The villainous bottom part of Raphael’s 1506 painting St George and the Dragon, featuring the dragon of course – boo!

TOP 10 VILLAINS OF MYTHOLOGY (SPECIAL MENTION)

Few things are as fundamental to mythology as heroes, but what often distinguishes mythic heroes is the depravity and destructive power of their antagonists, the villains of mythology.

I’ve counted down my Top 10 Villains of Mythology but there’s more than enough mythic villains and villainy for my usual twenty special mentions per top ten, given all the various villains of all the various mythologies.

Just a reminder of my criteria of villainy from my Top 10 Villains of Mythology – firstly, there’s the scale of how villainous they are in their moral character or ethos, and secondly, there’s the scale of how powerful they are, ranging up to villains capable of damning or destroying the world.

Finally, iconic status – and above all my idiosyncratic preference – tends to trump all, although of course iconic status is usually gained from other criteria in the first place, with the most evil and destructive villains being most iconic in popular culture or imagination. However, iconic status is qualified by my greater familiarity with European or Western mythologies, which might overshadow iconic status within non-Western mythologies.