I've made many odd, controversial proposals in my time (Chauncey, Funtime Freddy was an option at one point.) But talking a good bit led me to think about this candidate, and discussion arose on a server about him. After which, we agreed he could be a likely candidate.
What's the Work?[]
Duck Season is a 2017 VR horror game created by Stress Level Zero.
The game is about David receiving a one day rental of the titular game. However, as he plays the seemingly normal game, the game world reveals itself to become weirder, especially with it's mascot...
Who's the Character?[]
Don't be afraid of the big, bad doggy.
The Dog is the main antagonist of Duck Season, and the main deuteragonist of the game in-universe.
The Dog is seemingly a friendly ally, similar to the original Dog from Duck Hunt. However, after being shot, The Dog lets its true intentions start to shine through.
What Did It Do?[]
Before we start, I want to make it clear. The Canon Ending of Duck Season is.... the canon/true one, it's in the name lol. Therefore, I'm following the events of that route and ignoring the non-canon endings (mostly).
Initially, The Dog takes the role of the Dog from Duck Hunt, its inspiration, simply dancing around the field and distracting the player. Upon shooting it, The Dog gets angered, and its actions slowly begin to get stranger, harassing and taunting David. This simply seems to be a strange bug, until The Dog begins disappearing from the game periodically. Upon ending Level 4 of Duck Season, David's mom states that she can't find the knife.
The Dog begins to make it's intentions clear by the end of Level 6, where after you beat it, the TV changes to a video of David. When David turns his head, he sees the Dog at the window, after which, the dog runs away. In Level 7, the Dog is completely gone, with the game taking you to a Round 4 rather than ending at Round 3 per usual. After beating it, turning your head will prompt David to see The Dog behind him in real life, before quickly ducking behind the couch.
After beating Level 8, the reason for the Dog's absence is revealed: He had murdered David's mother gruesomely. On the TV, it mocks David on it, saying, "WHERE'S MOM?". The Duck Season screen returns, only with the words, "COME FACE ME." rather than "Play"
David enters the Voidway one last time for Level 9, facing demonic dogs and fireballs, only for the Dog itself to become massive. It then tries to destroy the TV using laser eyes, which would effectively trap David there forever. David, however, defeats it, causing David to be taken back to the Real World.
The Dog decides to take matters into its own paws, intruding into the house (via multiple routes), to kill David directly. David shoots at it numerous times, eventually causing it to convulse and explode into numerous red blocks, ending it's reign of terror for good. David, traumatized, is gonna call the police, only to realize nobody would believe him, as no evidence was left that The Dog was there. So, David destroys the cartridge, buries his own mother and runs away from home.
You may be wondering, "...That's it? That's really weak for a Pure Evil candidate" and that's what I thought, too... until I considered numerous factors (some here and some in the MF section).
The Dog was indicated in a news broadcast (after Level 5) to have been responsible for the disappearance and likely murder of several families. In the Best Men ending, breaking my no referencing other endings rule for a moment, was confirmed to have been responsible. Only reason I reference this ending is because there's no reason to believe The Dog suddenly wasn't responsible in the Canon Ending.
We also see the moments before the Dog kills another child within the Canon Ending, in the bloody tape simply labelled "12" (presumably the Dog's 12th kill), in which the Dog records itself capturing and then presumably killing the child (judging by the blood on the tape, it's highly likely).
Mitigating Factors[]
The first, and primary one, is its presumed lack of characterization and motive throughout Duck Season. At first, it just seems like it's just a bog standard, amoral supernatural killer which is fair... if it wasn't for the games taking place in the same universe as Duck Season, BONEWORKS and BONELAB. Here, we indirectly get more of The Dog and its species' lore. The Dog is part of a species known as the Cryptids, that come from the Voidway. The Dog's motive is to escape the Voidway and, driven by it's bloodlust, kill, and it's allowed to do so once it escapes via Duck Season, which creates a temporary exit while the player is in the game. It does this via one cursed cartridge, and since it's rented, the Dog uses this rented cartridge to kill families that rent the game. Given the Dog's taunting "WHERE'S MOM?" text it gives after it kills David's mom, it's shown there is a sadistic personality there, that it knows what it's doing, thus losing it's amoral argument. It's not the deepest character, but it's personality is there.
This kind of leads into my next point, it's only when you shoot the dog that it gets aggravated, thus, people point out that it's possible that the Dog simply only gets mad at the people that shot it. However, it's highly likely the Dog is actually baiting you into shooting it, as it purposefully dances around and distracts the player from the ducks. On top of that, the bullets do not seem to actually hurt the dog, rather annoy it. And even if that's not the case, the Dog doesn't just kill the people that shot it, rather, it kills their entire families before fleeing back into the cartridge. I don't think it's just revenge, as it makes it's homicidal intentions super clear. Even in the very first level of Duck Season, it's friendly guise is shown to be an act, as it's smoking a cigarette before noticing the Player is there, immediately jumping into it's happy actions again.
Heinous Standards[]
There are no other villains in Duck Season, so The Dog kind of sets the standards in that game. You could argue the ducks in the "FACE ME" level are villains, but even then they're only bog-standard minions.
However, we do have to compare The Dog to characters from BONEWORKS and BONELAB, since we've confirmed it takes place in the same universe as Duck Season. We can compare The Dog to Arthur Ford, the main protagonist of BONEWORKS. Arthur's goal was to achieve immortality by accessing the Voidway. He was hired by Momogon to help work on BONEWORKS. By the time BONEWORKS starts, Arthur begins to initiate his plan of immortality, locking himself in a panic room as he uses a hacked headset along with a USB. He uploads the virus from the USB to the in-universe BONEWORKS, resets the System Clock, and wanders through multiple different simulations. Eventually, he was shot by an Executive in the real world, who had figured out his plan, but because his consciousness was in the Voidway, he achieved immortality like he wanted.
I don't think The Dog's heinousness is affected at all by Arthur's actions. Arthur's goal was completely for himself, he didn't harm anybody outside the real world, only murdering the in-game NPCs. He wanted immortality, and that's really all he was after. The worst Arthur had done in the real world was sabotage Mamogon by using MythOS/The Voidway to his own advantage. The Dog, on the other hand, harmed numerous real people, tore families apart, because of it's bloodlust. I also believe The Dog had less resources than Ford, The Dog could only use Duck Season as it's in-and-out. Meanwhile, Ford had the entirety of MythOS under his control.
Another thing we should compare The Dog to is other Cryptids... and it's actually super anticlimactic lol. Other Cryptids, like the Monkey, 9 and the Void Figures, are seen as cameos in all three games, but they don't really do much. The Void Figures watch Ford throughout the game, only to retreat if he gets near them. 9 is the Cat Clock seen in both Duck Season and BONEWORKS, in which it had stalked David before escaping to the game, 98.6 DEADFM, a upcoming game in Stress Level Zero's lineup. 9 is going to be a future antagonist at somepoint in Stress Level Zero's upcoming games, but as those games have not been released yet, it's actions there are unknown for now. The last one is The Monkey, a plush monkey that has only been featured as a cameo, and hasn't moved at all. It's implied it's gonna return in 98.6 DEADFM, but it's unknown what role he will play.
With all of its gruesome kills, a clear motive and the fact David, despite killing the Dog, would forever have his life ruined and changed due to this event, I believe it passes the Heinous Standards by a fair margin.
Final Verdict?[]
A super surprising firm yeah to the bad doggy.