Characters You Love to Hate

[rowyn]

ankewehner wrote on tumblr about not relating to the "love to hate" phenomenon, where a large part of the audience hates a character but enjoys seeing that character anyway.

I don't have the same "how could you feel this way?" reaction to it that Anke expresses, so I was pretty sure I must have felt this way about some villain at some point. But it took me a while to think of an actual example. Some counter-examples:

DC's the Joker: I don't love to hate the Joker. I just hate him and wish Batman (or anyone) would kill him. Lut was talking about watching the intro to one of the Batman video games, where Batman is escorting the Joker back to the asylum and the Joker is apologizing for not killing more people on his way out the last time and gloating about how many more he'll kill during the next escape. Me: "And the game doesn't let you kill the Joker here." Lut: "NO." Me: "See, this is why I wouldn't want to play it." Lut: "Y'know, if I were one of those armed guards standing around while the Joker was brought in AGAIN, I'd shoot him dead. And then I'd hand Batman my gun and say 'You can arrest me if you want to. But the only two people who are going to be sorry that bastard is dead are you and Harley Quinn. AND I'M NOT SO SURE ABOUT HARLEY.'" That would be AWESOME. Anyway, I know a lot of people like seeing the Joker vs Batman conflict play out again and again, but I am not one of them.

Marvel's Magneto: I don't love to hate Magneto either, but unlike the Joker, my response to Magneto is generally BE GOOD ALREADY DAMMIT. I like Erik and I want him to do good things and stop being so Machiavellian. I don't want him to be an unforgivable murderer. I sympathize with him, but I don't like watching him be a villain.

I can readily think of other characters that fall into one of those two camps: unsympathetic villains that I hate, and sympathetic ones that I want to see reformed. But coming up with a villain that I enjoy as-a-villain is much harder. The one I did produce is an actual classic:

Shakespeare's Iago: No, not Disney's snarky parrot, but the antagonist of "Othello". Iago is throughly villainous and almost completely unsympathetic, but he is very good at being a villain. It's been a long time since I read "Othello" and I've never seen it performed, but here's how I remember the play's structure: Iago comes on stage, gives a soliloquy listing his resentments and desires, and then explains how he's going to manipulate everyone in the next few scenes into doing what he wants them to. In the next few scenes, Iago uses a masterful combination of fabrications and apparent empathy and feigned good intentions to get everyone to do their part, most of them unwittingly, in his plan. Repeat until end of play. I cannot like him, or root for him, but there's a certain admiration for how well he executes his plot.

I am not sure that's the same emotion that most people associate with the phrase "villains you love to hate", but I think it's as close as I come. It's a hard category to get into, because it requires the character to be an unsympathetic, unapologetic villain, and yet have enough class/style/brilliance to make them entertaining despite that. And of course, it's subjective -- I'm sure there are people who feel that way about the Joker, or Moriarity, or Loki*, but I don't. So I'm curious -- what villains make the cut for you?

* Loki (in both the Norse myths and the recent films, oddly) is more in the want-to-see-reformed camp , although the end scene of Thor 2 was pretty awesome. Moriarity, I just hate.

Comments

[ankewehner.livejournal.com]

it requires the character to be an unsympathetic, unapologetic villain, and yet have enough class/style/brilliance to make them entertaining despite that
First one who came to my mind is the Shadow Man from Disney's The Princess and the Frog. Followed by The Little Mermaid's Ursula, though it's been quite a while since I saw that one.

[rowyn]

Ursula seems to have made a lot more of an impression on other people than she did on me. :D I actually haven't seen the Princess and the Frog!

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Ellsworth Toohey from The Fountainhead. I love hating him, because he's so... hateable. He is just... awful. I don't want to see him win, but as a villain he is a perfect foil for the cerebral, passionate protagonists.

I mean, he's just... slimy, he's so evil. But so well-spoken! But just appallingly amorally horrible. But so smart. o_O

[rowyn]

*giggles at that description* That definitely fits!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Snape?

Green Lanterns get more interesting if you reinterpret them as a would-be universal tyranny.

[rowyn]

Snape was definitely the "villain I wanted to see reformed"; I never enjoyed him being cruel. But he did have style!

That seems like a valid way of looking at the Corps, from what I've heard of it. c_c

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Re: Joker:
The Joker works when it's Saturday-morning-cartoon Batman, where he might INTEND to be homicidal, yet he never actually SUCCEEDS. We can grouse about how he keeps getting thrown in Arkham Asylum and keeps getting out, but as long as he's not a mass-murderer, it's tolerable as just part of the tropes we associate with the superhero comic book world.

