Mischievous

Mischievous villains are evildoers who are playful, misbehaved, disrespectful and/or childish, as they do not always seek outright harm on others. They are very similar to Tricksters: however, mischievous villains cross the line when they allow their misbehavior or love of play to override such things as basic law and order, changing them from harmless pranksters to reckless individuals who can harm themselves and others. That said, they aren't going to cross some lines and are to be played for laughs.

Mischievous characters are not meant to be taken too seriously; therefore, they cannot count as Pure Evil. Even if very rare cases, some Purely Evil characters can pull pranks (e.g. Junko Enoshima, Henry Evans, Dimentio, Bill Cipher and The Joker) albeit in a much more dangerous and often lethal manner, they should go under the Trickster category instead. So, these two categories are mutually exclusive and a villain can't be both of them.

However, there are, at times a mischievous villain can prove to be a threat or dangerous in some scenarios. For an example, there’s Chris McLean who, despite being mischievous, is sadistic and often enjoys the contestants suffering on Total Drama whilst tormenting them for fun. There’s also Zim, who despite his incompetency, actually manages to prove himself to be evil if he actually puts his mind to it, where he nearly succeeded in getting Earth sucked into a Florpus hole and harvested children's organs in one case. Loki and Dr. Robotnik are also some of these examples. Regardless, even if mischievous villains aren’t meant to be taken seriously, they can still at times commit a depraved or heinous crime to prove their villainy. However, in spite of this, they can never be Pure Evil, even if they cross the Moral Event Horizon at times or occasionally.