Lust

Lust is a weak, poor, whimpering whispering thing when compared with that richness and energy of desire which will arise when lust has been killed.

—C. S. Lewis

Lust is an intense desire for something that doesn't properly have material existence. It is most commonly understood as sexual desire, but can in fact refer to massive desire for anything abstract. Lust for power is a very common motivation for villains, especially the Evil Overlord. Conquest, honour, respect, and knowledge are also things that can be lusted after.

Sexual lust is a character trait of the Chivalrous Pervert, Covert Pervert, Casanova, Lovable Sex Maniac, Dirty Old Man, All Women Are Lustful, and Panty Thief. It often leads to Death by Sex. The worst practitioners of this sin in a sexual sense are usually predators of some kind who prey on others, like the Stalker with a Crush, those who practice Villainous Incest, the vilest of Serial Killers and the villain who says "I Have You Now, My Pretty."

This is similar to Greed, but greed refers to desire for material possessions, lust is desire for abstract concepts. Like greed, lust is rarely satisfied, and just keeps growing until it often brings down the character. Both often go hand in hand with gluttony.

Compare or contrast For Happiness and Ethical Slut, depending on viewpoint. Compare Sex Is Evil and I Am Horny. In certain viewpoints, compare Heteronormative Crusader.

No real life examples, please; we'd be here all day.

Examples of Lust include:

Lust for Power

Comics

• A major trait of Lex Luthor.

Literature

• Senna Wales, whose plan follows the ideals of a Take Over the World villain. Of course, this only the start.
• The Party.

Live-Action TV

• Ben Linus, Lost.

Western Animation

• Fire Lord Ozai of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• As well as both Phobos and Nerissa of WITCH.

Lust for Sex

Anime and Manga

• Happosai, in Ranma ½, could practically be considered the Patron Saint of Stealing Women's Underwear and Lecherous Old Folks. He's over a century old (three centuries in the anime), and has been stealing lingerie, ogling women, groping women, and chasing tail since he hit puberty. He's such a pervert that he actually gets weak and sickly if he can't regularly admire a bra or touch a woman.

Film

• Pick any version of Robin Hood. Chances are that either the Sheriff of Nottingham or Guy of Gisborne will lust after Marian.
• The 1998 miniseries Merlin provides a particularly interesting example in King Uther. His Fatal Flaw, and his doom, is his lust for Igraine, the wife of the Duke of Cornwall. To satisfy his desire, he goes to war against the Duke, causing the death of hundreds, eventually kills him, and with Merlin's help, rapes Igraine by deceit. After he's satiated his desire, however, he has no more interest in her, and simply leaves her and the bastard child he'd begotten(Arthur). Over time after the incident, Uther slowly slips into madness until he is almost The Caligula before he finally commits suicide. At the same time, his killing of her father enrages Morgan le Fay, who later becomes a pivotal enemy of Merlin and Arthur.

Literature

• Balthamel in The Wheel of Time originally became evil so that he could indulge his sexual lust with reckless abandon.
  • Ditto Rahvin, who uses mind control to force women into having sex with him, since he can't handle rejection.
  • Graendal too. She was actually celibate before her Face Heel Turn, but now she regularly holds orgies.
• In Cloud of Sparrows, Zephaniah's first point of view scene is a detailed description of his lust for Emily.
• CS Lewis explains in The Four Loves that the difference between Lust and Romantic Love (eros) lies in "his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes)."
  • Also from CS Lewis is The Horse and His Boy. The second half of the book's action is based on a Calormene Prince's lust for Queen Susan, who uses this as his excuse for invasion.
• In Lolita, Humbert is motivated by his lust for, well... Lolita the young Dolores.
• Brian de Bois Guilbert in Ivanhoe. Though nominally a Knight Templar (not a Knight Templar, though), he stalks and tries to rape the Jewess Rebecca. In the end, during a Duel to the Death he dies of a heart attack, likely not because Sir Walter Scott minded having the hero kill him but because he wanted the poetic justice of having the villain killed by his own lust.
• In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, when Archdeacon Claude Frollo sets his eyes on the beautiful gypsy Esmerelda, he is consumed by his lust for her, which slowly drives him insane until he decides to try to overcome his sexual desires by killing her.

Live-Action TV

• Hawkeye and Trapper of M*A*S*H are well known as a pair of unrepentant skirt chasers, though they do tend to keep their libidos under control when performing surgery.
• Sex and the City
• Phoebe from Charmed got hit by lust pretty bad in an episode centered on the Seven Deadly Sins. Of course, this only magnified what was there originally - her high school nickname was freebie.

Music

• The Seven Deadly Sins series, by Vocaloid producer Mothy aka AkunoP. Lust's song is Madness of Duke Venomania, by Gakupo Kamui. Through a Deal with the Devil, gets the power to lure woman into a large harem at his mansion. Some scenes are NSFW.

