Relief fragment of Mara in Gandhara style, found in Swat Valley – phorograph by Under the Bo in Wikipedia “Mara” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

(12) MARA

Although Mara has origins in Hindu mythology – “He is Yama’s fearsome persona and all beings associated with him, darkness and death, become forces of Mara – he takes his true shape as a “malicious force” in the Buddhist counterpart of the Temptation of Christ.

Indeed, I prefer the Buddhist version of the Temptation under the Bo Tree. The Temptation of Christ worked best in the more effective brief version of it in the Gospel of Mark but otherwise can come across as a dry rabbinical debate. In the Temptation of Buddha, Mara cuts to the chase with the more elemental forces of s€x and violence – something echoed in the version of the Temptation of Christ in the the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis.

“In the story of the Awakening of Prince Siddhartha, Mara appears as a powerful deva trying to seduce him with his celestial army and a vision of beautiful maidens…who, in various legends, are often said to be Mara’s daughters”.

His daughters are hot, though.

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Set as he appears in his standard design from the Smite 2 video game

(11) SET

And ass-headed Set brayed in the desert…

Set often strikes me as similar to Loki, except more loyal when in balance or harmony with the rest of the Egyptian pantheon, until he was transformed into their antagonist. For example, he had a positive role where he accompanied Ra on the solar barque to repel Apep or Apophis, the serpent of chaos who would otherwise be the foremost villain of Egyptian mythology but for Set’s infamy.

However, with a divine brief as the god of the desert – lord of the Red Land as opposed to Horus as Lord of the Black Land or fertile land of the Nile – it was perhaps inevitable that Set would assume an antagonistic role, again as opposed to Horus, infamously by killing the father of Horus and husband of Isis, Osiris.

That ass-headed reference might not be accurate – “in art, Set is usually depicted as an enigmatic creature referred to by Egyptologists as the Set animal, a beast not identified with any known animal, although it could be seen as resembling a Saluki, an aardvark, an African wild dog, a donkey, a jackal, a hyena, a pig, an antelope, a giraffe or a fennec fox”. Of course, I prefer the ass version.

Interestingly, it may not have been so much his role as god of the desert that cast him as villainous but his role as god of foreigners, with the foreign conquests of Egypt – “Set’s negative aspects were emphasized during this period. Set was the killer of Osiris, having hacked Osiris’ body into pieces and dispersed it so that he could not be resurrected. The Greeks would later associate Set with Typhon and Yahweh”(!) – “a monstrous and evil force of raging nature (being the three of them depicted as donkey-like creatures).”

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Chaos Monster and Sun God – a drawing of a Mesopotamian bas-relief, often associated with the battle of Marduk and Tiamat (but variously interpreted) – ‘Monuments of Nineveh, Second Series’ plate 5, London, J. Murray, 1853, ditor Austen Henry Layard , drawing by L. Gruner

(10) TIAMAT

Like my special mention for Orcus and Demogorgon, Tiamat is a mythological villain raised in profile by her adaptation in Dungeons and Dragons.

In fairness, Tiamat started with a higher – and more defined – profile in mythology than Orcus or Demogorgon. She was the primordial sea in Mesopotamian mythology – essentially that recurring mythic archetype of chaos monster.

And yes, I said she – Tiamat was very much a female figure, indeed a maternal one, as mother of monsters as well as the first deities and creation itself, albeit that last was not by giving birth but by her bodily dismemberment by the god Marduk.

“It was once thought that the myth of Tiamat was one of the earliest recorded versions of a Chaoskampf, a mythological motif that generally involves the battle between a culture hero and a chthonic or aquatic monster, serpent, or dragon.”

Tiamat was reborn as an arch-villain of Dungeons and Dragons – distinctively as a multi-headed dragon.

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Collage of the first edition D & D Monster Manual art for Orcus (left) and Demogorgon (right), the latter the model for the figurine in Stranger Things. In my opinion, Demogorgon definitely won out between them in art – but both benefited from the more refined art throughout subsequent editions

(9) ORCUS & DEMOGORGON

Yes – it’s another of my matched pair of villains, originating in classical mythology or literature (kind of) but raised in profile and matched as a pair by their adaptation as demon lords in Dungeons and Dragons.

