I still ask, how does enslaving all life, spirits included, and fusing with a demon that always talks about destruction, and using him to bring an age of Darkness that will last 10 thousand years bring spiritual harmony, especially if just opening the spirit portals was jsut enough? How? It's simple, you are actually a power-hungry villain who wants to rule the world. It's simple, very simple. You ain't better than them. I doubt you once were, and now you never will be.
Its has been over a month when I have received permission from an admin for this formality post. Man, I really got busy, and now, I have finally finished, now my other proposals in other sites as boy did I delay a lot of things, with this out of the way, now I can run my other errands in FANDOM. What a coincidence? My previous proposal was a not-so-well-intentioned extremist. When I said "on the veins of Bradford Buzzard and Judge Claude Frollo", I forgot to add one more villain. Well, I actually did forget about that villain because he is a pretty boring and forgettable one imo (arguably the defining aspect of the season he came from imo, good ideas wasted on poor execution), also coincidence as I think I remember talking about PE not being a badge of honor or shame in that proposal also, and this is the perfect one as his PE status imo, is a byproduct of his poor writing, and since I have proposed some great villain (Thrax and Dr. Müller) in the past to prove I don't treat PE as a badge of shame, and now, a test to prove I don't treat it as a badge of honor either, especially since I am handing the responsibility of Malekith the Forgettable to q good friend as I think by him alone my mind can explode. It isn't just that also, since I really believe he needs a proposal as quick as possible considering he is from a show with the villains representing good intentions going too far, and now I must explain why this villain counts, as I was shocked there was another Avatar villain other than Ozai that is PE, and reading through his page, I was questioning if he does count with his motive being spiritual unity, however, after having watched the sequel series, in which the villain appears, I definitely see the villain as PE and I will use this opportunity to explain why. Now, let us begin and let us see if Ozai 2.0, just attempting to be more complex but ends up falling flat, because by god, they are so similar that it is even one of my problems, also coincidence that they were both auto-approved PEs, and unlike Ozai, who had a formality post by my good friend Percival C. McLeach, our candidate remains auto-approved and now, I must use this opportunity to explain why he is PE and finish this as I have enough coincidences to list out and don't want to milk it dry now so let's get to work, as I have not finalized my opinion yet, but so far imo, Unalaq could be debatably worse than Ozai.
What is the Work?[]
The Legend of Korra is a 2012-2014 animated series airing on Nickelodeon that was the sequel of the popular show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, you know, the good Avatar, not the blue one with Stephen Lang as the villain, what was his name again. It follows Korra, a brash, hot-headed, arrogant and incompetent girl who is the next Avatar after the death of Avatar Aang, as she slowly matures as she deals with multiple seasonal threats, like some arc villains, who most of them have very good points despite their villainy, even this one although his good intentions aren't genuine unlike them.
Who is He?/What has He Done?[]
Unalaq was the second born son of the chief of the Northern Water Tribe, the younger brother of Tonraq and the second in line to the throne. When growing up, he ironically joined the radical and anarchistic organization called the Red Lotus and was an important member, to where he befriended a non-bender called Zaheer and acquainted with his girlfriend P'Li and his other 2 friends, Ghazan and Ming-Hua. During his time in the Red Lotus, Unalaq had learnt about the spirits, being very interested on them, and the story of Raava and Vaatu and their conflict, and the story of the first Avatar, Avatar Wan, and how he closed the spirit portals that lead to humans and spirits being forever torn apart. Unalaq at first genuinely believed in restoring harmony between humans and spirits, wanting them to coexist in the same reality and things would be better, and has been meditating into the spirit realm after taking a fascination with spirits. Unalaq agreed with the Red Lotus' ideology that Vaatu, the lord of chaos, must be set free and roam the Earth, however Unalaq only believed that as he ended up going against their other ideology, that the world is better off without governments, but Unalaq sought to free Vaatu and fuse with him and enslave humanity together as they rule the world in an age of darkness and destroying world order, coming to Vaatu's prison in the Tree of Time and convincing him to rather enslave the material world rather than to destroy it. Vaatu agreed and Unalaq became his enforcer. Soon, how genuine his good intentions were started slowly fading away as his quest for spiritual harmony is now being more and more coincidental to his power lust. Unalaq knew Vaatu can be freed by opening both spirit portals in both the water tribes and leaving them open for the Harmonic Convergence when they converge, releasing energy to break Vaatu from the Tree of Time, and Unalaq was always jealous of his brother being the first in line, so Unalaq hired a barbaric army to attack the Northern Tribe, to which Tonraq leads the attack against them and has them hide in a spiritual forest, so Unalaq can use his brother's brashness and hotheadedness to his advantage as he tricks him into destroying the forest and in turn, the homes of man spirits, in order to find them, to which the angry homeless spirits attacked the tribe in return to which Unalaq plays the hero while Tonraq was left at the mercy of his father, who exiled him as punishment for putting the tribe in danger and Unalaq usurping Tonraq's birthright, which pleases Unalaq after finally proven himself to be superior to his brother.