When we get into the movies, where the Joker actually kills a lot of people, then he's just got to die -- and, original or reboot, he does. But movies are a lot more about telling a complete story within 2 hours or so, and maybe having a new villain for a sequel, and then making a killing off of all the related merchandise ... not recycling stories over and over again because we've got to get a comic book out every month.

Where it falls apart for me is in between, when it's the Joker in "grittier" comic book takes, and yet we just can't get rid of him. And honestly ... I don't buy the comics, so I don't know how often this happens. But if the video games are going to go with a "gritty" Joker who actually slaughters people and yet he's going to get away with it -- I'm with you. If he keeps getting out and killing more people, at some point it just seems like someone, surely, is going to engage in a bit of civil disobedience and shoot the monster, then surrender, for the greater good of society. I just don't know if society could hold together with the sorts of massive death tolls and widespread property destruction tolerated in certain comic book universes.

Re: Magneto, etc.
I can see some possibilities with Magneto (since he has a motivation other than "world conquest for its own sake") but which one? The problem with comic book characters is that there are so many writers going in so many different directions, and reboots and different treatments in different media, etc. I like the idea of having an "antagonist" now and again who honestly has his own objectives and his own reasons, and yet our hero is perfectly reasonable and we want to root for him for OPPOSING the antagonist, versus the typical "mwahahahaha" Evil McCrazyPants villain who is just villainous ... BECAUSE. Part of this is because I don't think it's very valuable for kids to get the idea that everyone who opposes you is just a Bad Guy and therefore can be blown up or punched in the face with impunity. On the other hand, I don't want to go the other route where EVERY bad guy (even a murderous one) is just "misunderstood" and everything can be solved with a hug-fest. There have been some stories that royally frustrate me when there's a bishonen bad guy who slaughters lots of innocents, and yet "reforms" partway through, and the whole thing feels more like it's just because the fanbase loved him too much (or the author loved him too much), and all those deaths along the way? Eh, those were nobodies. Who cares if a few redshirts were killed, when our Bishonen Bad Boy is just so HUNKY? >:(

(And sometimes it seems as if everyone -- in-universe characters, writers, etc. -- have simply FORGOTTEN all those "kill folks to show how BAD our bad guy is" moments. Like, don't all those faceless victims have FAMILY who might care?)

[rowyn]

I see what you mean about the cartoon Joker being much easier to stomach than the serial-killer Joker of the comics. Recurring non-murderous villains do not feel like they break the setting the way recurring murderers do.

I forget if the Magneto of the comics I read was ever a cold-blooded murderer, actually. My impression of him is that he definitely didn't kill wantonly, a la the Joker, but he'd kill if he thought it was necessary to save mutants. I think of him as Malcolm X to Xavier's Martin Luther King. He's cynical, extremist, and too willing to resort to violence, but his goal is to prevent another Holocaust.

And yes, comic book characters especially have the TOO MANY WRITERS problem. In the comics, it felt like there was one Magneto that was ruthless but not evil, and another that was more the over-the-top villain.

The arc in the "Heroes" TV show where they were trying to redeem Sylar was definitely of the "Are we just supposed to forget how evil and murderous he is and go 'awww' now?" variety. As much as I like a redemption story, I found that hard to stomach. It was kind of a relief when he went back to just being a villain.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Re: Sylar, Heroes: Oh yes, there was definitely that in "Heroes." But there seemed to be an awful lot of "forget about that there, because our gut wants to go here" stuff in that series that got even worse as it progressed. I feel like an idiot for following it for as long as I did. (I got really, really tired of the "now it's time for X hero to be a VILLAIN!" ball being passed around.) I think what really bugged me was when I'd read about interviews with the writers, and they'd 'fess up to stuff like, "Oh yeah, we wanted to float the idea of a relationship between Claire and Peter in an alternate future, because they seemed to have CHEMISTRY," and never mind the fact that, y'know, they're niece & uncle. Ewwww.

I think there's a lot of that going on in "Once Upon a Time," too. Wait long enough, and just about every character in the series is going to be related, either by birth or by romantic involvement, and most any villain, no matter how many people he or she kills off brutally, is supposed to maintain our sympathy. Argh! (I'm not even choosing to follow that series anymore, per se. It's just that we watch TiVo'ed cable TV shows over at a friend's house, and he seems to be big on that show.)

