If there’s one thingStephen Kingis undeniably skilled at writing, it’s horror, for obvious reasons. Much of the time, that horror is supernatural in nature, and that’s good and all, but King’s written dozens of novels, and for him to solely rely on supernatural threats 100% of the time would eventually make his stories stale.
Also, that kind of heightened horror can be scarier when it exists alongside terrifying individuals who behave in alarming yet more everyday ways. The following characters hopefully demonstrate King’s knack for writing strong villains who don’t have fantastical abilities or supernatural powers.Some exist in stories that do feature such fantastical things, while others are villainous in stories that don’t feature fantasy and/or supernatural elements. In the end, though, none of them needed otherworldly abilities to be effective antagonists or secondary villains.
10Chris Hargensen
Appeared in ‘Carrie’ (1974)
The first novel of Stephen King’s that was published (in 1974), and the first toget a major film adaptation (in 1976),Carrieis a supernatural horror story, in a way, but it’s also got some comparatively mundane villains. Well, mundane might be the wrong word. But it’s the titular character who has the supernatural powers, and they’re unleashed in a devastating way after she deals with abuse both at school and at home.
Chris is the one who orchestrates much of Carrie’s misery at school, while her mother makes her life hell at home. It’sthe prank Chris pulls at prom that makes Carrie snap, though the more prolonged abuse Margaret White subjects her to makes her eligible for a dishonorable mention here. Carrie herself causes the widespread death and destruction, but ultimately feels like a victim, given how these two treat her.
9Lee Harvey Oswald
Appeared in ‘11/22/63’ (2011)
11/22/63is one of the best Stephen Kingnovels to not be a work of horror, even though it’s pretty intense and occasionally unsettling in places. It’s instead a time travel story that has its protagonist be a man who is able to travel back to 1958 and affect the future, so he decides to use such a unique opportunity to thwartLee Harvey Oswaldbefore he can assassinateJohn F. Kennedy.
But he has to make sure Oswald was really behind the killing, and that involves monitoring him without impacting how he acted on the titular day in 1963. And the story does not paint Oswald in a positive light by any means,since he takes out so much of his anger on his wife, physically, and then does prove to be the lone gunmanbehind the JFK assassination.
8Harold Lauder
Appeared in ‘The Stand’ (1978)
The main villain inThe Stand, Randall Flagg, has his fair share of otherworldly abilities (and that’s putting it mildly),but this is a massive book, and certainly has room for other villainous characters. In fact, Flagg builds up a massive gang of followers that end up being on the side of evil in a whole massive good vs. evil conflict waged in the aftermath of a viral outbreak that kills most of the world’s population.
So, the people who serve Flagg might be assisted by Flagg’s abilities, but are ultimately just normal people, Harold included.He’s worth mentioning here, though, since he starts on the side of good and flips, lashing out against the people he’d be better off allying with and coming close to destroying the Boulder community in the process.
7Greg Stillson
InThe Dead Zone, it’s the protagonist, Johnny Smith, who has supernatural powers, and the antagonist, Greg Stillson, is just an all-around awful human being, but a human being nonetheless. Smith can see flashes of the future when he comes into contact with people, and much ofThe Dead Zonerevolves around him trying to take Stillson, an aspiring politician, down, since one vision of the future seemed to show Stillson becoming President and starting a nuclear war.
The villain here stands to wield an extraordinary amount of power, and has a chance of ending the world, but in a rather mundane way, compared to some other supernaturally gifted Stephen King antagonists.
So, the villain here stands to wield an extraordinary amount of power, and has a chance of ending the world, butin a rather mundane (and thereby arguably more unnerving) way, compared to some other supernaturally gifted Stephen King antagonists. It might all sound a bit far-fetched, but King makes it work, withThe Dead Zonebeing an engaging readand, like11/22/63, has a high-concept premise executed well.
The Dead Zone
6William “Wild Bill” Wharton
Appeared in ‘The Green Mile’ (1996)
The Green Mileis not lacking in characters who’ve done terrible things, since it’s set on Death Row and the prisoners who aren’t John Coffey are said to have committed genuinely horrific crimes. Also, Percy Wetmore is a guard who abuses his power and causes more suffering than needed, making him stand as one ofmany noteworthy bullies King has written about.
But the character who’s done the most evil within the story is William “Wild Bill” Wharton,who’s on Death Row for murdering three people and, as it turns out, also committed the horrific crime for which Coffey is condemned to die. He does all his evil as an uneasily mundane sadist, as in he doesn’t have any powers, nor is he possessed by some kind of otherworldly evil force. He’s just a horrific person.
The Green Mile
5Mrs. Carmody
Appeared in ‘The Mist’ (1980)
LikeThe Green Mile,The Misthad afilm adaptation directed byFrank Darabont, and it was also a Stephen King story that had more than one villain. The titular mist does bring with it a ton of supernatural horrors, but within the supermarket that all the characters find themselves confined to, the religiously fanatical Mrs. Carmody is arguably just as much of a threat.
She builds up a decent following within the store, and isone of those quintessential “maybe humans are the real monsters” kind of characters. Neither the story nor the character of Mrs. Carmody is particularly nuanced, but the former is well-told, and the latter is undeniably easy to hate (much in the same way that Carrie’s similarly fanatical mom was inCarrie).
4Henry Bowers
Appeared in ‘It’ (1986)
There’s a lot more than just the titular antagonist (that often takes the appearance of a clown) to fear inIt, since this one, likeThe Stand, ends up being an epic novel with plenty of room for multiple villains. In typical King fashion, many of these are bullies, with Henry Bowers ultimately serving as the secondary antagonist of the story.He doesn’t upstage IT itself, but no one really could.
To be fair, Henry is under the influence of IT for at least some of the novel, but the stuff he does isn’t necessarily supernatural or anything more damaging than what a bully could feasibly do. He’s someone who’s already villainous, but becomes more so because of the central antagonist here, buthe’s still such a definitive bully within King’s body of work that he’s worthy of mention regardless.
3Ace Merrill
Appeared in ‘The Body’ (1982)
The Bodywas the short story upon whichStand by Mewas based. It’s no exaggeration to call the latter one ofthe best coming-of-age movies of all time, and it’s also one of the best Stephen King adaptations generally speaking. It’s a simple film about four boys going on a journey to find a dead body, and dealing with the struggles of being young all the while.
Said struggles include encounters with bullies, with Ace Merrill being the leader of the main antagonistic gang.The BodyandStand by Meare about as far from horror/fantasy as Stephen King ever got,butAce is still a completely monstrous characterwho comes close to feeling over-the-top, but never crosses that line, staying effectively menacing and wholly intimidating, as a result.
Stand by Me
2Warden Samuel Norton
Appeared in ‘Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption’ (1982)
There might exist people who don’t likeThe Shawshank Redemption, butgood luck finding them. This is considered not just a great Stephen King film adaptation, but one of the greatest movies of all time in a more general sense, and perhaps the definitive prison film, too. It’s about two prisoners – one who’s lost hope, and one who maintains his innocence and wants to escape – and the bond that forms between them within the titular Shawshank State Penitentiary.
The main antagonist here is the prison’s warden, and he’s terrible, more so in the movie than he was in the original short story (which also had a different title:Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption). Warden Nortonabuses his power and often relishes the opportunities to cause misery in an already miserable place, and is immensely hateable in the process. Oh, and speaking of misery…
The Shawshank Redemption
1Annie Wilkes
Appeared in ‘Misery’ (1987)
Stephen King’s 1987 novel,Misery, is one ofhis most uncomfortable and intense works, and was adapted into a similarly grueling (but engaging) film in 1990. The premise here is simple, and the number of key characters is low, seeing as most ofMiseryis centered on an author who’s confined to an isolated cabin, held prisoner by Annie Wilkes, who’s a lonely nurse and the author’s self-appointed number 1 fan.
Wilkes is a constant source of, you know, misery, andmight well do the most psychological damage of any Stephen King antagonist who doesn’t have supernatural powers. Hell, even compared to the ones who do, few put a Stephen King protagonist through anywhere near as much living hell as author Paul Sheldon goes through. It really has to be seen (or read) to be believed.
