Villains Beyond Villains

SM Stirling's several villains beat everyone else's for the sheer purity of their evil whereas Ian Fleming excels at the elaborateness of his villainous organizations and sometimes the upper echelons of such an organization are real people. We will consider examples from Fleming, John Sanders and Poul Anderson.

When James Bond fights Le Chiffre, the latter is assassinated by SMERSH which, at that time, is run by Beria. After Bond has defeated Mr Big of SMERSH, he is confronted by SMERSH's Chief Executioner, Donovan Grant, then by its Head of Operations, Rosa Klebb, but we, the readers, also see the Head of Planning, Kronsteen, and the overall Head, G, who receives a phone call from his superior, Serov. Thus, in SMERSH, there have been two historical figures. As a last gasp of SMERSH, Bond later defeats their treasurer, Goldfinger, whose name is famous although he is fictional. Later, Bond defeats Largo and Uhlmann of SPECTRE before confronting Blofeld twice. See also my ideas for Blofeld's Successors. (For the sake of simplicity, I have enumerated neither the other Russian intelligence chiefs with whom G confers nor the various criminal organizations represented in SPECTRE.)

In John Sanders' historical novels, the villainous organization, the Sealed Knot (a real organization) answers direct to the exiled Stuart (a real person) and that brings us to the reverse situation in Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, where Prince Rupert's antagonist, Sir Malachi Shelgrave, answers to:

"...a Roundhead officer, to judge from his bearing and russet coat: a strong-built person whose homely features grew mustache, chin-tuft, and warts." (xxi, p. 193)

The warts alone tell us that this is "'...General Cromwell...,'" (p. 194) who also appears in Alan Moore's Jerusalem.