People who were more evil than the villain

[Saltyk]

So have you ever seen a movie/show, read a book, or played a game where there was someone that just seemed more evil than the villain?

I'll lead with a few examples.

Professor Hojo-Final Fantasy 7
Yes, Sephiroth was the villain of the game, but Hojo was far more evil. If you take what we learn about him in Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus, he's probably the most evil character in all fiction. He decided to preform experiments on his unborn son and killed a man that argued against it (Vincent, who was saved by Lucrecia). When Cloud went to save Aeris, he finds Hojo has placed her in a cage with a "wild animal" (Red XIII), and even calls them both animals. He attempts to aid Sephiroth, and when Cloud and Co come to stop him, transforms himself into a monster. He even set the events of Dirge of Cerberus into motion all so he could become Omega (some of you may wish to blame him for that game, too).

Dycedarg-Final Fantasy Tactics
Dycedarg is the oldest son of Balbanes Beouvle and half brother of Ramza, the game's protagonist. That didn't stop him from poisoning his father. In fact, almost everything that happens in the game is the result of some plan of Dycedarg. Gustav of the Corpse Brigade kidnapping Marquis Elmdor? Under Dycedarg's orders. He hires Gaffgarian to kidnap Ovelia. Later, he even gives Gaffgarian permission to kill Ramza should he get in the way. He even assassinates Duke Larg, his own lord. And he did all this to become king. Keep in mind, I'm sure he would have done more except Zalbag tried to kill him and he turned into Adrammelech (and he probably became less evil in the process).

Ryuk-Death Note
So Death Note doesn't really have a villain unless you consider it to be Light, the protagonist. And, honestly, yeah, he's the villain. An awesome villain, but a villain. Yet Ryuk is so much more evil. How? Ryuk dropped the Death Note (which he stole from another Shinigami) into the human world. All because he was bored. Literally, all the events of the series were the direct result of Ryuk being bored. At least Light wanted to make the world a better place (at first, anyway). And when Light was finally caught, he killed him as dispassionately as you crush a bug. He didn't care about all that they had been through. He didn't try to save him, or anything. Ryuk just wrote Light's name down and watched him die. Talk about evil.

So, Escapists, know any other people that were more evil than the villains?

 

[bruggs]

Well I'd say Ryuk is more amoral than immoral. He never set out to specifically do evil, and besides, he's a god of death, he probably doesn't consider death or murder to be evil in the same way we do.

But Dycedarg...what a fucker.

The only one I can think of right now is Shou Tucker from Fullmetal Alchemist. What he did was just truly awful and sick, and with far less of a motivation than anything evil any other, "villain" did.

 

[Saverio]

Kratos fits this bill perfectly. Zeus is a dick, but Kratos has a much larger Body count over the course of the games.

 

[OrenjiJusu]

Caim from drakengard and Alex mercer from prototype, both so evil they're now villains in their sequels.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Caim from drakengard and Alex mercer from prototype, both so evil they're now villains in their sequels.

I'm not sure I'd call Caim evil. Just really, really pissed off, and a big proponent of "solve your problems through murder".

OT: Grand Moff Tarkin. He's a fairly minor villain in the grand scheme of the Star Wars trilogy, but he easily racks up the biggest on-screen bodycount by casually ordering the destruction of an entire planet for no good reason. I mean, at least Vader had the decency to choke people one at a time.

Shou Tucker, Frank Archer, and Basque Gran from Fullmetal Alchemist. All are colossal dicks, and unlike most anime villains don't really ever stop being dicks, or even get a good motivation for their actions. Also, Frank turns into a big stupid cyborg near the end of the show, which didn't do anything to endear him to me.

Lady Macbeth from...well...Macbeth. The real "villain" of the play is kind of ambiguous, but by the end its more or less the titular character. However, his wife is the reason most of the bad shit goes down in the first place.

