
The Evil Spirit's true form behind Dani. Who would have thought that a cloud of smoke could be this evil?
Hello once again, and welcome to my first proposal of a webcomic villain! I am recently getting into webcomics on Webtoon, and this particular series caught my attention, leading me to read it and deciding to make a proposal for one of the villains in it. I was technically planning to make another proposal before that, but my last one stayed pending for so long that I had all the time to finish this series and work on the proposal, so I will do this first.
Regardless, I will as always say that there will be obvious spoilers for the webcomic in question in this proposal, so I highly suggest to read it before reading this proposal. It is a pretty good series, so I think it will be worth your time! Also, unfortunately Webtoon doesn't allow images of the comics to be taken, so this proposal will be rather empty in terms of images, using only those that are already available online. It is a shame since I like to add them, but it is what it is. And lastly, I am the one who wrote the profile too and, while I tried to use different wordings in both to focus more on its evil deeds in the proposal, it is highly plausible that there will be certain parts that are very similiar to each other, but know that this isn't copy and pasted at all.
In any case, let's not waste more time. This was probably one of the hardest proposal I ever made (it took me a month to finish it), so I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed working on it!
What's the work?[]
Hooky is a fantasy adventure webcomic made by author Míriam Bonastre Tur, first serialized in Webtoon from 2015 to 2020, and is composed of 222 chapters/episodes. It was eventually released into printed copies as three graphic novels released between 2021 and 2023.
The story follows two twin siblings, Daniela Wytte (better known as Dani) and Dorian Wytte, the childrens of a powerful family of witches that lives in a Kingdom in which witches themselves are discriminated. After years of them being burned to the stake, the King decided to make this kind of executions illegal, but the hate of the witches for years of hate and the hate still present from both sides makes living in the Kingdom extremely dangerous. In this setting, the two twins unfortunately loses the bus that would take them to the secret magic school where they would learn how to master their magical powers, and to not let their parents know they decide to search for a teacher that could take them in. They are taken under the wings of Pendragon, an old clairvoyant, where they meet a young boy named Nico, a waiter named Mark, and are later joined in by the Princess Monica, who is searching for her fiancé William, another Prince that was kidnapped by the witches. While they live together in the same village, all of them live strange adventures that put them at high risk, and in the end are involved in the war between witches and humans, a war that is led by the Wytte's parents from the side of the witches. And everything gets more complicated when a certain entity joins in, wanting to use the situation to its advantage ...
Who is the Evil Spirit? What did it do?[]

Satan's cat. Isn't it cute?
“ | I can do anything, kid. | „ |
~ The Evil Spirit to Dani during its debut, already showing its arrogance. |
The Evil Spirit, as the name would suggest, is a spirit of the Underworld who was summoned in the physical plane by two witches, Alice and Romas. The two started to use it for their haunted mansion, with the Spirit obeying them not out of loyalty but because they allowed it to enter the mind of others that would stay out of their room after 3 A.M. and torment them by making them see their worst fear. Stuff happens in the world, and a group of witches lead by Angela, Hans and Hilde Wytte manage to conquer the Kingdom of Monica's father, leading to the group composed of Dani, Dorian, Nico, Monica, Mark plus three others that joined them during the raid at the castle, aka Ivy, Anne and Amir, to be wanted by the witches for one reason or another. While being runaways, the group stumble upon Alice and Romas, who asks them to stay for the night at their house, telling them that the spirits might help them find the solutions to their problems but also suggesting them to not stay outside of their room after 3 A.M.
Wanting to know more about why they are here, Alice and Romas asks the help of the Spirit, and when the group accidentally stays out of their room after 3 A.M. they fall asleep and are tormented in their dreams by the Spirit. Dani, who already suffers from lack of self-esteem because of her magic always causing bad side effect since their are curses, is forced in a nightmare where her friends insult her and denigrate her because of her powers, with them telling her that she is a danger for everyone, being slapped by fake Monica and rejected by her fake brother Dorian. It than mentally brings her to the ruins of the castle of Monica's father, which however are empty, and when she arrives to the throne room she is instead met with a vision of herself being the prophetized "Queen of Witches" (aka the figure who will lead the witches in the war according to a vision of the Soothsayer), with a dream version of Alice and Romas telling her that Dorian died years ago. Sent into a state of despair, Dani runs away, without knowing that the Spirit actually made her see a vision of the future.
Still in the dream world, she meets Dorian, who asks her if she remembers why they are here, at which point Dani tells him that they want to bring healing potions to the villagers to make the relationship between humans and witches better. But this Dorian is also an illusion of the Spirit, who brought her to Alice and Romas who hears about the healing potions. Both of them realize that the kids are suffering a lot because of the nightmares, but know that they can't do much since it's the Spirit who is doing it, deciding to take the healing potions for themselves, capture Dani and sell the potions in exchange for people to join their private accademy. But as they run away, Alice fortunately steps on Nico, waking him up, who than proceed to wake up the others as they are suffering psychologically because of the nightmares: Ivy, who is arachnophobic, is locked in a room full of spiders, with them crawling on her; Anne, who is scared of heights, is on top of a ravine on a faulty bridge; Amir, who claustrophobic and scared of being alone, is in a small box without anyone else around; Mark, who connected with the others, is in a world where everyone else forgot his friends; Monica, who is secretly in love with Dorian, is forced to watch in her nightmare as he dies in front of her. Particularly cruel is the nightmare he puts Dorian in, where it shows him Dani jumping down from a tower with a broom in an attempt to show him her value, at which point Dorian also jumps down to save her, making him almost jump down from a bridge in real life too, with the Spirit almost making him commit suicide while he iss trapped in the nightmare, only being saved by the arrival of the others.
