The Creepiest

[Kered he/him]

Had this discussion with my writing group today in regards to coming up with skin-crawling creepy characters. We talked about the creepiest characters in the fantasy genre and what made them resonate that way. Sometimes it's just tiny, unnerving mannerisms, other times it just the character in totality. I thought I'd share some of the more interesting ones here and see what other ones people can come up with. 

SPOILERS FOR VARIOUS FANTASY SERIES

 

 

First is Murder Sharp from the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. This guy is at the top of my list for sure. The way he changes and licks his different sets of teeth compounded with the way he gives pointers on dental hygiene creep me out to no end. For the some reason when ever Weeks mentions how his breath constantly smells like mint leaf when ever he changes sets just makes me cringe. On top of all that Murder Sharp has excellent evil dialogue that just shows he's just an insane killer that wears the teeth of his victims. 

SA character next, Nale. This one is kinda tricky cus I don't think Nale is constantly creepy, only in scenes that show is insanity by lack of mercy. With the image we had in our heads of the people on Roshar thinking the Heralds are beyond reproach and beings of benevolent, the stark reality of the situation is kind of sketch. I think the creepiest thing about Nale is when is utterly expressionless face is described, makes me think of him as just dead inside and his only emotion is some primal instinct to seek justice with out a mercy. When a character as powerful as Nale heads in that direction the results are always bad. 

Elva from the Inheritance Cycle. Simply said, everything about her is creepy. Her fully developed woman voice with the appearance of a child, the scary and troubling things she says as a result of her power and the way that she always seems to be in the background. 

Nahadon from the Inheritance Trilogy. I've said so before on here that the Inheritance Cycle, in my opinion, has the best written "Gods" in any fantasy series ever. N.K does a perfect job of describing their power, nature and mystery. She has awesome scenes where the gods show just how powerful they are. She did it so well that I think that if the fantasy style gods did exist in our world, they would be like The Three. Out of all of them Nahadon, god of Chaos and night, is by far the most disturbing. I can't do it justice by explaining it, as any words I could come up with would dramatically undersell it. Just read it. Almost every encounter with Nahadon you get the sense of a true god of chaos. What's creepier is that it doesn't come off as the proto "evil chaos god guy" it comes of as the world can't exist without chaos. Naha is neither good or evil, he is simply a primal force that needs to be in order to maintain existence. If you do read the book, or already have, I think his scene in book 1 with his fight with that army and in book 3 when he's looking down on the Maelstrom are the best scenes that describe his character. 

 

[Niteshado he/him]

oh my god Murder Sharp is different for sure, dude is way creepy and awesome. the fact he pulled his own teeth out for punishment. 

Also from brent weeks: Hu Gibbet from the Night Angel Trilogy. Maybe not the creepiest, but he was creepy and was nuts overall and always overboard on his kills. liked to take his time.