Delusional villains are characterized by or holding beliefs or impressions that they are good people regardless of their acts. It's the evil counterpart of Misguided.

Delusional villains are similar to Vigilantes, Extremists/Counterpart, Anti-Villains/Anti-Heroes, and Grey Zone Villains, but unlike them, these villain's causes are nothing close to noble.

No matter how horrible an act that a delusional villain does, they will always see it as a noble act; thus, even though they see themselves as good, many of them can also be Pure Evil as long as they are hypocritical to the point it becomes an excuse to hurt people (e.g. Akainu, Albert Wesker, Judge Claude Frollo,Light Yagami, Zamasu, Goku Black, Captain Vidal, Red Skull, the Duke, Derek Simmons, Lord Cutler Beckett, Drago Bludvist, Grimmel the Grisly, William Carver, Donald McClintock, Idi Amin, and Immortan Joe).

These villains also believe that whoever disagrees with or opposes them is a bad person. Therefore, they are very paranoid and pay little to no attention to the opinions of others. These villains may be greedy or hypocritical, but cannot even see it. Worse, some of them tend to blame other people for the destruction they cause (especially those who oppose them) while, in reality, it was their fault (e.g. Koba, Shredder (2012), John Ratcliffe, Shiro, Frau Engel, and Dawn Bellwether).

The scope of these villains' delusion can range from being a relatively minor trait (usually just simply believing they are doing good and not fanatical about it) to dangerously extreme to the point of mental illness (such as villains who are extremely outspoken that what they are doing is right and there is absolutely no chance to convince them otherwise).

Delusional villains can also be nihilists who do not believe in good or evil, thereby justifying their own heinous actions with their twisted logic. The best examples of this would be Gaku Yashiro, Isaac Ray Peram Westcott, Eurus Holmes, and Ultraman Tregear. Xenophobes/genocidal villains who believe a certain/some foreign races to be "evil" can also count as delusional (e.g. Count Bleck's Father and Hody Jones); the same thing with Misanthropes, who think humanity itself, whether an individual is truly innocent or not, is evil and should be punished (e.g. the Crusader and Elizar Kane). Social Darwinists can use their twisted philosophy to justify oppression of the weak instead of helping them (e.g. Albert Wesker and General Mandible). There are also robots/artificially intelligent beings who are much more commonly known to be delusional and misanthropic towards human life as they view them as "irredeemable" and "flawed", and see their acts as noble goals by wiping out humanity, or worse, enslaving them (e.g. PAMA).

However, in the uncommon case where a certain delusional villain truly wants to do good, that can be a redeeming quality and a Messiah and/or Pure Good can aid in redemption. Through that can the villain truly see and accept their mistakes and then choose true righteousness over their delusional one (e.g. Satsuki Kiryūin).

Note: Villains that only think of themselves as a higher person than other people and are self-righteous do not qualify(e.g Cinder Fall, The Thousand, Yuuki Terumi and Lord Voldemort), those should go under Arrogant or Egotist instead. A villain can only qualify for delusional if they think of themselves as actually a good person and/or that they have good intentions. ms:Kategori:Delusi