Sure, Frodo’s great. Those Pevensie kids are adorable. Harry Potter’s the Arthur Pendragon of our time.

But really, how interesting are any of those characters on their own?  Where would they be if it weren’t for those evildoers out there to constantly be the thorn in their sides? When one looks at what turns a good fantasy adventure into a great one, the answer is often its antagonist, be it evil witch, sexy Goblin King, or oddly well-preserved 3,000-year-old mummy.

What makes a great fantasy villain? They have to be menacing and powerful, of course, to be a true obstacle for our hero — but that can get pretty one-note after a while. Often a fantastic villain has an air of sexual allure, something to show us that wickedness is seductive.

But let’s face it: the most important ingredient of all might be likability; we may not want to be them, but we definitely have to want to watch them.

It’s not easy to find great villains. Sure, Sauron was uber-evil, but was it really that interesting to watch a fiery eye, um, look at things really hard? David Bowie was definitely a memorable presence in The Labyrinth, but were you ever actually worried about Jennifer Connelly’s Sarah?

Listed here are eight of the most engrossing fantasy villains seen on screens large and small.

Callisto - Xena: The Warrior Princess was one of the most influential and well-loved fantasy shows of all time, but even die-hard Xenites will admit its first season was a bit … shaky while the show found its voice. All that instability ended with the introduction of its first major villain, the mega-hot psycho babe Callisto. She was Xena’s physical equal, she could shriek like a banshee, and she looked damn good in chain mail. What’s more, she began her descent into evil due to losing her family when Xena’s army killed them, thus as evil as she was, well, it was always kind of Xena’s fault. You can’t ask for a better origin story than that.

Faith - While we’re on the topic of mega-hot psycho babes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was doing fine being the Chosen One — emphasis on one – until another Slayer came to town. Sultry, slutty, and just as buff as Buffy, she owned most of Season 3 and stole every scene she was in, particular when she fully embraced her dark side and started killing people. Her path to redemption took a bunch of seasons and two series (she guest starred on the spin-off Angel several times), and though she ended up good in the end, she was great when she was bad.

Darkness - It takes a lot to have any kind of charm when you’re seven feet tall, fire engine red, and the proud owner of two ginormous ebony horns, but somehow Tim Curry managed to endow his character Darkness in Legend with an astounding suavity, which complimented his pure, vicious evil. Of course, if there’s one thing Tim Curry does well, it’s charm the hell out of us while playing purely evil characters (as evidenced by his immortal turn in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) He is the very image of the Christian devil, and his mere presence is enough to send more than few shivers down your back, and yet when he gently told Mia Sara’s Lili that he simply wanted to sit and talk with her, you couldn’t help but be intrigued. Too bad those horns are such deal-breakers.

The White Witch - Come on, admit it: you knew she was evil from the moment you saw her, but weren’t you a little jealous of Edmund Pevensie when he got cruised and picked up by the cougar witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Didn’t you want to be the one snuggling with her under that blanket, eating Turkish Delight out of her icy, delicate fingers? As played by Tilda Swinton, Narnia’s reigning beeyotch was that special kind of evil that’s also slightly delicious. Sexy one minute and harsh the next, beautiful from one angle and androgynous from another, you just couldn’t take your eyes off her.

Dracula - This is an obvious choice, sure, but how can you not include the guy who made vampires sexy long before Lestat was a glimmer in Anne Rice’s eye? Though Bela Lugosi did an admirable job, it was Gary Oldman’s portrayal in 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula that secured the Transylvanian Wonder as one of the most magnetic screen villains of all time. (Sorry, Gerard Butler in Dracula 2000. I know you tried your best.) When evil looks as good as Drac does in that gray suit and Jim Morrison sunglasses, you can see why Winona Ryder’s Mina Harker can’t keep help but steal his heart. Of course, Winona Ryder can’t help but steal a lot of things.  BURN! (Is that joke still relevant?)

Voldemort - The first time we saw him, he was a face on the back of some dude’s head. The second time, he was as a … ghost? echo? whatever, just go with it … of his effeminate teenage self. But when he burst out of a cauldron, fully reformed and snakalicious, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it was clear a bombastic new villain was in town, and he had some serious staying power. Plus he has no nose. It’s freaky.

