is the nickname for Nazi officer Johann Schmidt, in the MCU. He first appears in Captain America: The First Avenger, which was set during World War II. He is nicknamed Red Skull because, after taking a super soldier serum, he goes red. 

Schmidt starts HYDRA, an evil Nazi organisation. Although he doesn’t stick around, HYDRA is still there in the present day, taking over the government agency SHIELD. 

He manages to acquire the Tesseract, a blue cube that contains the Space Stone, later used by the villain Thanos as one of six Infinity Stones which he uses to snap half the world out of existence. (And a variant of Loki uses it to escape after his attack on New York). 

He sends a HYDRA agent to kill Dr Erskine, creator of the super soldier serum that turns ninety pound weakling Steve Rogers into Captain America. As he succeeds, there isn’t, for the moment, any more of the serum, leaving Steve Rogers as the sole superhero of his kind. 

Schmidt tries to use a fleet of planes to bomb world cities, but is defeated by Steve. The Tesseract cube breaks up enough to make him touch the Space Stone. He disappears, assumed dead.

However, he ends up on the planet Vormir as guardian of the Soul Stone, another of the Infinity Stones. Anybody who wants it has to sacrifice something he loves. For Thanos, that’s his adoptive daughter Gamora, who’d been snatched from her friends in the Guardians of the Galaxy. 

What happens to Red Skull after that isn’t clear. Anyway, not a nice man! 

Ravonna Renslayer is the villain of the TV series Loki. In the first of two seasons, she is a judge in the Time Variance Authority, an organisation that exists outside of time, to keep a single Sacred Timeline going and wiping out any other. They have analysts, “Minutemen”(the soldiers) and boring old office workers, all of whom believe they were created by beings known as the Timekeepers. They weren’t, of course. They were, as they eventually discover, variants, stolen from their own timelines which were blown up.

Ravonna Renslayer, who had been Rebecca Tourminet, a vice principal on the Sacred Timeline, was a soldier in the TVA before promotion to judge, and led the group that arrested young Sylvie, a Loki variant, as a child while she was playing at being a hero with her toys. When adult Sylvie asks her if she remembers the “nexus event” which resulted  in her arrest, Ravonna smirks and says she doesn’t remember. Judging by that smirk, she is clearly lying; Sylvie was almost certainly arrested for not being interested in being a villain. We don’t get any other hints. 

In the first season of the show, Ravonna kills one of the soldiers, Hunter C-20, for finding out that she - and everyone else - has been lied to by the TVA - and lies about it. When analyst Mobius,  a close friend, says he wants to go home to his old life, she sends him to the Void, at the end of time, along with all those she has sentenced for not following the script. She locks up Hunter B-15, a formerly loyal officer, when she finds out the truth from Sylvie. When Mobius returns, Ravonna packs a bag, saying she is going off in search of free will. 

She returns in Season 2, when we learn that she was one of the two founders of the TVA, who had fought in the multiversal war alongside He Who Remains, a villainous variant of Kang the Conqueror, and then set up the TVA, before he wiped her memory so that she, like everyone else, believed in the Timekeepers. 

No matter what anyone else says to her, nothing persuades her to change her mind. She travels into the past in search of another Kang variant, scientist Victor Timely, to support her in her plans. When he leaves with the good guys, Loki and Mobius, instead, leaving her, she tries other ways. There are people at the TVA who still want to wipe out timelines, but even they realise she just wants to look after her own interests and refuse to join her. She kills them horribly, crushing them to death. 

She ends up in the Void herself - sheer karma! 

There is a skit on YouTube in which Captain America is brought into her courtroom for trying to change history by killing baby Hitler(he fails). He makes an argument as to why what the TVA does is illogical. 

She releases him, embarrassed, and sends him off to be with his beloved Peggy Carter, then complains about Mondays. 

Monday’s  horrible person - Servalan, the villain of Blake’s 7! 

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains ! - Q Is For Quirrell

 

Professor Quirinus Quirrell, teacher of Defence Against The Dark Arts in Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, is the first teacher Harry Potter meets when he is being introduced to Diagon Alley by Hagrid the groundskeeper. He is wearing a turban. There is a reason for that as we learn in the course of the novel and film. 

He seems timid and stammers, gaining the sympathy of Harry and his friends, who suspect Professor Snape as the villain plotting to steal the Philosopher’s Stone hidden in the school. They witness Snape apparently threatening him and take it for bullying. At the school’s Quidditch match, Hermione assumes Snape is casting a spell to knock Harry off his broom, killing him, and distracts him with a fire spell. 

In fact, Snape is protecting Harry from Quirrell, who is next to him and is the one casting the spell. 

