5 Most Evil Charachters in Literature; part. 1

I've been thinking about whom are the most evil charachters in all of literature are. It took me a while to narrow it down, but here's what I came up with.

Number 5

Judge Archon from Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” is one of the most disturbing and unabashedly evil characters from all of literature. For those unfamiliar with the novel, in the bulk of it depicts a real historical gang of scalp-hunters who raped, robbed, and massacred Native Americans through the Mexico-United States borderlands in 1849 and 1850. Judge Archon, also a real historical figure, bands the man of the Clanton Gang together and leads them on a journey of despicable torture, sadism, and murder.
Judge Archon acts as the leader of the gang along with John Joel Glanton. He at first appears as a very mysterious character. He is massive, well over 7 feet tall and capable of welding a battle cannon as if it were a simple rifle, he is also totally pale and completely bereft of body hair, giving him an inhuman appearance. He is described as unscrupulous and violent, and is totally devoted to conflict and the destruction of innocent life. Throughout the novel he kills countless people, including children. He is extremely intelligent, and has what seems like a supernatural level of knowledge and skills, yet doesn’t seem to exude any sort of formal education. His skills are seemingly self-taught, and he uses these skills to weld dominance over other humans. He claims in the novel that his only goal is total power; he wishes to weld this total power in a world where there are other powerful men.
Judge Archon is a manifestation of pure evil, an embodiment of everything wrong with the human condition. He has no motive other than the destruction of innocence. He kills in cold blood, and gets more than just a little satisfaction out of it, for him the kill is the only satisfaction. McCarthy also implied in the novel that he may be a pedophile. Aside from the children that he openly kills, there are also scenes that depict him enticing young children with sweets, and many times in the novel children go missing when he is in the area. His murders of children to him resemble the ultimate destruction of innocence. He is not a typical psychopath as is portrayed in modern cinema and literature. He doesn’t have any interest in appearing to those around him as cunning or charming, he makes no bones about what he is. He is a ruthless killer devoid of any conscience. Even scarier is the fact that he is not insane; he is clear and concise in his motives, if there are any.
Throughout “Blood Meridian”, many might start to wonder about Archon’s stance as “human”. Whereas the other members of the gang seem to age, Archon doesn’t, his appearance remains the same throughout a whole 30 year span. The novel’s “protagonist”, the Kid, begins to feel horrible guilt for the vicious crimes he committed throughout his tenure on the Clanton gang. The Judge feels no guilt, and in the final scene with the Kid, he talks about almost missing those days. His speed, strength, and stamina all appear to be superhuman. Indeed, towards the end of the novel, Archon is described more explicitly as superhuman, maybe even a demonic entity or the concept of evil personified.
In his essay "Gravers False and True: Blood Meridian as Gnostic Tragedy", literature professor Leo Daugherty argued that McCarthy's Holden is, or at least embodies, a Gnostic archon, a kind of demon. McCarthy has often been viewed as a Gnostic writer, Gnosticism believing in one divine being or creator, basically God. The Archons are entities who act to separate humanity from god, while mirroring humanity itself. Many Archons are likened to Christian angels, pure good, while the others are Christian demons, pure evil. Judge Holden is one of the most fascinatingly evil characters throughout literature, as he stands as something more than human while mirroring humanity’s darkest aspects simultaneously.