Vargo Hoat from A Song of Ice and Fire. He's an asshole with a lisp. I don't think ANYONE likes this guy. Even Gregor Clegane has more fans than he does.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Villainy!-

I dunno about Hojo, man. Yes, he's evil, but I always figure him to be the mad scientist who's in way over his head. His track record is good for setting alot of this stuff in motion and not giving a damn about human life and so on...but he's second-fiddle to the real threat. For instance, he seemed to set the whole Sephiroth thing in mind, but the truth is that he was dancing to Jenova's tune the whole time, doing effectively what the alien harbinger of doom (and therefore Sephiroth) wanted. And taking in Dirge of Cerberus? It was a nice plan, taking over Weiss and all, but as you saw...it didn't take. Half-baked plan, not seeing the larger designs surrounding him like a web. Hojo's evil but...he's still only human.

OT: All proper cases of "The Man Behind The Man" that are done properly are this, essentially the real villain behind a shroud of a lesser one.

 

[Diablo2000]

My Fallout 3 character... I killed everyone that I possible could just for the hell of it.

 

[Foxblade618]

Dycedarg - You know, I have always seen him as the villain of Tactics. I mean, who is your villain of FFT? If you want to get philosophical the real villain of that story is ambition and the church. But I definitely see where you are coming from: Dycedarg is a big piece of crap.


OT: As mentioned Shou Tucker from FMA - torturing his own daughter because he was all out of ideas for his re-certification...that ain't right.

Father Gomez from His Dark Materials - really an extension of the actual 'villain' of the series, but he is such a minor character in the grand scheme of things that I feel he fits into this discussion. Mission to kill children because of murderous zealotry - pretty evil.

 

[HassEsser]

Kratos fits this bill perfectly. Zeus is a dick, but Kratos has a much larger Body count over the course of the games.

Beat me to it. Hell, Kratos qualifies as such for every God of War game.

 

[Dr.Fantastic]

Red Dead Redemption: I pretty much cleared out every town. That is so much worse than whatever any villain had done in that game.

 

[Vausch]

The Good Witch of the North in Wizard of Oz

-She steals the ruby slippers of the dead witch, which do rightfully belong to the wicked witch assuming she's her only living relative (they were sisters)

- She sets up Dorothy with an object that will make her the focus of all the evil in Oz to attack her, and insures this by taunting the bad witch and getting her angry at Dorothy.

- She lies and says the Wizard is the only way to get her out of Oz and makes her leave the place where the wicked witch has no power (Munchkinland)

- She gets Dorothy to kill the wicked witch because the Wizard claims he needs her broomstick, and the scarecrow says they may have to kill her to do so.

- She's been watching this the whole time and didn't do a thing, and she KNEW that a confrontation at the wicked witch's castle would lead to someone's death.

And only after all this does she tell Dorothy the truth, that she just had to click her heels together to go home. She basically made a little girl from Kansas into an assassin for hire after taking out 2 witches.

 

[Saltyk]

-Villainy!-

I dunno about Hojo, man. Yes, he's evil, but I always figure him to be the mad scientist who's in way over his head. His track record is good for setting alot of this stuff in motion and not giving a damn about human life and so on...but he's second-fiddle to the real threat. For instance, he seemed to set the whole Sephiroth thing in mind, but the truth is that he was dancing to Jenova's tune the whole time, doing effectively what the alien harbinger of doom (and therefore Sephiroth) wanted. And taking in Dirge of Cerberus? It was a nice plan, taking over Weiss and all, but as you saw...it didn't take. Half-baked plan, not seeing the larger designs surrounding him like a web. Hojo's evil but...he's still only human.

OT: All proper cases of "The Man Behind The Man" that are done properly are this, essentially the real villain behind a shroud of a lesser one.

I think you are underestimating Hojo. He also killed Professor Gast. Created numerous copies of Sephiroth. He never informed Sephiroth that they were father and son. Hey, it was even his insults to Cloud (calling him a failed experiment and refusing to give him a number) that caused him to have a mental breakdown and give the Black Materia to Sephiroth. I even read that Hojo's soul didn't diffuse properly in the Lifestream and he allowed himself to be assimilated by Sephiroth.