In the course of the novel, Quirrell lets loose a troll, which goes to the girls’ toilets, where Hermione is hiding out crying. Fortunately Harry and Ron go to warn her, and Ron finally gets the “Wingardium Leviosa” spell right, knocking out the troll with its own club.

He tries to kill Harry at the Quidditch match.

He kills a unicorn on behalf of his master and drinks its blood, which is meant to bring back life. 

We eventually learn what’s under that turban: the face of Voldemort, whom he met while travelling through Albania, where the villain was hiding out in various animals. 

All this time, he has been playing a part. He is happy to admit that to Harry when they meet under the school, where Harry, Ron and Hermione were on a quest to find and protect the Philosopher’s Stone from being stolen for Voldemort, who needs it to bring himself back to full life. 

Harry finds the stone in his pocket while confronting Quirrell at the Mirror of Erised. That is when Quirrell takes off his turban, revealing the face of the Dark Lord underneath.

Voldemort orders Quirrell to kill Harry, but Harry’s mother’s love has cast a protective spell that doesn’t allow Voldemort - or his host - to touch him. Harry faints, Quirrell dies, abandoned by Voldemort. 

What can we say about him? He’s hosting Voldemort, but not possessed by him. He seems to know what he is saying in that last scene with Harry; he’s speaking for himself, not his master. I see him as one of the many people who has been fooled by whatever persuasion Voldemort has used to gain his followers. Some of those have come to regret it, such as Draco Malfoy. By the end of the series, Draco has lost his enthusiasm for being a Death Eater; Quirrell hasn’t. He might be regretting being forced to touch Harry, which hurts, then kills him, but until then he is desperate to get that stone for his master.

In my opinion, a true villain. What do you think? 

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - Peter Pettigrew

Peter Pettigrew is one of the villains of the Harry Potter series. He was at school with Harry’s parents and was one of the four Marauders, “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs”. That’s Remus, Peter, Sirius and James. The boys are all very good at their magic and learn to turn into animagi- shapeshifters - to help Remus Lupin when he turns into a wolf once a month. 

We never find out how Peter - Wormtail - became friends with the others, but it led to James and Lily, Harry Potter’s parents, being killed by the evil Voldemort and cost Sirius Black several years in Azkaban, the wizarding prison. It would also be interesting to find out how Peter became a member of the Gryffindor house, which is supposed to be for “the brave of heart” when he is such a coward. I have a theory, based on reading all the novels - and seeing the play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child - that in the end, the students are sorted by the Sorting Hat into the house they want to belong to. So, Peter wanted to be in Gryffindor for whatever reason. Maybe because that’s where he’d get protection from bullies, but it seems he was happy to hang out with bullies who were not having a go at him. If you’re familiar with the series you will know what I mean. Harry’s heroic Dad and his buddies were bullies in their time.

He first appears in human form in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban. That’s the story in which Sirius Black, the innocent man who had been locked up in a horrific prison guarded by the terrifying Dementors, escapes - and he is not at all happy. Before this book, Peter was hiding out in the form of a rat. He had been living as Scabbers, a pet with the Weasley family, kept by Harry’s best friend  Ron Weasley. It’s not until this book that it occurs to anyone to wonder how a rat could live so long. 

When Voldemort was after James and Lily Potter, to get at their child, Harry, Sirius offered to be their Secret Keeper, using a charm called the Fidelius charm, which would ensure that the enemy couldn’t find them unless the Secret Keeper told him. Unfortunately, Sirius got the bright idea of switching Secret Keeper from himself to Peter, thinking that Voldemort would still be looking for him instead of such an unlikely person as Peter. By this time, though, Peter was working for Voldemort. 

He not only passes the information on, but transfers the blame to Sirius, and blows up a dozen Muggles, leaving behind a finger for the wizards to find. 

So, Peter is awarded a posthumous bravery award while Sirius goes to prison. 

After being exposed in Prisoner of Azkaban, Peter goes to his master, who doesn’t yet have a real body, and helps him get one in Goblet Of Fire. 

If he is ever sorry, it’s not for what he has done, it’s for being stuck with Voldemort. 

But there is a scene which I suspect the author pinched from Lord Of The Rings. In LOTR, Gandalf has a chat with Frodo, saying that he will one day be glad he didn’t harm Gollum, who snatches the Ring at the Cracks of Doom and ends up dead instead of Frodo. Harry has a similar conversation with Dumbledore, who tells him he will one day be glad he spared Peter, who was about to be killed by Sirius and Remus. And so he should be, despite all the dreadful things that happen before this day comes. Peter hesitates just a few seconds when ordered to kill Harry and finds himself choked to death by the silver hand Voldemort gave him. So Harry manages to escape.

