RJ's Top 10 Favorite Villains

Okay, so before I jump right into this list, I want to lay down a few ground rules for this and any future top 10 lists I may or may not do.
For starters, let's make it clear that this is entirely my subjective opinion.  That's why it's called Top 10 Favorite Villains instead of Top 10 Best Villains.  There are too many villains out there and I haven't seen even a portion of them all, so there's no way I can claim to do an objective list on this subject.  Therefore, this list contains only the villains that I personally like the best in the order that I like them the best.
Secondly, I have a rule in this list that there is only one villain from a particular series, movie or however I feel like arbitrarily grouping things together.  This is so that the list will have some variety, because if I didn't, then six out of the ten slots would be taken up by characters who all belong to the same group.
Thirdly, to narrow it down some, I made a rule that only characters can be on this list.  This disqualifies villains who are merely presences or plot devices rather than actual characters - this will explain why this list is so free of Disney villains.  Oh, snap!
Finally, I disqualified any villain that I personally created.  Because, you know, it's really uncomfortable to watch somebody jerk off in public.
With that out of the way, on to the list.  Expect spoilers.

10.  Mr. Frieze, Batman TAS

With Batman having so many different villains on it, it's pretty much impossible for a geek like me to not have at least one Batman villain be a favorite of mine, but it's not the villain you might expect.  When most people think of Batman villains, they think of the Joker, or Two-Face, or Catwoman.  While I admit to loving the Joker, he doesn't hold the slot as my favorite villain.  No, that slot belongs to Mr. Frieze as presented by Paul Dini in Batman, The Animated Series.
The first image you get in the episode is actually that of the snowglobe.  Mr. Frieze says, "This is how I'll always remember you; forever young, forever beautiful.  Rest well, my love.  The monster who took you from me will soon learn that revenge is a dish best served cold."  That's an awesome introduction.  You don't know right away what's going on in detail, but you immediately know the motivation of this character and you get a sense of his emotional state from the actor's deliver: cold, calculating anger from a man who has nothing left but revenge.
Even when I was a kid, watching the series for the first time, Mr. Frieze struck a chord with me and became my favorite villain from the first episode I saw him onward.  I understood his motives and goals and that made me connect with him more than the others.  He wasn't as chaotic as the Joker, his goal was more than just money as was the case with Catwoman or Penguin, revenge for the murder of a close family member made more sense to me than Poison Ivy's revenge for Mother Earth spiel, and his motivation was more consistently presented than was Two-Face's Multiple Personality Syndrom.  As much as I enjoyed the other villains, I believed in Mr. Frieze a lot more than any of the other villains on that show.
One thing that always upset me as a kid was that there were only three episodes and one movie about Mr. Frieze in the entire series, but, in retrospect, I think that made Mr. Frieze actually more endearing.  There's a very limited amount of stories that you can tell with Mr. Frieze because of his motivation and if they had tried to write more episodes with him, I think they would have quickly become less interesting.  By keeping him out of the spotlight and only having episodes about him when they had a good story, it kept Frieze fresh – wintery fresh, if you will – and interesting every time you saw him.
Mr. Frieze: He was just plain cool.

9.  General Tarquin, Order of the Stick

People might be a little surprised by this one.  I'm actually a bit surprised myself, but when I was thinking of which villains would be on the list, General Tarquin's was one of the first names that came to mind and he just didn't go away.
General Tarquin starts out seeming like just a standard, stereotypical evil dictator, so much so that I dismissed him when I first came across him in the webcomic, but he suddenly became a lot more interesting to me in strip 762, when he suddenly went from a stereotype to a fully-fleshed, morally complex character in the reveal of his motivations.  This being a parody comic of D&D, it takes the form of a brief discussion of the limitations of the alignment system for defining a character's moral ground, but for that, it's done really well.  Plus, a D&D parody webcomic drawn with stick figures has a villain more complex than any character in pretty much any Disney film you can name.  How's that for awesome.
It's in stip 763 that General Tarquin transcends from merely a morally complex villain to the quintessential parody of the evil dictator.  He confesses to being fully aware that because so many people disagree with his methods of government rule, sooner or later, somebody's going to overthrow him and he'll be killed, but he's accepted that because 1). For thirty or so years, he'll live like a king and 2). When he does finally get defeated, he'll be immortalized in song for his role as the impossible to defeat emperor who gets defeated by the unlikely hero.  In his own words, "If I win, I get to be a king.  If I loose, I get to be a legend!"  From there onward, General Tarquin becomes more and more interesting for all the ways that he fits the stereotypical evil dictator, and yet subverts them at the same time.  And he's funny on top of it.
General Tarquin: The genre savvy dictator who knows what it means to be an evil warlord.

