The most terrifying character.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:18 AM, Staenbridge said:

I'd argue for the Lord Ruler in this category, myself. Sure, he doesn't have the spikes through the eyes, but imagine watching someone walk out of a burning building with half of their face missing, impaled by spears, bones visible, flesh charred, and then have them look at you with an expression of "you're next". 

Any full feruchemist/allomancer Compounder has that, but IMO TLR has a sort of flair for it that makes him much more intimidating in a book. Inquisitors you kind of expect to be inhuman, what with their spikes, but Rashek cultivates a much more "Übermensch" vibe in everything he does. An Inquisitor always tends to appear more monster than man.

Different kind of intimidation, y'know?

I always got a spoiled brat vide from Rashek. He’s only intimidating because of his powers. At the end of the day he’s lazy and stupid. Anyone else with the same powers would be more intimidating imo.

[Failsafe]

I think Denth and Tonk Fah, while not necessarily being the scariest, deserve an honorable mention simply because they were able to gain Vivenna's trust so easily. That level of manipulation is pretty dang creepy.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:18 AM, Staenbridge said:

I'd argue for the Lord Ruler in this category, myself. Sure, he doesn't have the spikes through the eyes, but imagine watching someone walk out of a burning building with half of their face missing, impaled by spears, bones visible, flesh charred, and then have them look at you with an expression of "you're next". 

Any full feruchemist/allomancer Compounder has that, but IMO TLR has a sort of flair for it that makes him much more intimidating in a book. Inquisitors you kind of expect to be inhuman, what with their spikes, but Rashek cultivates a much more "Übermensch" vibe in everything he does. An Inquisitor always tends to appear more monster than man.

Different kind of intimidation, y'know?

I always got a spoiled brat vide from Rashek. He’s only intimidating because of his powers. At the end of the day he’s lazy and stupid. Anyone else with the same powers would be more intimidating imo.

[Honorless]

He is a spoiled brat, but a spoiled brat with terrible powers is pretty dang terrifying

[GoWibble]

I don't know, but what abt Odium.... or Ruin.... or even Autonomy. The Shards are pretty freaky 

[Eugenides]

This is certainly an interesting question. I don't know if Odium would be scary per say because he is a completely terrifying, awe inspiring divinity. You aren't scared of someone like that, you trembling in fear, completely paralyzed, unable to do anything.

I would agree that TLR is pretty terrifying, but in general, so long as you showed him proper deference, you would come out of it alive. So while he is scary, I wouldn't say he is the most scary.

SPOILERS

Inquisitors would definitely be creepy and intimidating, but now that they are mostly dead, and those that remain are under Harmony's control, instead of Ruin's I think that they would be ok.

I would posit that Jasnah Kholin might be the scariest figure in the Cosmere. Sure she is technically a "good guy" but she is completely pragmatic and way more intelligent than you. Whenever you were in her presence, you would know that you were intellectually outmatched and that she would have no qualms about vaporizing you if she thinks you are a threat.

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[NameIess]

On 5/19/2020 at 4:10 PM, Eugenides said:

I would posit that Jasnah Kholin might be the scariest figure in the Cosmere. Sure she is technically a "good guy" but she is completely pragmatic and way more intelligent than you. Whenever you were in her presence, you would know that you were intellectually outmatched and that she would have no qualms about vaporizing you if she thinks you are a threat.

Jasnah doesn't just kill people out of hand. She might order you assassinated, but I doubt she'd murder you in cold blood. I would be more scared by people like Ishar or Nale, insanely skilled and insanely mad.

[Eugenides]

On 5/25/2020 at 9:09 PM, Nameless said:

Jasnah doesn't just kill people out of hand. She might order you assassinated, but I doubt she'd murder you in cold blood. I would be more scared by people like Ishar or Nale, insanely skilled and insanely mad.

She doesn't kill you without a reason, yes, but her reasons are sometimes a bit odd. "I want to teach a philosophical lesson to my student, let's tempt a bunch of thieves to attack someone with insane magical powers, and then use that power to kill all of them, even those that are no longer threatening me, but are running from this demon lady who can turn a man into crystal or flame." Furthermore, Jasnah does everything in cold blood. That's what makes her scary. She considers killing a family member when she realizes he is somewhat connected to the enemy, and almost goes through with it. Powerful  People without values are dangerous, they are unpredictable and chaotic. Powerful people who have values that make you out to be a threat are deadly, as they cannot be appeased, they cannot be bought off or escaped. They will hunt you down, for better or worse, and deal with you one way or another. 