The Wicked Witch of the West - Long before she was re-imagined by Gregory Maguire as the sympathetic Elphaba in Wicked, The Wicked Witch of the West struck terror into all of our hearts as portrayed by Margaret Hamilton in the classic Wizard of Oz. She originated almost all of the cliches we have for movie witches nowadays, and her constant, insane cackling gave many a tot nightmares for years. When she said, “I’ll get you, my pretty,” we knew she wasn’t kidding around, and that scene when Aunty Em’s image in the crystal ball turns into the snarling witch’s face has been putting money into therapist’s wallets for the better part of a century.

Darth Vader - Is it any surprise? I know there are those of you who insist Star Wars isn’t fantasy, but surely you would admit that if there’s a shred of possibility it could fit into the genre, then Darth Vader must top the list of all-time greatest fantasy villains. From his first appearance in Star Wars: A New Hope, Darth Vader was like a figure pulled right from our sub-conscious, that dark part of us that was devoid of humanity and existed solely for evil. But then as the series went on, we realized there was so much more to the guy in the walking coffin, and by series’ end, we shed a tear at his death. Now that is a great villain.

The list goes on and on. Here are a few villains that didn’t quite make the cut:

Dark Willow - Speaking of the dark side, fans of Buffy’s Willow got two opportunities to the see the normally squeaky-clean good witch go postal: the first in the third season as a vampire from an alternate reality, and the other when her girlfriend Tara was killed three years later. Willow, distraught with grief, allowed herself to be overcome by dark magic, and for three awesome episodes, we saw pure rage in human form. Fortunately for residents of Sunnydale, she wasn’t bad quite long enough to make the list.

Prince Humperdinck - Sexy? No. Pure evil? No, just kind of nasty. But Prince Humperdinck from The Princess Bride had a comic timing and flamboyant bitchiness that made him a pleasure to watch. However, he was often upstaged by Christoper Guest as the Six-Fingered Man, so it’s understandable he didn’t make the top 8. But to exclude Wallace Shawn’s diminunitve Vizzini? Inconceivable!

Dick Cheney - In an interesting departure from their usual news-only programming, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all collaborated to air an ongoing pulp serial which ran from 2000 to 2008, featuring a dastardly villain named Dick Cheney, loosely based on Gargamel from The Smurfs. Shades of 1984 and A Brave New World could be found in this colorful series about a hunch-backed old man who attempted to bring about a totalitarian dystopia, though the show lost some credibility after it had its main character “accidentally” shoot a man in the face and suffer zero legal consequences. Fortunately for fantasy fans everywhere, the news networks wised up and stopped airing this disturbing show in January of ‘09.

It used to be that when one thought of stock characters in film and TV fantasy, several archetypes came to mind: a noble hero, an amusing sidekick, a wise old man, a monstrous villain, and, of course, the damsel in distress.

In short, men acted while women watched.

If a woman had any power of her own, this was likely due to her being a wicked sorceress, because if a woman is independent, then it certainly means she must be evil. For centuries, this was the accepted paradigm.

But then something happened.

Most contemporary fantasy fans know the story: in 1995, Xena: The Warrior Princess jump-kicked onto the airwaves, featuring a lead heroine armed with a razor-sharp Aerobie and a biting wit, sword-fighting and ululating her way across our television screens each week. Xena was a new breed of fantasy heroine. An anti-damsel-in-distress, Xena was unequivocally tougher than most of the men with whom she engaged in battle, and indeed often rescued less able men from danger, subverting the old gender roles. For a genre packed to the gills with helpless maidens, she was a breath of fresh air.

Two years later, another iconic fantasy heroine staked out some new ground. Buffy the Vampire Slayer reintroduced the world to Buffy Summers, first seen in the flop 1992 film of the same name. Armed with an arsenal of medieval weapons and a collection of puns of debatable merit, Buffy hacked and slashed through hundreds of creepy crawlies throughout the course of the series, with nary a hair out of place.

Both shows ended their runs in the early 2000’s, but their popularity remains, as evidenced by their legion of fans and annual conventions held in their honor. But it is in their influence on female characters in contemporary fantasy that one can see how the legacies of Buffy and Xena truly endure.

And that influence is vast. When one takes a look back at some classic fantasy films, one can find a slew of weak, flaccid women who exist for no other purpose than to be rescued and to titillate the male viewers. Take, for instance, the exquisitely beautiful but woefully foolish Lili (Mia Sara) in Ridley Scott’s 1985 film Legend. She sure looked great standing next to that unicorn, but ultimately her character was little more than a plot device to spur her companion Jack (a pre-thetan Tom Cruise) into action.

