We’ve talked about word games a few times here, and several of the TKZ crowd have mentioned Wordle as being a favorite.
For people unfamiliar with the game, the challenge is to guess a hidden five-letter word within six tries by creating words and seeing how the Wordle game responds. The simplest way to explain it is by example. I have a habit of using the word “HOUSE” as my first guess.
If a letter is in the solution and in the correct placement, it’s shown on a green background. If the letter is in the solution, but not in the correct place, the background turns yellow. If the letter isn’t in the word at all, the background is gray.
In a game I played a couple of weeks ago, here’s how the first four guesses looked:
After the first three guesses, I had all five letters of the answer, but I wasn’t able to come up with a word that was a valid solution. (Wordle will not let you enter arbitrary letters. Your guess has to spell an actual word, and I don’t think it’s fair play to look up possibilities online.)
The only word I came up with was “ROILS,” but I knew it was wrong because the letter “I” couldn’t be in the third position. Still, it was the only English word I thought of, so I entered it just to see if any of the other letters would be in the correct positions.
This was the strangest Wordle game I’d ever played. After the fourth guess, there are only two possible solutions: IOLRS or LORIS. I didn’t know either of those words, but LORIS seemed the most likely, so I went with that one.
It was the first time I solved a Wordle game with a word I hadn’t heard of. (My apologies to all the linguists and zoologists out there.) Of course, I looked up the meaning of the word, and found that a loris is a very interesting animal.
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You can’t get much cuter than this guy. Big, sad eyes in a furry little body. So adorable. So cuddly. You want to pick one up and pet it.
Not a good idea.
According to worldwildlife.org,
With wide eyes and furry bodies, these slow-moving, pint-sized primates look like cuddly stuffed animals. But their venom-filled bites can rot flesh and cause anaphylactic shock in humans. (my emphasis)
Ouch.
It turns out the loris is the only mammal that is venomous. When I considered that surprising fact, it got me thinking about villains in general. Maybe the most dangerous ones aren’t the big, bad guys with the tattoos and spiked hair. Or those dark space villains. You know they’re the bad guys.
Maybe the scariest ones are the adorable characters whom everybody loves and trusts. The ones you can’t imagine would ever hurt you.
Here are a few examples I found on screenrant.com:
- Hans, the handsome prince in Frozen, who appears to be in love with the Princess Anna, but really just wants to marry her to usurp the throne.
- The “killer rabbit” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. How dangerous could a cute little white rabbit be?
- Dawn Bellwether in Zootopia seems to be a cute sheep helping ensure cooperation in her community, but in fact, she’s the mastermind behind a conspiracy.
In addition, I asked our TKZ expert on villainry, Debbie Burke, to give me some ideas of villains who fit this category. She mentioned nurses who kill patients. Makes me want to try doubly hard to stay out of the hospital.
But maybe the scariest villain of all was Anthony Freemont in the 73rd episode of The Twilight Zone. He was a really cute kid with powers of evil.
I saw that episode many years ago, but it still gives me chills when I think about it.
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Over to you, TKZers: Are you a Wordler? Did you solve the recent Loris puzzle? On another subject, who is your favorite villain? Do your characters ever become victims of wolves in sheep’s clothing?
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They may be cute, but there’s nothing villainous about these two detectives. 10-year-old tree-climbing Reen and her 9-year-old, feet-on-the-ground cousin Joanie are on a mission to find a hidden treasure, but along the way they discover something more important than what they were looking for.
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Wasn’t there a Dr. Seuss book about a loris?
Good morning, Sharon.
Debbie mentions below you may be thinking of The Lorax. (I thought I had read every Dr. Seuss book to our son when he was little, but I missed that one.)
I think that was the Lorax.
Sharon, you’re close. It was The Lorax.
Kay, the kid in the Twilight Zone is definitely memorable and chilling. In fact, he inspired a question I’m going to ask students in an upcoming villain workshop: “What if you can’t bring yourself to kill someone but you could wish them into the cornfield?”
I look forward to hearing their answers.
Thanks for introducing us to the loris. I’d never heard of it before you brought it to my attention.
Good morning, Debbie.
I don’t even like to think about that episode of The Twilight Zone. I also don’t want to think there are nurses out there who actually murder their patients. That’s even scarier.
I look forward to hearing what your workshop attendees have to say about wishing someone “into the cornfield.”
