Lost … on a desert island … with only a notorious villain for company. Sounds thrilling, doesn’t it? Actually, not really. I’m fairly certain I would never want to really be in this position.
Especially armed with just a knife. Excuse me? A knife? Couldn’t we have some better weaponry over here? Like a grenade launcher … or a celestial bronze sword … or a horde of angry dwarves at my beck and call.
Okay, okay, on to the question. Who is the villain … and how do you survive? Do you defeat/outwit/make an ally out of the villain?
The problem with fantasy villains is they’re so terribly terrifying! You wouldn’t want to get within five feet of most of them, let alone be trapped with them on a desert island!
I could see myself crash landing on a desert island with Gollum/Smeagol. (Because we all know Smeagol is there all the time. Gollum has just smothered him.) To survive, I’d suggest a game of riddles (with the understanding that no mention be made of pockets … or handses … or rings, precious!). I would treat Gollum as a hobbit, not a monster, to bring out the Smeagol side, and use the lembas bread as a deterrent if the Gollum side starts to win out.
Of course, I would need to take care at night, lest Gollum throttle me in my sleep. (Not very nice, precious.) But so long as there is plenty of fish for Smeagol to catch, and I can sleep with one eye open, I should be good until rescue can arrive.
And what with all that riddling, not sleeping, and fishing, I certainly won’t get bored.
As always, you can answer the question in the comments! Feel free to share this post or copy the picture to your blog and continue the discussion there. Please just link back to my original post!
This going to be tough. I'll get back to you on this. I'm trying to decide between a completely bad villain or one of those complicated, possibly redeemable villains.
Agreed. I think it depends on if I want to outsmart and defeat them, or want them as an ally XP
Very true! Man, this was a tough one. :)
Wow, this is a hard one!
I think I would probably choose to be stranded with Miles from The Alloy of Law. He didn't seem too terribly nefarious, and he'd probably just ignore me so long as I didn't act like a criminal or someone who lived in the city of Elendel. However, if it did come to a fight, there would be no possibility of my survival given his feruchemy powers and my decisive non-allomancyness…maybe he's not the best choice on second thought…
I love The Alloy of Law! Wayne and Wax are so awesome, and Miles does make a good villain though perhaps not so desperately-melt-your-bones evil as others.
Um. I would probably end up with Anne Elisabeth Stengl's Vahe. : ) We have some scary personality similarities. We both have a flare for the dramatic and an appreciation of artistic beauty. We would probably end up great friends and keep in touch once we got off the island. ; ) – Allison R
"We would probably end up great friends and keep in touch once we got off the island."
Love this.
Ha, ha! I thought of Vahe! I figured if he didn't say, "Mortal" and kill me right off the bat, he might instead make the entire island ridiculously gorgeous and me too. I'd be like, relaxing in the sunshine on the fake white beach looking out over the fake lazuli ocean and be like, "You're not so bad after all, Vahe, old boy."
Hahahaha, Hannah!
Being stuck with Anne Elisabeth Stengl's Dragonwitch would be tolerable. She accepts bargains. I would recruit her help building a hot air balloon, using material from the trees around us….there ARE trees, right?….and she would use her dragon breath to get us back to the main land.
I thought about the Dragonwitch too. She's such a sad, deceived character. You can't help feeling sorry for her.
Trees? I imagine so. Sure, we'll say yes! :)
Wow, how creative. I thought of the Dragonwitch. But if I spilled any of my admiration for Etanun, it would be all over for me. :)
The Tar Man from the Gideon Trilogy. He can be pretty, um… well bad, but he does have a soft side. I might be able to sugar him up or something. :)
teenwordsofsteel.blogspot.com
I haven't heard of that series. Is it good?
It's been a long time since I've read them. But when I did I thought they were pretty good. Not at the top 50 though. But like I said, it's been a while. :)
I'd pick Jadis, the White Witch from Narnia. Not because I think I could easily manipulate her or defeat her, but because I think she's one of the most interesting villains of all time.
I'm assuming she'd have to have her magic disabled somehow, or else she'd escape the desert island no matter what I do. Since she can be charming when she wants to be, my basic strategy would be to stay on the opposite side of the island from her as much as possible, to sleep in only in trees or other places not easy to access for someone capable of killing a lion with a stone knife, to set traps and jingle alarms around my perimeter, to be alert at all times of the day and night, and to be instantly ready to press on to another part of the island should she come after me…
I thought about doing her. :) But then I decided that would be a bit scary.
I thought of Jadis as well, but when looking at the odds, I knew I'd be toast. You are bolder than I am.
Brooke, I think she'd be extremely scary. Which is why I imagine myself sleeping in a tree, surrounded by traps and jingle alarms, ready to run at a moment's notice… :)
Question: Are we saying the dragon died in the crash? Because a dragon could crash without dying; he'd just be badly injured and take a while to recover. For example, what happened to Spit Fyre in Syren, which was a very similar situation to this. Except that they had more supplies. Anyway, I was just wondering.
