In the world of Stephen King, evil and good not only coexist, but in a strange way complement each other. One cannot exist without the other and they each give the other one it’s definition, which makes the worlds he creates in his stories very much like our own, and the evils in his stories come to act as metaphors for our culture, and more importantly, the conflicts in ourselves that can destroy us or make us a better version of who we are. Most people focus on the big, powerful, supernatural villains in his stories, but as I have read his books, I have found that the human monsters, who blend so easily into the landscape of the fictional society to the point where they seem almost human or are even looked upon by some as people of extreme integrity and importance in their community, but it is just a mask they wear so they can prey upon innocents for their own needs. Here are my Top Ten Human Villains in the Stephen King Universe. I am excluding any person possessed or under the influence of other beings, like Jack Torrance in The Shining and the townsfolk in Needful Things. Hope you enjoy my insights, and give me your feedback if your number one is different:
10. Patrick Hockstetter (It): This character appears briefly in his own chapter in the novel It, but he leaves a huge impression. We, as readers know all about him as Beverly is watching the Bowers gang light farts in the junkyard. He is a natural born psychopath, who kills not out of malice, but out of boredom. He has a warped sense of the world around him. He feels that nothing around him is real except him, and does not see what he does as wrong. He kills flies and saves them in a pencil box to show girls and traps small animals in a refrigerator and waits for them to die slowly. Worse, when he was five, he smothered his infant brother in his crib. After Henry leaves him alone in the junkyard (after he gave him an awkward hand job), Beverly sees him die slowly as the monster, taking the form of leaches, which is Patrick’s biggest fear, devours him after Patrick opens his precious fridge. We feel some sympathy for him as a victim of the monster, but he is a wholly unpleasant person who resembles too closely the killers we see in real life.
9. Frank Dodd (The Dead Zone/Cujo): Someone who is seemingly a pillar of the small community of Castle Rock hides a horrifying secret: he is the Castle rock strangler, responsible for a slew of female victims in the area, the last of which being a nine year old girl, which forces the psychic Johnny Smith to uncover his crimes. Before he can be caught, Frank slits his own throat, with us thinking he is remorseful of his crimes. But, his soul seemingly comes back in Cujo, with his title of the town’s bogeyman being intact and his spirit possessing the rabid dog Cujo, who goes on to terrorize Donna and Tad Trenton. A mirror image of the nasty secrets that hide beneath the carpet of any small community, Dodd’s lasting effect on Castle Rock taints the town until it is finally destroyed in Needful Things.
8. Roland “Rolly” LeBay (Christine): We see the victim of Life Arnie purchase the 58 Plymouth Fury from LeBay without realizing the malice and evil behind it. We find out, from Roland’s brother and few others who were unlucky enough to know Roland, what a malicious and bad person he was. He once through his brother on a fence, impaling his arm and showing no remorse for it, and it is implied he watched his daughter choke to death in the car and drove his wife to kill herself, also in the car. That may have been the only thing Roland ever loved in his life, and in death he possesses it and also Arnie, ruining the life of everyone who crosses them. He is one of King’s most overall awful creations, and one of his underrated villains.
7. “Junior” Rennie Under the Dome): While Rennie’s reprehensible actions in the novel stem from an inoperable brain tumor, he was not that good of a person to begin with. With hints of necrophilia and rape, it makes it that much more sickening to see him gain authority over the town. As his condition worsens, we see his view of the people around him change in horrible ways, and he takes out his made-up rage on anyone who gets in the way of his father’s rise to power in the Chester Mill community. Insanity in control of the powerless is a recurring theme in the longer novel of King, and Junior’s character is a perfect example of that idea.
6. Tom Rogan (It): The person Beverly finds when she escapes Derry is an unrepentant sociopath, although not as extreme as someone like Frank Dodd, we like Tom less. He is charming at first, but we find out how he handles what he sees as weakness, and how he tries to beat it out of Beverly. His violent outbursts are almost immediate, with him, almost calmly hitting Beverly when she smokes, which Tom hates. He seems to convince Beverly with his charm and intelligence, but he seems to like the how submissive Beverly is, because he is able to take out his anger and self-loathing on someone who will not fight back, at least at first. By the end he is a psychotic slave to whatever it is that holds power over Derry, but we all know of relationships like this, which makes Tom that much more scary.