Re: Magneto: Boy, it's been so long since I read any X-Men. That was back in the '80s or so, and I mostly relied upon the extensive collection of a cousin who had many, many different comic book descriptions and back-issue collections to follow any stories. There was a time when I pretty much binged upon going back through his collection of older X-Men comics, and then came to the realization that there were some pretty major plot points that would be dropped or apparently forgotten/retconned. In real-time (i.e., if I'd gotten these as they had been released), perhaps I wouldn't have remembered unless I'd gone back to re-read old issues, but having all these comics to read AT ONE TIME meant I had the discrepancies right in front of me. (No, I don't remember WHAT they were. I just remember that I was annoyed by the phenomenon.) For a long time, that pretty much killed the "comics magic" for me (for what little it was -- as I was no "big spender" on comics anyway) because I had the "realization" that there was no "big story" to be revealed, but that the writers were just making it all up as they went, and it would take nigh-forever to get anywhere story-wise anyway. Nowadays, if I have an interest in comics, it's usually just in graphic-novel compilations where the story is already completed and conveniently bundled together.

[rowyn]

I got started on comics by reading a friend's X-Men comics, from the start of the new X-Men through to issue 200 or so, I think. Around 10 years' worth. I found the stories tended to work best when the same writer stuck around for several years (eg, Chris Claremont's run was pretty good) and worst when it was writer-of-the-month. (Poor Excalibur. Everyone loved Nightcrawler and Kitty Pryde, but they went through a new writer every two months and most of them were just *bad*.)

But yes, comics and TV shows suffer from exactly the same advantages and disadvantages we had on Sinai. All that continuity and backstory gives you a rich trove of stuff to mine for ideas! But deadline pressure means you kick stuff out the door when it 'seems like a good idea', and then you're *stuck* with it. Forever. Because continuity. And retconning creates its own problems. :/

I do like waiting until a story is finished -- compiled in a graphic novel or a season arc of a show is wrapped -- before committing to it. That way you know whether or not it can sustain the momentum throughout, or if it's more "this seemed cool at the start but now I realize the writers have no idea where they're going with this." :P

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Re: Continuity Pros & Cons:
Yep. This is one reason why I entirely sympathize with reports that the new Star Wars movies are NOT going to adhere to "Expanded Universe" canon ... though J.J. Abrams reserves the right to be inspired by EU material. I appreciate the attempt to keep the Star Wars novels tied together with some sort of "canon," but there were just too many cases where there would be the incredibly goofy stuff and then the incredibly DARK stuff, and I'd think, "This just shouldn't coexist in the same universe."

That, and some of the EU material is just DUMB. (For the simplest comparisons, just look up some of the varied starships invented for Star Wars comics and RPGs and compare to the movie spacecraft. Between all the "*-Wings" (substitute another letter of the alphabet for "*") and ships that look like what a grade-schooler with a straight-edge and a compass might invent on some copy paper ... it just seems that a lot of these folks don't "get" the influences that go into the Star Wars look. But it's PUBLISHED somewhere, so it's CANON.

Yeah, falling back to "only the movies are really canon" seems pretty appealing at that point. (But even that's going to be a tough job; there's a lot of stuff that happens in the prequels that suddenly makes stuff in the original trilogy make a whole lot less sense.)

Re: Finished Stories:
Yeah, I've been burned so many times by a series (usually TV) that seemed promising at first, but then it was cancelled partway (often finishing off with a dark and depressing cliffhanger season finale that was MEANT to make us anxious for the new season in hopes that stuff would get better), or else it soon became evident that the writers were just making stuff up as they went, and any element of "mystery" and "discovery" was pointless. I know that ultimately "it is about the journey" when I'm following a series, but I want to at least have the fair hope of a decent payoff at the end. If I keep getting disappointed, it's going to cut into my enjoyment of the NEXT series.

Getting a complete series that I can binge on (or more sensibly pace out) doesn't promise me a good ending, but at least I can know that there IS an ending and it didn't just fizzle out partway. Plus, I probably had a recommendation that drew my attention to it, so there's that, too.

