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Considering how many bloody characters there are in the Harry Potter septology, it's difficult to choose just one as sitting out amongst the rest. Most are likable, even if it's just in some small way, and all have their redeeming qualities - I think my favorite has switched dozens of times over the course of the books, going from Harry to Snape to Draco to Hagrid to Dumbledore to Umbridge...

Well, okay, you get the point. It's tough. Yet for all those characters, I think at the end of the day one stands out above the rest, and in doing so reveals a slight bias I have towards malevolence. Yes, my numero uno favorite is none other than He Who Must Not Be Named, Lord Voldemort himself.

And when you think about it that might be a surprising choice, as Voldemort hasn't done ANYTHING to make himself likable. Even if you take away the fact that thousands have been killed in his name, he's still got a long list of smears to his name: murderer, liar, torturer, schemer, thief, usurper, traitor. He's not a nice guy, and not somebody who should be on the top of a list of favorites.

And that's exactly why I like him.

Voldemort is the classic villain. He entirely lacks mercy for others, and will do whatever he needs to to achieve his goals. He'll stoop so low as to try and murder a baby to ensure his power remains undisturbed. He's a guy who has no friends, only minions and enemies, and he uses them all to further his own ends. Voldemort has no sense of charity unless he's going to get something out of the transaction beyond mere self-satisfaction, and any favor he bestows on another will have to be repaid someday. He's a magical Don Corleone, albeit without a sense of honor to rein in his baser instincts.

More, though, Voldemort is a villain with a past. Unlike many antagonists you actually get to see what turned Voldemort into the scumbag he is. His is a life of contradictions: despite aspiring to high places, he was born of a peasant woman. Despite despising mudbloods, he IS one. And despite doing everything in his power to corrupt Hogwarts and its students, that's where he wanted to be most - indeed, Hogwarts is probably where his fondest memories lie, if he has any fond memories whatsoever.

Most important to me, though, Voldemort is villainous because he's stained his own body. In the pursuit of power, of immortality, he's divided his soul, turning himself from an attractive young man into a creature that's far less than human, with horrible red eyes and slits for nostrils. He's a snake, inside and out, and the very personification of evil and all things unnatural. Humans can't truly embody what it is to be really nasty, and so Voldemort wins the prize for cruelty by descending into a near hellish form.

This isn't to say that I didn't cheer Voldemort's defeat in the end. In any good story, the bad guy loses. That's the way fiction the likes of Harry Potter goes. I would have been rather upset had my evil number one won the day. But his loss doesn't lower Voldemort at all in my eyes, and I hope The Deathly Hallows isn't the last we hear of the dread lord.

Learn more about this author, Matt Bird.
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