By Grabthar's Hammer - Alan Rickman RIP

Another RIP. If you ever run RPG games you need a good character to give your NPC a sense of them coming to life to the players to interact with. My favorite way is to think of a film character and channel their personality. Alan Rickman not only had the best villainous roles but could make his sense of disdain palpable.

The role I will remember him for the most for his role as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood the Prince of Thieves. This is the best character to model a fantasy villain. He had two killer moments,

      Guy of Gisborne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?
      Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's DULL, you twit. It'll hurt more.


      Sheriff of Nottingham: [to a wench] You. My room. 10:30 tonight.
      Sheriff of Nottingham: [to another wench] You. 10:45... And bring a friend.

He did a good job as a more modern villain in Die Hard. As Hans Grubar he made villains look a bit more suave and suddenly all bad guys were a little more euro trash then ever before. As Lord Shabandarin Gambit, he was the ultimate $%^hole boss. He reminded me of so many of the people that I have worked for only he was much better dressed and spoke with a perfect voice for the part.

I guess the role he will be most remembered for (sadly for me) the role of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies. He was the embodiment of evil in that but every now and then, there was more human side to the character.

As a class A nerd, I have always loved Galaxy Quest in which Rickman okay Alexander Dane, an actor famous for one role that has long since ended. You got the feeling that this was really what Leonard Nimoy was like in life. He manged world weariness and contempt like no other actor.


It's a pity as there are not many as good as he was.