Meanwhile, the group discover Alice and Romas' plan, with the two having locked Dani in a magical cage alongside her cat Minino. Dani, who mentally recovers from the nightmares, manages to reach the Spirit, asking it why it is doing all of this, at which point it say that it can do great evil and it feeds on it, so it obeys Alice and Romas since they allow it to do evil things as much as it pleases. Dani asks it to obey her instead since she is much more evil than them, and after a moment of hesitation the Spirit notices a strange black smoke around her, realizing that it can use her to cause despair on a much larger scale and deciding in the end to accept the deal. The Spirit possesses the cat Minino, freeing her from the magic cage, at which point they realize the healing potion have turned every villager into a werewolf. Dani asks the Spirit to help them by blocking the wolves, but it protests, saying that it wouldn't be evil at all, the opposite in fact, but the Wytte insists telling it that it promised to help her. The Spirit, realizing that it needs to play the long game, decides to pragmatically accept "for now" (as it says), using its power to block the werewolves and giving the group the time to make a cure. After that, the Spirit nullify its magic and the group goes away from the village while Alice and Romas are arrested.
Soon after, the group discover that Nico is a clairvoyant, and he uses his power to see where William (Monica's fiancé) is, discovering he is in a desert. They than decide to go towards Amir's kingdom, which is placed in a desert, but their car gets stuck, at which point Dani asks the Spirit help, who soundly refuses since she is constantly asking its help for things that aren't evil at all, and its starting to annoy it. In the end, the group manages to get the car unstuck and arrives in Amir's Kindgom, where they discover that a Dragon is attacking them constantly and killing the population, much to the Spirit's happiness since, while everyone else is horrified, it gleefully smile. The group decides to help the Kingdom to deal with the Dragon, believing that it might lead them to William, but Aisha, Amir's sister, locks them in their room to avoid them risking their lives and so that she can slay the Dragon herself. Since they don't have their wands, Dani asks the help of the Spirit to get out of there, with it only accepting because it views it as a suicidial mission where they are likely going to die, much to its entertainment. The Spirit than increases Carlo's size (with Carlo being Dorian's frog-dragon) and the group starts flying to where Aisha is.
When they arrive, Aisha is actually about to slay the Dragon on her own, but she is stopped by Damien, the royal advisor who wants to save William too. After the Dragon flies away, Damien, Monica and Dorian chase him while the others remains on foot, with Carlo returning to normal size. Dani asks the Spirit to turn him big again, but it refuses since the deal was only to bring them there, and it tells her that she have a wand that she can use to do it herself, fully aware that her spells are curses that might kill Carlo. Dani is hesitant to use a spell on Carlo, but the Spirit tries to manipulate her into doing it, wanting to break her psychologically by making her accidentally kill him, but before she can do it she is stopped by Nico who tells her that they found a way to chase after the others, much to the Spirit's disappointment.
Following the Dragon's blood trail, the group arrives in a ravine, where Dani accidentally steps on a trap set by the witches that sends her flying while giant animals comes out and attack the rest of the group. The Spirit is concerned and tells Dani that she risks dying if she falls from this height, worrying that it might lose a valuable pawn in its scheme, but Dani manages to use a spell to land safely while asking the Spirit to protect the others, at which point the Spirit accept and block them all, almost risking to have Aisha shoot herself with a arrow in the process. Dani than attempts to attack the beasts, but she is quickly overwhelmed and asks the Spirit help once again, with it saying that she should do it on her own. Dani manages to free herself and starts running away, telling the Evil Spirit to free her friends, but it tells her that it is "too lazy" to do that, openly willing to let them all die by the hands of the beasts while it keeps them paralyzed. Dani threatens the Spirit, at which point it unwillingly let them all go and they manage to get away. After this, the Spirit remains in the background for the rest of the rescue mission, simply watching the events unfold.
The whole thing ends with the rescue of William and the death of Hans Wytte, the dad of Dani, Dorian and Damian, something that severely affect them all. The former, visibly depressed, asks the Spirit to bring all of them back to Amir's mother Kingdom, where Monica's father reach them and tells them his intention of bringing peace between humans and witches, which apparently makes Dani feel better. However, that night Angela Wytte manages to sneak in the castle, assassinating the King and her wife in their sleep, with the Spirit knowing this and trying to lure Dani in the room of the assassination to make her see their corpses and break her psychologically. Angela, however, stops her before she can see them, much to the Spirit's disappointment, but the mother of the twins is still able to kidnapp Dani, unknowingly bringing with her the Spirit who, using the agility of its cat body, jumps on the Dragon as its flying away.
