I thought the Chairman of the "Investigative Committee" of the Lunar Authority in Agra was a well-drawn, believable villain type. He may have been more of a pompous ass rather than a villain, but he certainly had villainous qualities, including being perfectly willing to see Prof die and Manny betray his homeland.

I think we all know this wasn't one of his strengths --he doesn't seem to have been interested in it being one of his strengths. "No man is a villain in his own mind" is one quote from him. His villains tend to be either large, impersonal and off-screen; alienly ununderstandable (Puppet Masters); off-screen entirely (say The Prophet); or buffoonish caricatures that a writer of his skill must be assumed to have drawn them that way on purpose (Mrs. Keithley, for instance).

So in a moment of daydreaming today, I tried to think of some relatively well drawn and believable human villains in Heinlein. I came up with five, four in the juveniles.

Starman Jones: Assistant Astrogator Simes
Between Planets: The internal security guy at the beginning.
Tunnel in the Sky: Grant Cowper
The Door Into Summer: Miles Gentry (but most assuredly NOT Belle Darkin)
Citizen of the Galaxy: "Uncle" John Weemsby

Discuss.

Edit: Added Weemsby, who should have occurred to me first, actually. . .

Geo,

Good topic, your coments on Starman Jones are very good.

I don't see Grant Cowper as a villian. He is a guy who has the itch for political power and he
manipulates the others into voting for him as group leader. The reader has been manipulated
by RAH to see Rod as the "hero" of the book, but that doesn't mean Grant is evil.

If Grant had survived he would have returned to civilization he would have done his best
to use his experiance as Mayor to gain a place in the power structure of some colony or better yet in the govertment on Earth. After his experiance as mayor Grant probably would have done a good job where ever he ended up.

How about the commander in the “Long Watch”

Most of the ones listed, like Simes are not so much evil as they have some personality disorder that makes them not fit to be a member of the society that they are in.

Ah, it's been awhile since I re-read The Long Watch, but that does sound like a possible.

Don't get too hung up on "villain" literally in the Snidely Whiplash mold. If you prefer "antagonist" that's fine too. I like the way "villain" sounds (and of course there was Robert's quote handy to get me started). I intended for that to be clear by putting the "buffoonish caricatures" sub-catagory in there, and then excluding it --sorry if it wasn't.

Obviously Grant Cowper from Tunnel, who I listed originally, is no Snidely Whiplash. Nor is Simes (tho he is a notch or two closer to it).

In fact, we can't even be sure that John Weemsby is a dyed in the wool bastich. There is the *suggestion* in Thorby's mind that perhaps Weemsby was actually responsible for his parents' death and his own enslavement --but it is left as part of the unfinished business of the book. And part of why I think Citizen has always cried out for at least a sequel, and maybe even trilogy --the "unfinished business" left over is quite considerable.

But anyway, it's at least possible that Weemsby is no more than a grown up version of Grant Cowper on the "villain scale".

Ahhh. . . The Glaroon from They actually isn't too bad either, is he? We're starting to get a decent sized list here. Not sure that he's actually human, but he could be.

Simes may have started out that way, but destroying the astrogration books is fairly called "evil." Aquinas' definition that evil is "good pursued badly" fits. If you are so interested in power and position that you willfully condemn the dozens-- hundreds? -- of people, then that is the very definition of evil so far as I can tell.