Board Thread:Clean up Concerns/@comment-2175012-20171030003307/@comment-3581997-20171119151118

Okay, a few things.

1 - How can the standards of a story be crossed? The story standards are what make it unfold.

2 - By that logic that means any story that starts out with low stakes can set it's antagonist to be Pure Evil just by being too tame to have seen it otherwise until then.

3 - Not sure taken seriously counts since certain characters never take anyone seriously. Does Deadpool or Squirrel-Girl's presence in the comics make it so there are no Pure Evil characters in Marvel? Because those two won't take anything seriously... other than Bea Arthur.

4 - Never being presented in a certain way limits analysis. In the 1930's propaganda film Reefer Madness marijuana is the root of all bad behavior cause everyone who does not take it is just a swell human being and people only become cruel after taking drugs. Is Jack Perry (The main drug dealer in the film) a complete monster for daring to give children Mary-jane? After all he is taken seriously, has no real loved ones shown, he has a girl-friend but displays no real fondness for her outside of thinking she is hot, he is not redeemed. We would be assigning someone as a being of pure malevolence for daring to sell kids drugs. But talking a propaganda film at face value we would need to do this. What about Christian propaganda films where the homosexuals, Jews and Muslims are the baddies, does this apply to them too?

5 - Most, not all, but most villains don't display remorse for their crimes. I admit it is a good disqualifier but I question if that on it's face makes someone pure evil. After what of those who show remorse for pragmatic reasons. "Oh I wish I hadn't killed Captain Good, he at least offered a good fight." - "Oh I wish I hadn't dumped all that toxic waste into the ocean and woken up Godzilla, I should have dumped it into the mountain quarry." - "Aw gee-wilikers mister I sure am sorry I slaughtered all your friends and turned them into undead thralls, ya know because now you are about to chop me to pieces."

To add to all that since different stories function differently just saying someone who is the evilest in a story or doesn't outright apologize makes them evil would see us qualify wholey different types of villains together.

By these standards, Sephiroth is Pure Evil, and I am sorry in a universe where Hojo exists Sephiroth isn't even a blip.

By these standards Dr. Robotnic and Adolf Hitler are like unto eachother.

By these standards Turbo would be featured side-by-side with Yan Valentine.

By these standards, Captain Mako (merciless psychotic killer) is just as evil as Westin Phipps (burns down orphanages and has good-samaritans tortured publicly because he dispses hope as a concept). They both meet the above qualifiers, both are in the same game, the former just does more phyical damage than the later, but the later is evil, purely for evil sake. The former ends more lives, the later ruins more lives.

By these standards most of the baddies from Final Fantasy Dissidia would all qualify as Pure Evil cause they each respectively had the same role in each game. Kefka = Ultimecia = X-Death

By these standards a kid who is a social elitist, cause the story is low focused and gives no greater scoop than a high-school drama, is the same as someone who commits genocide. Sandi Griffin = Frieza.

By these standards how do we judge Dark Forms? Creatures made literally from psychically manifested evil? Are that Pure Evil by mere merit of existing, do they need to do something? Where does this leave the likes of Kid Buu, the Filth, The Conduit, The Hollows and Atman?

Hell if we can go by species that are dark forms does this make heartless beings across different mediums. Are the cartoony Heartless the same as Hollows or The Filth? They are all beings created by mortals with their hearts/souls/spirits taken away, it is just the first is presented in a cartoony game mostly fit for kids, the second is a bunch of demons that act like wild and sadistic animals in a shoenen manga, and the third is treated like NC 17 body-horrors described as a Cancer on reality. Are all three Pure Evil?

This all sounds really subjective and devaluing to Pure Evil.