Angela than attempts to bring Dani to her side, while Dorian and the others go to the Kingdom of William's father, where Dorian is sentenced to death by the latter because of his hate for witches. After getting this news, the witches and Dani attempts to reach the Kingdom as fast as they can, but the Spirit follows them on Dani's broom and causes every type of accident to slow them down, including hurricanes and fogs. Dani, knowing that it is to blame for this, tells it in tears that she shouldn't have trusted it and if they arrive too late it will be its fault and she will make it pay, with the Spirit simply smiling sadistically in response. Much to the Spirit's delight, they arrive too late, and while Dorian is actually fine because of him changing place with a dummy thanks to Damien's help, Dani and the other witches are unaware of this. Dani falls into a state of despair, thinking her twin brother died, and is overwhelmed by so much pain that she asks for it to stop, at which point she accidentally curses herself, becoming an apathetic shell of her former self without her memories, something that the Spirit will take full advantage of.
In the next three years, the Spirit does everything in its power to make sure she stays in this condition, contantly tormenting her in her dreams to remind her of Dorian's death every time someone attempts to use potions to cure her. The Spirit also orders her around, telling her what to do, knowingly fuelling the already heated war between the humans and the witches and leading to the conflict getting worse because of Dani being used as a symbol, something that the Spirit is well aware of and uses to its advantage. Because of the Spirit's manipulation and influence, Dani, becomes far more aggressive, attacking Nico and insulting him, with the Spirit telling her not to kill him simply because he causes her to fall into despair even more, sadistically saying that her desparation is delicious. The Spirit even manipulates her into brutally attacking another old witch that was trying to help her by putting some healing potions in her food, because they were trying to "put weird idea in her head", further showing its full control of her and how much he doesn't want others to help her in any way.
When the witches discover of the wedding that is about to happen between Monica and William, they decide to attack during it to assissinate both in one go, with Angela telling Dani to kill Monica, to which she agrees since she doesn't remember her. The group arrives, but they discover it is a trap set by Monica, and Damien quickly trap all of the witches in a forcefield while everyone else shoots huge quantities of potions towards Dani in the hope of turning her back to how she used to be, but the Spirit quickly intervine, creating monstours appendices to protect her before creating another one to stab Monica in the shoulder. After this, the Spirit makes Dani pass throught the barrier, not without complaining to her that, while she lended her powers to it, it is now doing everything in her place. Dani arrives in front of Monica and she prepares to kill her, but she is able to make her drink a bit of the potion, hoping that it could help her.
Initially, she thinks this worked, but soon after she notices the eyes of Dani becoming red, with her making a psychopatic expression that she never saw on Dani before, showing that the Spirit entered her body. The evil being starts taunting Monica, telling her that it saw her fears, that they are childish and that she is pathetic, but the Queen is able to kick the possessed Dani and shouts she is not like that anymore, at which point the Spirit goes back to Minino's body and orders Dani to escape since there are too many people, at which point Dani obeys and breaks a hole through the cathedral, escaping only with the Spirit that is once again in the body of the cat, leaving her mother behind to be arrested. The two of them escapes in the forest, with the Spirit asking her to let it possess her so it can help her find food, but Dani refuses to let it do it. They than stumble upon a wild deer, at which point the Spirit forcefully possesses her and makes her eat the deer regardless of her earlier refusal. A hunter and his son later stumble upon the possessed Dani as she is eating the deer, with them running away scared while the Spirit tries to kill them, taunting them that if they hate witches they will burn on the stake.
When Angela's power are suppressed and the treat of the witches temporarely on hold, a group made of Dorian, Monica, Damien, Mark, Nico and Aisha go searching for Dani, hearing of the meeting of the hunter with her. The group arrives at his house, meets his family composed by his wife and two childrens and decides to pass the night there, but as they do Dani and the Spirit in Minino's body arrive to attack them. The Spirit orders her to kill everyone except one just to enjoy the suffering of the lonely survivor, but when it hears Dorian pleading Dani to come back to her senses the Spirit changes its plans, finding his desperation delicious and wanting to savour it more. It than orders Dani to burn down the cabin with everyone inside, including the childrens, before the both of them fly away with Dorian quickly chasing after them. Everyone in the house manages to get out in time, while Monica and Damien also go after Dani, even if a bit later. Dorian manages to hit Dani with a spell during the chase, making her and the possessed cat fall down, but the twin helps his sister to fall safely before reaching her and trying to make her recognize him. The Spirit, however, have other plans and forcefully possesses Dani's body again, this time wanting to use her to kill the annoyance.