Demogorgon has achieved particular pop culture status through adaptation as an extra-dimensional antagonist in the Stranger Things TV series, especially in the first season when it was a singular antagonist, the Demogorgon – although people forget that within the narrative of the first season, the characters called it the Demogorgon based on its visual resemblance to a figurine of the Dungeons and Dragons demon lord.

“Orcus was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in Etruscan and Roman mythology. As with Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself”. Ultimately, he was conflated with the primary god of the underworld (Hades or Pluto).

TV Tropes has a trope for Orcus on his throne, where an antagonist is powerful to the point of potential victory or “the potential to wipe out the forces of good” but seemingly sits around doing nothing. It’s a surprisingly prolific trope.

Ironically for his higher profile, Demogorgon is less clear in origin as a deity or demon associated with the underworld. “Although often ascribed to Greek mythology, the name probably arises from an unknown copyist’s misreading of a commentary by a fourth-century scholar…The concept itself can be traced back to the original misread term demiurge”.

Interestingly, John Milton paired Orcus with Demogorgon in Paradise Lost (among Demogorgon’s other surprisingly prolific references in literature or poetry) but it’s their pairing as demon lords in Dungeons and Dragons that earns them their entry here as a matched pair – particularly that they were famously antagonistic to each other in the game lore.

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Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybis, painting by Henry Fuseli, 1794-1796. Pretty sure that’s Scylla top right and Charybdis top left

(8) SCYLLA & CHARYBDIS

Yes – it’s another matched pair of villains, but from classical mythology and a pair that was canonically matched in their mythology.

Scylla and Charybdis were two sea monsters that Odysseus had to sail between in Homer’s Odyssey.

“Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, on the Italian mainland…They were regarded as maritime hazards located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa.”

However, they weren’t equal hazards. Of the two, Charybdis was far more dangerous. Whereas Scylla would snatch up six sailors – one for each of her six ravenous heads – Charybdis would suck the whole ship down to the depths. Accordingly, you’d err on the side of Scylla.

And yes – you read that right when I said her. Scylla and Charybdis were female sea monsters. In the usual style of classical mythology, they were nymphs or demi-goddesses transformed into monsters by the gods. In some later versions, Scylla was adapted as a beautiful nymph transformed into her monstrous form. The reasons varied – as did the form, although it consistently involved six man-eating heads, which she would feed by snatching sailors from passing ships. In one version, the heads were those of dogs. Charybdis was somewhat more ambiguous in her origin and form, but the latter consistently involved her sucking or swallowing down water like a whirlpool or maelstrom.

Indeed, Charybdis was rationalized as an explanation for a coastal whirlpool, while Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal, presumably with waves that could sweep sailors from a ship.

Between Scylla and Charybdis became a proverbial expression similar in meaning to between the devil and the deep blue sea, or similar expressions for a dilemma or choosing between evils. Indeed, I used to believe that the latter originated from the former, with Scylla as the man-eating devil and Charybdis swallowing you down into the deep blue sea. Sadly, the origin of the latter phrase is not clear but probably does not originate from the Odyssey.

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Beelzebub’s appearance from the Dictionnaire Infernal in 1818 and Baphomet as depicted by Eliphas Levi in 1856, both public domain images

(7) BEELZEBUB & BAPHOMET

Yes – it’s my fourth matched pair of villains from Biblical mythology and second alliterative one (after Moloch and Mammon).

Or maybe not, since while Beelzebub is canonical to the Bible (in both Testaments), Baphomet is not – although ironically Baphomet has a stronger influence on the visual iconography of the Christian Devil as goat or so-called Sabbath goat.

Similarly to Moloch, Beelzebub is derived from a Canaanite (or Philistine) god – Baal, although that name is an honorific title meaning “lord” and hence was somewhat generic for gods, clarified by epithets hence the latter part of Beelzebub’s name, apparently from Ba’al Zabub or something similar. I say something similar because again like Moloch, there are variant names or titles – with the most famous as Lord of the Flies, the titular metaphor for human savagery in the novel by William Golding. My love of that novel is a major reason for his inclusion as special mention, although that in turn reflects that sheer evocative resonance which underlies other special mention entries.

Beelzebub pops up as Baal in the Old Testament but is even more notably name-dropped in the New Testament by none other than Jesus himself – which has seen him placed high in Hell’s hierarchy by Christian folklore, even as high as second in command as in Paradise Lost.