Unalaq eventually succeeds his father after his death and got married and had 2 twins, Desna and Eska, to which when they were old enough, he would start using them as tools for his plans. Ultimately, Unalaq's pride after finally taking the throne from his brother came with its cost as he ended up being the father of the next Avatar after Aang's death, Korra, his niece, which enraged him, when it was revealed she was that at the age of 5. Unalaq then started a plot for the Red Lotus to kidnap Korra weeks after the news came out, to which he sent Zaheer and his gang to do the job, but ultimately, thanks to Tonraq, Chief Sokka (who had no closure in this series, freaking Zhao has but not Sokka, anyway), Fire Lord Zuko and Aang's youngest son and representative of the airbenders in Republic City, Tenzin. Unalaq eventually used this opportunity to finally backstab the order early as he leaves his associates to rot in prison for life despite he being the reason they did the crime they were convicted for in the first place in order to cover his involvement, even going as far to build an actual prison for P'Li, where she has to suffer freezing temperatures for the rest of her life so she can't firebend her way out of there with her mind, to which Zaheer holds a major disdain for. From this moment on, Unalaq was no longer a member of the Order. Unalaq has made frequent visits to the Southern Water Tribe to attend the Glacier Spirit Festival due to how spiritual he is.
When Korra was 16, 11 years after the failed kidnapping, and 6 months after she put an end to the Equalist Movement by Amon, it was the year of the Harmonic Convergence, so Unalaq wants to make sure he can conquer both Water Tribes and rule them directly to open the portals and release Vaatu. So in order to do this, Unalaq used his specialized waterbending technique used for healing called spirit bending, which can corrupt, redeem and dissipate people, and kill humans it is used on also. He used his bending to corrupt some innocent spirits against their will and attack the South Pole. He then arrives there for the Glacier Festival in order to gain Korra's trust. He then lies to Korra about the attack of the dark spirits that it was happening due to the South's lack of spiritual activity, abandoning most of the spiritual practices still practiced in the North, talking about how the festival is no longer about celebrating spirits and more of a carnival. This speech was to manipulate Korra into joining him, to which out of being impressed by him and Tenzin's incessant claims for her to learn airbending, Unalaq takes advantage of her as he accepts mentoring her, to which Tonraq barges in to tell his brother that Tenzin is Korra's mentor, to which Korra angrily tells him that who ever is her mentor is her choice.
