#greenmile

"Thank you!!"

Stephen King is considered the master of horror best known for his prolific writing career that in itself takes place in a multiverse of sorts. Besides monsters and supernatural beings, there are also very, very evil humans that also antagonize the protagonists. 

Most Evil

Most Evil would go to Randall Flagg. He is probably the closest thing to the Devil that exists in King's works, though Nyarlathotep is also said to be one of his many titles. He appears in several of King's novels sowing chaos wherever possible. He was apart of many violent tragedies such as race riots, lynchings, you name them. In The Stand, he sets himself up as some sort of god for those who also had penchants for violence. In The Dark Tower series, he works alongside the Crimson King and gets into even more acts like destroying a city and driving a woman insane by having a dead man recount to her what he had seen in the afterlife. Ultimately, his plan is to topple the Dark Tower itself which would spell destruction for the multiverse. 

 Bronze goes to It. An ancient, primordial evil, It was originally from the Macroverse before crash landing to the area that would eventually become Derry, Maine where it establishes a cycle of awakening every 27 years to kill and devour Derry's children even though it is implicated that It doesn't need to consume the flesh of its prey as it could live off their fear alone. But it is their fear that makes their meat tastier to It. It is an egotistical, narcissistic being who views itself as being superior above humans and its archenemy Maturin the Turtle. It is first defeated by the Losers Club back in the 1950s after it had killed the young brother of Bill Denbrough only to return 27 years later to settle the score.

Silver...it's a tough one, but I ultimately decided that William Wharton from The Green Mile earns this spot. He is not the most powerful being in the books nor is he anywhere close to the first two's level. Simply put, he is a disgusting piece of human garbage that should've gotten fried to death in the electric chair for what he had done. He is first taken to the Mile after killing two people, one of which was a pregnant woman. When he arrives, he pretends to be in a near-drunken state only to then attempt to strangle one of the wardens. That in itself is bad, but what pushes him further is the fact that he was the one who raped and killed those two girls that John Coffey is being sentenced to death over. He used the sisters' love for each other to coerce them not to scream lest he kill one of them before leading them out of their house.

Patrick Hockstetter. A pure solipsistic psychopath, Patrick was a member of Henry Bowers's gang but he was especially nasty. He took perverse delight at killing animals but that is not his main claim to infamy. As a solipsist, he believes that no one exists aside from himself...essentially the world revolved around him. When he learned that his mother had given birth, Patrick felt threatened. So much so, he smothered the baby to death with a pillow.

Norman Daniels, the main antagonist of Rose Madder. A corrupt cop, he domestically abuses his wife Rose and in one instance sexually assaulted her and later caused her to suffer a miscarriage. When she leaves him, Norman pursues her, murdering and torturing those in his way his preferred method being biting them to death. 

Leland Gaunt of Needful Things sets up a novelty shop in Castle Rock where he has his victim's greatest desires in stock, but they had to pay a sum and additionally stage a prank. A magical charm that drives the residents to madness one instance being when two women killed themselves in a madness-inducing stupor leading to a young boy killing himself. 

Rose the Hat. A little lower on the list. A True Knot (quasi-immortal vampiric beings), she feeds on steam, as in the dying breath of children who have "the Shining." This is of course done through torturing children to death. Despite committing serial murders, plausibly in the hundreds depending on how long she and her clan were operating, she nevertheless greatly cares for her fellow True Knots and becomes increasingly incensed by Danny Torrance and Abra Stone killing them.

Going to King's first novel Carrie, we have several trash. Chris Hargensen bullies Carrie White relentlessly climaxing in her staging a terrible prank where she drops a bucket full of pig's blood on Carrie's head at the prom after forging fake votes for Carrie. Following her is Margaret White , Carrie's mother. An insane religious zealot, she emotionally and psychologically abuses her daughter as she saw it as her fault that Carrie received telekinetic powers because of her perceived mistake. After the massacre, Margaret attempts to kill Carrie.

The Overlook Hotel. At first it seems odd that I would include what is basically an inanimate object. But in the book The Shining, it is made apparent that the hotel is alive and is greatly evil. It drives those who visit it to madness ultimately resulting in them killing their families and then themselves. Once it completely possesses Jack Torrance, it fully has its malevolent intentions out in the open. 

The Shawshank Redemption. Kind of more leaning towards the film adaptation, but here goes: Samuel Norton is the warden of the Shawshank prison. Initially coming off as a kind man with that rich Southern Christian rhetoric, Norton is truly a greedy man ruling Shawshank with an iron fist allowing rapes and other evils to happen on his grounds. He uses the prisoners for cheap labor in a money laundering scheme which he forces Andy to assist him with. Unlike in the book, when Tommy has information proving Andy's innocence, Norton sends for Captain Byron T. Hadley to kill Tommy. 

Next would be Bogs Diamond. The leader of a group of men called The Sisters, he enjoys violently raping his victims one of his favorite being Andy. But it isn't because he's gay, but more because he derives disgusting glee from raping them when they were at their lowest state. 

Henry Bowers, the secondary antagonist of It, is a racist, Anti-Semitic, misogynistic, fat-shaming lunatic who graduates to murdering his own father before deciding to go to kill the Losers Club when they enter the sewer system to face off against It/Pennywise. But it is shown that his father was abusive and he likely learned a lot of his prejudices from him. But he also stands as a trope of King's where you have insane bullies.

Lastly, we get to Percy Wetmore the secondary antagonist of The Green Mile. Somehow coming off as more reprehensible than the real villain of the book, Wetmore is a low-functioning sociopath who primarily came to the Cold Mountain Penitentiary to watch the death row inmates die. 

Especially despising Delacroix, he kills Mr. Jingles by stepping on him out of spite, and he later deliberately leaves the sponge dry leading to Delacroix's excruciatingly botched, prolonged execution where he literally cooks in Old Sparky. He's kind of lower on the list mostly because of his film counterpart looking horrified. Something tells me that he probably was only thinking that by not wetting the sponge it would give Delacroix a little more pain, but he wasn't anticipating for the events to ensue the way they did. Though him being forced to watch is cathartic as was what became of him in the ending.

Least Evil

Cujo takes the first spot. All he wanted was to be a good boy, but all that changed when he was bitten by a rabid bat. Now he kills those that he miscontrues as being responsible for his pain. 

Carrie White was the protagonist of Stephen King's first book. Born with telekinetic powers, Carrie was bullied by her peers; mistreated by her fundamentalist mother...ultimately she was driven insane when that horrible prank at the prom befell her. She committed horrible acts, but ultimately, it is understandable. It was only a matter of time for her to snap. 

Jack Torrance: While he tries to kill his wife and son, part of it largely falls on the Overlook corrupting him. He was abused by his father ultimately becoming an alcoholic who unwittingly dislocated Danny's arm. At the least before the Overlook's destruction he had a moment of clarity. 

Christine: A sapient possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury vintage vehicle who acts like a envious girlfriend when it comes to its owners. Worse, it is fully able of numping people off if need be.

The Wendigo: In Pet Sematary, it is a wendigo that is responsible for the cursed grounds that whatever was buried in its soils, an evil, undead version arises. This happens to Church the cat and especially to Gage. However, the Wendigo is presented more as a force of nature than truly evil.