8.  Mr. Teatime, Hogfather

Terry Pratchett is probably one of the most brilliant fantasy satirists alive.  His books a deep and contemplative, provocative, engaging and funny as hell.  Using myth, legend, popular culture and literary knowledge, he's created a world that, despite being populated by trolls and witches and werewolves, reflects in many ways the kind of world that we live in today.  And then it takes those reflections and turns them on their heads, showing us just how silly our world can be at times.
Not all of the Discworld books I've read feature villains and of those, very few of them left a lasting impression on me, but one in particular jumped out at me; the assassin Mr. Teatime (pronounced Tay-ah-tih-may).
Mr. Teatime is a classic example of the guy who's just not quite right.  It's not the fact that he's a cold-blooded killer that makes him unnerving – you could understand that easily – but the way things go through his mind that turns your blood cold.  For starters, there's a certain child-like quality about the way he works.  A serial murderer will kill his victims because he likes the sense of power it gives him, but Teatime just seems to enjoy the act of killing itself in the same way that a little kid likes riding on a swing, or jumping on the trampoline.  It's just enjoyable.  On top of that, there's a disconnect between him and other people that normals like us just can't quite grasp.  His boss mentions that when he looks at you, he doesn't see a person, but a piece of furniture, while Susan accuses him of being the kind of boy who doesn't know the difference between "throwing a rock at a cat and setting it on fire."  He doesn't really understand what he's doing on an emotional level and that makes him not only more frightening, but more dangerous.
And Pratchett presents this idea so very well.  You get that sense of childishness about him.  He gets a bit reproachful when people mispronounce his name, he giggles all the time and he says and does things that could even be taken for friendly.  Then he stabs you in the heart and moves on with no more than an off-hand comment, like he didn't do anything at all.  Not only that, but his thoughts don't follow straight lines.  When instructed by his teachers in the Assassin's guild to consider how they would go about killing unusual victims, most of the students consider targets like the Patrician, or powerful wizards.  Not Teatime, no; he works out ways to assassinate mythological figures like the Hogfather (Santa Clause), or the Soul Cake Duck (Easter Bunny) and even Death Himself.  In fact, the entire book revolves around Teatime's plot to murder the Hogfather by making all the children of the world stop believing in him.  It takes a special kind of mind to come up with a plan like that – a mind that is both brilliant and disturbed.
Mr. Teatime: Not quite right as a person, but just right as a bad guy.

7.  Hank Quinlan, Touch of Evil

People know Orson Wells for his powerful screen presence, his deep, rumbling voice and a particularly wicked sense of humor if they've seen him on the celebrity roasts.  He was also one of America's most brilliant auteur film directors.  A shame he spent so much of his time butting heads with asinine studio executives who didn't have the sense to let him make movies, or we'd probably see a lot more of his revolutionary directing work.
Touch of Evil is not just my favorite Wells films, it's one of my favorite Noir films.  It stars Orson Wells himself as Hank Quinlan, a beat down detective who just hasn't been the same since a criminal who escaped prison because of a lack of evidence murdered his wife.  Since that day, Hank has promised himself that no criminal was ever going to escape justice on his watch.  Nobody!  Even if that meant he had to plant the evidence of their crimes himself.  This comes to a head when he squares off against Charlton Heston, who doesn't agree with Hank's methods and is determined to do things legally.  When this causes the higher ups to begin questioning Hank's investigations, Hank decides to get Heston's wife embroiled in a scandal over the murder of a Mexican-American crime boss in hopes of taking the scrutiny off of himself long enough to get a conviction for the man he's sure murdered a local California politician.
As you can see, Hank Quinlan is a classic villain-by-circumstance.  His motivations aren't evil, he just wants to make sure that nobody has to suffer like his wife did because of what he saw was an inefficient legal system.  He's trying to do the right thing, even if it means he has to go against the law to get it done.  He's a moral ambiguous character and someone who, in other movies, might actually be portrayed as a hero and that makes him a much more engaging villain than most.  The final scene with Hank is the most powerful, too.  When Hank's anger at Heston's interference finally boils over, Hank crosses a line he never meant to cross and the horror of realizing what he'd done destroys him long before the final shot that finishes the job.  The look of shock on his face as he falls back to his death after being shot is the face of a man who's already dead and is just waiting for his body to realize it.
Hank Quinlan: He paved the road to hell with his own good intentions.

