Villains who have been the victims of brainwashing and/or possession. Possession means that the host's body was taken over by a demon or other form of evil spirit, and brainwashing means that the host was hypnotized, mind controlled, bitten by a rabid animal, etc. 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); and other times, if the villain ends up brainwashed, the villain may end up turning to the good side (Carl Hauser and Darth Revan are examples).

Notes

• Pure Evil villains will NEVER fall under Possessed/Brainwashed as those villains are in their normal senses (neither possessed nor brainwashed) and are responsible for their own actions. Regardless of how cruel, sadistic or unnecessary the characters' actions were, it is never completely their fault since they were being controlled by someone else.
  • Even if, in a very rare case, Pure Evil villains 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; Brajira of the Messiah had his memories erased by Robogog of the 10-sai and became Buredo-RUN of the Cyborg), it should go under Pawns instead of this category.
  • Additionally, in rarer cases, a villain who is meant to LOOK Pure Evil in a flashback or the legacies of their evil actions can have their Pure Evil status retconned via snapping out of a possessed/brainwashed state and deciding they like their new life better.
• Also, do not create pages based on this category, for long-time heroes who are only briefly controlled by villains do not count. For example:
  • Ami Onuki (from Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi) was only possessed by the drumsticks she bought that caused her to be controlled by Crazy Styxx in "Ami Goes Bad".
  • Master Yo (from Yin-Yang Yo!) only drank the drink Carl the Cockroach made that caused him to go on a destructive rampage in "A Case of Evils".
  • Jenny (from My Life as a Teenage Robot) only turned into a giant hideous monster due to being infected with a microbug by Vexus in "Hostile Makeover", while in "Sister Sledgehammer", she was controlled by a giant robot made from Cluster drones by Smytus, along with XJs 2-8.
  • [https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Red_(Angry_Birds) Red] from (Angry Birds) only transformed into a pig and behaved like one due to being infected with The Chef Pig's potion in Pig Plot Potion.