6 Fictional Villains We’d Love to be Best Friends With

6. Medea (Medea, by Euripides)
Let’s address the elephant in the room right away: is it cool to kill children (or all those other people)? No, 100% not cool. And if we’d been friends with Medea at the time, we would’ve been like “Honey, listen, Jason is a complete tool and you should divorce him immediately, but instead of focusing on ruining his life and killing all his family you should be focusing on how your life is going to be so much better once you’ve dumped that manipulative jackass!” Of course, had we done that, we would have robbed literature of one of the bossest exits of all time: Medea in a winged chariot, holding the bodies of her children, heading right out of town. And just FYI Jason, you pathetic piece of scum, adultery is absolutely not an “insignificant” insult to “a woman with good sense.” You’re the worst.

5. Irene Adler (“A Scandal in Bohemia,” in The Complete Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Irene Adler is more an antagonist than a proper villain, but as the only person to ever outsmart Sherlock Holmes, she more than deserves a place on this list. Brilliant, resourceful, funny, and kindhearted, we’d want to be besties with Irene not so that she could have our back, but so that we could have hers. What’s more, Holmes agrees with us: according to Watson, “To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.” Aww.

4. Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Mary Crawford is one of those antagonists you find yourself agreeing with a lot. Yes, she makes some bad decisions, and yes, she probably still has a lot to learn. But she also has tons of good traits, possibly even more than the book’s heroine: she’s courageous, she stands by her family and her friends (for the most part; blaming Fanny, even in part, for Henry’s cheating isn’t cool), she’s smart, she’s a pragmatist, and, perhaps most interestingly, she clearly sees the difference between the artificial constraints placed on a woman and the truth of her own mind. A woman worth getting to know.

3. Baz (Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell)
(Spoiler alert: Do not read this if you haven’t already finished Carry On. And if you haven’t already finished Carry On, goodness, what are you waiting for??)
Yes, this one’s a little bit of a cheat, because obviously by the time we meet Baz, he’s mostly put his villainous days behind him. But he certainly was a villain at one point, and he’s still a vampire, which has to get you some villainy points, and he has that whole suave, villainous stylishness thing going for him. And he seems like he’d make a great friend: he’s loyal, funny, brave, and really good at making fun of people.
He’s also a placeholder for that most beloved villain, Draco Malfoy, who didn’t make it onto this list because, to be honest, he’s really not that good a friend.

2. Galactus (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. One: Squirrel Power, by by Ryan North and Erica Henderson)
Yeah, so draining entire planets of their energy maybe isn’t that great a thing to do, but obviously the Earth is still here, with all its energy, so he hasn’t actually devoured us. And during his appearance in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl it’s heavily implied he just threatens Earth so we’ll find him uninhabited planets to eat. And this guy is hilarious. Check out this whole exchange:
Galactus: YOU DO NOT NEED TO REPEAT WHAT THE SQUIRREL SAYS.
Doreen: Frig, no way! You can understand Tippy-Toe??
Tippy-Toe: You can understand me?! NOBODY understands squirrels! This is amazing!!
Galactus: YES. FOR HE WHO WIELDS THE POWER COSMIC CAN SHOOT LASERS OUT OF HIS EYES, TELEPORT, AND CREATE OR DESTROY LIFE ACROSS ALL OF SPACE AND TIME. SO OBVIOUSLY TALKING TO SQUIRRELS IS NOT REALLY THAT BIG A DEAL.
Doreen: Or she.
Galactus: WHAT?
Doreen: He or she who wields the power cosmic can shoot lasers out of his or her eyes.
Galactus: IT’S YOUR LANGUAGE THAT LACKS A UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED GENDER-NEUTRAL THIRD PERSON SINGULAR PRONOUN.
Doreen: Hey, all the more reason to help effect positive change by being careful about the words you use, huh?? Also, what’s wrong with they?
Galactus: I DID NOT COME HERE TO DISCUSS LINGUISTICS. I CAME HERE TO KICK BUTTS AND FEED ON LIFE ENERGY. AND I CAN DO BOTH WHENEVER I WANT. BECAUSE I’M GALACTUS.
I mean, this guy. What’s not to love.

1. Satan (Paradise Lost, by John Milton)
For a poem that’s theoretically about “justify[ing] the ways of God to men,” Paradise Lost sure does an amazing job of creating a sympathetic Satan. Yes, he’s arrogant and manipulative, but he’s also loyal to his friends, tragically courageous, and espouses principles that sound like they could come straight from the American Revolution. And just listen to him talk:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell then serve in heaven.”
I could listen to him talk forever, even if I had to sit in hell to do it (though a podcast would probably be preferable.)