History Monster / LiteratureHToQ

* ''Literature/MexicanGothic'', by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Howard Doyle, the owner of High Place, is a former [[CorruptCorporateExecutive magnate]] who worked many of the local Mexican populace as slaves unto death. Finding a fungus that grew there, Howard sacrificed [[TilMurderDoUsPart his wife]] Agnes to be the breeding point of the fungus, murdering the priest, [[WouldHurtAChild infants]] in HumanSacrifice and burning workers alive. Surviving by transferring his mind to male descendants and erasing them, while using women as abused [[BreedingSlave breeding stock]], Howard intends to force heroine Noemi to be part of his family to bear more children to live on eternally.

* ''ComicBook/{{Micronauts}}: The Time Traveler trilogy'', by Steve Lyons (based on the Creator/ImageComics run):

* ''Literature/MidnightMass'', by F. Paul Wilson:

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** [[Characters/HarryPotterLordVoldemort Lord Voldemort]], born [[EvilCounterpart Tom Marvolo Riddle]], is a sociopath who [[EvilCannotComprehendGood refuses to accept love]]. Obsessed with becoming all-powerful and immortal, Voldemort murdered people to rip his own soul apart and create Horcruxes, even knowing how dangerous that can be. Of those murdered were his Muggle [[{{Patricide}} father]] and grandparents, whose deaths he framed his maternal uncle for. Beginning his career proper as a Hogwarts pupil, he opened the Chamber of Secrets to let a monster loose on Hogwarts to murder all Muggle-born students, while amassing [[Characters/HarryPotterDeathEaters a cult of loyal "friends"]] to do his bidding. Deeming Muggles and Muggle-born Wizards lesser than "pure-bloods", [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Voldemort]] waged a genocidal war against them, [[BoomerangBigot despite being a half-blood himself]]. Learning of a prophecy that foretold his defeat, Voldemort murders the Title Character's parents before trying to kill baby Harry himself. Upon his return he resumes his genocide, eventually turning Magical Britain into a fascist state while trying to kill Harry no matter how many innocents or allies had to die first, even murdering the seemingly loyal Severus Snape the second be believes doing so would grant him greater power. [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse Subverting any possible tragic childhood]], it was Voldemort's unyielding choice to pursue power and hurt anyone who got in the way that defined him, set him as Harry's opposite and earned him his place as the most feared and hated Wizard for a thousand years.
** [[DarkActionGirl Bellatrix Lestrange]] is a [[PsychopathicManchild psychopathic]] Death Eater who seems to be motivated primarily by [[{{Sadist}} her desire to inflict as much pain on as many people as possible]] in the name of [[PsychoSupporter Voldemort's cause]]. Bellatrix, gleeful cruelty incarnate, has a special fondness for [[TortureTechnician torturing people with the Cruciatus curse]], and tortured Neville Longbottom's parents to the point where they exist in near-comas, and will never recognize their own son again. She is also an accomplished arsonist, burning down multiple residences basically just for the sake of it. She's the cause of death for half of her non-Death-Eater family members, including Sirius Black and Nymphadora Tonks, as well as Dobby, and delights in the torment these deaths cause.
** [[TyrantTakesTheHelm Dolores Jane Umbridge]] is a domineering and abusive matron figure and a bureaucrat whose pettiness and personal failings cause catastrophic harm to those under her control, all while maintaining a [[BitchInSheepsClothing kind, grandmotherly veneer]]. In ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Order of the Phoenix]]'', she becomes a [[SadistTeacher teacher at Hogwarts]] and forces students who speak up against the Ministry of Magic--or who just displease her--to use the Blood Quill, which uses the writer's blood as ink and can result in permanent scarring. At one point she threatens to use the illegal Cruciatus curse, which has been shown to cause unimaginable pain, and reveals that she sent the two Dementors after Harry and his cousin. In ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'', she willingly supports the Death Eater-controlled Ministry, and holds hastily rushed and sadistic trials against Muggle-borns, where she accuses them of stealing magic and gleefully sentences them to the Potter-verse's worst fate, the soul-stealing Dementor's Kiss.
** [[PsychoForHire Fenrir Greyback]] is a savage werewolf who enthusiastically supports Voldemort's regime for the chance to indulge his violent nature. Unlike many other werewolves, Fenrir relishes in turning others--such as Remus Lupin--and ruining their lives. Fenrir especially has a disturbing fondness for attacking [[WouldHurtAChild children]]. In addition, Fenrir is [[ImAHumanitarian a cannibal]] in both human and wolf form, and expresses a desire to eat Harry in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince Half-Blood Prince]]'' after savagely mauling Bill Weasley and leaving him for dead. Fenrir even states he participates in the attack to get his claws on as many children as he can. In ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'', Fenrir serves Voldemort's regime by helping in rounding up the "unclean" wizards or those who will not submit and expresses a desire to eat Hermione after Bellatrix is finished torturing her.
** ''[[https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/ilvermorny Illvermony School of Witchcraft and Wizardry]]'': [[AxCrazy Gormlaith Gaunt]] is Lord Voldemort's distant cousin from the 17th century, sharing all of his ruthlessness, [[FantasticRacism bigotry]], and devotion to the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin. Murdering both her own estranged sister and brother-in-law for helping their Muggle neighbors, Gormlaith [[EvilAunt adopts her 5-year-old niece Isolt]] and spends the next twelve years psychologically torturing her, even [[ForcedToWatch forcing the child to watch]] as she used dark magic on animals and innocent Muggles. When Isolt flees to America and starts a family with a Muggle husband, Gormlaith hatches a plan to repeat the entire process again by trying to slaughter the couple and kidnap her great-nieces, who would be subjected to the same horrors that their mother had to endure.

* ''Literature/{{Hideaway}}'', by Creator/DeanKoontz: [[SerialKiller Jeremy Nyebern]], aka [[Literature/ArsGoetia Vassago]], is a youth who murdered his mother and sister before taking a possible trip to hell. Believing himself to be a demonic prince, he turns to murdering men and women alike, preserving their corpses in an amusement park he uses as a hideout. When [[TheHero Hatch Harrison]], is psychically connected to Vassago, Vassago learns of Hatch's wife and daughter and attempts to murder them as well, planning on [[WouldHurtAChild dismembering and torturing Hatch's young daughter]] for [[ForTheEvulz fun]].

* ''Literature/InterWorld'':

* ''[[Literature/{{Drenai}} The King Beyond The Gate]]'', by Creator/DavidGemmell: [[TheCaligula Emperor Ceska]], the mad ruler of the Drenai people in this second book of the ''Drenai'' series, is a ruthless tyrant. Using a {{cult}} of chaos priests, Ceska mutates humans by [[BodyHorror fusing them with animals]] to create [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent The Joinings]], and enslaves them mentally to serve as an army. Ceska taxes and brutalizes the populace, answering any hint of defiance by massacring people, including entire villages. When a rebellion arises, Ceska attempts to have everyone in the vicinity, man, [[WouldHitAGirl woman]] or [[WouldHurtAChild child]], killed so that the lands will run with, in his words, "oceans of blood". A [[AdiposeRex bloated]], insane, cowardly tyrant, Ceska is remembered as the greatest shame of the once proud Drenai history.

* ''[[Literature/LAConfidential L.A. Quartet]]'': [[DirtyCop Captain Dudley Liam Smith]] is a seemingly jovial, friendly police captain who hides a truly dark and monstrous corrupt nature under his smile. Having been personally responsible for the infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepy_Lagoon_murder Sleepy Lagoon murder]] out of [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain racism]], Dudley is also heavily involved in crime, clandestinely manipulating and dealing with multiple crime families as he runs a personal squad where he has many people murdered for profit or to cover loose ends even if he has to allow brutal killers to remain at large and committing their crimes. Not even other cops are safe, with Dudley murdering his old lackey Buzz Meeks as a loose end. When the cop Daniel Upshaw stumbles upon evidence of Dudley's murders, Dudley delights in [[MindRape torturing him psychologically]] by threatening to reveal Upshaw's homosexuality until Upshaw breaks and [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself]]. In one brutal gang execution, Dudley would commit his most infamous crime and personally [[WouldHurtAChild strangle the Herrick family's two-day-old baby to death]]. With a body count most serial killers can only dream of, and a complete lack of conscience mixed with insatiable greed and cruelty, Dudley proves time to be the worst monster in LA, endlessly shielding himself with his badge and connections.

* ''Literature/OneFlewOverTheCuckoosNest'': [[BigBad Ratched]], the "[[BattleaxeNurse Big Nurse]]", is the cruel head of the [[BedlamHouse state hospital]] the story takes place in, using her connections to her superiors to allow herself free reign over the hospital. Ratched subjects her dozens of patients to horrific conditions and abuse, employing brutal lackeys and methods to keep patients in line and under her thumb, uncaring of the countless patients who commit suicide or self-mutilation due to her rule. Believing that her patients have to be perfectly-functioning before allowing them to leave, Ratched often resorts to electroshock treatments and even lobotomies to destroy her patients' minds. When her rule is challenged over and over again by Randle [=McMurphy=], Ratched increases her abuse of the patients to the point that one of [=McMurphy's=] friends [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself]]. Though Ratched's control over the patients is broken, she spitefully has [=McMurphy=] lobotomized in a last-ditch effort to terrorize the patients into falling back in line.

* ''VideoGame/JudgeDreddDreddVsDeath'', by Gordon Rennie: [[BigBad Judge Death]], the twisted leader of the Dark Judges, led his comrades in the [[GenocideFromTheInside utter eradication of their entire world]] into a barren wasteland of ghosts and wraiths. In Mega-City One, Death has countless innocents rounded up and subjects to "judgement" by himself and his brothers before being sealed off, only to return and direct the Dark Judges on new paths to slaughter until he merges his Deadworld with Earth to [[OmnicidalManiac kill all that lives]] for the sin of life.