6.  Darth Vader, Star Wars

Yeah, I know, it seems obvious to put Darth Vader somewhere on this list, but I'm not a hipster.  I'll like a mainstream villain if they're good.  And Darth Vader is a well written villain.
Darth Vader is a classic, even archtypal, villain who's story comes out of something right out of Greek tragedy.  In fact, the story of the fallen father being redeemed by his son is one of the oldest of Greek dramas.  The original Star Wars was always like that; blending myth and folklore to create a story that resonates on many levels so powerfully that you can forgive the occasional bad dialogue.
But more than just a bad guy who is the good guy's father, Darth Vader is a well presented villain, at least in the original trilogy.  He's presented in a way that few villains get represented; he's cold.  Darth Vader is very much a straightforward military dictator's underling.  And yes, he is an underling; in the first movie, he has to bend to the commands of a bureaucrat named Governor Tarkin.  He does not have any authority to act on his own and everybody knows it, even to the point that they mock him right to his face.  Of course, they come to regret it as he coldly chokes the life out of them with the Force.  Even those that he doesn't have the authority to execute learn to fear and respect him after that.
But it's the way he does it that makes him so awesome.  Darth Vader doesn't scream, or threaten, or blow up on people.  No, when pushed to the limits of his patience, he just chokes them.  And all he says is "I find your lack of faith disturbing," in a very calm voice.  Darth Vader doesn't feel the need to make a big show of scaring people at every turn.  The people he works with already understand that he is powerful and dangerous and that he tolerates no failure and that keeps them in line.  The only people who need reminding are those stuffed shirt political types who spend all their time in the senate instead of serving on a battleship and even then, once is enough.
Not only that, but the "I am your father," reveal was so well done that ever since then, nobody has been able to do that same plot twist without people thinking that it's a rip-off of Star Wars, despite the fact that this twist is actually older than dirt.  That's impressive.
Darth Vader: You don't have to chew the furniture to be a badass villain.

5.  Lotso Huggin Bear, Toy Story 3

Some people might think it a bit blasphemous to put a fuzzy purple teddy bear who smells like strawberries higher on the list than a classic villain like Darth Vader, but here's the thing: There was no chance of us not taking Darth Vader as credible villain. He wears a black suit and has that ominous breathing noise.  He caries a glowing red laser sword.  He chokes people with his mind.  He's voiced by James Earl Jones – James Earl "I have the most badass voice in acting history" Jones.  It's not hard to make a credible villain when you've got all that to work with.
Lotso, on the other hand, is a teddy bear voiced by a grandfatherly old southerner.  He has a cane instead of a sword.  He's purple instead of black.  He smells like strawberries.  How in the world do you make people take this guy seriously?  How do you make this seem like a credible villain?  
How?  You hire someone very talented who works for Pixar, that's how.  Not only does this teddy bear succeed at being a believable, threatening villain, he does it in spades.  He comes off like a mafia boss, manipulating the system to put himself on top, controlling his minions not through fear of him, but through fear of losing what he has to offer them.  He inspires loyalty through favors, not force and uses that power to allow him to sacrifice those who don't have anything to offer him.  Furthermore, the scene where he resets Buzz to demo-mode is one of the most chilling villainous scenes in any kids movie I've ever seen, because not only is he able to strip away someone's free-will to get what he wants, he's perfectly happy to do it if it will further his position.
To top it off, he is also a villain that, after all they do to establish how evil he is, you can still feel sorry for him, not because he's a cute, fuzzy teddy bear – which you've long since forgotten by that point – but because of how hauntingly tragic his story is.  When the choice to let go of his villainous was is given, you want him to make the right choice and the fact that he doesn't makes him all the more despicable.
Lotso Huggin Bear: Cuteness weaponized.