That night, a dark spirit Unalaq corrupted attacked the Festival and proved no match to Korra and Tenzin, to which Unalaq tames the spirit using his spiritbending by dissipated the spirit and telling t go in peace to keep his facade. Unalaq used the opportunity to offer Korra to be trained by him, to which Tonraq and Tenzin object, but Korra then tells how she msut find her own path and that with the attacks from the dark spirits, Unalaq is the only one who can stop them. Unalaq, Korra, Mako & Bolin and Tonraq go to the Spirit Forest and camped in the forest to which Unalaq blames Tonraq for the reason the dark spirits are attacking them. Korra then asks how come her father was in the South despite being from the North and that she never visited the Northern Water Tribe, to which Tonraq reveals that due to his rash actions, he was exiled by his own father. THis angered Korra due to how much was hid from her and became closer to Unalaq's side. For the firs tpart of korra's "spiritual training", Unalaq has Korra open the Southern Spirit Portal in the South Pole, restoring the Southern Lights, to which Unalaq smiles at having played Korra. He then tells Korra she needs to open both the Spirit Portals.
Unalaq's army then arrives at the shore, to which Korra goes to Unalaq and enquires about it. Unalaq then tells he is planning to "unite" the 2 water tribes to bring it back to its rightful spiritual stage, and then the world, which in reality, was so Unalaq can rule it. Unalaq has his forces create a blockade, preventing people from the Southern Water Tribe from escaping and any outsiders from entering. Due to this, tensions increased as there were rumours to be a civil war between the 2 water tribes. Korra visited Unalaq to tell how the people of the Southern Water Tribe are opposed to his occupation and threatening to a civil war, to which he laments that if it happens, the other nations need to pick a side while the dark spirits feed on the energy of the conflict, which will cause a war between man and spirit, and tells her that she needs to be neutral in the conflict and find a good solution to the crisis, to which Korra believes Tenzin was right that she wasn't ready to be the Avatar, to which Unalaq insists he still sees her great potential.
That night, a bunch of rebels snuck into Unalaq's palace and attempted to kidnap and assassinate him in his sleep, which Korra notices and saves him and captures all the rebels. Unalaq considers banishing them to which Korra recommends a trial, to which he accepts to keep her in her side. Next, he then orders an arrest for Tonraq and Senna, despite knowing they were actually innocent and had nothing to do with the assassination, to which he has a rigged trial using Judge Hotah for the convics, charging everyone but Senna, whom he spared to keep Korra in his side, with treason, punishable with death, however, Korra lashed out due to this and threatened to kill Hotah, to which Unalaq has him lower it to life imprisonment to keep her on his side while finally getting rid of Tonraq for good.
After finally learning the truth about the trial, her father's exile and Unalaq's true nature, she then attempts to break Tonraq out of prison but realizes he is not there, to which Unalaq reveals he is having Tonraq serve his sentence in the North Pole. Korra then calls him out for how he really doesn't want unity, that he only cares for power, and that he was only jealous of Tonraq, before renouncing him as his teacher and demanding to recall the prison ship as she thinks he still needs her to open up the Northern Spirit Portal, to which Unalaq confesses he doesn't need her anymore and was only manipulating and exploiting her for his own end to which an enraged Korra attacks. Unalaq defeats Korra and Mako with a water skin, but Korra uses a powerful airbending gust that knocks Unalaq back and rescued her father and the rebels, to which he allows as his true focus is protecting the southern portal. However, turns out unalaq was knucklehead as he actually needs the Avatar to open the other portal. So he sends his children after Korra, but they fail as she is presumably killed by a dark spirit, which amde ehr suffer memory loss, disappointed, Unalaq brushes off his son's question on what he was doing in the Spirit World and decides that they will open the portal using other ways, to which they use their bending to open the portal, backfiring horribly on Desna as he suffers a big blow that nearly kills him, to which Unalaq orders Eska to continue trying to open the portal and ignore Desna, leaving him to what Desna says "expire", as the portal is more important than him, to which Eska leaves to bring her brother to a healer to which Unalaq tries to do it himself using an ice drill, which fail once more. Unalaq then brings the news of the Avatar's death to Vaatu in his prison at the Tree of Time, to which Vaatu tells he hasn't failed him as he still feel his light counterpart, Raava's presence. With his hopes of succeeding renewed, Vaatu informs that Korra has entered the Spirit World, to which he hunts down his niece. Upon arrival, Unalaq captures Jinora, the oldest granchild of the previous avatar, Aang, who was only 11 I think to tell, by using his spiritbending, to torture and corrupt Jinora's soul to death, and tells he isn't bluffing, and has Korra open the Northern Spirit Portal if she wants to save Jinora's life. Even though she complies, Unalaq ungratefully tries to murder Korra to which she was rescued by a spirit, much to Unalaq's anger. Unalaq then sends Jinora to a worse fate as he then has a dark spirit to instead trap her in the Fog of Lost Souls, where she will be driven to insanity while her body is still alive, to which she is now under her grandmother, Katara's care to prevent her from dying thanks to this.
