Iago from Shakespeare's "Othello" is my personal favourite. He executes his evil schemes under the guise of being honourable and trust worthy, while in reality he's actually dripping poison into ears and turning people into each others villains. His brilliance is such that he rarely gets involved directly in his own plans, he just warps people into losing themselves and watches with spite and glee as they unwittingly destroy themselves.
The cunning and quick thinking of the man also earns him a disturbing amount of respect and even adoration from the audience/ reader, so in essence he's doing to you what he does to the characters, warps your morals and codes. To put it bluntly, he's the Devil personified.
"Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
From this time forth I never will speak word."
How cold is that?
The cunning and quick thinking of the man also earns him a disturbing amount of respect and even adoration from the audience/ reader, so in essence he's doing to you what he does to the characters, warps your morals and codes. To put it bluntly, he's the Devil personified.
"Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
From this time forth I never will speak word."
How cold is that?