4.  Irenicus, Baldur's Gate 2

Baldur's Gate remains one of my favorite game series of all time.  The first game was fantastic, but one of the things that I felt the game really lacked, even while I was playing it, was a threatening villain.  Sure, it had your evil half-brother . . . whatever-his-name-was, who shows up in the beginning and murders your mentor and then shows up again at the end, but I didn't feel his presence at any other point in the game.  Occasionally you find his letters to the underlings, but you don't get any sense of who he was and when he shows back up at the end of the game I actually found myself saying "Wait, who are you again?"
Baldur's Gate 2 was better than it's original in every way, and that includes having an infinitely better villain.  Irenicus is not only an excellent villain and easily the best in the series, but I would go so far as to say that he's actually one of the best villains in video game history.   Like your evil half-brother from the first game, you very rarely see Irenicus in the game, but you never stop feeling his presence.  His influence is almost everywhere and when those few times when you actually do encounter him in person, having the talented David Warner serve as the voice really makes him come alive as a character.
Most of Irenicus's personality is implied through the things you find.  In the first level, you break out of his magical lab where he's been experimenting on you and you wander through his hideout in search of a way out.  Along the way, you find that he's performing all sorts of experiments into extending the lives of mortals and you get the sense from talking to some of his "victims" that they actually willingly served him and that he once cared about them, but over time lost interest.  They are not angry at him as much as they are hurt by his negligence because – as I saw it – they were all very close friends at one point.  From the very beginning of the game, you have the strong sense that ths character was once a good man, but over time, something destroyed him.
When I got to the end of the game and actually learn what that thing was, I actually found myself crying a little.  Here was a great man who had everything and lost it all because of a foolish mistake.  He spent years, possibly decades, trying to make up for it, but whether the gods couldn't forgive him, or he just couldn't forgive himself, he gave up hope of ever being the great man he had once been and his bitterness slowly turned to hate and his goals to revenge.  He's very Shakespearean in his presentation and story and his presence is one of the things that makes Baldur's Gate 2 the best game in the series.
Irenicus: "I clung to the memory of that love, then the memory of the memory, and then nothing; the gods even took that from me!"

3.  Randal Flagg, The Steven King Universe

Flagg is different from most of the villains on the list in one very big way.  Randal Flagg is irredeemably evil.  There is nothing morally complex about him, he's completely inhuman, he doesn't have a tragic back story – or any real back story at all, for that matter – he's just evil.  In his first appearance in The Stand, his opposite labels him the Devil's Imp, an underling to Satan himself, sent to Earth to sew chaos and discord wherever he goes.  He embodies Voltair's song "It's So Easy Being Evil," in pretty much every way.
So why does he make it onto this list?  Presentation, plain and simple.  He may not be much in the way of complexity or humanity, but what he lacks in morality, he makes up for in style.  With his worn down cowboy boots, his dusty jeans-jacket with the yellow smiley-face button and his freakishly charming smile, he moseys on into the plot out of nowhere and you're hooked on him from the moment he speaks.  He's the villain Disney would make if Disney had the balls.
What makes him stand out to me personally is that, despite being inhumanly evil, he still has the strengths and weaknesses of a human character.  He's charming and clever and he's a masterful liar, just like his master, but he's not a superhuman.  He has personality flaws, such as being overconfident, not being very adaptable to surprises and a terrible temper that arises out of a deep-seeded sense of insecurity that he's tried so very hard to burry that you won't notice it's there if you aren't paying close attention.  Stephen King made a villain seem very human because of his inhumanity and I find that awesome in more ways that I could list.
On top of that, Randal Flagg is one of the lynchpins in Stephen King's multiverse.  He shows up everywhere, connecting King's various worlds and stories together.  He may not be the Big Bad, but he is certainly the central player for the side of evil in the grand scheme of things.  He is the nemesis of good itself, turning fucking with the good guys into a personal vendetta just because it's his job and he appreciates a job well done.
Randal Flagg: Bringing evil to a universe near you.