Really, nobody misses Peter when he is gone. He’s not a tragic figure, just a coward who, for a while, had the support of three stronger people.

Tomorrow, watch for another Harry Potter villain - Quirinus Quirrell!  

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - O Is For Orcs

Orcs are the redshirts of Middle-Earth - you know, the ones who are there to get killed off, as in Star Trek? In their case, they mostly seem to be there for heroes to kill off rather than defending anyone. In The Lord Of The Rings they are working for the baddies, like Sauron and the evil wizard Saruman.

When we first meet them, in The Hobbit, though, they are villains in their own right. They have their own community underground, as Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves find out when they camp in a cave that turns out to be what the orcs call their Front Porch. There must be orc women somewhere in the background of this novel, although Tolkien has a tendency to forget women; his original dwarf origin story has the Fathers of the Fathers of the Dwarves being put to sleep - he did rewrite so that each Father had a mate. Gollum kills and eats a young orc, so presumably it has a mother.

We are told that orcs - called Goblins in The Hobbit - love technology and loud bangs. They are very good at creating machines. This is not the compliment it might seem, though, because Tolkien was not keen on modern advances, which wrecked the peaceful landscapes he loved.  

Orcs will eat just about anything; one sad thing is that somehow nearly all the horses and ponies in this book end up dead and eaten. The ones who survive are okay only because Bjorn the bear shifter, who lent them to the dwarves, takes them back. 

Thorin, the Dwarf king, is called Oakenshield, because when he was fighting the orcs at Moria, where his grandfather died, he snatched up an oak branch, using it as both a shield and a weapon. There is a named Goblin leader in that battle, Azog.

In The Hobbit, the dwarves and Bilbo are captured and taken underground by orcs and dragged before the Great Goblin, who is not named. They are terrified by Thorin’s sword, Orcrist, “Goblin-cleaver”, which has a reputation for killing people of their kind. 

Fortunately Gandalf turns up to rescue the adventurers before the Goblins can do any of their threatened things, though this is when Bilbo gets lost and meets Gollum.

The Goblins, however, do turn up in the Battle of Five Armies near the end, and Gandalf reminds Dain, another dwarf king, that there is an orc, Bolg, who remembers he killed his father in Moria. They are a warrior culture like the dwarves, but they are always evil - and destined to lose, though not without killing some of the good guys first.

I find it rather sad to think that there is an entire race doomed to be the baddies. And in the sequel, they aren’t even fighting for themselves, they are just minions of the bad guys!

What do you think? 

Tomorrow’s villain is Peter Pettigrew of Harry Potter infamy.

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - N is for Nazgûl

 

The Nazgûl, also called the Black Riders or the Ring Wraiths, are the main villains of The Lord Of The Rings. There are nine of them, riding around on black horses, serving Sauron the Dark Lord. The horses are ordinary animals, stolen from the land of Rohan, which is why they can be drowned early in the novel, when the Nazgûl are chasing Frodo across the river Bruinen, on the way to the elf colony of Rivendell. Unfortunately, the Nazgûl are just fine. Being washed away by the elf Elrond is just a nuisance for them, making them temporarily lose shape.

They are the nine mortal kings who were silly enough to accept rings from Sauron. Well, were mortal - they are still around after centuries. And they are scary! Even orcs can be uncomfortable with them, as Sam Gamgee, hero Frodo’s servant, overhears when two orcs are talking nearby (We will talk about orcs tomorrow). 

The rings of power they wore corrupted them and, while they got a lot of power and wealth in their mortal lifetimes, they eventually found themselves working for Sauron. They wear black robes, but are more or less invisible otherwise, except to Frodo when he puts the Ring on. Actually, wearing the Ring is what lets them see him!

What he sees when he is wearing the Ring terrifies him. While fighting them on Weathertop hill, he is wounded by a Nazgûl blade. He is taken to Rivendell and treated, but he never really recovers from the wound. 

Tom Shippey, a Tolkien scholar, suggests that people who accept these rings really turn themselves into Ring Wraiths. I see his point. The Black Riders were ambitious and greedy in the first place. They were, let’s face it, not nice people even as human.

Their leader is known as the Witch King of Angmar, the one who wounded Frodo. He is very self confident because a prophecy has said he can’t be killed by any man. Boy, is he surprised when he is confronted on the battlefield by warrior maiden Eowyn, who says, “I am no man!” as she pulls off her helmet and stabs him. 