Harry Hamlin was a dashing Perseus in Clash of the Titans, while his bride-to-be Andromeda (Judi Bowker) mostly sat on the sidelines until the final act, when she was set to be sacrificed to the Kraken, a sea monster. Fortunately Perseus saved the day by swooping in on a winged steed. (You really can’t ask for a better entrance.)

We all know The Princess Bride is a grand romantic swashbuckling adventure, but was it really so great for Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright Penn)?  Throughout the film she gets captured, recaptured, force-married, and ultimately rescued by her handsome Westley (Cary Elwes). Surely she was itching to take part in some of the movie’s infamous swordfights.

Antiquated, pre-feminist ideas of women perpetuate these movies. And they were made in the 80’s! Fortunately for female characters and the men who love them everywhere, the advent of a world post-Xena and Buffy promised a new beginning.

And it has begun. Nowadays, women do get their shots in, almost as a rule. Name a fantasy movie made since the late 90’s, and chances are it has a strong female lead.

Who can forget the gravity-ignoring aerial antics of Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Jen (Ziyi Zhang) from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Twice these characters dueled one-on-one with no men in sight. Both women prove themselves to be fighters at the top of their game, besting almost all of the men they come into contact with.

The re-imagined Catwoman, universally panned though it was, featured a new take on the character (played by a mannequin that bore a striking resemblance to Halle Berry) and endowed her with some seriously brutal capoeira skills, which makes you wonder how Eartha Kitt managed to pull off all that cat-crime just by being sexy.

The X-Men movies are filled with strong women unafraid of throwing down even with the likes of Wolverine, such as Mystique (Rebecca Romijn) and Deathstrike (Kelly Hu). Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) led a charge to retake her castle in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and held her own in a gladiator pit in Attack of the Clones.

Keira Knightly gets honors for playing two fierce ladies: Elizabeth Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and a seriously buffed-up version of Guinevere in 2004’s King Arthur.

Another double-header is Kate Beckinsale. She kicked some serious fang as Selene in the Underworld movies, and it was fun to watch her at least try it shock some life into the corpse that was Van Helsing.

And then there’s the big mama of all genre pictures. In December 2001, a tiny, low-budget indy film called Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring upped the bar for not only fantasy films, but movies in general. Adapted from one of the most beloved books of the 20th century and THE seminal fantasy story against which all other fantasy stories are judged, Rings sharply divided its audience by its handling of a particular character. In the book, the elf Arwen appears briefly in the house of Elrond, and has hardly enough time to register with readers before she is gone, only to return at the conclusion of the story, some 1000 pages later. For the movie, they didn’t just reinvent the character, they actually gave her something to do.

In the text that J.R.R. Tolkien put down, at one point the endangered hobbit Frodo is rescued by an elf named Glorfindel, who takes him to safety. Afterwards, Glorfindel disappears and is never seen again. Wanting the audience to grasp her significance in the greater scheme of the story, the filmmakers decided to have Arwen sub in for Glorfindel, providing a hero moment for the elf, even allowing her to draw her sword and challenge a host of demonic wraiths all on her own. (In another adaptation, a cartoon by Ralph Bakshi, it is Legolas who performs this rescue. Somewhere in adaptation purgatory, Glorfindel is shaking an angry fist.)

It should be noted that also featured in the Rings trilogy is the shield-maiden Eowyn, who in the final film really opens a can, killing both the pterodactyl-like Fell Beast and the powerful Witch-King. But this was no post-feminist story-tweaking: it’s right there in the book. Perhaps Tolkien, with all of his creative vision, had an inkling of the world to come.

Women have come a long way towards equality in the fantasy genre, but there are still miles to go. Numerous as the examples of strong females may be, there still persists the image of the damsel in distress, and how many of the characters listed above did their fighting while dressed in ridiculously revealing outfits? Here’s hoping the trends laid down by Buffy and Xena only continue to grow. Let’s let women kick ass and not be forced to do it in an outfit that requires any double-sided tape. We’re all looking at you, Red Sonja remake…

Like any genre, fantasy has had its share of groaning-inducing moments, in both books and film. Here are my picks for some of the absolute worst:

(1) The Giant Mole in City of Ember

In last year’s fantasy-esque movie City of Ember, about the mystery surrounding an underground city, it wasn’t enough to merely stick to the terrifically fast-paced children’s book by Jeanne Duprau on which the movie was based.

No, they had to go and add “action” and “excitement” — in the form of a giant mole. The creature shows up, completely unexplained, for a single scene, almost destroys an entire building, and then disappears again, with absolutely no mention or panic from the residents of Ember. Then at the very end, the giant mole suddenly shows up again in the most blatant case of deux-ex-machina since Ancient Greece.