2.  Yubaba, Spirited Away

As the Lord High Priest of the Church of Miyazaki, it would be a kind of blasphemy for one of Miyazaki's villains to not make this list.  In fact, Miyazaki is the primary reason why I only allow one villain per person to appear on this list; if I didn't, Miyazaki's villains would probably fill five slots on their own.  Naturally, narrowing it down to just one was a challenge and when it came down to Yubaba or Muska (Castle in the Sky), I ultimately decided to go with Yubaba because she's really more in line with what makes Miyazaki's villains so good.
Yubaba is a witch who runs a bathhouse where the various Kami of Japan can go to when they need to relax from their daily duties.  She's greedy, cruel, self-centered and all-around unpleasant.  She turns Chihiro's parents into pigs because they were eating the food meant for her customers and she figured the meat she could get from them would cover the cost of the food they ate.  She puts Chihiro to work in her bathhouse and makes her clean the biggest and dirtiest bath for no better reason than spite.  She uses her employees as much as she can and as soon as they're no longer of any use to her, she just throws them out, not caring whether they'll live or die.  She's just like the boss I had when I worked for DirecTV
That's what makes Yubaba so much fun.  She doesn't come across as evil for the sake of being evil, but more because she's the overly strict manager of a business in a world where the rules are all different.  She comes from a world where you must work, or else you will cease to exist and she views humans as lazy and stupid and doesn't want anything to do with them.  Also, they smell (no really, humans having a very distinct odor is one of the reasons nobody in the spirit world wants them there).
But, like all great villains, she's got her weaknesses.  Aside from being petty and greedy, she also loves her family, to the point of spoiling her gigantic baby, Bo.  Of all the things that Miyazaki could have used for the undoing of Yubaba, it's the fact that her baby gets kidnapped that leads Yubaba to agree to release Chihiro and her parents.  That's very telling; Yubaba's greedy and she loves her gold more than any of the people who work for her, but if there's one thing that she loves more than money, it's her son.  It's even because of her son that Yubaba's even willing to give Chihiro the chance to get her parents back in the first place.  That adds a lot of depth to her character and makes her one of the best villains in the Miyazaki movies.
Yubaba: Wicked witch, tyrannical business entrepreneur, loving mother.

1.  Claude Frolo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Considering how disparaging I've been to Disney in the past, some of you might be a little surprised that a Disney villain made number 1 on my list.  Those who know me better, know that I'm not talking about the Disney villain, but the very reason why I will never forgive Disney for their adaptation of Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, because while Claude Frolo may be one of the most complex and dark Disney villains ever, he doesn't hold a candle to the complexity of his original character and his portrayal in the cartoon is nothing shy of character assassination.
From the moment I considered doing this top ten list, I knew Frolo was going to be at the top.  Like Inspector Javert from Les Misirables (who was disqualified by virtue of another Victor Hugo villain already being on this list), he's a villain because of the circumstances.  He falls into his position as the villain because the traditions of the society he has been raised in forbid him from doing what he really wants to do with his life.  Unlike Inspector Javert, however, Claude Frolo was not a jerk.
Frolo is a priest and he's a really good one, too.  In a time period and setting where Catholic priests are being portrayed as corrupt and evil people, he's a very good man.  He helps people during the black plague, putting his own health at risk.  When his parents die, he takes in his brother and raises him as his own.  When Quasimodo is left abandoned on the church steps, it is Claude Frolo who takes him in and teaches him to speak when all the other priests want to drown him as a demon, or changeling; this hurts his reputation at a time when a bad reputation could get you killed, a huge risk for a man to take, but he does it because he knows it's the right thing to do.  Yeah, the cartoon is character assassination.
So why is this man the villain?  Well, one day, he looks out his window and sees Esmeralda dancing in the streets.  He thinks nothing of this at first, but as time goes by, he can't get her out of his mind.  He begins spending more time out of his office just so he can see her.  His obsesses over her, tearing himself apart over the passion he feels for her, knowing that as a Catholic priest, he is forbidden from pursuing her.  It all comes to a head when he sees her meeting with Captain Phoebus, the biggest jackass in all of Paris.  He follows them, knowing Phoebus's reputation as a womanizer and when he sees the soldier taking advantage of Esmeralda's naivete, he attacks the captain.
This leads to a series of events where she gets blamed for the attempted murder of the captain and she gets imprisoned in the church by taking sanctuary.  Having her so close drives Frolo mad with lust and in the end, he tries to rape her, only to be stopped by Quasimodo.  When Frolo realizes what he's done, he spends the rest of the novel racked with grief over his actions and seeking her forgiveness.  When she ultimately refuses it, he goes mad and hands her over to the city guard to be executed for the attempted murder of the dick-head captain who started the whole ordeal in the first place.
To this day, Claude Frolo remains my number one favorite villain.  Never have I seen such a better man fall to such low depths, tortured by his natural inner desires and the societal roles that forbid him from pursuing them.  It is the best told tale of a fallen hero that I've ever come across, all set amidst beautifully written and intelligent satire of Paris life in the 16th century.
Claude Frolo: His only sin was wanting something for himself just once in his life.  Also attempted rape and murder.