Anyway. The villain I'd choose is Keeper from Entwined. Granted, he's creepy and very powerful and I wouldn't stand a chance of killing him if it came to a fight. However, he would presumably be trapped as well- and therefore would likely be open to a deal. I'd offer to let him come with me when rescue showed up, and in return, he wouldn't kill me or do anything nasty to me.
Yes, unfortunately, the dragon died a heroic yet ultimately tragic death …
Hmmmm…all right. I have several different ideas.
If I could somehow promise Smaug a great vast trove of treasure, we might fly of the island together. The dangerous part would be after he realizes there's no treasure.
I thought of Azula from the Avatar: The Last Airbender (it's been continuing in graphic novels). I don't think she would fry me, but she is absolutely crazy. However, as she is a princess, she'd be expected me to do all the work. With her fire-bending, she can probably fry fish and birds to eat.
Then there's Attolia from The Queen's Thief series. She's sort of bad…at least for the first two books. She wouldn't try to harm me. Indeed, she would be quite willing (if dignified) to put our heads together and figure out how to survive. And if I'm with Attolia, Eugenides will come to our rescue in no time!
Ooh interesting choices.
Yes, promising (and failing to deliver) treasure to Smaug could be … toasty. If you know what I mean! :)
Goodness, I don't even know where to begin answering this question! I don't think I'd last very long with any fantasy villains. Anyways, I'm just commenting to let you know that I nominated you for the Liebster Award. (I hope that's excusable) :) poetreeandbooks.blogspot.com
Every villain I could possibly think of would have me dead in about four minutes XP
I think I'd choose Shawdell the Elatian from The Green Rider book. He's fairly scary and cagey, but he's still very much mortal, so I'd only have to kill him once, unlike most of the villains I can think of.
What's this? No Murtagh? I know, I know, he's not a villain, but he acted like one long enough to be counted as one, I think. He'd be very useful to have on an island.. :)
I thought about doing him Hannah, honestly. But even I can get overkilled on him. Besides, it wouldn't be very adventurous to fall in love with the villain I'm trapped with, now would it?
Yeah, that would be awkward. :)
Hmmm… tough one.
I think I'd have to go with Haplo from the Death Gate Cycle. (Is that cheating, since he ends up not really being a villain?) hm.
I have a soft spot for Seamas from my own books, and he'd probably be pretty easy to live with so long as I never acted like I might want his throne.
For a true villain, I'd have to go with the wizards from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Partially because I enjoy shouting "Arglefraster" – and it might be nice to have someone to melt whenever I got really frustrated with being lost on a desert island as I don't deal well with heat.
Seamas – I like the name!
I thought about the wizards from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. They would certainly provide an endless source of entertainment … provided your soap and lemon juice didn't run out!
I'm taking the easy way out: the Wicked Witch of the South from the Wizard of Oz.
I get to her before Dorthy does, and when I splash water from the ocean on her, she'll melt. And then, ta-daa!! I tap my heels together three times …
How clever
short adventure, but very clever
Nice! Sounds like you'd make it off the island sooner than the rest of us. :)
Rabadash, from the Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis. Because in his donkey form, I could explore the island quite comfortably from his back, and in his human form, I could always box him if he got to be too irritating. ;-)
Oooo! Nice!
Oh wow, tough choice…
I think I would go with either Conner from Jennifer A Neilsen's Ascendance Trilogy, the Sons of Feanor, maybe even Feanor himself, from Tolkien's Silmarillion, or Abreha from Elizabeth E Wein's Arthurian/Aksumite Cycle.
Conner wouldn't be too bad, aside from probably being rather stuck-up; if it ever came down to a shortage of resources, though, I would definitely arm myself with a makeshift spear (thankfully there are no swords on the island, or I would be toast) and sleep with one eye open at all times, preferably in a tree with self-made alarms of some sort. But, since he is as mortal as me and would very likely want off the island as soon as possible, he would be easy to at least be allies with as long as the food holds out.
With the Feanorians I would feel perfectly safe with any or all of them so long as I didn't have a Silmaril, and they didn't take the dragon I was riding as a sign I was a servant of Morgoth (actually, that's very likely…I'd have to talk pretty fast, I think, if I wanted to survive more than five minutes after the crash). If I could talk them out of killing me, Feanor or Caranthir would be the best for actually getting off the island, what with them both being craftsmen of high repute, but I think Maglor would be the nicest to hang with while waiting for rescue. If I were stuck with all eight of them, I would at least never get bored, and all that Elvish muscle would be great for building a get-away raft.
Abreha would also be someone I would feel safe with, so long as I hold no high position in a rival government that he feels needs to be vacated (though murder really isn't his style, so maybe I'd be safe even were that the case), and didn't have any connections that would make holding me hostage of political benefit to him. Plus, he is najashi of Himyar, so if he goes missing for any amount of time his people would probably send out the navy looking for him, hopefully saving us in short order.
Haha, wow, that got long. I know the question was what "villain", but my mind got spinning, and I just couldn't help considering "villains". :)