** ''Literature/GhostRoads'': [[BigBad Bobby Cross]] was a movie star known as "Diamond Bobby" who wished to be [[ImmortalityImmorality young and beautiful forever]]. Through his [[DealWithTheDevil deal with the crossroads]], Bobby drives eternally to outrun mortality, but takes advantage of the deal to empower himself by arranging crashes and accidents, or simply murdering people himself to create ghosts, including heroine [[{{Psychopomp}} Rose Marshall]]. Bobby then [[YourSoulIsMine takes their souls]] to use as fuel for his car, using them up into nothing. Seducing Rose's great grand-niece Bethany, Bobby murders her when she fails against Rose and even convinces a follower to kill herself for him, solely for amusement and spite. A sadistic sociopath, Bobby uses and abuses all around him, dispatching them when they stop being of use, all so he will never have to face his own mortality.

* ''Literature/LordPeterWimsey'': Mary Whittaker from the story ''Unnatural Death''. She cold-bloodedly kills her doting great-aunt; sacks, hunts down and kills her innocent maidservant; seduces and kills a trusting village girl; tries to drug and kill both Lord Peter and an unsuspecting solicitor; bludgeons and tries to kill Miss Climpson (who was collecting for charity at the time); and tries to have her distant cousin, a devoted clergyman, hanged for her crimes. Her only motive was securing an inheritance that she would almost certainly have received anyway.

** Ma'ar/Mornelithe Falconsbane started as being a WellIntentionedExtremist, but quickly became the BigBad, and the final showdown between him and the BigGood Urtho caused the Cataclysm, which was so powerful that it actually echoed through time. Though defeated, he didn't actually die, as he had set up a GrandTheftMe so that he could take over the body of any his descendants once they started showing signs of magical ability, most often when they tried to call up fire. Falconsbane kept doing this over the centuries until finally the main characters in the ''Mage Winds'' trilogy figured out what was going on and destroyed him.
** Ancar kills his father in order to take the throne of Hardorn, tortures Queen's Own Talia (who was there as part of a diplomatic mission to see if a marriage could be set up between Ancar and Princess Elspeth) more for kicks than to get information out of her, and then has his mages mind-control the conscripted troops so that they'll fight. He then drains his land to further power his spells, and kills off even his distant cousins to prevent anyone from overthrowing him.
** Master Pieters puts children as young as four and five to work in a mine. He forces them to sleep in a basement, feeds them so little that they supplemented their diet by stealing the pig slop whenever they could, and is known to [[WouldHurtAChild beat the children to a bloody pulp with a mallet in front of the rest of the child workers]] should he deem it 'necessary' for control of them.
** Hadanelith, a minor villain who appears in ''The White Gryphon'', possesses the Gifts of Empathy and Mindhealing, but uses them [[GoodPowersBadPeople to serve his own sadistic desires rather than to aid people]]. When first discovered, he is found to have been using his gifts to [[MindRape warp the minds of women]] until they live only to serve him in slavery, sexually and otherwise. He is exiled from the city of White Gryphon under the relatively loose laws and customs of their society. Rather than die in the wilderness, he makes his way south to the Haighlei kingdoms and is recruited by the EvilChancellor to assassinate high ranking members of their society in order to frame the delegation from White Gryphon. In doing so, he is permitted to indulge his sadistic fantasies and accordingly tortures his victims before killing them.

* ''Hideaway'', by Creator/DeanKoontz: [[SerialKiller Jeremy Nyebern]], aka [[Literature/ArsGoetia Vassago]], is a youth who murdered his mother and sister before taking a possible trip to hell. Believing himself to be a demonic prince, he turns to murdering men and women alike, preserving their corpses in an amusement park he uses as a hideout. When [[TheHero Hatch Harrison]], is psychically connected to Vassago, Vassago learns of Hatch's wife and daughter and attempts to murder them as well, planning on [[WouldHurtAChild dismembering and torturing Hatch's young daughter]] for [[ForTheEvulz fun]].

* ''Intensity'', by Creator/DeanKoontz: Edgler Foreman Winston Vess is a "[[SerialKiller homicide adventurer]]" who kills for the "intensity" he gets during murder. Vess , who started [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior killing animals at a young age]], takes time to deconstruct the notion he has a FreudianExcuse as, [[EnfantTerrible at the age of 9]], he murdered his parents who had never mistreated him; murdered his grandmother for the insurance money; and his adopted family as well for the same reason. Vess is introduced breaking into the home of Laura Templeton, the friend of of heroine Chyna Shepherd. He proceeds to murders Laura's family, before raping and murdering Laura. Chyna follows him to a gas station where he murders the clerks after bragging he has a young girl hostage in his basement. He subdues Chyna when he becomes aware of her and chains her in his basement with the young girl Ariel, offering to spare Chyna if she tortures Ariel with him. Vess, who killed over 20 people and likes to say that "[[AGodAmI God fears me]]", thinks of other human beings only in terms of how much he can hurt them.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.
* ''Literature/OliverTwist'': Bill Sikes [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals beats his dog]]; [[DomesticAbuse abuses his girlfriend Nancy]]; and uses Oliver Twist, a young boy, to further his criminal career, [[WouldHurtAChild threatening to shoot him if he gives him away]]. His worst act is [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown killing Nancy]] in cold blood when he thinks she betrayed him. He smashes her face with his pistol and when she begs for mercy, he beats her to death with a club, and keeps beating her when she's already dead. He also tries to drown his dog to avoid being identified by the police. He later threatens to kill Charley Bates when he's on the run for Nancy's murder and he leaves Oliver for dead in a ditch. Other criminals [[TheDreaded fear Sikes]] and his violent temper, and none of the other villains come close to matching him in being an utter bastard.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LonesomeDove'': Blue Duck is a half-breed Native American who prowls the wilderness outside the towns. [[TheDreaded Feared by all who know him]], Blue Duck is a [[HumanTraffickers slaver]] who kidnaps those he can and sells them for a tidy sum, especially women. Blue Duck kidnaps [[HookerWithAHeartOfGold Lori]] and allows his companions to rape her on a daily basis, splitting her between his Native and cowboy followers. When one of his men is shot in the gut, Blue Duck refuses to let any other put the henchman out of his misery and allows his Native followers to castrate and scalp him, with barely concealed amusement. Blue Duck murders several other people, including a luckless [[WouldHurtAChild child]] who crosses his path, and after his initial escape, he is found in a jail later sentenced to hang. Unwilling to die like that, Blue Duck seizes a guard and throws the two of them out of the window, unwilling to die without [[TakingYouWithMe taking someone with him]].

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''Literature/HaloBrokenCircle'': The power-hungry Prophet of Exquisite Devotion, born I'ra Be'Ar, regularly bullies lower ranking Prophets and [[FantasticRacism harbors extreme contempt]] for their allies the Sangheili. Not only does he happily go along with the Prophet of Truth's plans to exterminate the Sangheili, but he [[ColdBloodedTorture tortures]] several captive Councilors to [[CruelAndUnusualDeath death]] for no apparent reason other than because he can, using gravity torture that's described in [[BodyHorror sickening detail]]. When Zo Resken refuses to participate in the executions, Exquisite Devotion orders his fellow Prophet to be tortured to death as well.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

* ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'': [[SmugSnake Lord Straff Venture]] is introduced in ''The Final Empire'' as a [[AristocratsAreEvil brutal noble]] ready to commit all manner of atrocities to cement his power. He systematically [[AbusiveParents abuses his children]] to force them to conform to his standards, even trying to have his son Elend assassinated. He sires illegitimate children to use as loyal assassins and spies, and discards his mistresses when they get too old--too old being late teens. In ''The Well of Ascension'', he allows an army of monsters, known for their ruthlessness and utter lack of mercy, to attack an enemy city, regardless of collateral damage. He later decides to allow the city's destruction, concluding he only cares about the Atium rumored to be hidden in the city. Caring for nothing but his own power and advancement, and seeing others as nothing but tools to use or obstacles to be destroyed, Venture stands out as one of the only [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans]] in ''Literature/TheCosmere'' completely devoid of sympathy.