Honorable Mentions

Ernest Starvo Blofeld, From Russia With Love and Thunderball

I really like the enigmatic leader of SPECTER from the golden age of James Bond.  He was intelligent, refined, cunning and cold.  He ruled his organization like a military dictator, demanding only best from his top agents and executing those who failed to fulfill their responsibilities as a standard operating procedure.  He's good enough that I would have included him on this list except for one problem: he's more of a presence in the first two films than a character.
You don't ever see his face and you don't know anything at all about him.  All you ever see is his hands stroking his white cat and hear his chilling voice with its accent that you can't quite place.  They did this because the directors wanted to build up a sense of mystery to his character so that the audience would want to know more about him when he finally made his big reveal and I can get behind that, but when they finally did reveal him, I found myself profoundly disappointed.  Not only did they change actors for him, but they changed it to an actor who just couldn't get across the cold, calculating evil that Blofeld represented in the first two films.  He turned from a cool-headed businessman who killed people with the detached push of a button to a hot-tempered screamer who berated his underlings before shooting them and then screaming some more.  It utterly ruins his personality and by the time they get him back on track for Diamonds are Forever, the golden age of Bond had passed and the movies had become altogether too camp to be really enjoyable.
Ernest Starvo Blofeld: Number 1 disappointment of the golden age James Bond films.

Urusla, The Little Mermaid

A lot of people really like the sea witch from Little Mermaid and I did consider her for the  list, but I ultimately dropped her for a simple reason: when you actually think about it, she's really not a very good villain.  See, just as a hero is only as good as the villain they face, a villain is only as good as the heros they face, and the heroes of The Little Mermaid are the worst heroes in the history of fiction.
Okay, think about this for a second.  Ursula's methods are to make deals with people, offering what they think they want, only to turn it around on them and put them under her power.  Alright, that's cool.  A good setup.  The presentation of that idea, however, is terrible.  Let's examine the deals she makes.
Deal 1: With Ariel, here's the contract – I will turn you into a human for three days so that you can woo the man you love.  If he doesn't fall in love with you before three days, you turn back into a mermaid and I own your soul.  Oh, and also you have to give me your voice, which I get to keep whether he falls in love with you or not.  This deal is so stacked in Ursula's favor that only a complete and total idiot would ever agree to it.  Oh, yeah, that describes Ariel perfectly.  But more than that, it's not a very cunning deal.  The deal is not only stacked highly in Ursula's favor, it's obviously stacked in her favor.  There's nothing clever about it, no trick of words, no fine print, no secrets.  It's all on the table.  Just as you have to say that only a moron would accept this deal, only a moron would offer this deal expecting someone to take it.
Deal 2: King Triton trades his life for his daughter's, thus giving Ursula control of all the sea.  Now, think about this for another second and you'll see how stupid this deal is and how incredibly huge the risk is that Ursula took on this deal.  If Triton had said no to the deal, Ursula would have gained nothing, except one new unfortunate soul for her collection, but she would have made two new very powerful enemies.  King Triton, who banished her in the first place then promptly forgot about her, would have suddenly been made aware of her schemes to take over the ocean and he would have come down on her hard through his legal means as King of the Whole Damned Ocean (the thing about absolute monarchies is that when you're the king, you're free to abuse your powers and it's still considered law as long as the people don't go into open revolt).  She would also have made an enemy of Erik, a prince of the land, who now also has all of the resources of the kingdom at his disposal to go after her and has reason to strike an allegiance with the king of the sea who we know has the ability to give Erik's soldiers the ability to breath underwater, because he clearly has enough power to turn his daughter into a human.  I'm sorry, if the king had said no, Ursula would be right fucked between her inky tentacles – ick, horrible image!
The fact that the king makes the deal tells us two things.  First, that Triton was a completely ineffectual king.  He handed his kingdom over to Ursula to save his daughter, making no provisions for her safety, which left the witch free to try and kill her afterward.  Furthermore, it is a basic tenant of any good ruler that the lives of many outweigh the lives of the few.  His daughter wasn't even going to die, she was just going to get glued to the sea witch's floor, so Triton willingly sacrificed the rights and lives of his people so that his daughter wouldn't have to be uncomfortable.
The other thing we learn from this is the obvious reason why Ariel is such a spoiled bitch.  I mean, if the king is going to go to such lengths as that to help his daughter get out of an obviously bad deal that she wasn't smart enough not to make, we can assume that he basically gave her whatever she asked for.  You know, up until she asked to bone a surface dweller – which he clearly only denied out of personal prejudice.
And on top of all this, she's just not very developed.  We don't really know anything at all about who she is, why she's evil and what her motivation is.  Yeah, she wants to rule the world, but why?  Ruling the world is a lot of effort, so what does she get from ruling the world that overcomes not wanting to take that much effort?  You don't know.
Ursula: Your heroes are shit, that sadly makes you shit, too.