The movie wasn’t great, but it was better than the studio executive who made them add that stupid giant mole.

Hiding from Ember’s stupid mole

(2) The Tri-Wizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The tasks in Goblet of Fire’s Tri-Wizard Tournament always struck me as credibility-stretchers, even within a world of wizardry. Fourteen year-old Harry has to risk being killed by a dragon?

But the second task, where Harry is required to find “important objects” in Hogwart’s Lake, is by far the most ridiculous. What are those “important objects”? Four of Harry’s friends, submerged in the lake, on the verge of death if Harry doesn’t rescue them.

If it’s all an illusion, what’s the point? But it seems pretty clear that it’s not all an illusion, especially since there is talk about how the tournament was previously discontinued for being “too dangerous.”

In other words, Dumbledore and the other teachers are just standing by while four students might die if Harry fails the task — all in the name of tradition? (Yes, yes, Dumbledore later says the whole point was to root out Voldemorte. But risking the lives of children?!)

A ridiculous plot contrivance in an otherwise interesting series.

Goblet’s stupid “task”

(3) C.S. Lewis’ Intrusive Religious Views in The Last Battle

Obviously Lewis intended his Chronicles of Narnia to be an allegory for his Christian religious beliefs, which is all well and good. But what made the books timeless classics for even non-Christians is that the stories work on several levels: the religious allegory one, but also a universal, literary one.

In short, you don’t need to be Christian to enjoy the books.

At least until The Last Battle. In the seventh book in the series, Lewis gives his inner Christian completely free reign, writing a book about “final judgment” and heaven — with a preachy, ham-fisted plot that makes almost no sense unless you’re a Christian, and subscribe to the beliefs of that mythos.

The disaster that is The Last Battle can’t mar the simple beauty of the six books that come before. But it’s a disappointment nonetheless.

(4) The Trailer for Bridge to Terabithia

As anyone who’s ever read Katherine Peterson’s classic children’s novel Bridge to Terabithia knows, it’s the understated story of two teenagers who concoct a pretend fantasy world to combat the horrors of their real lives — and the touching 2007 movie, with only modest special effects, was pretty faithful to the book’s vision.

But the trailer for that film, in one of the most misleading advertising campaigns of all time, tried to fool people who hadn’t read the book into thinking that the movie was the story of two kids who find an elaborate, and actual, fantasy world:

The stupidly misleading Terabithia trailer

(5) The “Suit of Armor” Sex in Excalibur

In Excalibur, John Boorman’s 1981 film about the Arthurian legend, Uther pretends to be the Duke of Cornwall in order to seduce his wife, Igrayne. What disguise does he use? A full suit of armor.

In other words, he has sex with her wearing a full suit of armor.

Is this even possible? Wouldn’t a cloak have worked just as well — or how about just turning out the lights?

A cause for laughter in an otherwise excellent film.

(6) Peter Pan’s Ridiculous Racism and Sexism

I’m not sure which is more exasperating about Disney’s 1953 animated film Peter Pan: the parade of shockingly racist Native American stereotypes in, or its sexist portayal of females as spiteful and petulant (Tinker Bell) or completely passive and worthy of only contempt (Wendy).

Okay, I give up: it’s the racism. This clip is so offensive it makes me want to take a shower:

Peter Pan’s stupid racism

(7) Eragon

Don’t get me started.

(8) The Synthesizers in Ladyhawke

This one seems stupid only in retrospect. The 1985 movie Ladyhawke is the story of a pair of doomed lovers who can never be together — one turns into a hawk during the day, while the other is a wolf at night. At the time, it probably seemed like a good idea to give it a more contemporary, teen-friendly feel by having Alan Parsons compose a synth-heavy score.

But oh, how times change! Though the movie is set in medieval times, the distracting mid-80s score now inspires only mood-destroying laughter:

Ladyhawke’s now- stupid music

(9) Tom Cruise Apologizing to a Unicorn in Legend

Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy film Legend had an incredible look. The script? Not so incredible.

In just one of many cringe-inducing moments, Tom Cruise apologizes to a unicorn for stealing its horn, and setting all manner of evil into motion.

And hey! More mid-80s synthesizers!

One of many stupid scenes in Legend

(10) Jim Carrey in A Series of Unfortunate Events

Honestly, has the man not already ruined enough movies?

Carrey stupidly hamming it up