Monday, January 19, 2009


The white witch from Chronicles of Narnia and Peter Pan's Captain Hook are the scariest ever fictional baddies, a poll has shown.

From The Daily Telegraph.

Evil characters from stories going back almost 200 years were named among the most frightening figures from children's literature in a survey of adult readers.
Most frightening of all was the white witch from the 1950 CS Lewis classic, menacingly played on the big screen by Tilda Swinton.

It topped a poll among grown ups by Penguin books to find the books and characters they could recall scaring the wits out of them when they were young.

Wicked witches, evil relatives and dastardly pirates dominated the top 10, released to celebrate the publication of Mr Toppit, a novel based on children's writer Arthur Hayman.
And while some modern villains did make the list, most came from stories handed down the generations which still have the ability to give youngsters nightmares.

In second place was Captain Hook from Peter Pan, who many believe was far scarier in the original 1904 book more comical versions in the Disney cartoon, other movies and pantos.
Other witches and wizards to make the list include the Grand High Witch from Roald Dahl's 1983 book The Witches and, the most recent of all, Voldermort from the Harry Potter books.

The list includes another pirate, Long John Silver, originally a ruthless and cold hearted character in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 adventure Treasue Island.

For the complete list and story link to The Telegraph online.

No comments: