“ | I am not interested in conflicted antagonists. Nor, for that matter, is anyone else. People want a bad guy they can hate unequivocally. Someone whose brutal demise they can cheer without remorse. Life, sadly, rarely treats them to such a luxury. And here are all these actors, trying to muddy things with moral complexity. F-ck that, I say. And I'll not have it. I am not the hero in my own story. I am the bad guy. I have no end in mind that justifies my means. There are no skeletons in my closet, no abusive childhood or inciting misery that might expiate my vile behavior. Nor am I insane. I know the difference between good and evil. And I am fully capable of empathizing with the pain, emotional or physical, of others. No sociopath, I. Rather, I simply prefer bad over good. Wrong over right. Sick over healthy. Untrue over true. | „ |
~ Contagion. |
“ | His eyes, unfathomably empty, devoid of all compassion, all humanity... No one has eyes like that... no one! | „ |
~ Captain America, on Red Skull. |
Villains who are Pure Evil are the worst of all villains: an abhorrent monster who is completely atrocious and irredeemable by the standards of their work. For this kind of villain, doing evil for them is as natural as breathing. They can be recognized by these signs:
- They commit acts that are atrocious by the standards of the story, setting themselves and their wrongdoings apart from regular characters (villains or not) from their work. By default, they have crossed the Moral Event Horizon in the process (note that villains who have only crossed the MEH once usually do not qualify, although rare examples exist).
- No Offscreen Villainy: Their crimes must be visible within the story in some way, shape or form. No matter how vile they might sound on paper, crimes that are only mentioned are not applicable to the category's criteria unless evidence or after effects are shown.
- They use whatever resources and time they have in their storyline to be as horrible as possible without holding back.
- They must have a defined personality and motives (e.g. if a villain is destroying anything in their path, but has no coherent personality or goals to back up their evil presence, they are a Generic Doomsday Villain, not Pure Evil).
- They are taken seriously, causing fear, revulsion, and hatred from other characters in the story. Therefore, villains that fall under Comic Relief can never qualify.
- They must possess the cognitive ability to know right from wrong, yet choose to do wrong anyway. This is known as "Moral Agency" on the Wiki.
- They are never presented in a positive or altruistic fashion.
- They can never feel love for others. If they claim to have love for anyone, that "love" would merely be either perversion, possessiveness, or obsession.
- They are completely beyond redemption and absolutely nothing justifies their actions.
- They display no sense of remorse towards those who they have hurt nor do they express any empathy for others as well.
Anti-Villains can never qualify seeing as to how you are meant to sympathize with an anti-villain, even if you do not approve of their methods. Also, just being an obviously evil character such as a Serial Killer doesn't automatically make the villain Pure Evil unless they are particularly brutal in nature or possess an unique vile trait in the story. Also, forces of evil such as Demons and Artificially Intelligent beings don't usually qualify unless their Moral Agency is made clear. They are considered the complete opposite of those who are Pure Good, which are heroes that are completely pure and incorruptible.
For more information on the Pure Evil villain please read our criteria. To learn how to propose your Pure Evil villain read our tutorial and rules. To remove a Pure Evil villain that you think is not fit to be in the category see our removal tutorial.
To see our Pure Discussion Dates, visit our page and reserve yourself a series.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Following the release of our Pure Evil Proposal system, we now have very strict regulations for this category that ALL users must follow as a result of continuous abuse of this category. Outside of admins, regular users on this Wiki are NOT ALLOWED to add this category to pages, NOR are they allowed remove this category from pages UNLESS the usage of the category happens to be abuse. Refusal to follow this rule WILL result in a ban for PE abuse.
All items (3465)
- A.D.A.M.
- Aamon
- Aaron Peel
- Abaddon (Supernatural)
- Abaddon the Despoiler
- Abalone Cookie
- Abdul-Aziz al-Razim
- Abigail Williams (The Crucible)
- Abomination (2008 Novelization)
- Abomination (2010 Marvel Animated Universe)
- Abraxas (Marvel)
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- Adam (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter)
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- Alfred Hardeberg
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- Alien Bat
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- Alva (Pokémon)
- Alvin the Treacherous (books)
- AM
- Amaru
- Ambassador of Alagadda
- Amon (StarCraft)
- Amon Goeth
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- Amos Hackshaw
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- Amy Hughes
- Amy Kirio
- Analogman
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- Anathos
- Anatoly Cherdenko
- Ancient King OOO
- Anders Behring Breivik (July 22)
- Anders Benoit
- Andre Baptiste Jr.
- Andre Baptiste Sr.
- Andre Olivieri
- Andrea Cavalcanti
- Andrei Sator
- Andrew Brandt
- Andrew Scott
- Andross (Star Fox)
- Andy Evans (Book)
- Angel Eyes
- Angelus (Buffyverse)
- Angra Mainyu
- Anjuro "Angelo" Katagiri
- Annihilus (2010 Marvel Animated Universe)
- Annihilus (Marvel)
- Anson Fullerton
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- Anti-Monitor (Arrowverse)
- Anti-Monitor (DC)
- Anti-Monitor (Green Lantern: The Animated Series)
- Anton Bartok
- Anton Chigurh
- Anton Lone
- Anton Montay
- Antonia Chillingsworth
- Antono Refa
- Anubis (Stargate SG1)
- Aparoid Queen
- Ape Shaman
- Apep (mythology)
- Apocalypse (Age of Apocalypse)
- Apocalypse (X-Men Legends)
- Apocalypse (X-Men Movies)
- Apocalypse (X-Men: The Animated Series)
- Apollyon (For Honor)
- Apos (Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne)
- Ar-Pharazôn
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- Argleton
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- Arjen Rudd
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- Arlo Sabian
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- Arnold Flass (Batman: Caped Crusader)
- Arondil
- Arquette
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- Arvin
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- Assef
- Astor (The Legend of Zelda)
- Atomic Skull (Superman vs. The Elite)