Unalaq then returns to the human realm and fight off the remaining rebels with help of the dark spirits, defeating all the Rebels. Unalaq then has a showdown with Tonraq, to which he brutally beats his own brother remorselessly to near death while he smiles, only sparing him just to make sure the older brother he envied can see him finally win and become all powerful. Unalaq has won the Civil War, and has Tonraq imprisoned in his tent. Unalaq knows Korra will try closing the spirit portals so he has dark spirits and his soldiers fortify them. The fortification helped as it foiled Team Avatar and their allies' attempt to enter the Spirit world to which they were sent to his tent to be imprisoned along with a gravely injured Tonraq.
Unalaq congratulates them sarcastically in getting front row seats on witnessing the creation of a new world. Korra claims fusing with Vaatu won't give him power but will only make him a traitor to everything good that happened in the past 1000 years, to which Unalaq does make up a good point on that separating the spirit and mortal worlds brought more chaos than balance, seeking to restore it, as he opposed the Avatar being the bridge between 2 worlds, as they can live together as one. Korra claims she can still reimprison Vaatu, to which he announces his plan to become the Dark Avatar. Tonraq begs his brother to reconsider, but he rejects any chance of redemption now as he claims since he is more in tune with his spiritual side, he will be far better than Korra can ever be.
Unalaq returns to the Spirit World so he can be present when Vaatu is freed and Unalaq can finally merge with him and become the Dark Avatar, but Team Avatar escapes and fight him and prevent Harmonic Convergance but to no avail. 10 thousand years have passed, and Vaatu is finally freed from his prison. When the duo attempt to merge, Unalaq was thrown out of the portal to which Mako and Bolin try preventing him from reentering, but Unalaq defeats them and has them trapped in ice, ordering his children to not let them escape this time. When he returns, he sees Korra about to reimprison Vaatu back into the Tree of Time, to which Unalaq assaults her and fuses with the great demon, becoming the Dark Avatar as they are bonded forever and merged like Raava and the Avatars. He then fights Korra, managing to remove Raava from Korra before using his waterbending to temporarily murder Raava using brutal waterbending hits, with every hit severing Korra's connection to he previous lives permanently and painfully. With Raava gone, Unalaq enters his Avatar State and mutates into one of the most laughably bad designs of a kaiju and a giant I have witnessed, with an even stupider name, "UnaVaatu". Seems like "VaatUnalaq" was out of the question, isn't it? Okay back to the point. Now at the peak of his power, Unalaq uses the Harmonic Convergance's spiritual energy to bring him to Republic City as he announces to bring in 10 thousand years of darkness, destroying all world order, enslaving all of humanity with the spirits Vaatu and Unalaq forcibly corrupt to serve them, unleashing spirit vines upon the city with the intent of destroying it.
