{{Quote|Tinky Winky, snap out of it! This isn’t you... |White Tubbie talking to Tinky Winky Villains who have been the victims of brainwashing and/or possession. Possessed/Brainwashed characters only count as villains if they spend more time under the influence in the story than they do with their normal personalities and thus are better recognizable in their possessed/brainwashed states (Cynder and Koragg, for example), or if they are villains to begin with and are simply brought down into further depravity by the influence of other evildoers (examples of this particular case being Diabolico and Dhoulmagus). Sometimes, a villain being brainwashed by another villain will end up as a slave to said villain (an example being Shouko Aihara); if the villain ends up brainwashed, the villain may end up (Carl Hauser and Darth Revan are examples).

It's important to note that none of these characters are Pure Evil. No matter how cruel, sadistic or unnecessary their actions were, it's never completely their fault since they were being controlled by someone else.

Even if, in a very rare case, Pure Evil characters had been possessed/brainwashed by someone else (e.g. Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin was brainwashed by Tretji Rebenok and became Man on Fire; Makuta Teridax was taken over by the Mask of Ultimate Power and thus became a mindless puppet), it should go under Pawns instead of this category.

IMPORTANT: do not create pages based on this category, as long-time heroes who are only briefly controlled by villains do not count.

Also, every of these characters count as villains by proxy except if they remained villainous after snapping out of their possessed/brainwashed state (e.g. Superman from Injustice), or were already villains before being possessed/brainwashed.