And Hojo's plan to become Omega was thwarted by Vincent, as Chaos, and Nero. If they didn't act, Hojo would have probably won.

He was a crazy and evil bastard.

Dycedarg - You know, I have always seen him as the villain of Tactics. I mean, who is your villain of FFT? If you want to get philosophical the real villain of that story is ambition and the church. But I definitely see where you are coming from: Dycedarg is a big piece of crap.


OT: As mentioned Shou Tucker from FMA - torturing his own daughter because he was all out of ideas for his re-certification...that ain't right.

Father Gomez from His Dark Materials - really an extension of the actual 'villain' of the series, but he is such a minor character in the grand scheme of things that I feel he fits into this discussion. Mission to kill children because of murderous zealotry - pretty evil.

I never really thought of Dycedarg as the villain in the game. Honestly, that's probably due to the sheer number of people that seem to want to be viewed as villains. He also dies long before the ending of the game. I always thought Folmarv/Vormav as the villain. He appears in the game at the start of Chapter 2 and makes appearances throughout the story. He was the man behind the scene causing all the conflict for his own gain. Though, really it seems he was demon possessed the whole time.

Still, I find Dycedarg to be more evil. It was probably the part where he gave a mercenary permission to kill his little brother that put him over the edge. Especially since the mercenary he hired stated that he found it a little distasteful and he was considered barbaric according to his background.

 

[zephae]

Patty Hughes - Damages Season 1

To watch the way she manipulates people with her strong sense of self-righteousness makes it very off-putting that she's supposed to the one to be lauded for taking down big corporate criminals. Her means of manipulation are in many ways more cruel than those she fights, often using trust instead of fear, a much more powerful tool. She also has no real limits when it comes to protecting herself either and will ruthlessly tear apart enemies long past the point when doing so became merely vindictive. And finally, while the tactics of her adversaries usually involve physical, social, or economic threats, Patty goes after the egos, emotions, and morality of her opponents.

I have found few characters as compelling as the spellbinding Patty Hughes.

 

[WolfThomas]

The team from Juraissic park 2. They contributed to nearly every human death in the film by freeing the captured dinosaur and damaging their tech, because of an environmentalist agenda. Despite the fact that the dinosaurs were genetcially modified freaks of nature probably destroying an intricate native island ecosystem in the first place.

What's more the so called "villains" represented the investors who owned the island, who basically got screwed by the first film and where trying to make a profit by bringing dinosaurs to mainland zoos. People of all ages could have seen dinosaurs in a gorram zoo and they stopped that. It wasn't like they were an evil military corporation trying to further weaponized raptors to sell on the blackmarket or something, they wanted to open a zoo.

Then the only reason anyone survived was because of the leadership of Roland Tembo, the guy badass enough to want to hunt a T-rex with an elephant gun and in my opinion the true hero of the piece, as he actually undergoes character development ultimately giving up hunting at the end of the film.

Oh yeah and Vince Vaughan sabotages his cartridges. WHAT THE FUCK! WHO FUCKING DOES THAT TO SOMEONE! What if Tembo went to protect himself or an other and heard click, click. What if Tembo wasn't fast enough when that actually did happen with the T-rex to find a tranquilizer and died. What if they all died because of that?

Sorry for the swearing but seriously, that film bugs me.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Shulmph!-

I know what he did as well as you, but I have a slightly different view of things. See, to me, Hojo is brilliant but...like any mad scientist, he has the problem of what happens with his experiments.

The Jenova Project - His experiments on living subjects with Jenova cells, including Lucrecia. Results? A number of failures, a no-reaction (Zack), Sephiroth, and Cloud. The only ones that can be called a success are completely out of his control. One is against him and the company he works for. The other loses his mind and becomes the most powerful psycho on the planet. More than that, the other subjects grow subservient and Hojo then decides later to join the game by injecting himself with Jenova cells, possibly the only way to save his life in any form, should Jenova win.