However, Korra medidates in the Tree of Time and becomes a giant Korra (seriously), and they shoot lasers at each other before engaging in a kaiju battle (yes, yes, great advantage of their power really), to which Korra attempts to recreate Raava inside any light inside Vaatu, to which they tell Raava has been destroyed, and she will be too as she gets blasted by Vaatu's laser and Unalaq uses his spirit bending to try corrupting Korra to death as he tells with her out of the way, he will be the one true Avatar. Before Jinora-ex-Machina happens as spirit Jinora comes and unleashes light, which gets inside UnaVaatu, to which Korra uses it to recreate Raava and then Unalaq has gotten the honours of being the only villain killed by korra, who is also his own niece, as she spirit bends them to death, with Vaatu once again gone for 10 thousand years and Unalaq having no successor having died in his Avatar State. Korra then breaks the news to Desna and Eska about Unalaq's death thinking they will be saddened by it, but even they are glad he is gone for how they were treated by him. Unalaq ultimately dies forever hated by the rest of the world for what he did, even by his allies and family. However, Korra knws Unalaq still broguth up some good points despite his quest for unity ultimately being coincidental to his power lust, as she keeps the spirit portals open, while the Northern Water Trieb army leaves, while Tonraq is officially chief of the Southern Water Tribe, and Harmonic Convergence reviving both the Air Nation (the good) and the threat of Zaheer as well (the bad).
Mitigating Factors[]
Okay, this is easily the most important one. His good intentions. Does Unalaq bring up good points on why Avatar Wan separating the spirit and mortal world not being a good idea and that they must coexist? Yes, he does. Has he given good advice to Korra? Yes, he does. Is his quest for unity genuine? No, it is not. I want to make it very clear. Unalaq's quest for unity isn't a quest for unity, it is a quest for power. Like all the other main villains in the show (obviously excluding Vaatu), he is a case of good intentions going too far, but his good intentions ultimately are very coincidental to his lust for power and I will explain why:
- People call it selfish in-universe. Korra made a big speech on how Unalaq really doesn't want unity, but she isn't that big of a focus on my [point as she can be judgemantal. It's Zaheer who is the final nail, he calls his intentions to fuse with Vaatu selfish. And he also genuinely believed Avatar Wan made a mistake separating the human and spirit worlds and wants to unite them, and he wants to free Vaatu as he is the lord of chaos and wants to plunge the world to anarchy as he genuinely believes it to be the natural order as it will grant freedom for all. It says 10 thousand things when Zaheer calls fusing with Vaatu selfish
- Unalaq is in Toph's quote on the Anti-Villains page. But you can see, for him, Toph said things differently. Toph says "Amon wanted equality", and "Zaheer believed in freedom." and in Unalaq's case, she tells "Unalaq brought back the spirits." It seems less of having genuinely good intentions but a necessary pure evil that has brought some good onto this world, and being a necessary evil isn't disqualifying for PE at all.
- If Unalaq really cared for spiritual harmony and unity, how does fusing with Vaatu help? He is an obviously evil incarnation of chaos talking about destruction constantly. Desna himself told it, he united the water tribes, the spirit portals are open and spirits are free to roam the Earth. He basically achieved balance already. The only thing Vaatu can give him now is just unlimited power so he can rule the world. If he really cared about balance, he could've stopped at the portals.
- Another thing, how does enslaving all of humanity and bringing an age of darkness help? Seriously, how does that bring spiritual harmony. That will bring loads of dark energy that will cause the spirits to be hostile and will do anything but bring balance. Once again, Unalaq has proven he just wants to rule the world and remake it in his image with Vaatu.
- If the last 2 points didn't help, maybe this can. In Unalaq's strategies for power, he has harmed spirits on the way. He tricked his brother into destroying most of a spiritual forest where many spirits lived so he can kickstart his plan to get his brother exiled and usurp his throne. In order to gain Korra's trust, open both the portals and rule both Water Tribes, he basically uses his spirit bending to torture innocent spirits with dark energy basically to corrupt them into dark spirits and attack the Southern Water Tribe. Also, revealed in Season 4, spirits were forced to serve him thanks to Vaatu and he went along with it, enslaving multiple spirits to be dark spirits so he can have assistance. If he really cared about spiritual harmony and not power, he wouldn't have had harmed many spirits for his strategy to be the direct ruler of the water tribe and in releasing Vaatu and fusing with him. This just questions how genuine he really is in the present.
