Villains.

The word alone sounds villainous in itself. It sounds dark and sneaky, creeping up on you from behind, grabbing you from the shadows. It's a rustle in the undergrowth, a cold blade to your throat.

It's thrilling.

And in many cases, the characters to which this particular label is applied are vastly more interesting than their heroic counterparts. After all, what would a hero be without their nemesis? What would the good be without the bad, the light without the dark? Boring, is the answer. Horribly dull. Fiction is, at it's core, a form of escapism that we all crave. A reprieve from the monotony of every day life, a chance to forget, if only temporarily, the stresses and responsibilities that await us in the real world. And if these book-shaped escapes didn't have villains, they wouldn't be escapes at all.

So here, I've picked out my five favourite literary Lady-Villains, to thank them for being so cruelly brilliant.

Xenia, The Robber Bride.

Yeah, I'm talking about Margaret Atwood again. Are you even surprised? A list is hardly worth making if there isn't an Atwood reference on it.

Xenia is the type of woman which the rest of the types of woman hate. Specifically, she's the Other Woman. She's the one you can't quite banish from your mind, the one who rankles, even decades after the fact. She's the splinter beneath the skin, the cut that won't heal. She's the woman who did what you hoped no woman could ever do; she stole your boyfriend. Maybe because she wanted to, maybe because she could. Either way, she did. And you hate her.

But, you're also intrigued by her. Why did she do that? How did she do that? What does she have, that I do not? Atwood's The Robber Bride is an in-depth character exploration of this Other Woman, a hard look into the intricacies of her psyche, the way she works, the way she succeeds. The novel is narrated in turn by three women, once close friends of Xenia's, from each of whom she stole a partner. She insinuated herself into their lives and snuck their men away like a thief in the night, leaving in her wake heartbreak, resentment and confusion.

But, as Oasis once said, she's electric. Every word Atwood writes about her is a revelation. Yes, she's certainly an awful person, and no, she's not a main character. But she's far more intriguing than the actual narrators. Her presence on the page makes every chapter infinitely more exciting, and The Robber Bride could not have been the Booker Prize-winning success it became without her manipulations.

Amy Elliott Dunne, Gone Girl.

I want to preface this one by acknowledging that yes, Amazing Amy is in fact nuts. She fakes her own murder, frames her husband and actually ends up killing somebody else. This is undeniable psychopath behaviour. But it's so darn entertaining when she does it. Her intelligence makes her a force to be reckoned with, as does her thirst for retribution. What really seals the deal and inducts her into the villain hall of fame, though, is the fact that she is literally the last person you would expect to try and pull of something like that. On the outside she has the perfect life. She's a beautiful young New Yorker, a trust-fund baby, the subject of an immensely popular children's book series. She has a bunch of degrees, an extensive social circle, a handsome husband and a loving family. She has the whole package, and is therefore the last character you'd expect to come out as a villain. She's the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing.

Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

When Louise Fletcher picked up her Academy Award for playing Nurse Ratched opposite Jack Nicholson's Randle P. McMurphy, she told her audience ''well, it looks like you all hated me so much that you've given me this award for it, and I'm loving every minute of it. All I can say is I've loved being hated by you.'' Now, Fletcher obviously won her award for a motion picture, but the film was based upon the popular novel written by Ken Kesey, and her character was based on one of his original creations. And what a creation she is. The only match for larger-than-life Randle McMurphy, Nurse Ratched is a stone cold, hard-faced battleaxe. She is so impossible to like that Kesey had nothing to lose when writing about her, and therefore could go all out with her behaviour. She's irredeemable, and that makes her a perfect literary villain. She's the character - as Fletcher so astutely observes - that we all love to hate. She angers us so much it gives us energy. She stirs an rage in us so potent that we cheer when McMurphy almost strangles her to death. That is the power of Kesey's writing and characterisation; that we're almost happy when she's murdered. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest could not be the same without her.

Serena Joy, The Handmaid's Tale.

Aaaaaaand we're back again, delving into Atwood territory. I really have no excuse for including her on this list twice. I clearly just can't help myself, so I'll try and keep this one short.

Serena Joy's main crime is that, as a woman, she perpetuates and participates in a regime which damages other women. By which I mean she's happy to let human beings be sold into psuedo-sexual slavery as long as she eventually gets what she wants. However, what she wants, in this case, is a baby. Atwood cleverly makes this particular villainess three-dimensional. Yes, we should indeed hate her. But on the other hand, we can identify with her. She wants a child. She wants somebody who loves her unconditionally, and who she can love in return. And most of us, if not all, can identify that. Can't we?

Cersei Lannister, A Song of Ice and Fire series.

(Game of Thrones spoilers present!)

I've saved my favourite until last here. The only woman about whom I use the hashtags #slay and #queen un-ironically, Cersei Lannister truly is the villainess to beat. I will admit that she does some pretty gross things (sleeping with her twin brother and her cousin being quite high up that particular list) and some pretty violent things (y'know, blowing up a holy building and killing at least a hundred people) she's completely unabashed as she goes about it. She is ruthless. She will never stop. And, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article, we turn to literature as an escape. Which characters provide a better escape than those who can give you everything you look for as a reader? Cersei is fearful, brave, loving, violent. She's cunning, cold, smart...she's just everything. And that, friends, is why the she tops this list of literary Lady-Villains.

#LongLiveQueenCersei

Bonus villain: Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter series.

I kid, I kid. There's no defending Dolores Umbridge.