Starting a story isn't that hard. That much I've learned from GMing, because so often what I start with is the "start of a story," and only a vague idea of a good and a bad ending, and I'm greatly relying upon the players to fill in everything in between. There are too many series where I feel like the writer had a great pilot, or a great concept that looked snazzy on paper, but the DELIVERY was lacking. (I've run into that a lot with books, too -- where there's a book that has a wonderful setup premise, but I honestly wouldn't know where to go with it and ... oh, surprise, the writer didn't know, either. :P )

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

It works best when they don't actually kill people, I think? Or maybe that disqualifies them since you say they have to be a completely unsympathetic character.

Team Rocket was always amusing to watch. They were bumbling idiots (and occasionally ended up accidentally being on the heroes' side) but they never *reformed* and had no good reason for constantly wanting to steal everyones' pokemon.

Xanatos? Everybody loved Xanatos. He was eventually reformed, but not for several seasons.

Q / Discord?

Loki for sure. From the movies anyway. In the comics it's more variable; there's a total stupid dick version of him that I just hate-hate.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Oh! Q is a good one!

[rowyn]

Q always annoyed me because I saw him as a gimmicky plot device, like "oh, the holodeck isn't gimmicky enough, what can we do that will justify even stranger scenes and still be completely revertible by the end of the episode?" But other than that, he works. :)

Weirdly, Discord doesn't bother me, probably because his powers aren't "I can and will do absolutely anything" even if he is also overpowered.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Ah! I'm glad you said that. I liked John de Lancie, but as a whole, the concept of "Q" bugged me. He's this weird god-like entity in what's supposed to be a science fiction setting. (And, oh, how I get told that "Star Trek is science fiction. Star WARS is just *ahem* ... space opera.") And some episodes we're supposed to be all cuddly-wuddly mushy over our dear Q, and yet ... er ... that whole business where Q intentionally steers the Enterprise into conflict with the Borg (resulting in a certain number of gratuitous off-camera red-shirt deaths) ... and then that part where he made a wager with Picard that he'd never interfere with humanity again (and yet in later episodes, he DOES, and nothing is ever said of his previous promise) ... eh, I can only LIKE him if I've got selective memory.

On the one hand, there were times when I kind of appreciated him, because I felt like the Next Generation Enterprise crew was a little too smug and self-satisfied with their own superiority (especially if confronted with the BACKWARDS ways of the world of then-20th-century viewers) ... but a godling with an even MORE unbearably smug attitude is hardly the one to fix the problem. That and some of his later appearances were just so stupid and silly. (E.g., Q hitting on Janeway, Q getting into a boxing match with Captain Sisko, Q ending up having to babysit "Q 2" and so on. Blargh!)

As least none of it was as bad as the "Janeway and Paris hit warp factor 10, turn into salamanders, have babies together, then get turned back to normal in the last 60 seconds and IT IS NEVER SPOKEN OF AGAIN" episode. But then ... that's a pretty low bar. :)

Discord? Repackaged Q, only without the incidental deaths, more toony, and somehow more bearable, since he's in a toony universe anyway. :) Somehow, I don't hate him, let alone "love to hate" him.

[rowyn]

I was wondering about Xanatos, but haven't seen enough Gargoyles to say. :)

It works best when they don't actually kill people, I think? Or maybe that disqualifies them since you say they have to be a completely unsympathetic character.

It depends on the context. In an action movie, a villain who doesn't kill is less likely to be hated (unless he does something almost as horrible, like disfiguring or torturing his victims). But in something like My Little Pony, antagonists like Diamond Tiara are thoroughly dislikeable without ever making one wonder "why can't they just KILL HER already?" Which helps from the perspective of not breaking the setting. Diamond Tiara isn't stylish enough for me to really enjoy watching her show up and be malevolent, but I think she could be that kind of antagonist.

Loki has moments for me (like the end of Thor 2 made me gleeful), but mostly I just want him to stop being evil rather than being glad that he's the antagonist.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I suppose one of these days, I need to watch at least an episode of Gargoyles to see what all the fuss is (was) about. :) Is that a series that has "aged well"?

[archangelbeth]

*nods at Xanatos*

And one was never quite sure he was reformed, frankly.

[xyzzysqrl]

Sounds like you'd have a taste for old-school pulp heroes who just get -rid- of their villains after one use.

[rowyn]

That is generally my preference! It's rare that I want to see more of a villain. :)

[xyzzysqrl]

I see it as such a waste, but then... I enjoy villains and enjoy BEING the villain.

