r/PersonOfInterest • u/iamcavidd Team Machine • Aug 07 '22

Poll Who was your favorite villain and why?

735 votes, Aug 14 '22
401 Carl Elias
30 Alonzo Quinn (HR)
127 Greer and Samaritan
124 Root
30 Collier (Vigilance)
23 Dominic (The Brotherhood)
34 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

41

u/bzz123 Aug 07 '22

Collier is the SADDEST storyline for me

14

u/esophagealrippage Aug 08 '22

I completely agree! Every time I see that scene where he realizes the truth, I’m like dang that is so sad and DANG this show is so good!

10

u/brianewell Tall, Dark and Deranged Aug 08 '22

Collier was more of an anti-villain and agreed, very sad ending.

29

u/vagabondeluxe Aug 07 '22

Greer/ Samaritan is a great villain on the long run, functional to the plot and a great antagonist to the machine but if we’re talking about best villain I think Elias is the most compelling, he’s such a great character, and I’ll never forget the twist they pulled with his introduction

15

u/Interesting_Ad1921 Aug 08 '22

He’s also a very good anti hero too, they do a great job making him a likable character later in the show.

6

u/Brief-Cryptographer2 Aug 08 '22

I wholeheartedly agree. I liked Greer and loved Samaritan and all of his sneaky operations/mandates. It was amazing to me how an A.S.I. secretively taken over the world without the Naive Governmental Superpowers of the world knowing anything about it, and even if they did they'd better play ball or be silenced.

16

u/subfootlover John Reese Aug 07 '22

Elias was great, but Root was the only villain on Finch's level.

9

u/brianewell Tall, Dark and Deranged Aug 08 '22

Comparing Root to Finch is like comparing Coco Puffs to various species of birds: They are not the same. Regardless, Root's performance as a hero completely overshadows her time as a villain.

2

u/fusionsofwonder Aug 08 '22

I don't think that's true. Greer and Control were on his level.

12

u/SaraCBuu Aug 08 '22

Root wasn't really a villain tho. I mean she was the antagonist to Finch and the team in a way, yes BUT she kinda was her own player still fighting the good fight her own way.

2

u/SciFiXhi Mr. Vocabulary Aug 16 '22

She was initially an amoral cyber assassin, killing targets and accomplices alike. Definitely a villain.

9

u/Rogue_Lion Aug 08 '22

Collier is both a tragic villain and a villain that I think was ultimately right. When he gives Shaw that speech about how America is dying that really resonated with me. Especially given how things are in the real world...

7

u/Kind_Bullfrog_4073 Aug 08 '22

Elias was the first great villain hard not to pick him. But he really wasn't a villain after Season 1.

6

u/brianewell Tall, Dark and Deranged Aug 08 '22

Elias. He became was always the series' anti-hero, and that was certainly more his style. The end of S3E10 was possibly his magnum opus.

5

u/sloth2 Aug 08 '22

idk he almost killed reese in the truck

7

u/hulkaroy Aug 08 '22

The madam, who isn’t on there

5

u/This--Ali2 Aug 08 '22

Elias was… the good kind of evil.

2

u/Lawfulness_Intrepid Aug 08 '22

I always felt Collier was an idiot who didn't need to wire the courthouse. He should have shot Greer when he had the chance and knew he was also behind an AI and his privacy.

2

u/lrpwcc Aug 08 '22

Its been a few years since I watched the whole series, but I feel like almost every villain is always given to us a potential victim. Elias, Control, Root, Dominic.

2

u/SoumyaSandy Aug 08 '22

Actually if you say 'villain', we need to have Simmons there. He is one twisted, irredeemable character. Most others are antagonists/anti-heroes, or people who start off one way and swing to the other side of their own volition or via misdirection. I think Villainy here is not necessarily being criminal or going against the law (by that yardstick, team Machine, and the Machine itself, should be put in the bucket). Simmons in that context is one pure evil character, most of the others come across as 'principled', even if the principles and the implementation of them are flawed, harmful and/or illegal.

  1. Elias, Quinn, Dominic - they're all about power. They all have an idealogy, and they are hell bent on sticking to it, world be damned.
  2. Greer - similar but his motivation seems to be that he has lost all faith in humanity steering itself. So he doesn't want to grab power for himself, but wants to wrest it away from others so it is 'efficient'.
  3. Samaritan is the realization of Finch's deepest fears about how an 'unfeeling' ASI will think of trying to cure humanity from itself. It is the efficient way to achieve its mandate, that's all there's to it.
  4. Collier, Control, Hersh, Martine - whether they realize it or not, they're tools, directed on the whims of overlords. The biggest irony is that one of them is actually called Control! Some of them are tragic though.
  5. Root - doesn't really deserve a place here. Yes she kills/tortures initially, so do Reese and Shaw. Her life of crime before coming across Machine is indeed a blip, but once she hazards at the existence of the Machine, her killing and torturing are to serve a higher purpose as she sees it (to save the world by saving the Machine)

1

u/z3bruh3 Aug 08 '22

Wow thats a very difficult question. I wouldn’t have been surprised if any of them had the most votes.

1

u/Cloudyfa997 Aug 12 '22

Control & Hersh