Baphomet has no such Biblical pedigree and the first reference to him by name only emerges as the demonic idol of which the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping in their fourteenth century trials for heresy. His subsequent infamy belies such an obscure or esoteric origin, which might otherwise have been relegated to a historical footnote but for him being reimagined by nineteenth century occultists – it is that infamy that sees him ranked with Beelzebub in this special mention, apart from my usual predilection for alliteration.

“The modern popular image of Baphomet was established by Eliphas Levi in…1856” – that of the “Sabbatic Goat” as an unsavory winged human-goat hybrid that has been the iconic image of the Devil in popular culture ever since.

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Collage of Yorkshire pigs at a wallow in mud at the Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary in Poolesville, Maryland (evoking the Gadarene swine in the story of Legion) as photographed by Mark Peters and licensed for Wikipedia “Pig” under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en and Artemisia herb-alba (a plant believed to be the original wormwood as source for the bitter Biblical metaphor) photographed by Floratrek and licensed for Wikipedia “Wormwood (Bible)” under  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

(6) LEGION & WORMWOOD

Yes – it’s my third matched pair of villains from Biblical mythology but in this case, they are both from the New Testament, as Behemoth and Leviathan are both from the Old Testament.

Legion and Wormwood stand out among the demonic beings referenced in the New Testament because of their sheer evocative resonance.

Legion is the more chilling of the two, from the declaration of their identity “I am Legion, for we are many” – connoting “a large collection of demons that share a single mind and will” in the gospel incident (in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke) variously described as the Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac or the Miracle of the Gadarene Swine. That is, where Jesus exorcises a demonic horde from a man into a herd of swine, which then run down a hill to a lake and drown themselves.

One can’t help but feel the original story may not have been so much literal but a parable against the Romans controlling Judaea, given the demonic self-description evoking a Roman legion and that they are driven into pigs, the archetypal unclean animal of Jewish ritual – and also evocative of the boar emblem of the Tenth Legion that was centrally involved in the first Roman-Jewish War.

Wormwood – or more precisely Star Wormwood – on the other hand has his, her or its singular appearance in the Book of Apocalypse, as a prophesied star or angel that falls from heaven and makes a third of fresh water “bitter” or deadly to people.

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Collage of “Offering to Molech” in “Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us” by Charles Foster in 1897 (left) and the 1909 painting “The Worship of Mammon” by Evelyn De Morgan (right) – in fairness, of the two here, Mammon looks the better deal as he’s giving something to his worshipper rather than the other way round – and a child at that – for Moloch

(5) MOLOCH & MAMMON

Yes – it’s another matched pair of villains from Biblical mythology but I just can’t resist them as an alliterative matching pair, one each from Old Testament and New Testament.

With variant spellings, Moloch “is a word that appears in the Old Testament several times, primarily in the Book of Leviticus”, usually to connote and condemn practices “which are heavily implied to include child sacrifice”.

Traditionally, Moloch has been understood to mean a Canaanite god to whom such sacrifices were made, although it has been argued to mean the sacrifice itself.

Whatever the case, “since the medieval period, Moloch has often been portrayed as a bull-headed idol with outstretched hands over a fire; this depiction takes the brief mentions of Moloch in the Bible and combines them with various sources, including ancient accounts of Carthaginian child sacrifice and the legend of the Minotaur”.

That’s for his visual iconography but Moloch has an enduring resonance as a metaphor for a monstrous force feeding on sacrifice for its own sake, particularly of children or innocents – imagining the future as a boot stamping on a child’s face forever, as it were.

Where Moloch has enduring resonance as a metaphor for sacrificial violence, his alliterative New Testament counterpart Mammon does so as metaphor for money or greed. The word is used by Jesus in two Gospels (Matthew and Luke) where he said “you cannot serve both God and Mammon”.

While Mammon has generally been understood to originate from a term for money, that term has been proposed to originate from “a Syrian deity, god of riches”, although no trace of such a Syrian deity exists. In any event, Mammon was soon personified as a demon of greed and he’s had quite the career in literary or popular culture ever since – most memorably for me in Milton’s Paradise Lost, where even as an angel in heaven before his fall, he was more interested in heaven’s pavements of gold.