[rowyn]

I really don't. actually. Even when I'm the GM, I have a very hard time making villainous bad guys. If you see very much of one of my antagonists, they will almost inevitably become sympathetic and understandable (even if they're still evil.) If I'm a player, I pretty much only play good guys. I don't know why.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Hey, I can sympathize. I mean, with you as GM, not necessarily with your sympathetic bad guy. ;) If you're going to play a villain as anything other than a cardboard cutout, one who has any sort of motivation, you're going to "get into" that character at least a little bit.

Similarly, I think that there's a case where how much the reader sympathizes with an antagonist (or the protagonist!) will depend upon how much character time that character gets, and how much "into the mind" we get with that character. (Note: Sympathizing with a character and seeing a character as "cool and mysterious" generally don't seem to go hand-in-hand very well, IMHO.)

I think some folks have an easier time separating understanding the character's motivations from actually rooting for the character. I've read (or watched) quite a few stories where the protagonist was really quite the jerk and arguably the BAD GUY, and yet he'd have a following of folks actually rooting for him -- even among folks who I would presume did NOT espouse this guy's worldview or values.

(And I admit, I have some trouble at times where I'll sympathize a bit too much with a villain simply because I find the protagonists to be unbearable -- or else because the "villain" represents an authority, and the "heroes" aren't sufficiently HEROIC for me to feel that their guerrilla warfare tactics and gleeful slaughter of the main villain's minions are entirely justified. Either that, or I'm getting too wrapped up in "meta" issues.)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I hadn't quite thought of it in that context. You know, when it's just a Batman-vs.-Joker "villain of the week," where he does the scheme, he gets defeated, end of episode, I don't really have much incentive to see the villain again. Too often I feel like the villain is a favorite of the writers rather than the viewers. ("Why, this would be a GREAT Joker scheme!" "But he was already defeated." "So he busts out of Arkham!" "Genius!")

However, at the same time, if there's a story series where our hero just repeatedly, time after time, clobbers villains, I'm not going to care too much about the struggle. If he finishes them off and yet there are always more ... well, after the first few times, there had BETTER be something else to the storyline to maintain my interest. Maybe it's the witty reparte between the hero and his sidekick or a vigilante or semi-heroic rival (e.g., Catwoman), maybe it's the occasional deviation from the "formula" to follow a side-story. That's the sort of thing that had me watching the Batman animated TV show -- not that I was desperate to see Joker yet AGAIN.

But if there's going to be a story where I'm going to "love to hate" a villain, I think it needs to be a story where our hero is the underdog, and the story is a long, protracted struggle against a villain who consistently has the upper hand. Sure, there might be individual battles won along the way -- some sign that our hero is, if not winning the war outright, at least achieving some goals and making some friends on the way, lest we lose all hope -- but the bad guy isn't just being repeatedly defeated and thrown into Arkham, then popping out again. If he's repeatedly defeated, I can't take him all that seriously. If he's repeatedly killing people, but going through the "revolving doors of justice," then I can't take our HERO all that seriously.

But make it an uphill struggle all the way, where there's no apparent guarantee of winning (and perhaps even our initial HERO ends up dying heroically, and the cause has to be taken up by his former sidekick*) and then any final hard-won victory is going to be a lot more compelling (and the villain's gonna really have it coming to him). There's "love to hate" territory for me.

(* Disclaimer: This is not meant to advocate the anime series trope where we have an obvious appointed hero, and a big-brother/father/MENTOR type who is doomed to die halfway through the series. If our story focus is not on that mentor rather than the "appointed young viewer proxy" then it's not going to come as much of a surprise or have much impact, considering how over-worked that trope is in anime. ;) Rather it just comes across as "clearing the field" for the hero, so he no longer has any older competition for viewer popularity.)

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

TVTropes calls this the magnificent bastard.

[rowyn]

Hmmm ...

While usually an antagonist, especially if he's the Big Bad, the Magnificent Bastard can be aligned on either side of a conflict. Hell, he's so amazing he tends to forgo the idea of good and evil altogether

Sounds like every villain-you-love-to-hate would probably be a Magnificent Bastard, but not every Magnificent Bastard is a villain-you-love-to-hate. :)

[octantis.livejournal.com]

To my interpretation, the "love to hate" phenomenon does not entail finding the villain appealing or likeable. If someone thinks Sephiroth is so cool, they don't "love to hate" him. They love to love him.