And part of his destruction is caused by a stab in the leg by hobbit Merry Brandybuck - also no man! Those two were not supposed to fight. Eowyn was supposed to stay home and be acting ruler, Merry is rather too short and is told he can’t go. But Eowyn, disguised, whose men certainly know who “Dernhelm” is, smuggles Merry with her. Both of them are badly wounded, but save the day. 

Really, it serves the Witch King absolutely right! It’s a bit like “Macbeth, you’ll be fine as long as Birnam Wood doesn’t come to Dunsinane” and that “no man of woman born” can harm him. And then the army creeps up to the castle with branches, and it turns out that Macduff was born by Caesarean section. Both Macbeth and the Witch King should have paid attention to the technicalities. By the way, Tolkien hated that scene about Birnam Wood, he thought it was cheating. It’s how he got the idea for those walking trees the Ents.  

The Ring Wraiths are truly scary. I’m wondering if J.Michael Straczynski sneaked them into his SF TV series Babylon 5. There are the villainous Shadows, who capture people and connect them to black spaceships, to do their bidding. Of course, the “Black Riders” of Babylon 5 are not willing or corrupted, they are captives, including a woman loved by Alfred Bester, the show’s main villain. But there are other Tolkien elements in the show, so I wouldn’t be surprised. 

The Ring Wraiths are not people who can inspire sympathy or even pity. They did it to themselves. The fact that even orcs are not fans says something about them.

Tomorrow- orcs! 

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - M Is For Medea

 

Medea is a sorceress from Greek mythology. She has connections with the gods. Her grandfather is the sun god Helios. Her aunt is the goddess and sorceress Circe. She is a princess of Colchis, where the Golden Fleece is kept. 

When the Argonauts turn up to steal it, she falls in love with their leader, Jason, and helps him steal it. On the way back to Greece, she kills her brother, who has followed them, then persuades the daughters of an elderly king, Pelias, to cut him up and cook him to regenerate him to his youth. Of course, it doesn’t work. 

She and Jason marry and settle in Corinth, where they have children, but after ten years he decides to marry Glauce, the daughter of King Creon, for political convenience. 

Medea is understandably angry, but honestly,  why not kill Jason? Instead, she sends a gown and crown to the new bride, which kills her horribly, like napalm. (There is a similar story somewhere in the Morte D’Arthure, with a cloak sent by Morgan Le Fay, only it kills her servant). Creon hugs his daughter and dies with her.  

She kills two of her children by Jason so he won’t have heirs, and escapes.  

Her next husband is Aegeus of Athens, the father of Theseus. When the young man arrives in Athens, she has persuaded his father to hand him a cup of poisoned wine, so her own son by Aegeus will inherit, but Aegeus recognises Theseus and stops it. 

Again she flees, and after several more adventures and killings, she eventually lives happily ever after and, as an immortal, has an afterlife in the Isles of the Blessed, with Achilles. 

Jason roams the earth, nobody likes him and he eventually gets knocked on the head and killed by the prow of the Argo as he is sitting sadly under his legendary ship. Actually, I’m sadder to think of that ship, which had been created for adventures and sailed on an amazing quest, rotting away, abandoned and forgotten. 

Medea appears in Euripides’ tragedy and quite a lot of modern fiction - and, of course, in that amazing film Jason And The Argonauts, special effects by Ray Harryhausen and music by Bernard Herrmann, best known for The Day The Earth Stood Still. The most famous scene, in which sown dragon’s teeth pop up as skeletons to fight Jason, was humorously sent up in an episode of TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. In another episode Hercules’s mother tells him she is planning to marry Jason. 

Jason And The Argonauts has a happy ending, no killing or maiming, Medea asks Jason to look after her because she has no home to go back to, and they kiss, while watching gods approve. 

Aussie author Kerry Greenwood, best known for her Phryne Fisher adventures, wrote a novel called Medea, showing the story from her viewpoint. It was published back in 1997, but has been republished by Clan Destine press, so is easily available in both print and ebook. 

She appears briefly in Madeline Miller’s Circe, in which she visits her aunt - part of the myth - but refuses to take Circe’s wise advice.

I’m just reading Rick Riordan’s The Lost Hero: Heroes Of Olympus #1 in which she appears as a villain along the route taken by a group of teenage demigods(in the Percy Jackson universe) out to save the world. She has a department store which sells all sorts of goodies, including, of course, potions and poisons, and still has the two dragons that helped her escape in the Greek myth. She is definitely not friendly to our heroes, especially not their leader, who is not only called Jason, but was named after her Jason! 

So, how much of a villain is she? She does do some dreadful things, though it’s also hard to find much sympathy for Jason. 

See you tomorrow!