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Outer Dark'', by Creator/CormacMcCarthy: The mysterious trio of terrifying and elusive strangers scourge the Appalachian countryside, [[SerialKiller killing people at will]]. Slaughtering their way from one end of the community to the next, the three fixate on Culla, [[FrameUp framing him for murder]] and killing those who come into contact with him, even forcing Culla to partake in cannibalism. By the end of the novel, having killed many people, the trio even torture and murder a tinker who rescued the baby of Culla and his sister Rinthy before torturing the [[WouldHurtAChild baby]], murdering and cannibalizing it as well.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Life with Father'', by Creator/BentleyLittle: The [[AntagonistTitle titular]] [[ArchnemesisDad Father]] is a repulsive recluse obsessed with recycling everything he can to become a "self-sufficient" entity never needing to leave his home. To this end, Father [[AbusiveParents forces his two daughters]] into absolutely dreadful conditions, with no toilets, clean water, or normal, healthy food provided to them. Father regularly [[VillainousIncest rapes and impregnates his eldest teen daughter]], keeping the resulting [[ChildByRape infants]] as "pets" that he keeps locked in a pen. In his prime moment of depravity, Father [[ImAHumanitarian cooks up]] and [[{{eats|Babies}} one of the babies]], forcing his daughters to do the same, and proclaims that henceforth, he will rape his daughters until they have children, which they shall then eat as sustenance. When his eldest daughter screams at him for his evil, Father brutally beats her bloody, then prepares to begin raping his youngest daughter before being murdered.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': "[[EvilOldFolks El Patrón]]", born Matteo Alacrán, is a drug lord ruling over the country of Opium. Reducing anyone caught crossing the border illegally--as well as his own staff--into mindless "[[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]" to serve in his operations, El Patrón's [[BadBoss harsh work environments]] lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Harvesting organs from his own clones to [[ImmortalityImmorality extend his life]], El Patrón allows them to be raised believing they are his beloved children before cruelly killing them. [[ItsAllAboutMe Believing everything to be his]], El Patrón even makes plans to wipe out all life in Opium with his passing to die with him.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/MichaelVey'': [[BigBad Dr. Charles James Hatch]], after learning about the electric children, which he calls "Glows," saw their potential to regain his position as Elgen [[CorruptCorporateExecutive CEO]] and more. He killed Zeus's family and [[ManipulativeBastard made him think he did it to mold him into a ruthless killer]]. He held Tanner's brother hostage so that he could use his power to take down airborne planes to extort world leaders. After spending a good portion of the first book earning Taylor's trust, he shows his true colors when he orders her to use her power on a motocross biker while he's doing a dangerous stunt. He is very fond of the SadisticChoice, like when he made Michael choose between killing Wade or seeing his mother again and making a lover of Chairman Schema's hang upside down until blood rushed to her head in his place. He takes BadBoss to the extreme, as he has multiple underlings that failed him sent to the Rat Bowl, whether they be faceless mooks, close friends like Welch, or even his own Glows. After his invasion of Tuvalu is a success, he has the country's Prime Minister locked in a monkey cage and [[TongueTrauma has his tongue removed]] to further mock him, which he later intends to do to Quentin after he saved Welch behind his back. At one point, he plans to [[ImAHumanitarian eat Michael as a victory meal]]. He offers Taylor as a SexSlave in exchange for him betraying the resistance. He successfully captures the Electroclan and [[ForcedToWatch forces them to watch people get eaten by the Electric Rats]]. With the help of Zara, he learns the location of the resistance and kills everyone but Sharon Vey, whom he uses as leverage against Carl Vey so that he could humiliate him one last time.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

* ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'': [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters Liu Hong]] stands out as an utterly selfish and despicable man even when compared to the various demons and sorcerers Xuanzang and his disciples would later face. [[FromNobodyToNightmare Beginning as a simple boatman]], when Liu Hong lays eyes upon Lady Yin, he immediately wants her for himself. To that end, he kills her husband Guangrui and their horse boy, dumping both bodies into the river. He then forces Lady Yin to consent to his demands at knife point and proceeds to steal Guangrui's identity, taking over an important position Guangrui was supposed to receive, living a life of wealth and leisure. When Lady Yin gives birth to Guangrui's child, Xuanzang, Liu Hong planned to [[WouldHurtAChild drown him]] but Lady Yin convinced him not to, allowing her to get her child to safety. After Xuanzang returns and claims justice for his parents, his mother would [[DrivenToSuicide kill herself]] over guilt for consenting to Liu Hong, even though her own father told her she was not at fault. Never referred to anything other than a bandit, Liu Hong's crimes are treated with disgust and outrage by all who know of his deeds.

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later [[YouKilledMyFather killed Luis Sanchez's father]] to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** Ugly J, aka Janice Dent, is revealed to be the BiggerBad by the end of the trilogy. She reveals to [[TheProtagonist Jasper]] that she was the one who taught Billy Dent everything he knew as a killer. During the second book, she, with the help of Billy, tricked Connie, Jasper's girlfriend, to partake in a scavenger hunt that led her to their clutches so that they could torture her into convincing Jasper to give in to his heritage. In captivity, she pulled a WoundedGazelleGambit by pretending to be one of Billy's victims in order to get her on her side and subtly tried convincing her that escape was pointless. After Jasper's grandmother was sent to the hospital because of the events of the second book, she disguised herself as a nurse so that she could kill her through a forced drug overdose, [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas something Billy objected to]]. She tells Jasper that she had planned on killing him when he was just a newborn and would use the insanity plea if she ever got caught, but she only grudgingly backed down because Billy convinced her that creating a legacy was better. What really makes Jasper snap was when she reveals that she regularly raped him as a child and had him practicing stabbing on her, which was often a source of PTSD flashbacks for Jasper. She even thought about having him kill Billy so that she could intentionally give him an OedipusComplex. During TheReveal, she would repeatedly claim that she loves him, but that proves to be a lie when she attempts to kill Jasper because he refused to live up to her legacy. She stands as one of the worst mothers in literature, and even worse than the trilogy's BigBad, Billy.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

** [[BigBad Lord Dogknife]] is a wicked goblin and [[SpacePirate pirate]] who tries to capture Walkers for his ship. [[AndIMustScream Melting them down while alive]], he then [[YourSoulIsMine uses their souls]] to power the ship, holding them alive and in agony forever to power his domain. Trying to add [[TheProtagonist Joey Harker]] to his power source, Dogknife escapes and later returns to help the tech and magic side bring about [=FrostNight=] to exterminate existence and rebuild it as he wants.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''The Macht'' trilogy, by Creator/PaulKearney: [[SociopathicSoldier Sertorius]] works for Karnos, the antagonist of the second book, ''Corvus''. While Karnos is an honorable man, he opts to kidnap the family of [[TheProtagonist the main character]] [[TheHero Rictus]] as leverage before Rictus and his master Corvus can conquer Karnos's territory. Sertorius unnecessarily butchers everyone in the household besides the family and leads the [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil gang rape and murder]] of an attractive slave. On the march back to Karnos's city, Sertorius leads the rape of Rictus's wife Aise, which later leads to her suicide when she believes Rictus is dead. Once he believes the city is lost, Sertorius attacks Karnos's home to kill his more moral comrades, rape Karnos's wife and Rictus's daughters. When Rictus arrives to stop him, Sertorius attempts to mock his dead wife in the last moments of life before Rictus forces his sword through Sertorius's mouth.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

* ''Literature/IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'': AM, the [[AIIsACrapshoot evil master computer]], has already killed all but 5 members of humanity by the time the story opens. AM keeps the survivors mutated and twisted so he may torture them helplessly as he desires. AM forces them to wander, changing the environment so they can never get used to it and subjects them to hideously twisted torments. When one of them finally rescues the others by killing them, AM transforms him into a [[FateWorseThanDeath sentient blob]], not [[AndIMustScream even leaving him a mouth to scream with]].

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''A Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

[[folder:H – J]]

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder:K - L]]

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

* ''Literature/TheLastVampire'': [[DarkActionGirl Sita/Alisa Perne]], the title character, has faced numerous evildoers during her five thousand year life; these villains are the absolute worst:

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* "Lost Hearts" by Creator/MRJames ([[http://www.curculio.org/mrj/GSA2.html link]]): Mr. Abney is a seemingly [[BitchInSheepsClothing avuncular]] and [[FauxAffablyEvil kindly]] caretaker who takes in his orphaned 11-year-old cousin Stephen. Stephen soon notices the ghosts of a little Gypsy girl and a young Italian boy prowling the grounds, and it is revealed Abney himself is an occultist who wishes to achieve great power. To this end, Abney takes in children and once they hit a certain age, he cuts out and consumes their hearts which also condemns them to fate as lonely specters. Stephen is his next intended victim, and Abney uses his own journals to gloat over how ridiculous the concept that human justice can apply to him is, seeing nothing wrong with [[WouldHurtAChild sacrificing children]] for [[PoweredByAForsakenChild his own benefit]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder:M - Q]]

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

** Finally, [[TheCaligula God King Garoth Ursuul]] presides over a legacy of rape, torture, murder and slavery. Garoth attempts to rape or force the submission of any woman he comes across and makes those hes tired of into furniture. Under his reign, widespread war crimes are common, and people are killed or raped at the drop of a hat, all of this ForTheEvulz.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

