Spoilers sprinkled throughout (you have been warned!)
Who is do you feel is the all-time villain on DS and why?
My first and flippest answer is Count Petofi, simply because he made my skin crawl
But it's a good question . . . I don't know that I could just pick one (the choices, the choices!)
For pure insanity, we have Count Petofi, Brutus and the Cyrus/John Y combo package, Gabriel, half the PT cast (who really were just very annoying to watch, IMHO
). Brutus wasn't around long enough for me to come up with a strong reaction to him. Petofi has the ick factor going, but I think for sheer mad/serial killer/weirdness, the award has to go to the perverse Cyrus/John Yaeger. Creepy and disgusting and just all around scary.
The obsessed: Angelique, Laura, Barnabas, Cassandra, Reverend Trask (monomaniacal with a religious bent). Lots of competition here. And all believed their own press. Cassandra is a hoot to watch, but all of them are disturbing in their own unique little ways. I guess I'd say Laura. None of them have any qualms about harming kids, but Laura was the only one who planned on it.
The Snidely Whiplash category. Nicholas and in a fairly lame attempt, Gerard. I get an enormous kick out of Nicholas Blair. Yeah, he's a snake, but he was such a witty, intelligent guy while he was plotting and doing evil that it made for great tv viewing.
Then there are the scoundrels who would sell their grandmas to the knackers if it made them a dime or got them out of a jam: Jason McGuire, Nathan Forbes, Suki Forbes, Quentin (I add him in here hesitantly because he was a bit more complex than that), Roger Collins, Gregory Trask. Suki was regrettably only in a couple of episodes, but she was highly memorable. Nathan was awful, but God, what a hunk (yes, I can be shallow). Jason was fun to watch. Maybe it was the brogue, I don't know, but it was a sad day for me when he moved into Eagle Hill. I don't know though if any of these people could ever qualify as "all-time villain".
I've left out characters. There are so many of them . . .
I guess I'm going to have to go with Barnabas. A lot of fans see him as a hero. I just don't. Even when he was "helping," he had no qualms about sacrificing others, e.g. he picked Maggie to be the lifeforce for Adam and then five minutes later was talking to her like he cared about her as a person--was really a disturbing scene, much like watching a serial killer picking a victim and then luring her in.
He's got that whole larger than life thing to him which fits the mood of the show (Romanticism meets the Gothic movement). The attraction/repulsion factor is there. His guilt, doom-laden persona gives him complexity. I want to slap him most of the time, but there's no denying his importance on the show.
Yeah, I guess that's my vote for the Big Bad.
Luciaphil