Have a good week!
Biology background, worked for the Zoological Society in Miami, and got the word, but it took a while and I didn’t think of it until I tried it in the puzzle. The zoo didn’t display those critters.
I figured you would recognize the word, Terry. You’d think the loris would be famous since it’s the only venomous mammal, but I doubt many people have ever heard of it.
My favorite villain is Hans Gruber from “Die Hard.” Dedicated, organized, snappy dresser who has the gift of gab. He’s also chillingly ruthless and nihilistic, caring only about wealth.
While I haven’t had any wolves in sheep clothing, I’ve had bad guys who seem like nice guys, which is perhaps a close cousin to the wolf.
Good morning, Dale!
The character of Hans Gruber is a great example of a villain. I especially liked the scene where he switched his accent to convince Bruce Willis that he was an escaped hostage.
My favorite villain? Magneto from the X Men. You understand his pain, having lost both parents in a Nazi death camp. His militant loyalty for all mutants and his hatred against homo sapiens are so consuming that he doesn’t realize he’s become what he hates the most.
Good morning, Mike.
Great example. “he doesn’t realize he’s become what he hates the most.” Frightening. I wonder how many villains in both fiction and real life do this very thing.
Have a great week.
Never played Wordle.
Never heard of a loris. Now I never want to meet one… 🙂
Favorite villain? Still Hannibal Lecter.
Close second? The Wicked Witch of the West.
“I’ll get you, my little pretty…” Watched over the years as a kid, watched with my kids, watched with grandkids. Still scares the daylights outta me!
Happy Monday all…
Morning, Deb!
Good choices.
The wicked witch of the west still causes me to shiver when I think of her.
Have a good writing week.
I think that episode scarred me for life…maybe that’s why I love to create villains…
and thanks for the explanation of Wordle . I’ve never known how to play it, but I love word games…you may have created a monster!
Good morning, Patricia!
The thing I love about Wordle is that it’s a fast game. A few minutes to give your brain a little challenge, and you can get back to writing that book!
The thing I don’t like is the NY Times bot that challenges you to keep your Wordle streak going. Makes me feel like Pavlov’s dog, but they have me trained now.
Have a great week.
Totally off the subject. A very important “Writer Beware” article talks about the new owner’s contracts for Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Watch your backs and read the small print, folks.
https://writerbeware.blog/2025/07/25/contract-controversy-and-change-at-must-read-magazines/
Thanks for the warning, Marilynn.
Loris, yes.
Twilight zone, no – I don’t think we had them in Mexico when I was growing up, but I must have seen a few somewhere, though not that particular one (unless it’s the one where the world ends in a short distance from that character).
Do your characters ever become victims of wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Oh, yes – she is a persuasive conniver with many good points about her (youth, beauty, work ethic, surviving in Hollywood) – except her plans DEPEND on deception, and she is convinced he would be grateful if he knew, but not secure enough to tell him. ALMOST gets away with it.
Hi Alicia,
I read the loris is native to Southeast Asia, and I’m happy about that.
Your conniving character sounds very interesting. “her plans DEPEND on deception” — love this.
Have a good week.
I’ve played Wordle for 2 or 3 years. I’ve only managed to get 14 “twoples,” i.e., two-liners. I got “loris.” I’ll quit when I get a “oneple.”
My villains tend to be low-key, except for the villain in “In the Mouth of the Lion,” Adolf Schicklgruber. And he really was a Schicklgruber. The detective was OSS Agent #488 IRL, Carl Jung, whose assistance was requested by Wehrmacht officers. They suspected Adolf might be mentally imbalanced, which would free them from their oaths of loyalty.
I threepled this 5-letter word tonight.
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟩 kerbing-bong
⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩 bongety-bong
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 boom
I remembered you mentioned Wordle in a previous post. 14 twoples is good! But getting a oneple isn’t a goal for me. It’s just a guess.
Schicklgruber was a sick guy, to be sure.
Schicklgruber very likely had five complexes*, and two or more brain injuries from being beaten unconscious by his father, Alois Schicklgruber, and from measles encephalitis, which killed his brother, Edmund. Other than that, technically, he was sane. Hateful, with a belief that the end justified the means, and a family history of incest, but sane.
* Oedipus, father, guilt, messiah, and inferiority complexes.