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Affably Evil/Literature: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
* Don Vito Corleone from ''[[
* Of course, the classic here is "Long" John Silver of ''[[Treasure Island]]''. Heck, even the ''writer'' ends up liking this guy too much for his own good.
** Silver does have genuine redeeming features, though. He is a lot brighter than his fellow pirates, wise enough to plan for his old age instead of spending the loot the minute he gets it as most of them do, and is visibly courageous when faced with impending death. He has a sense of honour, too: when he suspects Abraham Gray, the pirate who repented and rejoined the Squire's party, of telling tales, Captain Smollett's angry denial that Gray told or was asked anything is enough for Silver to consider the matter settled on the spot. Too bad that Silver is a liar, conniver, and murderer, of course.
* Count Fosco, the polite, jocular, podgy, and harmless-looking arch-villain from [[Wilkie Collins]]' Victorian sensation novel, ''[[
* Aornis Hades, villain of the second ''[[Thursday Next]]'' book, ''Lost in a Good Book'', meets Thursday a few times and sees no reason why her plans to destroy Thursday's mind and everything she holds dear doesn't mean they can't be friends.
* A literary example which is likely behind the character of Hannibal Lecter, is that of Humbert Humbert, the handsome and erudite pedophile and narrator of ''[[Lolita]]''.
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** The fandoms's favourite [[Magnificent Bastard]], Petyr Baelish, A.K.A Littlefinger, {{spoiler|Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, Lord Protector of the Vale of Arryn, Master of Coin and Lord of Harrenhal.}}
** Roose Bolton, whose banner is a flayed man and lives in the [[I Don't Like the Sound of That Place|Dreadfort]], lives up to his family's reputation. Still, unlike his [[Bastard Bastard|bastard son]], he can be quite a nice man if you are not his enemy.
* How has no one mentioned Aro from [[Twilight (
** Also, James. He wanted nothing more than to eat Bella but yet he was completely kind to her all throughout the torture session and always had a smile on his face.
** Both Aro and James tend to fall under [[Faux Affably Evil]] instead. Both are genuinely evil and Aro especially is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that you have to appear polite in order to retain your power.
* ''[[
** The White Court is labeled as the most dangerous of the three vampire courts because many of them act like this. The rest are [[Faux Affably Evil]], but are still quite skilled at being friendly and nonthreatening up until they rape you to death or kill you through sheer terror. In particular, Lara Raith is shown to be a genuinely civil and affable woman who tries to limit bloodshed and talk out her issues with others, before resorting to cat's paws to kill her competition in inordinately elegant manners. In ''Turn Coat'', Lara hangs a great big lampshade on this. "A monster. A habitually neat, polite, civil, and efficient monster" as she's feeding wounded employees to her kin. One of the creepiest scenes in the whole series.
** And Marcone. He's a mob boss, responsible for much of the drug and sex trade in Chicago, along with various murders and the like, but he does have a highly developed sense of honor, and has helped pull Harry's ass out of the fire more than once. The heroes reluctantly admit that a united Chicago criminal underworld in Marcone's control tends to be less dangerous for bystanders (thanks to the Mob Bosses' [[Freudian Excuse]]) and sex workers. They still think he's scum, but know well there's worse humans out there.
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** Faethor Ferenczy shows particular Affably Evil traits: despite spending most of his existence as an [[Evil Overlord]] and [[Psycho for Hire]], slaughtering and raping countless thousands of people, out of all the vampires in the ''[[Necroscope]]'' series, he appears to be the only one that could be remotely described as charismatic, in both life and death. Most notably, however, [[Graceful Loser|Faethor accepts his death and the sentence of eternal isolation from the rest of the dead]] where other vampires chose to bemoan their fate for the rest of existence.
* Clemael, the (self-employed) Angel of Mercy and protagonist of ''[[Hand of Mercy]]'', is unrepentantly Fallen. But that doesn't stop him from being polite, concerned, and surprisingly tolerant of Helen's quirks, for ''most'' of the book.
