I feel like I’m never going to truly love a villain again after Sherlock’s Moriarty, who has all the qualities I love in a villain:

1. He’s fucking terrifying. I mean, look at him. He looks like a goddamn puppy. And then you look into his eyes, and you see the crazy. You see it. And he acts suave and calm and then occasionally cracks into absolute batshit insanity, and it’s scary. That instability, never knowing when the calm person you’re interacting with is going to lapse into a shouting lunatic.
2. He’s funny, but not ~zany. There’s nothing I hate more than a zany villain. He’s wild without being facepalm-ridiculous (like the Doctor Who character the Master felt for me). You laugh, but then you are immediately like “this guy would literally rip my skin off if I did anything he wasn’t fond of.” And even if he has ~zany lines to deliver, he never comes off as a cartoon. He never goes Penguin on us.
3. He’s smart. Dumb villains are pointless villains. The web he wove in Reichenbach was so intricate, and that just made him all the more terrifying.
4. HIS VOICE. Goes from friendly chat to eerie singsong to matter-of-fact to PSYCHOTIC SHOUTING at the drop of a hat. Just listen to the line, “I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you.” That is the most intricately delivered line I’ve ever heard in anything.
5. He’s a match for Sherlock. Moriarty is as craftily demented as Sherlock is cleverly observant, and he knows it, so watching them “duke it out” is really, really entertaining. It’s never as much fun when it’s super obvious who will win (but let’s face it, we do).
6. He’s played by a great actor. Andrew Scott kicks ass. I would watch him play anyone, ever, because he could pull off pretty much any role. His own personal touches that he added to Moriarty (like dancing around while stealing the crown jewels) were just flawless, so he really gets the character. And Andrew Scott himself seems (and looks) like a very sweet person! He used his very sweet-looking face to his advantage and it just made Moriarty all the more terrifying.

And those are just the basics. I could ramble for days about Andrew Scott’s Jim Moriarty.