As I see it, a villain we love to hate is one we enjoy hating. This is an effectively villainous character who is convincing, threatening enough, and reacts in the ways that make us truly enjoy his comeuppance. These are the villains that give our heroes a good fight, give the scene a lot of color, and satisfyingly shake their fists and rage when their evil plans come to ruin.

In short, a villain we love to hate is one who makes the story great.

They may not necessarily be the scenery chewing guys I describe above. But I think the phenomenon is NOT the same as villain worship or a villain we want to know more about. Those may overlap on the Venn diagram, but they're a distinctly different phenomena to grouse about.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

lol! see my response below.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Ha! I was even going to mention Burke. :D His fate was just so satisfyingly poetic.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Oh, and his comeuppance can most certainly entail his dramatic and satisfying demise. You don't have to want to see him again.

[rowyn]

I don't ever have the reaction of "I enjoy the experience of hating itself". I have seen characters that I just hated, and I don't ever love the feeling. I don't want to watch the Joker murder hundreds so he can get killed by Batman at the end. I may enjoy a movie where that happens, but it's never because I wanted to watch the Joker or was interested in what he was going to do next or in any part of his schemes.

For me, the villain has to be far more than just "hateable" in order to get a love-to-hate reaction: he has to be interesting. Not likeable, or loveable, but fascinating despite being hated. That's not "loving to love", because I don't want the character to succeed or good things to happen for them. I still want him thwarted and punished, and I still hate him, I just find his performance also entertaining. Instead of just "ugh so much hate".

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I think we're basically in agreement, then. "Hate" is relative. Like I say, "in short, a villain we love to hate is one who makes the story great." He's an effective character in a specifically villainous sense, whether that's because he inspires in you such intense loathing that his defeat brings you satisfaction, or because he's convincing and relatable in the context. It's definitely a distinction from 'love to love' or 'want to see reformed' or 'dislike so much that the story itself is ruined'.

That last one is one of the major subjective differences that drives people to their favored styles. Personally, I don't get off on [redacted] torture porn, but I like the amount of grit that Burke the sleazy corporate agent adds to Aliens.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

I love to hate Burke from the Aliens movie. I don't particularly enjoy seeing him, and I don't admire him in any way, but I do love to hate him and shake my angry fists in rage every time I see his smarmy face. Poor Paul Reiser, I can't stand him at all after that role.

[jorrocks-j.livejournal.com]

So, whadda we got here? Disney villains? Comic book villains? Ayn Rand villains?

Cute.

Who's your daddy?...

[rowyn]

Hey, my example of a villain I love to hate was Shakespeare too. ;)

[jorrocks-j.livejournal.com]

Very true, but your good taste is so well known it hardly need be remarked upon ;-)

(N.B.--I've been doing oily villain schtick throughout this thread)

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

I have *despised* the Joker for years. He shouldn't be in an insane asylum in the first place; he's a sociopath, yes, but he is *not* legally insane. He plans his crimes, he makes escape plans, he's *not* just J. Random Psychopath. I think even Alan Moore pointed this out once, and then in the same story negated it by having the report being written by Dr. Harleen Quinzell. In a sane justice system, the Joker would be in Blackgate Prison on Death Row, not bouncing in and out of Arkham every other week.

As much as I applaud the casting of Nicholson as the Joker in the 1989 Batman film, I also applaud his death at the end of the film as well. Done in, not by Wayne trying to prevent his escape, but his own minions being too clueless (or possibly too homicidal; there is no helicopter pilot in the world who could not tell when his turbine was being overstressed like that) and killing him accidentally.

My absolute favorite Joker demise, though, comes from fanfiction. Ben Hutchins, AKA "Gryphon", over at Eyrie Productions has a positive *gift* for redeeming characters you thought were beyond redemption...and he killed off the Joker, and started off Harley Quinn's redemption arc in the same story. http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=123&forum=DCForumID24 is a great, and a fairly quick read, and is one of the best HQ redemption stories ever, although if you're not familiar with the "Undocumented Features" universe, some bits may not make a lot of sense. :)

Magneto: I like the version from the movies; about the only thing I like about the movies. The version in the comics rationalizes killing to get his way or make a point too often for my taste.

O, however; there's a character I *love* to hate. John DeLancie is a fantastic actor, and has made me thoroughly despise this character almost every time I've seen him, right up until the NexGen series finale...and of that I'll say, he (and the writers) managed to both surprise me and redeem Q for me.