** [[BadBoss Susan Mortlake]], who appears is the third book, ''Nightrise'', is one of the [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Chief Executives]] of Nightrise, and is Colton Banes and Kyle Hovey's direct superior. When they and report back to Susan Mortlake that Jamie escaped them, she concludes that one of them has to die and has Colton strangle Kyle. She then takes Scott Tyler to a HellholePrison where she and Colton torture him into helping them assassinate a Senator, [[LovesTheSoundOfScreaming analyzing his cries of pain like a symphony]]. She has him [[BrainwashedAndCrazy mind control]] the senator's bodyguard into killing him, so that the death will not be linked back to Nightrise.
** [[PsychoForHire Colton Banes]], also from ''Nightrise,'' is an assassin for [[{{Megacorp}} Nightrise]] hired to track down Jamie and Scott, two of "[[TheChosenOne The Five]]". When Jamie escapes Colton kills "Uncle Don", the stage manager they were staying, and his wife to pin the rap on Jamie. When he and his partner Kyle Hovey report back to Susan Mortlake, she has Colton strangle Kyle. Colton does this immediately and without remorse, stating the he always hated Kyle. When Jamie tries to scan him to find Scott's location, he sees, in addition to Colton's other crimes, memories of a girl locked in a battered trailer with puncture wounds. When Jamie tries to [[GetIntoJailFree go to prison under an alias]], he is caught and one the guards reports him to Colton. Colton tells the guard to turn off the air conditioning in the cell, [[EvenEvilHasStandards which the guard does reluctantly]]. During the raid on the prison Colton shoots Jamie in the back.
** The fifth and final book ''Oblivion'' gives us the new [[CorruptCorporateExecutive chairman]] of Nightrise. The chairman is introduced by holding a press conference with ten thousand members of Nightrise, and says that they will be taken away to have their limbs cut off and replaced with weapons for the battle with the five. When one member refuses, the chairman has him shot dead before sending guards in to beat everyone up and take them away by force. The chairman orders his [[TheDragon second-in-command]], Jonas Mortlake (Susan’s son), to make Scott do a FaceHeelTurn so that without him, the five will never be united, telling Jonas that if he [[YouHaveFailedMe fails]], he will [[BadBoss suffer the same fate]] as the other members of Nightrise. When Matt and Richard are captured, the chairman has Matt crucified and [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by having his [[FlayedAlive skin flayed]] and his bones broken. The chairman tries to kill Richard in front of Matt, stating that Matt will be {{forced to watch}} his best friend die, and will than continue to be tortured forever.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HellsBounty'', by Joe R. Lansdale: [[BigBad Zelzarda]] is a demonic scourge [[EvenEvilHasStandards reviled even by Satan]] for his intended design on the world. Betraying Satan for his own ends--those being to unleash the Old Gods on the world--Zelzarda takes physical form by tricking the thuggish Trumbo Quill into [[DealWithTheDevil accepting his offer]] to revive his dead wife at the cost of his soul--only to [[ILied decay Quill's wife in front of his eyes]] and possess the man. Massacring several people through the town of Falling Rock as a test drive, Zelzarda resurrects the town's dead as his personal army and has them either turn or devour nearly everyone else in Falling Rock, slaughtering both his own ghoul minions and escapees from the carnage with equal relish. Zelzarda's ultimate goal is to let the Old Ones reduce all reality to an eternal chaos he will preside over, comfortable with sentencing every existing soul to a torture worse than even those in Hell itself purely for the sake of power.

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Literature/ANightInTheLonesomeOctober'': [[SinisterMinister Vicar Roberts]] is seemingly a well-meaning churchman but is in truth the leader of the Openers seeking [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the end of the world]]. The murderer of the Monk Rastov of the Closers, the Vicar is a practitioner of HumanSacrifice as well. Capturing the girl Lynette for a VirginSacrifice, Roberts plots to open the gates to the [[EldritchAbomination Great Old Ones]] and condemn all humanity to suffering, death and destruction.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''His Hideous Heart'', edited by Dahlia Adler: [[SerialKiller The Judge]], aka [[TheFundamentalist Jason Thomas Hurley]], from "[[Literature/ThePitAndThePendulum The Glittering Death]]", by Caleb Roehrig, is a [[HeManWomanHater misogynistic]], fundamentalist killer who targets girls aged 15-25 and kidnaps them 11 days before the full moon. The Judge then keeps them in an electroshock cage in order to torture them in order to make them "confess" to their "harlotry". After the full moon is over, The Judge drugs them and [[AndIMustScream cuts their hearts out while they're still alive and conscious]] as trophies before dumping the bodies. The Judge even proves himself a complete hypocrite in the end by targeting the virginal Lauren, showing himself to be just a sadist who hides behind pretensions of holiness.

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

** Ordaal, from the first book, is a manipulative [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil slave driver]] and [[OrganTheft organ harvester]] who arrives on Earth seemingly in peace, pulling the population of Angel's Gift into partnership while truthfully butchering its inhabitants one by one and harvesting their organs to be sold on the Microspace BlackMarket. Ordaal runs a "circus" of various aliens he has enslaved as entertainment for the citizens of the town, all while torturing and even executing some of them if they step out of line. Allying with the [[CorruptPolitician mayor]] of Angel's Gift, Ordaal abuses and threatens the man into allowing Ordaal's evil to be perpetrated, personally killing a large number of the man's security staff for the pettiest of reasons before trying to flee Earth with an entire group of humans as hostages for him to butcher later, and kills his way through a street of innocents blocking his path to escape before being stopped.
** Maruunus Ki, from the second book, [[EvilOverlord assumes command of Micropolis]] in Baron Karza's absence, and proves to be a near-equally depraved ruler. Enslaving the citizens of Micropolis through brute force and addicting them to his virtual reality tech called "the System", Ki subjects the billions of innocents to starvation and hard labor, torturing and killing any who try to stand up to his rule. When the heroic Acroyear tries to take down Ki, Ki uses his minion Persephone to manipulate Acroyear into falling in love with her, only to later reveal the truth and viciously mock the hero over it. Ki ultimately betrays his entire planet to be afflicted by an alien plague, setting himself up in a secure bunker and slaughtering anyone who knows its location so he can outlive the plague while bragging that the millions who die are replaceable peasants.

* ''Literature/TheMidnightLibrary'': [[EvilOldFolks Old Bill Cole]], from "An Apple A Day", is the CrankyNeighbor of Tim Barrett's grandmother and turns out to be hiding a truly horrific secret. After Tim gets too close to his prized apple orchard, Cole furiously reprimands him and his grandmother, going so far as to taunt them over Tim's missing grandfather. When Tim vandalizes his orchard in revenge, he eats one of the apples, only to discover he is [[MutagenicFood slowly mutating]] into [[{{Transflormation}} an apple tree]]. When Tim goes to Cole's desperate for answers, he discovers far too late that the old man's orchard is made up of dozens of poor souls who ingested his apples, among them [[WouldHurtAChild many other children]], as well as his grandfather. Cole than watches with a cruel smile as the boy transforms into the newest addition to his orchard.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

** The original trilogy: [[MadArtist Mabry(n)]], from ''Valiant'', a spy of the Unseelie Court (Night Fae Court), uses her position to [[FrameUp frame loyal members of her own court]] and watch them be executed [[ForTheEvulz to amuse herself]], then uses her magical harp to replay monologues of their deaths to enjoy time and again. While sent to spy on the Seelie Court (Bright Fae Court), Mabry tricks Ravus into killing his friend after the latter catches on to her status as a spy, leading to Ravus's banishment from the Seelie Court along with Mabry. Gaining a petty obsession with getting back at Ravus for the banishment despite being the one who actually caused it, she [[SerialKiller kills]] dozens of innocent faeries with poison and frames Ravus for it. Mabry then critically wounds him. Plotting to aid in starting a civil war, when Mabry is confronted by [[TheHeroine Valerie Russell]], she boasts of planning to kill her best friend and using his bones to craft a new accursed harp.

** The [[AristocratsAreEvil cruel baron]], from "The Haunted Bell", is a tyrant who heavily taxes his peasants. He has a suit of armor made for him and goes to war, but when he returns, he beats the peasants, demands rent for his time away, and burns the huts of those who cannot pay. He is hanged when some peasants sneak into his stronghold and overpower his guards, but his evil continues after death, when he kidnaps more children and maidens and burns more huts. When he is being made into a bell, he attacks the blacksmith tasked to the job.
** [[FatBastard Lord Hatto]], from "The Peasants' Revenge", is a VillainousGlutton who starves his peasants and refuses to give them food during a famine. When a group of them come begging for wheat, he locks them in an empty granary and sets fire to it in an attempt to kill them all, only for a bolt of lightning to turn them all into mice. Even then, he feels no remorse, only wishing he'd been kinder to cats so they'd devour the mice.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

** ''Gods of Blood of Powder'' sequel trilogy: [[BloodKnight Fidel Jes]], grandmaster of Landfall, from the first book ''Sins of Empire'', makes it a point to kill several men a day before his morning coffee in duels he provokes. Dedicated to stamping out any hint of resistance from the Palo people, Jes regularly conducts [[ColdBloodedTorture torture]] and executions and has killed so many in his duels that the stones themselves are stained from all the blood Jes has spilled. A [[SociopathicSoldier war criminal]] as well, Jes had a war hero named "Mad" Ben Styke imprisoned for refusing Jes's orders to [[WouldHurtAChild kill a group of children]] in war. When Styke manages to confront Jes again, Jes defeats him and orders Ben healed just so Jes can enjoy torturing him again and again. When he is ordered to locate an artifact called the Godstone, Jes takes Landfall's army, but lies to them, claiming reinforcements are coming to defend Landfall from an incoming invasion when Jes knows the city will be helpless and brutally sacked.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist"--Philippe Buisson de Chevesne--[[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his own novel, he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]]. In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of Tom Builder personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. Posing as baker Señor Garcia, Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.

* ''Literature/HardToBeAGod'': Don Reba is a thoroughly despicable SmugSnake of a [[EvilChancellor minister]], who personifies [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters everything wrong about humanity]]. He framed the former Prime Minister for treachery and tortured him to death, along with the whole cabinet; he declares everybody literate (and not noble) enemy of the state; he starts wars for petty revenge; he stages a Coup d'Etat, and when it succeeds, he kills his co-conspirators; finally, he tries to [[spoiler: kidnap TheHero's {{Love Interest|s}}, which backfires horribly, leading to the DownerEnding]].

** [[DarkActionGirl Bellatrix Lestrange]] is a [[PsychopathicManchild psychopathic]] Death Eater who seems to be motivated primarily by [[{{Sadist}} her desire to inflict as much pain on as many people as possible]] in the name of [[PsychoSupporter Voldemort's cause]]. Bellatrix, gleeful cruelty incarnate, has a special fondness for [[TortureTechnician torturing people with the Cruciatus curse]], and tortured Neville Longbottom's parents to the point where they exist in near-comas, and will never recognize their own son again. She is also an accomplished arsonist, burning down multiple residences basically just for the sake of it. She's the cause of death for half of her non-Death-Eater family members, including [[spoiler:Sirius Black and Nymphadora Tonks, as well as Dobby]], and delights in the torment these deaths cause.