Mythology

• In Greek Mythology, The Trojan War started because of Paris' lust for Helen of Troy.

Theatre

• Judge Turpin from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. His lust for Lucy Barker sets the entire plot in motion when he has Benjamin Barker, who would become Sweeney, sent to a penal colony on a false charge so he could have her for himself, and he eventually rapes her at a masked ball that he has the Beadle lure her to. And then as Johanna, the daughter of Benjamin and Lucy whom he adopted as his own, gets older, he starts lusting after her as well, which is really, really creepy on several levels. When he finds out that Johanna won't go along with his plan to marry her, he turns out to be just as cruel as Frollo below, throwing her into Fogg's Asylum to spend some time Going Among Mad People.

Video Games

• In Vaati's first appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, his only motive seems to be kidnapping young women and making Zelda his bride.
  • In the '80s American cartoon, Ganon's motivations for kidnapping Zelda sometimes included getting his hands on her, as well as the Triforce of Wisdom. Of course, this may just be part and parcel of his unending lust for power.
• Sir William the Black from Overlord is a fallen paladin-turned-cult leader who has spent most of his recent time ignoring the deaths of the people in Heaven's Peak to satisfy his own carnal desires.
• Sector Bootes from Strange Journey. The entire subdimension is modelled after a red-light district, with a huge central tower nicknamed in-game as the "Palace of Pleasure". It is, however, also home to a fair number of Mad Scientist demons, who express an obscene lust for knowledge.

Web Comics

• Drip the sin of lust in the Furry Webcomic Jack is motivated by sexual desire mixed with a lust for power and causing pain. When alive, Drip was a serial rapist.

Western Animation

• Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Disney film - in the novel, Archdeacon Frollo isn't a villain) is a pride-focused villain at the beginning of the story, but when he sets eyes on the gypsy Esmeralda, he is consumed by his lust for her, and decides to have her executed when she refuses to go along with him. The Disney movie has her narrowly escaping being burned at the stake, but the original Victor Hugo novel gets a lot grimmer—she's hanged for murdering Phoebus, who is in the crowd, uninterested in coming forward (since he's a Jerkass).
  • Coupled with the blatant racial and religious bigotry plotlines, can you believe it only got a G rating?
  • In the original book, Captain Phoebus was more of a case of lust, what with the womanizing ("while" engaged to someone he spends most of the book seducing). But Archdeacon Frollo could still counts - he's not a villain, but by the end he's so unhinged and/or desperate he'd rather get Esmeralda hanged than have her refuse him.
• Jafar toward Jasmine in Aladdin. You know it's true. Did you see what he dressed her in after assuming power?

Other Lusts

Anime and Manga

• Lust for respect is one of the main flaws of Light Yagami in Death Note; it combines with his Pride to generate a severe god complex. The only time Light shows a strong emotion (besides when he's defeated by Near) is when he feels L humiliated him.
• Haruhi Suzumiya lusts for weirdness. In fact, the reason why she's so screwed up is probably because there is nothing in this "boring world". That's what she thinks.
• In Umineko no Naku Koro ni, the youngest sister of the Stakes of Purgatory is Asmodeus, who represents the sin of Lust. However, it is stated in her TIPS that she desperately wants to fall in love. If those around her don't fall in love and simply give in to their lusts, it increases her vice.
• Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist mostly provokes lust in others, but her own lust depends on the version of the series. In the first anime, it's an intense desire to be human; in the manga, it's mostly a love of causing harm.
• "Gentlemen, I like war...Gentlemen, I love war".

Video Games

• BlazBlue's resident Bishounen Jin Kisaragi has "Lust SIN" as his musical theme. Though, if this is referring to his obsession for killing his older brother or something else remains to be seen.

Literature

• Each of the villains in the Keys to the Kingdom series represents a deadly sin, with Lady Friday representing lust. To be precise, lust for human memories and experiences. She seems to be addicted to them, and routinely kidnaps senior citizens (who have had more experiences) and drains them of all their emotions. They never wake up again.
  • If the experience is deemed too "impure" (in a quality sense, not anything else), she discards it and gives it to a subordinate.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender son, Zuko's obsession with "Honor" and his constant searches for his father's approval fit the discription of lust quite nicely.

All of the above and More

Comic Books

• Desire of the Endless is the Anthropomorphic Personification of, well, Desire. Which basically entails this trope.

Tabletop Games

• Slaanesh is the god(dess) of it in Warhammer 40,000. The actual subject of the lust doesn't matter—it is the extreme desire that fuels Slaanesh.
• Andrealphus is the Demon Prince of Lust in In Nomine. He mostly (and enthusiastically) focuses on sexual lust, believing that Love Hurts and is a weak thing as a result, but also covers all other areas of intense desire.