10 Iconic Villains Who Deserved Much Better Deaths

8. Javert -€“ Les Miserables

Russell Crowe can't sing, but that's no reason to suggest he got what he deserved in the latest opulent screen iteration of Les Miserables. Ultimately, he kills himself, after being racked with guilt at having misjudged Jean Valjean.

Javert never actually gets his comeuppance €“ in the stage version, his death feels more poetic, but the way it was framed for the screen, it felt more like the last wayward steps of a rum-soaked old man, falling lazily towards head-smashing doom. Without that poetry, we yearn for Javert to be stabbed or shot or something equally definitive, but instead he just Humpty Dumpty's his way into the Seine.

How He Actually Deserved To Die

Being throttled quietly by the musical director and vocal coach team in the corner might have been an idea. Aside from the murderous rage that Crowe's performance inspires, the issue here is the source €“ Javert, a good, committed man who is dedicated to the preservation of honour and morality, questions his entire life and duty because one man didn't really deserve his punishment.

But Jean Valjean stole, and then he skipped his parole, and then he robbed a holy man, and then he evaded capture multiple times. He wasn't exactly a shining beacon of morality, and apparently qualified to make Javert suicidally guilty because he was a nice guy. So we're faced with the revelation that Javert didn't actually deserve to die €“ he should have been given the opportunity to reciprocate and die saving Valjean if he really had to die.