* ''The Haunting of Blackwood House'', by Darcy Coates: In life, [[BigBad Victor Barlow]] was a spiritualist who created a house to be a conduit to the afterlife and forced a mentally ill man named Robert Kant to kill him in a bid for ultimate power. [[DemonicPossession Possessing Kant]], Victor forces him to [[WouldHurtAChild murder several children]] before Kant kills himself to get away from him. From then on, Victor begins to possess the inhabitants of his house over the next century and forces them to kill their families, [[AndIMustScream with them aware]] as he does this. When his descendant Mara arrives in the house, Victor possesses her fiancé and tries to kill her too simply [[ForTheEvulz for the hell of it]].

** ''Literature/TheABCMurders'': Franklin Clarke, aka “ABC”, wishes to inherit his brother's wealth, but is aware that he would be the obvious suspect. He hits upon the fact that his brother has an alliterative name and lives in a town that begins with the same letter. [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget With that in mind]], he proceeds to kill Anna Ascher in Andover, Betty Barnard in Bexhill, and Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston, creating the illusion that a SerialKiller is on the loose, in an effort to hide his murder-for-profit. He also picks out a patsy in epileptic Alexander Bonaparte Cust, and preys on his insecurities, convincing Cust that he has been committing the murders during his blackouts. Committing one last murder in Doncaster, ABC slips the knife into Cust's pocket, and then calls the police, intending that Cust either hang, or end up in a mental ward, while he walks away with the money.
** ''Literature/{{Curtain}}'': Mr. X (aka [[spoiler:Stephen Norton]]) is a different sort of monster from most murder mystery villains. Deliberately modeling himself on [[Theatre/{{Othello}} Iago]], Mr. X is a social predator who toys with people's fears, nudging them towards committing murder, while technically never breaking the law himself. Over the course of the novel, he convinces three different people, including Hercule Poirot's [[TheWatson Watson]], Captain Hastings, to commit murder, with Poirot only barely averting each at the last moment. When confronted by Poirot, X gloats that he will continue on this way forever, and that there is nothing the law can do to touch him, prompting Poirot to commit his only ever vigilante execution.

** ''Darkblade Outcast'' [[note]]Previously titled ''Lament of the Fallen''[[/note]] : [[BigBad Lord Toramin]], aka The Demon of Malandria, is the leader of the Order of Midas, and an Abiarazi servant to Sage and Warmaster, [[BigBadDuumvirate alongside Garanis]]. [[FromNobodyToNightmare Once a servant to the lowest ranking Abiarazi commander]], Toramin, under the task of freeing Kharna, chooses to establish a base in Malandria. Gathering a group of merchants desiring to make their city better, Toramin promises them money and power in exchange for their services, forming the Order of Midas and spreading fear across Malandria. He later leads a purge where he kills all the Cleric Illusionists in town who aren't noble to him, [[YourSoulIsMine stealing their souls]] while claiming that their religious orders were a threat to his power. Putting the city's homeless population in a single alleyway, he has Garanis search for the perfect sacrifice victim from the alley, claiming to be "[[KillThePoor cleansing the town of filth]]". Other kidnapped victims are placed in a maze with a flamethrower robot that will kill them, with the prize at the end being poisonous traps and the sacrifice room; Toramin does all this because he feels frightened souls will bring Kharna back faster. Kidnapping Bardin, he has him ready to be sacrificed until Hunter interferes, where Toramin threatens Bardin's life unless Hunter joins him. Once Hunter agrees, Toramin kills one of his men while promising the others that he'll kill them all, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness seeing them as useless.]] When Hunter goes against his plans, he [[spoiler:kills Bardin]] in retaliation, and tries to absorb Hunter's soul to free Kharna.

* ''Literature/HouseOfTheScorpion'': El Patrón, the original Matteo Alacrán, is the most powerful and evil drug lord of them all. El Patrón rules over the country of Opium and punishes anyone who tries to illegally cross his borders by capturing them and implanting computer chips in their brains, turning them into [[FateWorseThanDeath eejits]]. These eejits are essentially human robots, programmed to do certain tasks all while their thoughts and emotions are repressed by the computer chip. Even El Patrón's security team and certain staff members have been implanted with chips, turning them into high-functioning eejits bound to El Patrón's will. The most common usage of "dumb" eejits is for manual labor in the fields used to create his drugs. Due to the harsh conditions and poor care, they tend to have a low life expectancy, leading to hundreds of thousands of bodies being buried beneath the poppies. El Patrón, like many drug lords, [[ImmortalityImmorality keeps himself alive]] to nearly one hundred and fifty-years old by [[HumanResources harvesting organs from clones]]. Unlike most drug lords, however, El Patrón doesn't destroy his clones brains, instead he raises them like they were his own children, [[ParentalBetrayal only to harvest and kill them without hesitation when the time comes]]. [[ItsAllAboutMe El Patrón cares for no one but himself]] and sees everyone around him as his possessions, such as the dead siblings he only valued because they were his. In the end, after his death, he still manages to murder everyone close to him by poisoning the wine they drank at his funeral. He also put his country into lockdown with deadly force fields only to be dismissed by his DNA, leaving them to starve as a "fitting tribute" to take with him into the afterlife, just like the kings of old.

** ''Dragon Blood'': The aforementioned [[TheDragon Jade Eyes]] is a [[EvilSorcerer wicked mage]] and Jakoven's partner in evil. Capturing Ward, Jade Eyes has him locked in the aforementioned asylum and has him drugged, viciously tortured and sexually assaulted. Jakoven and Jade Eyes later kidnap a young cousin of Ward's and have him drugged with clear intent to molest him, as well as bled to empower their superweapon. After his master's defeat, Jade Eyes reveals he intends to revive the dragons used to create said superweapon to build an empire for himself, despite them intending to destroy the Five Kingdoms upon revival, callous to the carnage created as long as he rules.

** Ugly J, aka [[spoiler:Janice Dent]], is revealed to be the BiggerBad by the end of the trilogy. She reveals to [[TheProtagonist Jasper]] that she was the one who taught Billy Dent everything he knew as a killer. During the second book, she, with the help of Billy, tricked Connie, Jasper's girlfriend, to partake in a scavenger hunt that led her to their clutches so that they could torture her into convincing Jasper to give in to his heritage. In captivity, she pulled a WoundedGazelleGambit by pretending to be one of Billy's victims in order to get her on her side and subtly tried convincing her that escape was pointless. After Jasper's grandmother was sent to the hospital because of the events of the second book, she [[spoiler:disguised herself as a nurse so that she could kill her through a forced drug overdose]], [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas something Billy objected to]]. She tells Jasper that [[spoiler:she had planned on killing him when he was just a newborn and would use the insanity plea if she ever got caught]], but she only grudgingly backed down because Billy convinced her that creating a legacy was better. What really makes Jasper snap was when she reveals that [[spoiler:she regularly raped him as a child and had him practicing stabbing on her]], which was often a source of PTSD flashbacks for Jasper. She even thought about having him kill Billy so that she could intentionally give him an OedipusComplex. During TheReveal, she would repeatedly claim that she loves him, but that proves to be a lie when she attempts to kill Jasper because he refused to live up to her legacy. She stands as one of the [[spoiler:worst mothers]] in literature, and even worse than the trilogy's BigBad, Billy.
** The Hat-Dog Killer, or more specifically, [[spoiler:Duncan Hershey]], the Hat Killer, was part of a duo of {{Serial Killer}}s that committed a series of murders in New York City, with one carving a hat on his victim's corpse, and another carving a dog, as part of a game set up by [[BigBad Billy Dent]]. During the killing spree, [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil he started raping his female victims]], [[EvenEvilHasStandards which disgusted Oliver Belsamo]], the Dog Killer, when he was forced to start raping as part of the Game's rules. When [[TheHero Jasper Dent]] (Billy's son) and Agent Morales had him cornered, Jasper got shot in the leg while Morales got knocked out. Jasper warns Hershey that killing an FBI agent will cause trouble for his killing spree, [[spoiler:but he ignores his warning and kills the unconscious Morales in front of him]]. He then [[spoiler:kills Belsamo so he can be the sole winner of Billy's game]]. Finally, he locks a wounded Jasper in a storage unit so he could bleed to death. We're at first made to believe he was a LoonyFan like the Impressionist (the killer from the first book), but he believes that [[EvilerThanThou he is a better killer than Billy]]. While the Impressionist and Belsamo were pretty bad, they had a set of rules that they obeyed unless it's an emergency like in the former's case. Hershey, on the other hand, doesn't care about that. All he cares about is his reward and showing up Billy. In the third book, he planned on killing his wife and his child, and would have done it if [[spoiler:Billy didn't show up to kill him for breaking the rules]].

** ''Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night'': [[HopeCrusher Häxa, Queen of False Faces]] was one of the three primary witch goddesses and the one representing evil. Eventually cast out by her sisters, Häxa in order to regain her status relishes causing despair in the world, [[JackassGenie twisting the wishes of unsuspecting people]] in order to drive them to misery; in one notable case, Häxa responded to a boy innocently asking to be the strongest of his siblings, by murdering said siblings and causing him lifelong guilt. In order to increase her power and for fun, Häxa turns thousands of people into {{living statue}}s in her personal realm where they're [[AndIMustScream kept in eternal misery]]; these included the parents of Mariketa the Awaited, in order to cause her pain. When one of her victims, Bowen [=MacRieve=] finds love again, Häxa manipulates him in the guise of his deceased lover--who was killed by Häxa-- to drive him apart from his new love in order to relish his pain. In her ultimate scheme, Häxa plans to steal Mariketa's powers in order drive the entirety of mankind into torture and despair, enacting HellOnEarth, simply to satisfy her sadistic whims.