5. Greg Stillson (The Dead Zone): The prototypical sleazy politician who seems like a stand-up guy harbors a deep-seeded and sickening sense of self-preservation that will eventually lead to a global apocalypse, but only Johnny smith knows and he decides to stop him. We see bits and pieces of Stillson’s sociopathic mindset as we move through the novel, with him killing a pet dog without thinking twice, burning a youth’s shirt because it had an offensive saying, and bribing people in order to get the money he needs to run his political campaign. It is a nightmare to think about what would happen if an honest to god psycho were to achieve control over the United Sates, and someone had to kill him to save the world. This subversion of who is the good guy and bad guy makes this one of King’s finest novels, and one of his darkest villains.
4. Harold Lauder (The Stand): What is truly remarkable about this character is at the beginning of this epic novel; we actually sympathize and feel sorry for Harold. He harbors a pure, honest, yet obsessive love of Frannie Goldsmith, and seems intelligent and thoughtful enough to deserve her courtship. After Captain Trips lays waste to most of the population and he and Frannie can finally be together, it seems Harold has gotten what he deserves. But some things are not meant to be, and when Frannie begins to fall for Stu Redman, the hero of the novel, the real Harold begins to show his colors. He turns out to be a selfish and elitist individual, whose sexual fantasies, which he brings to life with Nadine, who cannot actually have sex with him, since she is saving her self for Flagg, are indicative of his need for control and his want to have things his way. This courtship from hell leads to the explosion in the Boulder Free Zone, which kills a large number of its leaders. Harold comes to represent the worst ourselves can become, when something we want slips through our fingers and we don’t have the courage to move on.
3. Henry Bowers (It): The tangible threat to The Loser’s Club in Derry, Henry may be King’s most sadistic character, who gets off on the fear that his victims feel toward him, and the power he feels from the acts. He tries to carve his name into Ben Hascomb’s belly (only getting the letter H before Ben fights back, which is a scar that still shows in 1985), and breaks Eddie Kaspbrak’s arm, and shows great zeal and elation from doing such horrible things. It may have been the monster that controlled him for most of the summer of 1958, but it is evident that Henry would have still been a bully into adulthood, getting pleasure only from the pain he inflicts on easy victims.
2. Annie Wilkes (Misery): Easily King’s most famous human villain, Annie rescues the injured and weakened novelist Paul Sheldon from a car accident, only to imprison him in his bedroom when she finds out he has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Here, King really captures the fear and urgency we would feel if we were helpless and in the clutches a powerful, yet irrational mind. We find out later on about Annie’s killing as a nurse, and she becomes another of King’s creations obsessed with control over the living, and Paul knows if he does not stop this Grendel- like beast who threatens his existence, he will die. This take on brute force versus keen intellect remains one of King’s most suspenseful novels to date.
1. “Big” Jim Rennie (Under The Dome): While from a more recent novel and not as famous as Annie Wilkes, Big Jim Rennie, used car salesman and Second Town Selectman of Chester Mills, Maine, may be the most terrifying human villain that King has created. He seems to encompass a lot of the qualities of others on this list, such as selfishness, cowardice, sadism, and being a sociopath that is able to blend in with society and use innocent people to his advantage, but here, all the aspirations of the others seem to be fully realized in his actions and the sheer power he holds over this little community is truly scary. Over the course of 1000 pages, he commits murder, bribes people into his power game, frames two characters for murders he and his son committed, and runs a crystal meth operation that, if ever found out by the authorities, would look to be the work of First Selectman Andy Sanders, who would be arrested for it, while Jim would walk free. He possesses a general lack of compassion that allows him to use his smarts to hide his dirt and actually use others to help cover it up. He also has a slew of young, brutal goons and a dull police chief who he uses as pawns to do his dirty work, and are just stupid enough to follow his orders and believe his web of lies. Add to that the fact that he hides behind The Bible, and the damage that he has done by the end, he stands out as the most reprehensible and repellent character in King’s Universe.
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