Ergo, Jasnah is the most terrifying character.

[NameIess]

2 hours ago, Eugenides said:

She doesn't kill you without a reason, yes, but her reasons are sometimes a bit odd. "I want to teach a philosophical lesson to my student, let's tempt a bunch of thieves to attack someone with insane magical powers, and then use that power to kill all of them, even those that are no longer threatening me, but are running from this demon lady who can turn a man into crystal or flame." Furthermore, Jasnah does everything in cold blood. That's what makes her scary. She considers killing a family member when she realizes he is somewhat connected to the enemy, and almost goes through with it. Powerful  People without values are dangerous, they are unpredictable and chaotic. Powerful people who have values that make you out to be a threat are deadly, as they cannot be appeased, they cannot be bought off or escaped. They will hunt you down, for better or worse, and deal with you one way or another. 

But it's fairly easy to keep her from killing you. All you have to do is not work against Dalinar or with Odium.

[greenelisha]

On 15.5.2020 at 2:01 AM, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I always got a spoiled brat vide from Rashek. He’s only intimidating because of his powers. At the end of the day he’s lazy and stupid. Anyone else with the same powers would be more intimidating imo.

I got more of a "weary" feeling from him. All the other character's actions were just child's play to him, and he couldn't really care about them because he's seen it all so often before.

The only time he felt like a spoiled brat was in SH, meeting Kelsier at the well of ascension, where he basically pouted about how ungratefull the skaa were.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

1 hour ago, greenelisha said:

I got more of a "weary" feeling from him. All the other character's actions were just child's play to him, and he couldn't really care about them because he's seen it all so often before.

The only time he felt like a spoiled brat was in SH, meeting Kelsier at the well of ascension, where he basically pouted about how ungratefull the skaa were.

My biggest grievance with him was how stupid he was really. He could have given the nine Lerasium beads to female Feruchemists and started making babies. Scadrial would be populated with Fullborn and it wouldn’t matter what the climate looked like.

Every thousand years they could have used the Well to spruce the place up a little.

[Darkfinder]

4 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

My biggest grievance with him was how stupid he was really. He could have given the nine Lerasium beads to female Feruchemists and started making babies. Scadrial would be populated with Fullborn and it wouldn’t matter what the climate looked like.

Every thousand years they could have used the Well to spruce the place up a little.

He did not want any other fullborn running around to challenge him so giving beads to feruchemists would be detrimental to his security as a ruler.

He also did not rule for a thousand years so he couldn't have patched the world up because he died before then.

Though he was very petty, spiteful and was a bad leader.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Darkfinder

[StanLemon]

Rashek was insane, spiteful, egotistical, and a supremacist yes. Stupid he was not. He could read people well enough to always know when they were directly lying to him. Then there is the whole thing with the storage caches. His loss to Vin mostly because he was overconfident from not being truly challenged in centuries and even then it was only because of a literal deus ex machina

[Frustration]

55 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

My biggest grievance with him was how stupid he was really. He could have given the nine Lerasium beads to female Feruchemists and started making babies. Scadrial would be populated with Fullborn and it wouldn’t matter what the climate looked like.

Every thousand years they could have used the Well to spruce the place up a little.

I consider myself pretty good at finding world breaking exploits and I never saw that.

[Spren of Kindness]

In terms of power?  Odium.  In terms of personality?  Jasnah.  In terms of personal wow-this-guy-is-scary, Zane, Denth, and Tonk Fah.

[Darkfinder]

Just now, Spren of Kindness said:

In terms of personal wow-this-guy-is-scary, Zane, Denth, and Tonk Fah.

I don't find Zane scary at all due to how whiny and annoying he is all the time.

Though Tonk Fah and Denth were quite scary.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

10 hours ago, Darkfinder said:

He did not want any other fullborn running around to challenge him so giving beads to feruchemists would be detrimental to his security as a ruler.

He also did not rule for a thousand years so he couldn't have patched the world up because he died before then.

Though he was very petty, spiteful and was a bad leader.