** ''Chaos Choreography'': [[spoiler:[[PsychopathicManchild Anders Clarke]] and [[EvilSorcerer Clint Goldfein]]]] are a contestant and judge respectively in the reality dancing show ''Dance or Die'' who, secretly, are the [[BigBadDuumvirate masterminds]] of a [[ReligionOfEvil murderous snake cult]]. The two act as {{serial killer}}s, butchering every pair of contestants who lose on the show until eight people have been killed. In the climax, the duo reveal their master plan to use the sacrifice to unleash a monstrous snake demon to kill ''Dance or Die'''s massive audience and all the other contestants and judges as they watch gleefully, [[spoiler:Anders in particularly sneering that his father will die in petty retribution for being ignored by him and Clint gloating he simply wants to become a king among men through the power of the serpent he's summoned.]]
** ''That Ain't Witchcraft'': [[EldritchAbomination The Crossroads]] are an [[GeniusLoci Anima Mundi]], the spirit of a place. An eldritch parasite, the Crossroads offer people their heart's desire for the roads, [[JackassGenie but always with a catch]], perverting the wishes and destroying the casters or using them as weapons to strike fear and evil into the world. The one responsible for the undermentioned Bobby Cross's murders, the Crossroads also trap [[YourSoulIsMine the souls of its victims]], constantly twisting the gains of others for its own end. Finally, the Crossroads even attempt to [[LifeDrinker drain the life and magic from Earth]], heedless of the death toll this will bring through the world.

** [[TheDragon Lady Indigo]] is a high-ranking HEX official and Lord Dogknife's loyal supporter. Assisting Lord Dogknife with his schemes, Lady Indigo travels across different dimensions capturing Walkers and draining their life forms to fuel Lord Dogknife's spaceships. Lady Indigo targets Joey Harker and repeatedly tries to kidnap him and his allies, eventually succeeding and imprisoning him and several other Walkers. After Lady Indigo is wounded by Joseph and left for dead, she resurfaces two years later, entrapping Joseph and several of his teammates. She gradually drains the life out of many of Joseph's allies just to torture him, gloating about how she intends to kill all of his friends before turning Joseph into a brainwashed slave. She also [[spoiler:mortally wounds Josephine]] just so she can use her body as a tracking device to gather up more victims. Once reunited with Lord Dogknife, she's more than happy to help him [[OmnicidalManiac destroy]] and [[InTheirOwnImage rewrite]] the Multiverse using the [=FrostNight=] weapon.

* ''Irene'', by Pierre Lemaitre [[note]][[CompletelyDifferentTitle originally titled]] ''Travail Soigné'' (''Neat Work'') in French[[/note]]: The "Novelist" ([[spoiler:Philippe Buisson de Chevesne]]) [[ThemeSerialKiller copies murders from various crime novels]] such as ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' and ''Literature/TheBlackDahlia''. The aftermath of these long and drawn out murders, which also include a rape or two, are graphically described. There are six victims, all female, plus at least two or three people killed as collateral damage, before the killer attempts his masterpiece: using his [[spoiler:own novel]], he kidnaps Irene, the 8-months-pregnant wife of Parisian detective Commandant Camille Verhoeven, who has to rush to save her. [[spoiler:Sadly, by the time he gets there, Irene has been killed and the newborn has been [[TraumaticCSection ripped out in an impromptu C-section and has been crucified]].]] In the end, the killer writes to Camille that, in his words, all he wanted was [[FameThroughInfamy fame for a new novel he's writing]].

** The aforementioned [[WickedWitch witch Gagool]] helped Twala's brutal takeover and keeps him in power by having countless innocents executing, claiming them as "witches" or treasonous to see them murdered on trumped up charges to maintain her own power base. Gagool also practices HumanSacrifice on young maidens, and when Twala falls, she seeks to kill the adventuring party by trapping them in the mines, even trying to murder the brave young woman Foulata when she tries to save them.

** ''Literature/ThePillarsOfTheEarth'': William Hamleigh begins as an arrogant, boorish young aristocrat with some sketchy ideas about a woman's consent whose nastiness is shown when he threatens Tom Builder's life in an argument over wages Tom is fairly owed. After his fiancée Aliena breaks their engagement, William takes advantage of her father being deposed as Earl of Shiring to rape her, murdering her faithful steward and forcing her younger brother to watch before allowing his groom to rape her as well. William later discovers he is now impotent unless he commits violence, as seen when he beats and rapes a prostitute. William soon becomes Earl and becomes a scourge to the people: brutalizing and raping when he isn't given his "proper due." He fixates on Aliena, doing everything he can to ruin her life further and attacks the town of Kingsbridge, burning and killing, causing the death of [[spoiler:Tom Builder]] personally. When he finally gets married, William finds himself impotent on the wedding night, and beats his wife bloody when she gives him a reassuring smile over it.
** ''Column of Fire'': [[AmbitionIsEvil Pierre Aumande]] is a ruthless social climber who comes to power by assisting the French Catholic church in rooting out and killing Protestants. Using his fiancée Sylvie, a Protestant herself, Pierre has hundreds or thousands of innocents captured, killed and burned alive, before finally going after Sylvie years later and attempting to murder her, succeeding in killing her friend Isabelle. When forced to marry a woman named Odette by the Cardinal, Pierre [[DomesticAbuse mistreats her horribly]], even attempting to give her illegitimate child to an orphanage [[KickTheDog just to hurt her]], and later murders her when he has the chance. When his power grows, Pierre has a marchioness named Louise's husband killed and takes her as a mistress, where he rapes and abuses her endlessly in revenge for [[DisproportionateRetribution her once rebuking him 25 years ago]], even forcing her to serve his guests in the nude to humiliate her. Pierre conspires to assist in an invasion of England and even plots against the French king, stopping at nothing to climb ever higher while leaving his conscience far behind.

* ''Literature/{{Kraken}}'': [[HumanoidAbomination Goss]] is a loudmouthed PsychoForHire who has plagued the Earth for centuries, using his living puppet Subby to house his heart and grant himself immortality. Goss has committed countless brutal murders over the ages, reveling in the pain and misery he causes and using truly unique methods of [[TortureTechnician torture]] and [[CruelAndUnusualDeath killing]] such as folding a man into a work of origami and using nothing but his finger to crack another's teeth and impale his throat. Working for the Tattoo in the present, Goss terrorizes and threatens anyone he comes into contact with, goes on a mass torture and killing spree to track down a target, and kills [[spoiler:Wati]] with sadistic joy. Goss is so utterly depraved that he makes the world itself a more violent, terrible place, and when he finally meets his end, the souls of millions of people feel an unexplained joy all at once across time and space.

*** ''Thirst No. 5: The Sacred Veil'': Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, known as "The Beast", one of the most powerful men in [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the Third Reich]], is [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters far more monstrous]] than almost any vampire. A consummate sadist who [[SelfMadeOrphan murdered his own parents]], Himmler helps carry out UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust while starving, beating, torturing and murdering millions of innocents in the [[POWCamp camps]], while personally administering Auschwitz as he has multitudes of innocent Jews sent to the gas chambers. Himmler wishes to bring about the reign of Tarana, torturing Sita to help make it possible, and when she refuses to break, he tortures other prisoners. Himmler seeks to craft a world where the Nazis win to exterminate all beneath them, driven by nothing but his cold and cruel sense of superiority.

* ''Literature/MasksOfAygrima'': [[TheEmperor The Autarch]] is the despotic [[BigBad ruler of Aygrima]] and the creator of the masks. He is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment introduced]] destroying a village for harboring his enemy, the Lady of Pain and Fire. As Autarch, he makes most crimes punishable by execution, to the point where the masks allow his soldiers to know if people have traitorous thoughts, with treason having the criminal's entire family killed. Shortly before the series, [[spoiler:he altered the masks to change people's personalities to be more submissive to his rule]]. Citizens who fail their maskings are sentenced to work in a slave mine in the mountains. His desire for immortality makes [[spoiler:him sap magic from his subjects, personally showing up at the maskings of several gifted for this purpose, causing their maskings to fail]]. He has a group of young gifted follow him around so [[spoiler:he can sap their magic]], leaving them sickly and weak. When the Unmasked Army attacks the capital city he uses his masks to [[spoiler:force all of the younger citizens to fight them, causing many to die]]. At the end of the series, it's revealed that his ultimate plan is to [[spoiler:[[ImmortalityImmorality continuously possess people's bodies to live forever]], leaving the original person's mind [[AndIMustScream fully aware but unable to do anything]]]].

*** ''Dead Heat'': [[LivingDollCollector The Doll Collector]] is an ancient and evil [[TheFairFolk fae]] who preys on [[WouldHurtAChild children]], and is feared even by other fae. The Doll Collector's MO is to kidnap young girls and dress them up as dolls, keeping them in statis while [[LifeDrinker draining them of life]]. After AYearAndADay when their life is worn out, the Doll Collector kills them and adds their rotting corpses to her collection; she has done this for centuries. After being de-powered by the Gray Lords, she goes into hiding, only to restart her killing spree after being unleashed in Salt Lake City. Targeting the local Alpha's five-year-old great-great-granddaughter Mackie, the Doll Collector mind-controls Mackie's mother into trying to kill both her and her children but is stopped. After her collection is found, the Doll Collector, in desperation, [[spoiler:murders Mackie's mother and kidnaps her to rebuild it, and in the final battle kills Mackie's father]], proving herself a monster even to her final breath.

