10 Things You Didn’t Know Had Dirty-Sounding Names
The Ten Most Bizarre English Aristocrats Who Ever Lived
10 Facts about the Hidden World of Microbial Art
10 Human Capabilities That Scientists Don’t Understand
10 Extraordinary Efforts to Stop Pollution
10 Incredible Discoveries That Were Announced This Year
10 Historical Figures You Didn’t Know Had Tattoos
10 Head-Scratching Food Fads That Have (Mostly) Come and Gone
10 Sequels That Simply Repeat the First Film
10 Forensic Methods Pioneered by Sherlock Holmes
10 Things You Didn’t Know Had Dirty-Sounding Names
The Ten Most Bizarre English Aristocrats Who Ever Lived
Who's Behind Listverse?
Jamie Frater
Head Editor
Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author.
More About Us10 Facts about the Hidden World of Microbial Art
10 Human Capabilities That Scientists Don’t Understand
10 Extraordinary Efforts to Stop Pollution
10 Incredible Discoveries That Were Announced This Year
10 Historical Figures You Didn’t Know Had Tattoos
10 Head-Scratching Food Fads That Have (Mostly) Come and Gone
10 Sequels That Simply Repeat the First Film
Another 10 Villains Who Fell To Their Deaths
Villains are everywhere. They appear in movies, books, cartoons and even in real life. They plot, scheme and kill, harming the hero and those with him or her for their personal gain. Nonetheless, villains are characters a lot of stories cannot do without. We, as an audience, can feel at least some sense of ease, even before the climax, because we know the villain will meet his downfall. Sometimes, the villain meets his downfall in a literal sense, as we see in the following cases.
Mola Ram was the monster of The Temple of Doom. He and his subjects worshiped a God called Kali Ma, and performed human sacrifices in his name in the most gruesome fashion. He would rip out their hearts, before lowering them into a fiery pit to their deaths. Mola Ram even made people drink a kind of blood that twisted their minds into doing his bidding. Indiana Jones was on a mission to retrieve the sacred stones for the benefit of a starving village. Mola Ram caught up with Indiana and fought with him on a bridge above a stream with crocodiles. Ultimately, Mola Ram fell into the stream, where the crocs devoured him.
Professor Padriac Ratigan was a mouse who wanted to become king of Mousedom. To accomplish this, he had Mr. Flaversham build a robot replica of the queen of mice to claim Ratigan as king. Ratigan threatened Flaversham to build the robot by informing him that Ratigan would have a cat eat Flaversham’s daughter if he did not comply. Ratigan uses cat threats throughout the movie on his subjects for Ratigan’s demands. In the end, Ratigan confronts Detective Basil in a fight atop the Big Ben and Ratigan falls to his death from the top of the great London clock.
The Big Bad Wolf has a craving for little pigs. The three pigs attempt to shield themselves from the wolf with houses. However, the wolf huffs and puffs and blows down the straw house of the first pig, the stick house of the second pig and devours these first two pigs. The third pig, however, builds a brick house and lights a fire. The wolf is unable to blow this house down, so he descends through the chimney to eat the pig. The wolf falls into the fire, where he gets cooked and the pig eats the wolf for supper.
Vincent Crabbe is one of the mates of the newly appointed Death Eater, Draco Malfoy. Harry Potter and his friends are on a mission to find soul-containing objects of dark lord Voldemort, called Horcruxes. Harry must find and destroy these objects, so he can destroy Voldemort. Otherwise, Voldemort’s soul, which is concealed in these objects will give him the ability to come back if his body is destroyed. Harry, Ron and Hermione are searching for one of the Horcruxes in the Room of Requirements, when, Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle appear. Crabbe shoots the killing curse at Hermione, but missed. Then he tries to kill Harry and both his friends with Fiend Fire. After Crabbe sets the Room of Requirements ablaze, the three baddies find themselves trapped. They climb up onto a stack of rubble, but Crabbe loses his footing and falls into the very fire he had made.
Rosina’s father wanted her to marry a rich man named Charlie Kempthorne. Charlie was a greedy, selfish character who cared nothing for others. Nonetheless, Charlie would make sure to have Rosina as his wife, although they had barely met. Rosina’s father forced his daughter into marrying Charlie, even when she refused to do so, physically assaulting Rosina to the point of injuring her. Kempthorne later went on trial on suspicion that the money did not belong to him. He was found guilty of embezzling all the money and was sentenced to death by cliff fall.
“What goes on two legs in the morning, four legs in the afternoon and three legs in the evening.” That is the sphinx’s riddle. The sphinx lived at the top of a cliff, had the body of a lion and the head of a man, and would ask this riddle to everyone who passed by. Nobody was able to guess the answer and the sphinx would always devour the person for being unable to guess correctly. One day, a man answered, “Man. He crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs in his youth and walks with a cane in old age.” The sphinx, furious that he had guessed the correct answer, flew itself from the top of the cliff and was never seen again.
Hans Gruber works with a band of criminals and takes many people of the Nakatomi Plaza hostage on Christmas Eve. Gruber holds the siege with intent to extort the plaza of $640 million from its vault. After Gruber interrogates executive Tagaki for the code to open the vault, Police officer McLane orders the release of the hostages. McLane manages to kill some of Gruber’s accomplices, until Gruber discovers that he can kidnap McLane’s wife Holly. McLane pretends to laugh at Gruber, and while Gruber is distracted by the laughter, shoots Gruber in the shoulder. Gruber falls through the window to the street below.
The Weeping Angels will penetrate your mind, battle you, draw the goodness out of you, that is, only if you happen to close your eyes. Once you see them, they stand, as still as statues, which is actually what they look like. The Weeping Angels are designed to look like statues, while, in reality they are neither statues nor angels, but an evil, manipulating race. Amy Pond sees one, and, not knowing what it is, the angel works its way into her mind. Doctor Who tells her to keep her eyes constantly closed, or it will feed off her optical receptors, ultimately destroying her. When the angels attempt to come on board the doctor’s Tardis, he tips the angels off, sending them falling into the crack of time, where they are erased from existence.
Mufassa the lion, is king of the jungle, and one day, his son Simba will be king. Mufassa’s brother, Scar, is jealous, and will stop at nothing to make himself king. After a failed attempt to have Simba eaten by hyenas, Scar makes Simba roar up a wildebeest stampede that tramples Mufassa to death. Scar blames Simba for his father’s death and Simba gives up his future role as king. One night, an apparition of Mufassa appears and tells Simba he must return as king. Simba returns to Pride Rock, where a fight breaks out between him and his uncle. Scar falls down the cliff face, where the hyenas devour him.
Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant detective who works at solving murder cases. Holmes has a nemesis called Professor Moriarty. Moriarty works with and is a protector of many criminals. He offers them protection from law enforcement if they obey his commands. In the end, however, Holmes pursues Moriarty to Reichenbach Falls and both hero and villain fall to their deaths in mortal combat.