The Spirit in Dani's body attempts to bury Dorian under rocks, but he manages to escape and, seeing her red eyes, understands that she is possessed. He attempts to attack her to free his sister, but the Spirit attacks him first, destroying his wand and wounding him, with the being saying that he loves seeing his face in pain and that he can't do anything to stop it. Dani fight back against the Spirit's intrusion in her body, claiming that it is hurting her head, but the evil being doesn't care and forcefully possess her once again, claiming she isn't using her body anyways. Donato, Dorian's dragon, attempts to attack her, but the Spirit quickly fires back at him, severely wounding him, with Dorian's despair in seeing his dragon wounded making the Spirit stronger. Monica and Damien arrive at the scene wanting to help, the latter creating a forcefield to contain the possessed Dani, but the Spirit quickly breaks it and fires at Dorian before he can tell them that she is possessed, wanting to keep the little secret between them. The evil being than attacks Monica and Damien, saying that chaos and suffering makes it stronger, and it plans to kill most of them to feed on the desperation of the survivors in order to grow strong enough to possess Dani's body forever.
Damien manages to hit the possessed Dani with a transmutating spell, wanting to turn her into a little snake, but because of it's growing magical power it actually becomes a giant flying snake, who chases the two of them while they escape on their broom. They manage to get in a cave and launch a spell to make her go back to her normal form, kicking the Spirit out of her body, something that makes it very angry since it wanted to keep that form in order to spread chaos through the world. Planning to grow stronger to take back Dani's body, it decides to bite the jugular of the unconscious Dorian, but before it can do it Dani arrives, chased by the whole group. Knowing that Dani is still under the curse and will obey it no matter what, the Spirit orders her to kill everyone since it is now tired of playing around, at which point she tackles Mark to the ground and gets ready to kill him. Before she can do it, however, she is stopped by Nico, the only person she still knows since he passed the last three years on her side, who tells her all of them are her friends and asks her why she is doing it, with her replying that "he" is telling her to do it. Nico doesn't understand, but he notices Minino's trying to sneak away, at which point he realizes that he is actually what has been influencing her all this time.
The Spirit once again tries to tell Dani to kill them all, but before she can do it Dorian wakes up thanks to Aisha's help and tackle her to the ground, thinking that the Spirit is still in her body. However, Nico tells them that it is actually in Minino, with Mark managing to grab him by the tail, but before they can do anything all of them are trapped in a personal nightmare. Dorian sees his friends insulting him, but he quickly realizes it is a trick and walks past them, at which point the Spirit tries to use illusions of his deceased father and his mother to trick him, but he knows that those are all lies and reaches Dani. Dorian tries to save her, but before he can be trapped forever in the nightmare by the Spirit he realizes that it's previous attempts were just to trick him into thinking Dani was actually there to lock him in his mind forever. With this realization, Dorian punches the fake Dani in the face, revealing it to be the Spirit who, in one last attempt, tries to possess him. However, Dorian manages to reach a wand and uses it to isolate the Spirit, realizing that on its own it is actually really weak and using his magic to banish it forever, but not before it taunts him by telling him that it was just part of the reason for Dani's condition and that he will never see his sister again. Despite its defeat, the Spirit's influence is felt through the rest of the series, but its legacy is undone once peace is reached between humans and witches, with Dani's curse finally breaking, proving the Spirit wrong and destroying its influence on the Wytte once and for all.
Mitigating Factors?[]

The apathetic Dani, always in emotional pain because of the Spirit's manipulations
“ | ...Come on, eat. You won't be of any use to me when you're dead. | „ |
~ The Evil Spirit confirming that it only view Dani as a useful tool and nothing else. |
So, this section might be a bit long, not because there is anything really redeeming about this being, but because there are some small things that I want to specify in order to avoid misunderstandings. First of all, in its first appearence the Spirit says "I obey" in response to Dani's question as to why it is trapping everyone in a nightmare, and in general it is seen obeying the orders of both Alice/Romas and Dani several times before it eventually becomes the puppeteer after Dorian's execution. However, it obeying is not out of loyalty at all, but it is rather for purely pragmatic reasons. As directly confirmed by Dorian moments before its final defeat, the Spirit in itself is really weak, and it needs the help of witches to share their powers with it or feed on suffering of others to grow stronger and be able to spread its evil since on its own it would be really hard for it. On top of this, it uses its "obedience" to establish a form of trust with the human with which it is connected, in order to use this trust later on for its selfish needs. It is directly proven that the Spirit is far from loyal when it decides to ditch Alice and Romas in favor of Dani since she might be more useful, and when it later refuses several times to follow her orders because they aren't evil enough. Not to mention that with Dani it straight up mentally abuses her for three years and uses her as a vessel for its evil doings, so there is no loyalty in its relationship with others, outside of a purely pragmatic one.
And speaking of Dani, it is also important to say that its relationship with her isn't positive at all. There are a couple of times where it worries that she might die, but it isn't because it cares about her but rather because, as it itself says in the quote at the beginning of this section, "[she] won't be of any use to [it] when [she] is dead". It is a rather direct confirmation that the Spirit views her as nothing more than a useful pawn in its scheme, and this is without mentioning the fact that it was more than willing to take over her body forever by killing her friends, planning to basically trap her in a fate worse than death since she says that it hurts her head a lot when the Spirit possesses her. Basically, it doesn't care about Dani as a person, but rather as an object and a mean to spread chaos and suffering, and this is portrayed in a pretty straight forward way in the story.
Since we are in argument, the "good" actions it does are also all for purely pragmatic reasons and nothing more, but to prove it let's go into more details. When it helps the group by blocking the villagers turned into werewolves to give them enough time to make a cure, it is just because it needs to gain Dani's trust, and it does it against its own will since it was initially reluctant and in the end it replies by saying that it would obey "for now". It needed to play the long game since it needs the magical powers of a witch to be stronger and spread more chaos, so whatever it liked it or not it had to obey in that occasion. When it helps everyone escape from their rooms after Aisha locks them in and than turn Carlo giant so that it can transport everyone, the Spirit itself says that it is doing it only because it is a suicidial mission and it hopes most of them will die in it. Plus, it obviously was aware that a situation like that could have given several occasions for it to break Dani, which is something it attempts to do by trying to manipulate her into using a spell on Carlo that would have most likely killed him.
Than we have when it helps Dani by "protecting" everyone else during the attack of the giant animals in the canyon. It does it by using its blocking magic to paralyze them, which almost causes Aisha to shoot herself with a arrow, and in addition to this it initially wants to keep them paralyzed after Dani asks it to free them, more than willing to let them all be devoured by the beasts. Plus, it later on attempts to sadistically kill them when it has the chance, so any possible mitigation given by this is nullified overall. Lastly, when it teleports Dani, Nico and Mark back to Amir's Kingodm under the request of the Wytte, which it does simply to keep up the façade that it is helping her, plus disobeying her for something so simple would have been pointless overall since it would help it to gain her trust with little effort, especially given she was already depressed after seeing her father die. So, overall, any "good" action it does under Dani's order are nothing more than pragmatic decisions it makes to either subtly damage them or to gain her trust so that she wouldn't suspect its true intentions, nothing more and nothing less. When it manages to break Dani down and becomes the manipulator behind the scenes, it stop following any order and instead gives order to Dani, all of which are cruel and sadistic in nature.
Comedy is also not a problem for it. While the series have some comedic moments, the story is still serious, with the Spirit (and the antagonists in general) being taken completely seriously, with the treat of the evil being to Dani and everyone else being one of the most serious ones in the story. The only comedic moment it has is during the final fight, when Nico realizes that the Spirit in the body of the cat is the manipulator, at which point they look at each other comedically and the Spirit attempts to sneak away before being grabbed by the tail by Mark. It's a quick moment that doesn't detract from its otherwise serious portrayal, with it going back to be a treat immediately afterwards by trapping everyone in a nightmare. And speaking of, it failing almost comedically to sway Dorian after it traps him in the nightmare isn't comedic as Dorian himself tells that all those attempts were intentionally clumsy in order to lower his guard and make him believe Dani was actually there. They were clever tricks rather than something comedic that detract from the moment.
Now, given it is a Spirit, someone might say that it might have Moral Agency problems, especially since it says that it can do great evil and "feeds on it". However, it never says that it is straight up made of evil, nor there is any indication that it doesn't know what it is doing, in fact it is shown quite the opposite. It is able to hold back its evil by willingly cooperating with Dani, even helping her and doing stuff that would be considered "good deeds", as explained above to either gain her trust or bring her in a situation in which she can be emotionally manipulated. It also focuses much more on bringing suffering upon other rather than just killing everyone in a blind malice like something made of evil would do, even planning to sadistically spare a few individuals in a group in order to make them suffer after it kills everyone else under their eyes. On top of this, its ability to emotionally manipulated others, either by pretending to be people they know or by pretending to be their allies, and it's understanding of emotions like suffering and despair show that it has a good understanding of emotions overall, and just does what it does to cause suffering and nothing more. Overall, I would say that it's pragmatism, its ability to hold itself back from doing evil deeds and it's understanding of emotions that it uses to manipulate others show that it doesn't have Moral Agency Issues and knows very well what it is doing.
Lastly, the fact that it says that it feeds on suffering might make it a more predatory villain rather than a malicious one, with it needing to cause suffering in order to survive. But it never says that this feeding is in order to survive, and in fact it straight up says that "Chaos gives [it] strenght", with it becoming more powerful by "eating" the suffering and desparation of others, something we directly see after it wounds Donato and feeds on Dorian's desperation to regain full control of Dani's body. It isn't about survival, it's about power, it wants to grow stronger by causing suffering rather than using it to survive. This is also further shown by the fact that it goes for a prolonged period of time without feeding on anyone's suffering during the travel of the group towards Amir's Kingdom, yet it isn't seen in pain or starving at all, but rather annoyed that Dani isn't allowing it to do evil stuff like it wants to do. I would say that if feeding on evil was necessary for its survival, it would be more desperate than furious. Not to mention that the story itself never puts emphasis on it needing to do it to survive, but rather on the horror of its action as they are. Plus, even if we want to assume that it is for survival despite all this evidence, I would say that it is a very similar case to Pennywise, where even if it is for survival it does it in the most unnecessarily cruel way possible.
So yeah, while there are some really small stuffs that could be used to argue that it has mitigating factors, none of them really holds up to me, with some being caused by it being pragmatic and others not being a problem at all for one reason or another.
Heinous Standards?[]

Some examples of the nightmares caused by the Evil Spirit, in this case with the arachnophobic Ivy and the acrophobic Anne. Would have loved to add more images for the nightmares of the others, but unfortunately Webtoon prevents it so whatever.
“ | I will kill them all... Or almost all... Some should stay. In order to suffer. | „ |
~ The Evil Spirit's philosophy. |
This will be long since there is a lot to talk about since the Evil Spirit is a bit unconventional in his villainy, and the heinous standards of the setting aren't exactly low. First things first, I will list the most notable antagonist to give everyone an idea of their worst action and how they compare with the candidate in question:
- The witch of the Sugar House: she kidnaps, kills and eat several childrens. The corpses of at least 5 can be seen in cages, and the clothings of others that were already eaten are found by the other villagers. This is the first true heinous thing we see in the series, and she kinda sets the standards in regards to regular murders and such, which would make her a good candidate ... if she ever appeared. Dani and Dorian go to her house, finds the corpses, villagers come in and think Dani is the witch and capture her to burn her. The witch herself never appear, we don't know who she is or anything about her personality, which is honestly a shame since this severely hurts her heinousness. Regardless, her murder of childrens is still horrifying and treated as such in the setting, so it is notable nonetheless.
- The Prison Warden: a old witch that is one of the four masterminds behind the war between the humans and witches alongside the Wytte adults. He is also by far the most evil and selfish between them, with him just wanting power over the witches to lead them in a crusades against humans. He is also the one that had the idea of the magical school, a place where children can be mentally conditioned into hating humans so that they can join their cause. Plus, he also attempts to kill Angela and Hans Wytte simply so that they wouldn't be able to oppose him as he attempts to self-proclaim himself as the King of Witches. He is a pretty nasty individual, and probably the second closest to being a good candidate after the Evil Spirit itself, but the fact that he dies pretty early on makes me think he loses the heinous standards to others. Still, he is undoubtely a notable villain.
- Hilda Wytte: also one of the four masterminds behind the war between humans and witches, she, like the other four, wants to establish a kingdom of witches in which those that oppose their rule or are non-magical will be burnt on the stake, all in revenge of years of persecution. Alongside the other two Wyttes, she leads the assault on the castle of Monica's father and establishes a rule over his Kingdom that cause several victims. She also sends the Hunter to kill Snow White (yeah, that Snow White, there are several mentions of classical fairy tails in the story). However, her most heinous actions are shared with other individuals.
- Hans Wytte: the third of the four masterminds behind the war between humans and witches. After her wife goes crazy, the two of them kidnap and kill most of the parents of their neighbors' kids, with he specifically being seen killing two tied up individuals. He also leads the assault on the castle of Monica's father and establishes a rule over it, at least prior to being killed by the flames of a Dragon. His most heinous crimes are also shared alongside other individuals.
- Angela Wytte: the last of the masterminds behind the war between humans and witches, also the other main antagonist of the series alongside the Evil Spirit itself (even though they are the main antagonists for very different reasons). After almost being burned alive by humans for being a witch, the hate and trauma makes her go crazy to the point she convinces her other family members (Hilda and Hans) to make the whole revolution in the first place. She kills the parents of the neighbors' kids alongside her husband, she leads the assault on the castle, establishes a rule on the Kingdom of Monica's father that leads to several deaths, kills Monica's parents in their sleep, and is overall resposable for a lot of heinous crimes, directly of indirectly. I would say she sets the standards between the ones that organized the war in the first place, but have Moral Agency Issues since she obviously went insane after almost burning alive.
- Pendragon: not really a villain in my eyes, but most people consider it. Still, most of what he does is trying to kill Dani and Dorian to prevent one of them into becoming the King/Queen of Witches in a desperate attempt to save people from the suffering they would cause. He does successfully poison Dorian, which leads to him staying in a coma for the entire duration of the three years timeskip, but apart from that he doesn't do much else, so most of the other villains surpass him easily.
- William's father: I would say he is the overarching antagonist of the series, with him attempting to burn Angela alive being the sparkle that starts most of the events of the series. And she was even pregnant at the time. He also attempts to burn Dorian at the stake, and when the witches arrive to try and save him he successfully manages to kill several of them alongside his army. Overall, he wants to exterminate all witches, but he ends up being mostly talk with little actions. Apart from what I listed prior, he doesn't do much to give weight to his declarations of wanting to exterminate all witches, waiting and doing nothing for the three years of time-skip and ending up dying of natural causes. He is a nasty individual, but I think he fails most of the heinous standards because of his inactivity for most of the story.
- The Green Dragon: repeatedly attacks the Kingdom of Amir and Aisha's mother, killing several civilian to the point they have to select sacrifical people to give to him. He kills a lot of individuals in one way or another, so he is still notable despite being a mindless beast.
- Jimmy: mortally wounds Nico with a spell and continously brags about witches being superior. Nothing notable about him apart from that.
So, I would say that the heinous standards aren't exactly low. Murder is an extremely common crime, there is a character that is serial child murderer and another who attempts to burn a pregnant lady alive for no reason and than attempts to also burn a child. There are also several people that orchestrated a war that caused tons of victims, and established a rule over a Kingdom in which people that were against witches would be burnt alive. How does the Evil Spirit compare with this? Well, he doesn't have much direct murders under in his rapsheet, but what he doesn't have in the physical department he has it in the psychological one, in which he absolutely sets the standards with his incredible cruelty and sheer sadism.
As I think everyone noticed when I listed all the villains and their crime, most villains mainly focus on murder in one way or another, meanwhile the Evil Spiri focus much more on psychological torture and its methods are far more cruel than just killing. In its introduction it already debuts by putting the main cast into separated nightmares of their worst fears, and all of them are minors, if not even childrens, at the time of this events. The nightmares are also noted to make them suffer a lot, with even Alice and Romas noticing their pain and feeling bad for asking the Spirit to put them in this nightmares since it is taking things much further than they initially thought. We even see some of the nightmares, like it putting Ivy in a room full of spiders, Anne on a faulty bridge over a ravine, Amir alone in a small box and Mark in a world where no one remembers his friends. Monica, instead, is forced to watch Dorian die in her nightmare, while it is particularly cruel with Dorian, with which it makes him see his sister jump down from a tower, almost making Dorian jump down to help her, basically attempting to make him commit suicide, something that would have worked if the others didn't stop him in time before he fell to his death. No other villain uses this kind of psychological torture on anyone, giving the Spirit a nice niche of heinousness, and I would say that its extremely cruel attempted murder on Dorian already makes it stand out a lot more compared to the regular murders of other villains, which mainly consists of instant-death spells or burning on stake.
Its methods are also far more cruel than just killing everyone like all the other villains. It enjoys spreading suffering and despair, and to do that he likes to kill only some individuals, so that the survivor/s will suffer forever after seeing their friends die. We see this when he tells Dani to kill everyone in the hunter's house expect one so that they can suffer, before she burns down the house under its order, almost killing everyone inside (including two childrens). Its plan to possess Dani's body forever is also extremely cruel, wanting to kill most of the group and leave only a few survivors so that their suffering can empower it enough to keep her body. While all of this is just attempted, it is already far more cruel than just killing everyone like all other villains do or attempt to do, and helps the Spirit stand out even more thanks to its sadism.
Since we are talking about its sadism, I think nothing shows it more than its repeated psychological abuse of Dani, which I would say might be one of the most heinous things in the entire series, especially since at the time she was just a child. After joining her with the false pretense of helping her, the Spirit repeatedly attempts to subtly break her down psychologically, with it trying to manipulate her into using a spell on Carlo while knowing that her spells are curses that might kill him, fully wanting her to do it to make her suffer. It than also tries to lead Dani into the room where Angela just assassinated Monica's parents, wanting her to see their corpses since the King in particular wanted to bring peace between humans and witches and it wanted to traumatize her by making her see his deceased body, only being stopped by Angela at the last second. And lastly, possibly one of its most horrible actions is causing hurricanes and fogs to slow down the witches to make them arrive late to Dorian's execution, something that completely breaks Dani psychologically just like the Spirit wanted, causing her to accidentally curse herself, becoming apathetic and amnestic, which the being take full advantage of.
But it doesn't stop there, since even after this it doesn't stop abusing her mentally, with it causing her nightmares to remind her of Dorian's death when other witches tries to help her regain her memory, also ordering to attack her only friend Nico while knowing that this is hurting her (it even notes that her desparation when doing it is "delicious"). It orders her to attack an innocent old witch that was just trying to help her by putting healing potions in her food because it would "put weird ideas in her head", and when they are in the woods it ignores her refusal to possess her body, doing it anyway and forcing her to eat a raw deer. Not to mention the fact that it attempts to use her to kill her own friends with extreme sadism, and it even attempts to possess her body forever, which is something I will go more in depth later. Its personal cruelty towards Dani is unmatched between all of the villains, with it being not only directly causing her to curse herself, but even taking full advantage of this condition by doing everything in its power to keep her in this condition while also continuing to torment and abuse her.
And it is also extremely important to note how its actions directly fuels the war between humans and witches, bringing it to new heights. Dorian's "execution" is what causes the war to get worse, mainly because of Dani accidentally cursing herself and therefore becoming a symbol for all the witches while also leading the war under her mother and the Spirit's control. There are mainly two culprints behind it: William's father and the Spirit. The execution was planned and organized by William's father, so he certainly have a big part in it, but the consequences of it weren't planned by him since he obviously didn't expect Dani to break down like this. Meanwhile, the Spirit have a much more direct role in this, causing the witches to arrive too late to save him and just in time to see the (dummy of) Dorian burn down, with the being directly wanting to make Dani see it to break her down. In short, if the witches didn't arrive too late because of the Spirit's actions, everything would have been solved much earlier, the war wouldn't have expanded at such rate and it wouldn't even last for three years in the first place. While William's father is the one that enacted the execution, it's the Spirit who actually have the biggest part in the consequences of the execution, and therefore being the main culprint for the worsening of the conflict as a whole.
