I think we all know this wasn't one of his strengths --he doesn't seem to have been interested in it being one of his strengths. "No man is a villain in his own mind" is one quote from him. His villains tend to be either large, impersonal and off-screen; alienly ununderstandable (Puppet Masters); off-screen entirely (say The Prophet); or buffoonish caricatures that a writer of his skill must be assumed to have drawn them that way on purpose (Mrs. Keithley, for instance).

So in a moment of daydreaming today, I tried to think of some relatively well drawn and believable human villains in Heinlein. I came up with five, four in the juveniles.

Starman Jones: Assistant Astrogator Simes
Between Planets: The internal security guy at the beginning.
Tunnel in the Sky: Grant Cowper
The Door Into Summer: Miles Gentry (but most assuredly NOT Belle Darkin)
Citizen of the Galaxy: "Uncle" John Weemsby

Discuss.

Edit: Added Weemsby, who should have occurred to me first, actually. . .

What about the Montgomerys, pere and fils in Time Enough For Love? And the one in Starman Jones?

The Montgomerys aren't too bad. . . tho the broad southern redneck accent in space several generations on puts me off a bit (unlike the Loonies in TMIAHM which seem to mostly be generations 1-3).

Which one in Starman Jones (I already have one listed)? The step-father? Believable situation, but he's gone pretty quick --quicker than the IBI lieutenant in Between Planets, even. Tho truth be told, I have a lot of admiration for Starman Jones, understanding how he had to set that one up carefully in several places to "get it past the librarians". I won't claim it is the most subversive of Heinlein works, but it is up there. . .

Dr. Lowell Calhoun in Seventh Column/Day After Tomorrow? (scientist who wants a world run by scientific principles --as long as they are his?)

Montgomery Phipps from near the end of Between Planets? (Colonel Blimp stand-in?)

Both perhaps qualify as stereotypes, but perhaps not as "buffoonish caricatures".

If I wanted to tickle Bill into action, I might even suggest. . . . .Ben Caxton, from Stranger?

Geo,

Good topic, your coments on Starman Jones are very good.

I don't see Grant Cowper as a villian. He is a guy who has the itch for political power and he
manipulates the others into voting for him as group leader. The reader has been manipulated
by RAH to see Rod as the "hero" of the book, but that doesn't mean Grant is evil.

If Grant had survived he would have returned to civilization he would have done his best
to use his experiance as Mayor to gain a place in the power structure of some colony or better yet in the govertment on Earth. After his experiance as mayor Grant probably would have done a good job where ever he ended up.

How about the commander in the “Long Watch”

Most of the ones listed, like Simes are not so much evil as they have some personality disorder that makes them not fit to be a member of the society that they are in.

Ah, it's been awhile since I re-read The Long Watch, but that does sound like a possible.

Don't get too hung up on "villain" literally in the Snidely Whiplash mold. If you prefer "antagonist" that's fine too. I like the way "villain" sounds (and of course there was Robert's quote handy to get me started). I intended for that to be clear by putting the "buffoonish caricatures" sub-catagory in there, and then excluding it --sorry if it wasn't.

Obviously Grant Cowper from Tunnel, who I listed originally, is no Snidely Whiplash. Nor is Simes (tho he is a notch or two closer to it).

In fact, we can't even be sure that John Weemsby is a dyed in the wool bastich. There is the *suggestion* in Thorby's mind that perhaps Weemsby was actually responsible for his parents' death and his own enslavement --but it is left as part of the unfinished business of the book. And part of why I think Citizen has always cried out for at least a sequel, and maybe even trilogy --the "unfinished business" left over is quite considerable.

But anyway, it's at least possible that Weemsby is no more than a grown up version of Grant Cowper on the "villain scale".

Ahhh. . . The Glaroon from They actually isn't too bad either, is he? We're starting to get a decent sized list here. Not sure that he's actually human, but he could be.

Still, we have a timeline advantage that Robert didn't have --we know that the '70s are a lost decade (a thumbnail overstatement, but you know what I mean --I'm no more willing to give up TEFL than any Heinlein fan). It's actually scary to think of the results if he's a pampered Scribner's house cat for another five years, let alone ten.

Last time we did villains, I elected Mrs Keithly from Gulf.

She is not a nice person.

Perhaps I don't have a full enough grasp of YA publishing in the 1960s, but I'd bet that a good case could be made that the market for Heinlein and other old-school juveniles would have fallen off considerably from their peak in the 1950s. At the time I discovered Heinlein, around 1967-8, I remember a distinct aura (from presentation, librarians, teachers, and peers) of his stuff seeming tired and old hat.

It seems to me that it could be a result of reality catching up with fiction. When I grew up, space travel and other sf type of things were only dreams which carried us up and out and Heinlein was the best at doing that, but some of those things became reality in the 50's and 60's and a lot of the dream has gone with the wind (pun intended)

Get in line, Jim...

YOU get in line. I'm after this... "artist"...



Found this, by the way, on www.Oddee.com, which I advise everyone to avoid like the plague unless you have hours to browse through lists of strange, weird and funny things. This came from a list of "inappropriate children's books."

Birth rate in US is DOWN 2% ....

(not MY fault I did my share...)

I don't know about "rushed". I always had the feeling that Gulf took a whiplash 90 degree turn with the whole Moon thing coming out of left field, but I never felt it was wrong. The story doesn't follow conventional plot thickening pace at that point, it's true, and in retrospect maybe Gulf would conventionally have been a longer story, but the whiplash has some appeal to it, it wakes the reader up. Certainly there was opportunity enough there for a novella, developing the relationship, a few straightforward missions together, him developing his powers and evolving his morality, it could all be done, but Heinlein was not one to waste words following convention.

I believe the best-drawn villains I have seen in ANY fiction of any kind would be the ones on the "Wire" tv program.

Did Heinlein have anything even remotely close to that complexity of character for any of his villains? (Or his heroes?)

I love "The Wire". I hum "The Body of an American" semi-regularly. Are you planning to watch "Treme" when it starts Sunday?

Hmm, complexity. Is Lazarus Long a hero or villian? The Great Lorenzo is on the complex side. Minor character, but that IBI security officer at the beginning of Between Planets seems, believably (to me, anyway) able to switch from Gestapo-mode to genial politeness from moment to moment. Sam from Starman Jones --is he a rogue or hero? Yes, he is; I could easily see him on "The Wire".

I thought the Chairman of the "Investigative Committee" of the Lunar Authority in Agra was a well-drawn, believable villain type. He may have been more of a pompous ass rather than a villain, but he certainly had villainous qualities, including being perfectly willing to see Prof die and Manny betray his homeland.

A comment I made a few months ago when I reviewed a Heinlein book seems relevant to this thread. My observation was that many Heinlein villains are not your traditional sort of villain. Many are just infuriatingly wrong headed. They think they are upholding the moral status quo, but they are at risk of doing great harm in that pursuit, like the Police Chief or the neighbor in "The Star Beast".

I believe that anyone who thinks there are Heinlein villains who are not believable have led sheltered lives. Humanity abounds, unfortunately, with very ordinary seeming people who go off on evil tangents that no one would have ever believed possible, with the oldest motives of lust for power, sex, money, revenge, etc at their root.

Of course Heinlein has extraordinary villains too, people very much in the mold of Hitler, and it can't be any surprise that various aspects of Hitler would come to mind when shaping literary villains when you've just lived through WWII.

There are a number of characters in Heinlein books who are just mean, or just clueless in very unfortunate ways. If these characters are seemingly caricatures, it is only because we are so used to seeing them in real life and putting them out of our minds that we forget how truly representative those characters are of a lot of people in our personal experience. However, that's something Heinlein never forgot. In fact, its pretty clear that RAH didn't have much respect for the ability of his average fellow citizen to think and behave rationally. A good example of this is a line he wrote, "Never debate a fool in public, the onlookers won't be able to tell the difference". I recall that line with amusement every time I watch a political debate. Virtually every time, the most foolish plans and outrageous misrepresentations are the debate elements that get the most positive comment in the post mortems. LOL Heinlein completely got that. So many of his essays about society and politics and human behavior are even more true in our day than they were the day he wrote them.