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Aww – they’re adorable! Behemoth and Leviathan, watercolor by William Blake from his Illustrations of the Book of Job (1826)

(4) LEVIATHAN & BEHEMOTH

And now it’s time for a series of special mention entries consisting of matched pairs of mythological villains, commencing with the most primeval Biblical beasts of all, the ur-beasts, arguably greater than even the most apocalyptic beasts – Behemoth and Leviathan.

They appear in most detail in the Book of Job, effectively as a matching set. The central plot of the Book of Job essentially has God and Satan playing cosmic poker, using Job and his family as chips. Behemoth and Leviathan appear almost as a tangent, when God is telling off Job for questioning God’s questionable poker game. As usual, God appeals to His own greatness, which He demonstrates by stating that even primal chaos monsters such as Behemoth and Leviathan are basically just His pets.

God expounds on Behemoth in Chapter 40 in the Book of Job as some primal beast of the land – “Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you; it eats grass like an ox. Its strength is in its loins and its power is in the muscles of its belly”. Although Behemoth has typically been identified as an extremely large or powerful mythic beast, it has also been associated with more mundane animals – usually a hippopotamus, but also an elephant, rhinoceros or buffalo (while creationists have seen it and Leviathan as dinosaurs).

However, poor Behemoth has been overshadowed by his aquatic and serpentine counterpart, Leviathan, the primal beast of the sea or water. Leviathan’s most distinctive appearance is in the chapter following that for Behemoth, Chapter 41 of the Book of Job, in which God goes fishing. Unlike Behemoth, Leviathan is also mentioned elsewhere in the Bible, typically as a poetic image or reference, and is identified in the Book of Isaiah as a serpent or dragon of the sea. Accordingly, Leviathan has typically been identified as an aquatic beast, following in the Near East mythic traditions of sea serpents or monsters, with the Babylonian Tiamat coming to mind (or the Nordic Midgard Serpent for that matter). Or maybe it was just a crocodile. After all, those things are scary enough…

Both have entered popular parlance but again Leviathan has overshadowed Behemoth – while both have been adapted as words signifying “something overwhelmingly huge, powerful, or monstrous”, leviathan tends to have the more common usage, boosted among other things by its use by Hobbes for the title of his book on political philosophy (essentially signifying the state’s monopoly on violence).

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Collage of Death (left) and The Devil (right) from the most iconic modern Tarot deck, the Rider-Waite Tarot deck designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman-Smith (first published by William Rider & Son in 1909, hence the name) – public domain image

(3) TAROT – DEATH & THE DEVIL

The Tarot may have its mystique and even its mythos, but does it have villains?

O yes – hence this special mention, drawn from the archetypal characters of individual cards, particularly those of the more iconic Major Arcana or “trumps” of the Tarot.

But are there enough ‘villainous’ cards of the Tarot for their own top ten?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, in that all or almost all cards of the Tarot have their dark inversions or negative connotations and are therefore capable of being villainous cards in that respect. Setting that aside, twelve cards of the Major Arcana – from the Hermit as ninth card through to Judgement as the twentieth card – are ‘underworld’ cards, depicting figures of the mythic narrative of the Fool’s descent into the underworld or hero’s journey, and are hence potentially ‘villainous’ cards.

And no, because when you come down to it, there are only three unequivocally ‘villainous’ cards that are also the infamous trinity of cards one flinches at in readings as ‘bad’ – Death, the Devil, and the Tower Struck by Lightning.

Unequivocally ‘villainous’ that is, in the sense that they are not also at the same time among my heroes or girls of the Tarot – only as ‘villains’, even if they can have positive interpretations. Aptly enough for a card midway through the Tarot, the Death card has interpretations of a new beginning after an end, rebirth or transformation – famously in that episode of The Simpsons with Lisa’s future foretold by a Tarot reading, although it added its own ominous card of The Happy Squirrel.

Of this trinity, I rank Death and the Devil in this special mention, given that the Tower Struck by Lightning does not feature a distinctive figure as such but instead evokes an impersonal force of destruction. Death of course features the personification of death, while the Devil is the literal personification of evil. The visual design of the latter card in the Rider Waite Tarot deck sees the latter and raises it even higher in evil stakes, as a dark inversion of the card of The Lovers, including the two figures of the Lovers themselves, now demonic figures chained to the Devil’s altar – and of the backdrop of Hell now substituted for the Garden of Eden.

RATING: 5 STARS*****

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