The fact that he chose to be a pure authoritarian rather than the first among equals belies his stupidity. When faced with the decision between and world where no one wants for anything (Fullborn would be able to survive on Scadrial even if it was completely uninhabitable for normal humans), and a world where everyone is a worm under his boot, ultimately leading to his death, he chose the latter. He is selfish and stupid. He did what he did for stupid reasons. Therefore, IMO, he’s stupid. All of the “I know when you’re lying” stuff is just him using Allomancy and Feruchemy, not any latent intellect.

Edited July 12, 2020 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Spren of Kindness]

9 hours ago, Darkfinder said:

I don't find Zane scary at all due to how whiny and annoying he is all the time.

Though Tonk Fah and Denth were quite scary.

Zane was scary to me because of that one scene where he picks up the knife and starts cutting himself, and the fact that he had a voice telling him to kill everyone.  But he was pretty whiny.

[StanLemon]

3 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The fact that he chose to be a pure authoritarian rather than the first among equals belies his stupidity. When faced with the decision between and world where no one wants for anything (Fullborn would be able to survive on Scadrial even if it was completely uninhabitable for normal humans), and a world where everyone is a worm under his boot, ultimately leading to his death, he chose the latter. He is selfish and stupid. He did what he did for stupid reasons. Therefore, IMO, he’s stupid. All of the “I know when you’re lying” stuff is just him using Allomancy and Feruchemy, not any latent intellect.

And if one of those Fullborn betrayed and killed him? What if Ruin managed to corrupt enough of them? He actually had a good reason (from his perspective) to become a pure authoritarian. You make far to much of an assumption that things would just work out and doesn't really help your argument. He felt he couldn't take those risks so he didn't, that doesn't make him stupid. Imagine if he did make more Fullborn, then imagine that they didn't take his warnings of Ruin seriously enough, then imagine if Ruin spent centuries corrupting them. The end state could very well have been worse than The Final Empire

And yes he used Allomancy and Feruchemy to know when people are lying but to do so would require great skill to do. 

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

If Trell is an avatar of Autonomy, like they appear to be, then I would have to go with Autonomy.

Major mistborn era 2 spoilers

Spoiler

The dog like horrors that were obviously humanoid who had been spiked with Trellium were terrifying, Paalm the rogue Trellium spiked Kandra was a great and terrifying villain and how Suit was blown up by the Red Eyed Faceless Immortal after being told that Trell no longer needed their organization was also very terrifying. Miles hundred lives last words have that distinctive ring of the insane belief that lies behind a doomsday cult, and the strange exposition by Paalm about freedom and not being someone's puppet, when she was obviously being controlled and manipulated by Trell shows a very scary baseline psychology for Trell. This is in keeping with Bavadin's letters, and even the nature of the avatar Patji. It's a cruel, ends justify the means sort of world view, and at least in Mustborn Era 2, how the adherents of this philosophy apply it is truly terrifying.

 

[trav]

all of the Inquisitors. the Nightmaws.

 

TLR was too stressed out already by the time we saw him. he was tired of it all. the Inquisitors on the other hand were still eager and brutal to the core.

and the Nightmaws drawing closed was the most intense moment in any of the cosmere books I've read so far.

[StormlightNerd]

Spoiler

Szeth. With Nightblood. As a Skybreaker of the Third Ideal. And he's out to kill you.

Don't know if this counts as a spoiler or not... Playing it safe

[Skylicus23]

On 5/13/2020 at 3:21 AM, Crimson_Russ said:

Mine is Taravangian. 

 

Someone so set in their ways, so sure of their path, despite the deviations in their supposedly set path, should be feared.

 

Not feared because they're intimidating, or their insane, but because they won't accept any other possibilities. 

 

Taravangian terrifying because he believes he's infallible. Willing to murder, destroy, betray, and sow general chaos, the man needs to be reigned in or they're all going to damnation.

This. The subtle unknown atrocities are always scarier than the obvious evil no matter how powerful that evil is IMO.

[Nuatoma]

Here are my most terrifying characters:

• Scadrial:  Has to be the Steel Inquisitors.  Even on rereads they give me the willies.  Raging Koloss get an honorable mention.
• Roshar:  I'd be most terrified being tied up and facing The Hog. Or being in a chasm with a chasmfiend snooping around.  If we only want real characters; has to be insane Szeth

Other mentions go to Dilaf, Shades, and nightmaws.  All of Patji sounds like the King Kong island.  That movie gave me nightmares lol.

 

Edit:  Upon reviewing, it would seem I am most terrified of crazy things/people that can't/won't be reasoned with.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Nuatoma