** ''The Girl Who Played with Fire'' & ''The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'': Alexander "Zala" Zalachenko is a Russian agent who took refuge in Sweden. Because of his high importance to the government, Zalachenko was allowed to do anything he wanted. His favorite activity was abusing his wife. He would often torture or beat her in front of their daughter. The last time, he beat her so bad he left her with severe brain damage, which resulted in his daughter, [[spoiler:who we find out is Lisbeth]], burning Zala alive in retribution. Surviving with hideous wounds, Zala became the leader of a powerful human trafficking ring where girls were forced into prostitution. Having many, many women sold into sex slavery or killed when their value diminished, Zala also had multiple murders committed by his [[TheDragon nightmarishly powerful son]], and when he found out his daughter's location, he spared no expense to murder anyone in his path to torture her to death himself.
* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': [[AbusiveParents Monsieur Thénardier]] is a greedy innkeeper who accepts guardianship of little Cosette from her mother, Fantine, while [[WouldHurtAChild beating the poor girl]] and [[FosteringForProfit using her to extort money from Fantine]], resulting in Fantine prostituting herself and eventually falling sick and dying. After losing his inn, Thénardier prostitutes his own daughters and even has one, Azelma, mutilate her hand to make her a more effective and sympathetic beggar. Not above murder, Thénardier happily tries to kill both Jean Valjean and Javert at different points, even threatening to torture the former with a hot poker. Even when driven from France by Marius Pontmercy, Thénardier simply sets up shop in America as a slave trader to further profit from human misery. Be he a con artist, [[RobbingTheDead grave robber]], or attempted murderer, there is no low Thénardier will not sink to for [[{{Greed}} the sake of profit]].

** ''Literature/TheBoneClocks'': [[DragonInChief Immaculée Constantin]] was the second member of the Anchorites, a group that [[SoulEater drank people's souls]], particularly [[WouldHurtAChild children]] and the mentally disabled, to fuel their [[ImmortalityImmorality immortality]]. After being rejected by a 7-year-old Holly Sykes, Constantin bore a grudge. Corrupting Hugo Lamb, Holly's one-time lover, Constantin directs him to perform unsavory crimes, such as torturing Crispin Hershey for information on Esther Little, Constantin laughing in the distance. Right before the final battle, Constantin mocks Holly on her age, makes a crude joke about her relationship with Hugo, threatens to murder her family so Holly will "howl with regret" and pulls other petty jabs. When she reveals to Sadaqat that they lied about letting him join the Anchorites-with [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain casual racism]] to boot-she gleefully murders him. Complicit in the deaths of hundreds to fuel her lust for immortality and with a sadistic streak she takes pride in, Constantin was the face and the worst of the Anchorites.
** ''Literature/SladeHouse'': Jonah Grayer resides in the titular Slade House [[CreepyTwins with his twin sister Norah]]. Having murdered Léon Cantillon in the past for trying to publish an autobiography of him and his sister that [[HeKnowsTooMuch revealed their true nature]], Jonah murders an Engifted person every nine years alongside his sister and [[YourSoulIsMine uses their soul]] to [[ImmortalityImmorality perpetuate their immortality]], with Jonah and his sister frequently [[MindRape playing mind games]] with the victim beforehand. Over the course of the novel, Jonah murders several people, including a young teen, alongside his sister.

** ''Literature/TheIronTower'': [[BigBad Modru]] is [[GodOfEvil Gyphon]]'s [[TheDragon right-hand man]] and, as Gyphon is mostly inactive, is Gyphon's most active agent in Mithgar, nearly bringing the world to ruin during the War of the Ban. Five thousand years later, Modru instigated the Winter War as part of a plot to free Gyphon, sending [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Vulgs]] to raid the Boskydells, and a horde of his ''Spaunen'' to raze Challerain Keep. Controlling his armies by projecting his will through [[MouthOfSauron brain-damaged mind slaves]] and [[BadBoss executing any minions who defy him]], Modru spread warfare to every corner of Mithgar, from the Boskydells--where his Ghuls torch dozens of towns and butcher numerous families, including those of protagonists Tuck and Merrilee--to the far south, and makes it clear to the captive Princess Laurelain that in the event of his victory, he will exterminate the Warrows, enslave the Elves and Dwarves, and burn her father and all his subjects in a single great funeral pyre. When Elven Lord Vanidor tries to rescue Laurelain, Modru [[spoiler:has him racked to death]], [[ForcedToWatch forcing Laurelain to watch]]. When Tuck attempts to free her, Modru beats him near to death with an iron bar. In the end, Modru attempts to sacrifice Laurelain to ensure Gyphon's return, gloating that while he could have used anyone's blood to feed his master, [[ForTheEvulz it amused him]] to use that of "a royal damosel".

*** The aforementioned [[RapePillageAndBurn Kutsen Yong]] leads the Golden Horde on a campaign of violent slaughter, massacring entire lands and cities and establishing brutal rules that result in countless innocents of all ages executed. Seeking to become the mortal regent of Gyphon, Kutsne Yong has countless innocents sacrificed and delivered to Ydral while taking possession of the dragonstone to force dragons to raze entire cities. When he learns of Mithgar and its high king, Kutsen Yong's [[ItsAllAboutMe ego]] demands he ride to destroy Mithgar in a titanic war, Kutsen Yong willing to stop at nothing to dominate the world and bring for Gyphon to make him the supreme king of all he dreams.

** ''This Savage Song'': The aforementioned [[EvilOverlord Callum Harker]] is Kate Harker's [[ArchnemesisDad father]] and a former mob boss who took over North City of Verity and proves himself to be worse than most other monsters. Enslaving the bloodthirsty Malachi and Corsai, Harker unleashes them on the city in order to take over, killing hundreds of innocents in his bid for conquest. After a peace deal allows Harker control of North City, he creates an [[CrapsackWorld environment of lawlessness and crime]] there, which causes his wife to flee with their daughter Kate. Callum then coldly sends Sloan to retrieve Kate, shrugging off his wife's death, which occurs as a result of Sloan. When the years of peace threaten his position as top dog, Harker puts out a hit on his [[OffingTheOffspring once beloved daughter Kate]] and tries to force her LoveInterest August Flynn into killing Kate, allowing him a pretense to restart the war which would result in the deaths of hundreds, willing to throw every redeeming quality out of his away if it puts him on top.

** The aforementioned [[Characters/MortalKombatShangTsung Shang Tsung]] is an EvilSorcerer who developed an ability to [[YourSoulIsMine steal people's souls]]. Losing his memory on Earth after Shao Kahn sent him there, Shang Tsung immediately began [[SlashedThroat slitting throats]] of lone travelers after Shao Kahn returned his memories and ordered him to do so, and killed a teacher, a warrior and a holy man in his search for "a right soul" to use to extend a portal to the Outworld. Realizing that souls of the warriors is what he needed, Shang Tsung captured, brainwashed and enslaved the seven traveling cooks to rebuild the ancient Shaolin Temple on an island and then enlarges it, so he could create the Mortal Kombat tournament, where he would invite many powerful warriors from across the world. He killed countless warriors and sent their souls to Shao Kahn, so he could enlarge the portal little by little. After being defeated by Kung Lao twelve times, Shang Tsung used the Shokan prince Goro to kill him by ripping his heart out, and much later Shang Tsung planned to [[TheStarscream quit being Shao Kahn's lackey]] by using the magic artifact to create his own kingdom, only backing down when the heroes were close to destroying him and his forces, while, [[EvilIsPetty for petty reasons]], ordering his mercenaries to [[WouldHurtAChild kill a child]] who lived in the Temple of Rayden (sic).

* ''Literature/{{Mouseheart}}'': [[CatsAreMean Felina]] is the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen queen]] of the feral cats who terrorize the subway tunnels of Brooklyn, forcing Emperor Titus of Atlantia to regularly supply her with rodents to butcher [[ForTheEvulz for fun]] in exchange for her leaving his kingdom alone; when Titus's wife Conselyea discovered the truth and attempted to reason with the feral queen, Felina murdered her. When the truth behind the peace accord is revealed and Titus is dethroned, Felina declares open season on every rodent in the tunnels, devastating Atlantia and abducting Prince Zucker to use as a hostage and personal plaything. When the rodents, led by Hopper, counterattack and drive off the ferals, Felina attempts to crush Zucker to death out of spite before [[spoiler:devouring Titus when he intervenes]]. It's later revealed that before moving into the tunnels, Felina caused the death of Ace's mother by tricking her into taking her place on death row at the animal shelter, keeping her collar as a souvenir.

* ''Literature/TheNakedAndTheDead'': Staff Sergeant [[SociopathicSoldier Sam Croft]] is the Commander of a Recon Platoon, which he rules with an iron fist, during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Croft comes across as a simple martinet jerk before the audience is first introduced to his [[KickTheDog sadistic side]]. In one scene, he gives a Japanese prisoner some cigarettes and chocolate and thus the illusion of being spared. Right after he kills the guy despite having just learnt the soldier has a wife and kid back home. From there on it's made increasingly clear that Croft is a cold-blooded killing machine with [[InHarmsWay love of combat and]] [[BloodKnight killing.]] His first kill was not even in the war, but when he was serving in the Texas National Guard, during which he killed a man in a riot just to see what it was like. When newly ensigned Lt. Hearn is assigned to the platoon, Croft resents being placed at second-in-command. Later, after he crushes an injured bird to death to spite a soldier, Hearn forces him to apologize. Croft experiences this as humiliating. [[spoiler: He [[DisproportionateRetribution retaliates]] by misleading Hearn into thinking the path ahead is clear, thus getting Hearn killed by a machine gun]]. Later, Croft quells a mutiny in his usual manner: He threatens to shoot those responsible.