The Deepground Incident - Upon his death, Hojo's mind is uploaded to the World Wide Network so that when everything blows over, he would have a chance to ultimately get on top again. The whole Omega thing is going on as planned and he has possession of Weiss' body. Good, fabulous. And then...everything goes to shit in an instant, was even a foregone conclusion. Why? Because he made Chaos happen in the first place. Years before any inkling of it might occur, that Chekhov's Gun he planted shoots him in the face - literally - and then even if he HAD beaten Vincent, it seems to me that Nero could have ALWAYS awakened Weiss, shoving Hojo aside as he did.

I believe Hojo underestamated the world at large, and I say that because he is a scientist, through and through, who doesn't believe in the more spiritual themes of Final Fantasy 7's world. His attempts to control Jenova, Sephiroth, and Weiss all failed because he believed he had all the answers, but under the wire...I think they were all watching him and silently snickering.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

-Villainy!-

I dunno about Hojo, man. Yes, he's evil, but I always figure him to be the mad scientist who's in way over his head. His track record is good for setting alot of this stuff in motion and not giving a damn about human life and so on...but he's second-fiddle to the real threat. For instance, he seemed to set the whole Sephiroth thing in mind, but the truth is that he was dancing to Jenova's tune the whole time, doing effectively what the alien harbinger of doom (and therefore Sephiroth) wanted. And taking in Dirge of Cerberus? It was a nice plan, taking over Weiss and all, but as you saw...it didn't take. Half-baked plan, not seeing the larger designs surrounding him like a web. Hojo's evil but...he's still only human.

Following that logic then the real villain of the game was Jenova, everyone else including Sephiroth himself was just Jenova's puppet.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Villainy!-

I dunno about Hojo, man. Yes, he's evil, but I always figure him to be the mad scientist who's in way over his head. His track record is good for setting alot of this stuff in motion and not giving a damn about human life and so on...but he's second-fiddle to the real threat. For instance, he seemed to set the whole Sephiroth thing in mind, but the truth is that he was dancing to Jenova's tune the whole time, doing effectively what the alien harbinger of doom (and therefore Sephiroth) wanted. And taking in Dirge of Cerberus? It was a nice plan, taking over Weiss and all, but as you saw...it didn't take. Half-baked plan, not seeing the larger designs surrounding him like a web. Hojo's evil but...he's still only human.

Following that logic then the real villain of the game was Jenova, everyone else including Sephiroth himself was just Jenova's puppet.

A fair point. I'm sure there's contention on the fact as well. My thinking continues along lines that the alien and the identity of Sephiroth have now merged.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I hated Umbridge far more than I hated Voldemort. She was just...a horrible person.

 

[Saelune]

Kratos fits this bill perfectly. Zeus is a dick, but Kratos has a much larger Body count over the course of the games.

I read the plot of the God of War games (I only payed the begining of the first) and all I could think is "Kratos is a prick". I mean, at first you could have sympathy for him, but after that it is just selfish, mindless rage for no good reason, yet they still try to make him seem the good guy. He is the definition of Chaotic Evil (DnD alignment) at its most extreme.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

-Villainy!-

I dunno about Hojo, man. Yes, he's evil, but I always figure him to be the mad scientist who's in way over his head. His track record is good for setting alot of this stuff in motion and not giving a damn about human life and so on...but he's second-fiddle to the real threat. For instance, he seemed to set the whole Sephiroth thing in mind, but the truth is that he was dancing to Jenova's tune the whole time, doing effectively what the alien harbinger of doom (and therefore Sephiroth) wanted. And taking in Dirge of Cerberus? It was a nice plan, taking over Weiss and all, but as you saw...it didn't take. Half-baked plan, not seeing the larger designs surrounding him like a web. Hojo's evil but...he's still only human.

Following that logic then the real villain of the game was Jenova, everyone else including Sephiroth himself was just Jenova's puppet.

A fair point. I'm sure there's contention on the fact as well. My thinking continues along lines that the alien and the identity of Sephiroth have now merged.

Except for the fact that Sephiroth kept referring to Jenova as 'Mother' ...of course that was only during the flash backs, so by the time the game happens you could be right.