There are plenty of memorable villains in children’s and young adult books, the kinds that get their hooks into you when you’re young and then creep into your nightmares and shape your adulthood. But WHO is the evilest of all?

This week, we’re hosting a Battle Royale to determine just that. You can view our first round here, our second round here, and our third round here.

This is the FINAL round and pits two villains from the Harry Potter universe against one another: Dolores Umbridge and Tom Riddle.

Warning: This post contains spoilers!

Tom Riddle/Voldemort vs. Dolores Umbridge

The Harry Potter books boast a swag of brilliantly memorable villains – the predatory Fenrir Greyback, the sadistic Bellatrix Lestrange, the unscrupulous Rita Skeeter, the Dementors – but none loom so large as Dolores Umbridge and Tom Riddle. These two iconic figures are excessively evil, and undoubtedly, the baddest of the bad.

But which one deserves the dubious honour of being named the WINNER of this odious Battle Royale?

Tom is The Big Bad of the whole series. A critical part of what makes him such an unforgettable villain is the way he was able to manipulate people around him, especially in his early life. His charm, good looks, talents and intellect earn him the respect and admiration of those around him, and he was granted privileges that increased his influenced and reach. His obsession with power is all-consuming, and when combined with his intelligence and magical ability allows him to achieve horrifying things on an absolutely massive scale. In his guise as Lord Voldemort, he is widely considered by the magical community as being the most evil wizard in hundreds of years – murdering, torturing and magically enslaving others without remorse or pity. His body count is indisputably higher then Umbridge’s, and he relishes in the immense fear he creates (people are afraid to even say his name). One of his greatest skills is in causing divisions, breaking apart friendships, families and communities, and chillingly, he does it all from behind the scenes.

Like Tom, Umbridge benefited from systematic prejudices, albeit to a lesser extent. While she wasn’t popular at school, she rose quickly up the ranks within the Ministry of the Magic indicating that her bullying behaviour and prejudiced views were supported, even rewarded, by those around her. Her roles within the magical community – as a teacher, government official, High Inquisitor and so on – gave her power over others, and she used this power to bolster the status of pure-blood wizards (like herself) and openly argue to restrict the rights of those they seemed lesser. She advocated for ethnic cleansing, cruel punishments (that quill!) and portrayed many of the qualities we associate with totalitarianism. She ruled by fear and intimidation, and she frequently lied, hiding her true feelings behind a veneer of condescension or an insincere politeness: ‘Ahem…’

Both Tom and Umbridge were tyrants who took pleasure in hurting others – often doing so while fully sober. In the rare instances where they lost their tempers, their fury was scary to see their true selves revealed. For the most part, each wore a kind of mask that they had constructed to suit their view of the world: Tom promoted anti-Muggle sentiment while purposefully ignoring his own Muggle heritage; Umbridge sugar-coated her vicious intent with cute kittens and pink things. Frankly, they’re both absolutely terrible but it is Umbridge who takes the crown home today.

This bullying, irrational bureaucratic may have a lesser body count than Tom, but the fact that the kind of evil she promoted was so resoundingly accepted by the establishment is deeply disturbing, and in the end, far more frightening. Readers were afraid of both these villains, but Umbridge also provoked other feelings – anger, frustration, paranoia. Also, unlike Tom, she also never openly proclaimed her evilness and chose instead to remain ignorant, narrow-minded and unapologetic. She truly is a villain for the ages.

Winner: Dolores Umbridge