Tough Travelling: Dark Lords

Tough Travelling is a feature started up by Nathan over at Fantasy Review Barn, an alphabetical tour through the tropes of our beloved genre (as defined by the awesome Tough Guide to Fantasyland).

This week’s topic? Dark Lords. Because we all know that…

There is always one of these in the background of very Tour, attempting to ruin everything and take over the world.  He will be so sinister that he will be seen by you only once or twice, probably near the end of the Tour.  Generally he will attack you through MINIONS…

1. Satoris from The Sundering Duology by Jacqueline Carey
 
Ok, I admit it. The main reason I’m joining in this week is so I can gush about The Sundering Books, which are severely underloved. They basically deconstruct The Lord of the Rings, mostly through telling the tragic story of Satoris: a dark lord misunderstood god of sex who spends his time pacing the austere towers of Mordor Darkhaven, controlling an army of orcs Fjeltroll, and generally attempting to thwart any plan the “good” guys come up with.


2. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
I’m not a huge LotR fan but I figured since we visited Satoris, we might as well visit his inspiration – pretty much the classic dark lord of fantasy.


3. The White Witch from (some of the) Narnia Books by C. S. Lewis
Ah, another classical fantasy despot, this one with a love of winter and the colour white. You’ve got to admire Jadis for her class, though: she cultivated dramatic gardens and had brilliant seduction skills (come to the dark side! We have Turkish Delight!).

Random, slightly personal fact: I actually got married at Castle Hill, which is where they filmed her final showdown with the forces of Aslan in the most recent version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.


4. Voldemort from the Harry Potter Books by J. K. Rowling 

Yes, yes, I went with the easy choices this week. But I loved the Harry Potter books. I couldn’t leave He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named off this list, although to be honest I think he was at his creepiest as the teenage memory of his former self.