* From Jacqueline Carey's ''[[
* From ''[[Harry Potter (
** Dolores Umbridge tries to be this, but she [[Tastes Like Diabetes|goes too far in the opposite direction]], which just serves to make her all the more disturbing.
** Lucius Malfoy from the same series is a partial example. His ''tone'' is almost always even and coolly polite, but his ''words'' tend to range from mildly to extremely insulting to whoever he's talking to.
* ''[[
* {{spoiler|Abraham Quest}} in [[Stephen Hunt]]'s ''The Kingdom Beyond the Waves'', so much so that for much of the book you're not sure if he's good or bad {{spoiler|until he decides to destroy every sentient being on the planet who isn't a follower of his}}.
* You couldn't find a better example than the {{spoiler|Angel, Islington}}, from ''[[Neverwhere]]'', if you tried.
* Nyarlathotep in ''[[
* George Wickham in ''[[Pride and Prejudice]].'' He is described as quite charming and "amiable", which causes both Elizabeth ''and'' Lydia to fall for him. It is only when Elizabeth finds out the truth from Darcy, {{spoiler|that Wickham tried to seduce and then elope with his sister Georgiana in order to get access to Darcy's fortune without having to do a day's work}}, that his true character comes out. And then, Wickham {{spoiler|runs off with Lydia}}, nearly ruining the Bennet family until {{spoiler|Darcy pays him to marry her}}.
* The insanely smart, educated, and incredibly cultured radio deejay, Jean-Loup Verdier, in ''I kill'', with his highpowered knowledge of music, a voice that melts your socks, and a personality to woo women AND men. Switch off air and he's still cultured, highly intelligent, and oh ''so grammatically polite'', but he kills and skins the faces off people to make his dead brother beautiful again. Still very polite, though.
* [[
* Napoleon in Naomi Novik's [[Temeraire]] series.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "Rogues in the House", Nabonidus courteously draws Murillo aside, to give him the box with the ear in it.
* In [[Lord Dunsany]]'s ''[[The Charwomans Shadow]]'', the [[Evil Sorcerer]] is perfectly polite to the hero, even if he omits that, by asking for his shadow, he is effectively asking for his soul. He's even polite when describing how great magicians have high honor in [[Hell]].
* Yefim, the Mordovian gang enforcer in the ''Dennis Lehane'' novel ''Moonlight Mile'', is quite friendly and jovial. Even when he's threatening Patrick Kenzie's wife and daughter.
* [[Forgotten Realms|Jarlaxle]], of R.A. Salvatore's novels. He won't hesitate to kill innocents, [[Only in It For
** In other words, he's a mercenary-minded adventurer, but of the "[[Magnificent Bastard|sneaky bastard]]" type, rather than the "[[Blood Knight]]" type. Also, Luskan wasn't an innocent halflings' glade. It's (among other things) a major pirate nest with Arcane Brotherhood and Kraken Society jostling [[Man Behind the Man|behind the High Captains' "throne"]]. These behaved halfway decently only due to being bullied by Waterdhavian "superior firepower".
* Cory Doctorow's ''[[
* Captain Shannon from ''[[Ben Elton|The First Casualty]]'' is the personification of what the corruption war can do to the human soul. He is convicted that his merits in combat and the horrors he experienced first-hand pardon him for every atrocity he commits, like raping indiscriminately or {{spoiler|murdering a [[Warrior Poet]] who got disillusioned with the war and was about to come out with it}}. He maintains a nonchalant and amicable demeanour most of the time, and apparently is sincerely devoted to the cause of victory and is concerned with the morals of his comrades in arms, at that.
* O'Brien from ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. Rather disconcerting, given how he manages to do this while torturing Winston.
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* The ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' has Bauchelain, who can calmly explain to the woman he's just raped why he should not have raped his manservant instead.