* ''The Neighbor'', by Lisa Gardner: Judge Maxwell Black, a [[VillainWithGoodPublicity respected judge]], is attempting to recover his granddaughter from his son-in-law Jason, the prime suspect in the disappearance of Black's daughter Sandy. It is revealed that Black has killed two men who may have been Sandra's lovers, but worse, Black had murdered his own wife when she had abused Sandra; this was solely because Black had grown tired of his wife, and Sandra was old enough to "replace" her, so Black didn't want her to damage Sandra and ruin her for Black's appetites. After years of raping his daughter—who had an abortion at 16--, Black murdered the other men to [[FrameUp frame Jason]], and later attempts to kill Jason as well, when it is revealed [[spoiler:Sandra is alive and had planned to trap her father with Jason]]. It is revealed Black intends to take his four-year-old granddaughter to serve as a new replacement for Sandra, the knowledge of which leads [[spoiler:Sandra to shoot her father dead on the spot]].

* ''Ogre's Lament: The Story of Don Luis'', by Stuart G. Yates: [[BigBad Manfred Kepel]] is a former soldier driven by his {{greed}}. After helping fellow soldiers massacre monks in a monastery, Manfred and the others looted the monastery of its riches. Not content with his share, Manfred went looking for the rest of the riches, and eventually discovered the location in Riodelgado. [[spoiler:Posing as baker Señor Garcia]], Manfred blackmailed the village's mayor into helping him find the treasure or else he'd [[WouldHurtAChild murder all the children]] in the village. In order to satisfy his bloodlust and to prevent others from finding the treasure, Manfred occasionally kidnapped and murdered villagers, including children, and had the mayor lay all of the blame on a monster that doesn't exist. He later killed [[TheProtagonist Luis Sanchez]]'s father to steal his treasure, along with other individuals who nearly exposed Manfred's secret to Luis. After most of the soldiers who knew about the treasure are killed, Manfred threatens to kidnap Luis's mother and sister and recover the information from them, before attempting to kill Luis and the mayor when Luis discovers his true identity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'': [[AristocratsAreEvil Carl-Jan Rosenschiöld]] is a {{sadist}} who derives pleasure from harming women. Having already gone through two wives, the first of which he murdered and the second he [[DrivenToSuicide drove to suicide]], Rosenschiöld sets his sights on marrying Beatrice, a girl who is over forty years younger than him, solely because he wants a virgin to be his wife. On their wedding night, [[DomesticAbuser he rapes and nearly kills Beatrice]] after he discovers that she lost her virginity prior to their marriage, even though Beatrice had never made a promise to stay a virgin until they got married. He expresses no remorse for his crimes whatsoever, as he spends his remaining days in a brothel, overindulging in aphrodisiac drugs and sexually abusing their women.
* ''Paper Valentine'', by Brenna Yovanoff: [[SerialKiller The Valentine Killer]], real name [[spoiler:[[TeensAreMonsters Connor Price]]]] is a [[FameThroughInfamy glory-seeking murderer]] who bullies his classmate Nick Andelmam into becoming a killer. In the quest to discover what it's like to kill and gain attention from it, the killer and his classmate lure in 13-year-old girls before tying them up and beating them to death. The killer then leaves a CallingCard in a paper valentine on their bodies in order to show the world he did it. When his classmate is arrested and his own downfall nears, the Valentine Killer kidnaps heroine Hannah Wagnor by threatening her sister's life, intending to at least kill her before he goes down for good.

* ''Literature/ThePhoenixFiles'': [[BigBad Noah Shackleton]] is a charismatic CorruptCorporateExecutive who created the town of Phoenix so he could [[OmnicidalManiac wipe out the rest of the world]] with the SyntheticPlague "Tabitha", which [[CruelAndUnusualDeath boils the skin clean off of its victims]]. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment In his first appearance]], he uses it to kill [[spoiler:Reeve]] and threatens to [[WouldHurtAChild paralyze Luke, Jordan and Peter from the waist down]] if they interfere with him again, while also attaching cameras to them so he can track them 24/7. Shackleton had no reason for doing any of this; it was purely ForTheEvulz, and for that flimsy reason he would attempt to kill millions if not billions of innocents.

* ''Portraits of the Dead'', by John Nicholl: [[spoiler:Mark Goddard, a university professor]], is in truth a sadistic SerialKiller and torturer who [[{{Sadist}} derives pleasure from the pain and suffering of others]]. He first developed his fascination with death at [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior age twelve]] when he came upon a cat caught in a poacher's snare and, taking joy from the animal's suffering, [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals crushed its head with a rock]], an act he declared the best moment of his young life. From that day forward, he spent his [[TeensAreMonsters childhood and adolescence]] experimenting on animals, devising increasingly brutal methods of torture and execution, before finally committing his first human murder at age nineteen when he poisoned his girlfriend to death. He then made a habit of killing once a year on average afterwards, before developing a [[TortureCellar chamber]] in his house for which to capture and entrap his victims, so he could extend their suffering as long as he wanted without fear of interference. Abducting his latest victim, his [[spoiler:student]] Emma Jones, he subjects her to [[ColdBloodedTorture physical]] and [[MindRape psychological]] torture for weeks on end, seeking to mold her into his "soulmate", or kill her if she fails to meet his standards. When [[spoiler:detective Clive Rankin]] proves a liability, he kills him and attempts to make it look like a suicide. A psychopath who admits to having [[LackOfEmpathy no empathy for others]], [[spoiler:Goddard]] only lives to pleasure himself at the expense of others.

** [[PsychoForHire Colton Banes]], also from ''Nightrise,'' is an assassin for [[{{Megacorp}} Nightrise]] hired to track down Jamie and Scott, two of "[[TheChosenOne The Five]]". When Jamie escapes Colton kills "Uncle Don", the stage manager they were staying, and his wife to pin the rap on Jamie. When he and his partner Kyle Hovey report back to Susan Mortlake, she has Colton strangle Kyle. Colton does this immediately and without remorse, stating the he always hated Kyle. When Jamie tries to scan him to find Scott's location, he sees not only the after mentioned crimes, but also sees memories of a girl locked in a battered trailer with puncture wounds. When Jamie tries to [[GetIntoJailFree go to prison under an alias]], he is caught and one the guards reports him to Colton. Colton tells the guard to turn off the Air Conditioning in the cell, [[EvenEvilHasStandards which the guard does reluctantly]]. During the raid on the prison Colton shoots Jamie in the back.

** The aforementioned [[SmugSnake Helen Holt]] is a born sociopath, one of the worst that the Shadow Company has to offer and the nemesis of Zachary Burrows. A vain monster, Helen allies with the vile Konrad and helps in his attempt to attack the United States with a zombie army in return for [[ImmortalityImmorality eternal life and beauty]]. After Zachary and Cade insult her, she plots her terrible revenge on them due to the perceived slight. Allying with the ancient SerialKiller monster known as the Bogeyman, she helps it in a murder spree that kills countless people in brutal mutilations and horrific murders. Her ultimate goal is to have it murder the U.S. President's daughter and young son as the ultimate way to get back at Cade by seeing him fail at his life's work.

* ''Pretty Little Things'', by Jilliane Hoffman: "Picasso," [[spoiler:Mark Felding]], is a sadistic serial kidnapper and [[SerialKiller killer]] who targets young teenagers online, kidnaps them, and keeps them as his tormented, malnourished "pets" for months at a time. Possessed of a [[TheFundamentalist vigorous religious conviction]] that [[HeManWomanHater all women are whores]], Picasso eventually butchers the girls in his possession and poses them in artistic fashions for police to find, often torturing and mutilating them before their deaths and [[ILoveTheDead raping the corpses]]. When his crimes are discovered, Picasso murders his "favorite" of the girls by blowing her head off with a shotgun, before trying to kill his youngest victim yet while taunting Special Agent Bobby Dees that one of his victims was Bobby's daughter just to torment him.
* ''Pure Hate'', by Wrath James White: [[TheBrute Malcolm Davis]] is a terrifying, dark-skinned giant with platinum fangs who never managed to get over his former best friend and his girlfriend cheating on him in high school. Becoming a SerialKiller to "practice" his revenge, Malcolm started on gay men, before killing couples and graduating to entire families. Finally attacking his old friend Reed, Malcolm kills his young children before raping, mutilating and murdering Reed's wife, leaving Reed alive to suffer. Malcolm goes on a killing spree of those in his way, [[CopKiller killing cops]], security guards and anyone who recognizes him before abducting and raping his ex-girlfriend, before allowing his accomplice to do the same, later killing her as well. When he and Reed encounter each other one last time, Reed attempts to talk sense into Malcolm before Malcolm firmly rejects all attempts and [[spoiler:[[BoomHeadshot blows Reed's head off]]]] before being gunned down himself.
* ''A Quiet Belief In Angels'', by R. J. Ellory: The SerialKiller who plagues Augusta Falls, in truth [[spoiler:Sheriff Haynes Dearing]], begins [[SerialRapist raping]] and murdering [[WouldHurtAChild little girls]], reaching a total of eight before [[FrameUp framing]] the innocent German resident Gunther Kruger, setting fire to Kruger's house and killing his young daughter Ellie. The killer continues murdering victims, eventually murdering Kruger or pushing him to suicide and framing him of the crimes. Upon the novel's hero Joseph Vaughn moving to New York, the killer murders Joseph's wife and frames him for the crime before continuing to murder women and children under the radar, eventually reaching 32 known victims.