The entire Penn State scandal (have you heard about that this week?? LOL) sounds like it could have been one of RAH's patented infuriating episodes. You can find pretty much all the Penn State characters in his novels and stories.

Your first post said in
Tunnel in the sky -- the villain was Grant Cowper.

Did you forget Jock McGowan? The tall, older, leader of a pack of 4 men, who actually tried a violent attack against our hero Rod, which must inevitably have led to a takeover of the camp.

I see Grant and Jock as two sides of the same problem; violence and law. Jock and Grant.

Both tried to usurp Rod's position as leader; only Grant succceeded.

I've always been troubled that while 2 of Rod's "special friends" as he reflected while under the knife (both women) backed him up and won the day against Jock, his friends' arguements during Grant's legal takeover were few and feeble. Then, later, they complained. If they had any knowledge of the rules of order, they could have fought and possibly won for Rod.

If Jock had succeeded anyone against him, especially Rod, would have gone feet first into the stream filled with piranha. The women would have been divided up before nightfall. Everyone, slaves to King Jock and his brother and two friends. Yes, Heinlein was writing a juvenile novel and couldn't expand on the-future-under-Jock but any adult that reads that conflict can see what Jock's victory would have meant for the camp.

Grant on the other hand, while he wanted power, used the weapons of talk and committees to get his own way. The result of his victory and work was a constitution with options for the elected leader to be kicked out by a vote of 'no confidence'. When Grant dies and Rod is reinstated as the leader, Rod carefully follows Grant's constitution.

Jock is almost a cariacature. Grant is filled out a bit more, especially when he stops smiling at Rod and admits he really dislikes our hero. Yet he swallows his personal dislike for the good of the community, asking Rod to take over managing the nighttime guards. Later he states Rod was right, they should have moved to the vastly better site Rod had found. Rod shrugs, "Water over the bridge" and he clearly means it, and goes on fighting Dopey Joes.

Grant died to protect the community.
Can't see Jock dying to protect anything or anybody.

Tunnel in the Sky is a novel about leadership and that most dangerous of all creatures: man.
People, in today's wider nomenclature.

Grant's speech about government, halfway through, preceeding his removal of Rod as leader at that night's camp meeting, is actually brilliant. What follows his speech is as determined an attack on Rod as Bruce McGowan's knife. And much more successful.

Humanity's greatest invention is government. Without it, we're just hitting each other over the head with sticks.

At the end of the novel Rod literally rides off into the sunset, now a trained Captain for a group of emigrants going off-planet. He failed against Cowper only because he didn't have the background and training to recognize Grant's threat, and neither did any of his "special friends".

[Personal note]
Grant's victory by slur and insinuation has always upset me.

The last few years I've been rewriting 'Tunnel' just for my own amusement. Grant doesn't win but the camp organizaes itself as a Town Hall with Grant as Chair, Rod is recognized as Captain. PeeWee (Philip) isn't killed, though he is badly crippled. Jock and crew are banished, but only for one year, and later return and become good (if somewhat sulky) members of the village community, frequently hunting Nessies. Nessies are delicious. Grant doesn't die. The group moves to the cliff houses barely in front of the Dopey Joe disaster.

The riverside village is named Jacqueline Village, or Jackieville for short.

And oh yes, there's a personal avatar for 'me'.

I include a lot of 'how to'. One of my fun reads lately is 'How to stay alive in the woods'; I read at home, tea at my elbow, pellet stove afire, antiques and family items around me, 68 degrees farenheit while outside there's icy snow on the ground. It's very pleasant to read 'How to stay alive in the woods' (by Bradford Angier) in such pleasant surroundings.


[The monitors of this site and the board of the Heinlein Trust have decided not to allow fan fiction. I wish they'd change their mind.]

The Heinlein Trust doesn't grant rights for derivative works. I don't know the legalities surrounding that subset called 'fan fiction'. However, I will note that there are some published at http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Robert-Heinlein/ .