* Crell Moset from the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], though in his case, it's a crippling need to be liked. He genuinely wants the subjects of his invasive medical experiments to appreciate him. He's not really cruel in the usual sense, he's just totally lacking in empathy, and believes [[For Science!|his science takes priority]]. Not only does he take steps to try and make his victims feel at ease - including singing pleasant songs - but the closest he gets to threatening is childish pique when people won't let him perform his experiments. In the [[Star Trek Voyager Relaunch]], as part of a [[Continuity Nod]] to [[Star Trek the Battle of Betazed]], he seems to genuinely think that the Betazoids were selfish in the extreme for taking back their planet and disrupting his earlier work there.
** The Overlord of the Redeemers in ''[[Star Trek: New Frontier]]''. His entirely self-serving moral code allows him to justify anything he wishes, as it's all "the Will of Xant", to which he, humble as he is, is a mere servant. Affably Evil definitely applies, as, true to his self-image, he's pleasant, soft spoken, and comes across as entirely reasonable in his conversations with others. He's quite friendly, really, for a genocidal warlord.
* The morality-flipped ''[[Transformers Shattered Glass]]'' universe has a number of Affably Evil Autobots:
** Huffer [[The Pollyanna|is happy and friendly]], and willing to cut deals with the enemy to solve things non-violently if he feels he can get something out of it.
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* Belvedere Delaney from Bernard Cornwell's ''Starbuck Chronicles'' is a cultured and charming spy for the Northern States against the Confederacy (explicitly ''not'' because he thinks they're right, but because he believes they'll win). He is probably (in story) responsible for more deaths than anyone else (he caused the Battle of Antietam). He also caused the capture and torture of the protagonist on spying charges (he was innocent and was eventually released), and caused the abduction (and forced abortion) of Starbuck's love interest, although they are both unaware of his role and regard him as a friend.
* Chichikov, [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[Dead Souls]]''.
* The miller in ''[[
* The [[Classical Movie Vampire|old Count Magpyr]] in [[Discworld
* ''[[In Death]]'': the murderer in ''Portrait In Death'' is this. He truly believes that he is doing mankind a great service by killing young innocent people. In fact, he truly seems like a [[Nice Guy]], if you ignore the murdering part.
* [[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]] deconstructs this trope with [[The Captain]] Nemo, who is a [[Wicked Cultured]], [[Nice Guy|extremely polite person]] that prefers to put the protagonists in [[Gilded Cage|Gilded Cages]], rather than destroy them. He really is a good, noble human being [[Moral Event Horizon|who cruelly destroy his enemies]] in his fight against [[The Empire]]. How can a truly good man do those terrible things? [[Villainous Breakdown|Because he is slowly but surely losing his sanity through the novel, and in the end he becomes a]] [[Death Seeker]]. [[An Aesop|The whole point of the novel is to show that]] [[Science Is Bad|a submarine like the Nautilus could be used as a ]] [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]], and any human, no matter how good and noble, will discover that [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]].
* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: Henry "Hank" Jellicoe most certainly has elements of this, complete with the reveal that he had reporter Virgil Anders beaten up to the point of being wheelchair-bound and put in a [[Gilded Cage]] for calling him a "monster" in a book he was writing about Jellicoe title "Man, Myth, Monster" in ''[[Deja Vu]]''. Although the fact that he talked to Anders like they were best friends for a few minutes after putting him in the cage would indicate that Jellicoe is actually [[Faux Affably Evil]].
* [[Gone|Caine]] is a perfectly pleasant, polite person, until you imply that he ''doesn't'' deserve to rule the world.
* Lorthas, the [[Big Bad]] of the ''[[
* The Leucrotta in ''[[The
* From the Goosebumps series
** In Welcome to Dead House, the antagonists are friendly with the main characters except that they have to invite them over, especially Karen Somerset, who basically says she wants to be a nice person but everyone needs fresh blood to survive. Same with the TV version of Karen, who would actually be an [[Affably Evil]] [[Anti-Villain]] since she actually seemed reluctant to engage in the "feeding" that [[I'm a Humanitarian|everyone in the town had to do to survive]], repeatedly saying she wanted to be friends with Amanda and Josh.
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