Beucase the worse thing about it all is that, contrary to William's father, the worsening of the conflict was all part of the Spirit's plan, especially given that not only does it causes Dani to curse herself in the first place, but it does everything in its power to make her as violent as possible with its manipulation and keep her in this state by causing her nightmares, ordering her to attack others that might help her get better and possessing her to prevent potions to have an effect on her, all while fully aware that Dani's position is worsening the conflict. After all, not only it is close to Dani all the time, but it even uses the war to taunt the hunter and his son when they meet it while she is in the body of Dani eating the deer, mockingly telling them that if they hate witches than they will burn at the stake, showing that it is aware of what is happening in the world, that people are dying and that it's actions are worsening everything, but it just doesn't care. Not to mention that Dorian's "death" (which, again, is fake, but the witches don't know it) is also what leads Angela and the others to expand in a blind fury, causing at least two other kingdoms to fall under their attacks and causing hundreds to thousands of deaths, all of which would be made indirectly or by proxy by the Spirit, as even Pendragon directly says that "a lot of people" died because of Dani, which is in this state because of the Evil being who fuels her violence to cause chaos, if not straight up controlling her.
It is also worth mentioning that the Spirit itself says that it's objective is to "spead chaos" on the world, getting upset after being kicked from Dani's body and being depowered as a consequence because in the body of Minino, a regular cat, it wouldn't be able to spead it as it wanted to. While this kinda relies on Fridge Horror since we don't know how it would spread chaos exactly, it isn't completely the case since we alrady saw it spreading chaos throught Dani, making its action that fueled the war even more intentional, since it is its main objective, as it says, to cause as much chaos and suffering as possible to grow stronger.
Another important piece to discuss is its possessions of Dani. We directly see that Dani, even while apathetic and a puppet because of the curse she put on herself by accident, is against this, directly telling it not to possess her in the woods. It does it anyway and forces her to eat a deer, but this is nothing compared to the fact that during the final battle it attempts to possess her body forever. This is especially nasty since she is shown to be in great pain while she is possessed by the Spirit, with her trying to fight back against its possession during the final battle, and when the being asks her why she is trying to resist she responds by saying that "her head hurts", directly confirming that the possession is hurting her a lot. Yet, the Spirit ignores her words and forcefully enter her body once again, planning to keep her in this state forever despite knowing that she is in great pain, basically wanting to put her in a fate worse than death in which it would use her body how it wanted while she is in constant pain.
Lastly, speaking of fates worse than death, when it is cornered it attempts to trap all the main cast in one, trying to lock them in personalized nightmares without a way to escape. And when that doesn't work, it attempts to possess Dorian one last time, where he is shown to be in pain during the whole process, basically wanting to also trap him in a fate worse than death too, something that it would have done if Dorian didn't manage to isolate it and banish it for good. While none of this attempts ends up successful one way or another, the fact that it attempts three times to trap individuals in fates worse than death (when it attempts to possess Dani forever, when it tries to trap everyone into nightmares and when it attempts to possess Dorian) is extremely notable, mainly because, as I explained before, most of the crimes committed by the villains are either murders or attempted one. So, the Spirit is the only one that actually attempts to put someone into such a fate, and it even tries it multiple times, making it stand out even more.
And did I mention that it does all of this while also being confirmed to be the character with the lowest resources? Yes, because moments before its final defeat, when Dorian manages to isolate it and is about to banish it, he notices that the Spirit itsel is incredibly weak, and all it can really do on its own is a weak-ish blocking spell (which is effortlessly broken by Angela), putting others to sleep under certain situations and cause nightmares. It needs the magical powers of someone else to be able to do anything, with it confirming that Dani shared her power with it during the assault at Monica and William's wedding, otherwise it wouldn't be able to do half of the things it is able to do. So, the Spirit mainly relies on its manipulations and psychological tricks to perform most of its heinous actions, making everything listed above even more impressive because of the low resources it starts off with.
To summarize since this section came out really long, the Spirit manages to stand out for several reasons: a nice niche of psychological torture and manipulation by using nightmares to torment people (almost making Dorian commit suicide while doing it); a lot of cruelty and sadism which is unmatched among all the villains (like it wanting to only kill some people so the survivors can suffer and such); a lot of personal villainy towards Dani, with its abuse of her being possibly one of the most heinous stuff in the series; it knowingly fueling a war that causes hundreds to thousands of death with its actions (causing Dani's breakdown by making the witches arrive late at the execution, keeping her in her apathetic state in several ways, manipulating her to be more aggressive, etc...); and its attempts at putting people in fates worse than death several times. All of this while also starting off with the lowest resources among most, if not all, of the villains in the series.
Verdict?[]
Overall, I would say that the Evil Spirit is a solid yes for me. There was quite a lot to say about it because of its heinousness being much more on the psychological side, but overall I would say that the lack of mitigating factors and the several terrible actions it commits, either directly or by proxy, should be able to make him stand out. But, as always, I will let you decide if he qualify or not!