Ultimately, Unalaq's points come across as "Holier than Thou" crap as TV Tropes put it, with his actions saying otherwise how in reality, Unalaq only wanted to have more power and lies to others and himself that he is doing this for spiritual unity and balance. Even if Unalaq genuinely wanted unity, it is lost now. Amon is actually a waterbender, who uses bloodbending to remove other people's bending as he actually believes bending to be the cause of all the problems in the world and is show treating non-benders well and wanting equality, and it says alot his good intentions are more genuine than Unalaq. Unalaq isn't an extemist (as he went far too much to be justified as an anti-villain also), he is a delusional hypocrite whom in my Skrael proposal, should've added in "the veins of Judge Claude Frollo and Bradford Buzzard. Doesn't help that the other main villains of the show (also excluding Vaatu for obvious reasons) have multiple redeeming/sympathetic qualities that balance out the extremism and in their case, help proving how genuine their good intentions are, because Unalaq lacks any of them.
Never as the story wanted you to sympathize with Unalaq. He was given no tragedy in any way or form. He cares for no one, not even spirits, and I explained why. He just has an affinity with them. Wan Shi Tong says Unalaq is a good friend with the spirits, but Wan Shi Tong is someone who is easily fooled by Fox News telling that radio's work because there are tiny men in boxes, so he really isn't that reliable, and as told, he is willing to harm spirits also. His family, please don't get me started. All he sees his family are just tools. His love for his children is non-existent. He is just negligent of them and they and his love for them are second-rate compared to his quest to merge with Vaatu and using them as tools. Would it really be surprising they are 95% emotionless because of Unalaq's negligence? Let's not forget, he orders Eska to not help Desna even though he suffered a major hit and was severely injured, to the point where as Desna put it, he was willing to let him "expire". His brother, do not dare to make me laugh. He ruined his life, had him falsely exiled, beat him to near death, sparing him so he can see him win, falsely has him sentenced to life imprisonment, saying Unalaq cares for Tonraq is like saying Scar cares for his brother Mufasa despite murdering him in cold-blood. Korra is just a pawn, he admits that he was exploiting her. His father, we know he has a father and it was his predecessor, that's it. His wife, he, we know she exist. Their relationship is barely fleshed out so nope. The Red Lotus, also pawns, he abandoned his old friend Zaheer and his girlfriend P'Li, as well as his 2 friends Ghazan and Ming-Hua, to rot in prison for the rest of their lives, despite he is the one who started the plot in kidnapping a 5 year old Korra. Everyone is a pawn for him, even the ultimate evil in the world, Vaatu, is a pawn for him, he isn't genuinely loyal to him, he is only following and releasing him just so they can merge and gain more power. And yes, he convinced Vaatu to spare humanity and enslave them instead, but it was only so he could have humans to rule over. He also isn't honorable as he is a big traitor, or very insecure. His envy is more on his pride than genuinely feeling weak in comparison to his brother like many insecure villains.
I wanna bring something up. Essentially, Unalaq basically revived the Air Nation. Yes, I agree. But it is a misconception that a PE must be make the world worse and nothing good should come out from their actions. The thing is, it is false. We have multiple PE's whose actions ended up bringing some good. Ke-Pa is what got the Jade Palace built, Ronan the Accuser basically brought the Guardians of the Galaxy together, General Lunaris's actions ended up helping in brining peace between Earthlings and Moonlanders (considering he was willing to murder them all). The thing is, it is unintentional, and Unalaq was already dead when it was revealed that the Airbenders are back thanks to him, and even without that, the world would've been in a worse state anyway under his age of darkness. The airbenders being back wouldn't bring a glimmer of light if Unalaq succeeded in starting his age of darkness as by that, the world will be in a worse state than even when the 100 year war plagued the world.
Moral agency issues? No, he is fully human. He is affected by Vaatu's negative influence like he did with those firebenders, but Vaatu only needles him, Unalaq still did all of his actions in his own violation. After they fused, it isn't all Vaatu also, they did their crimes together as they have become one. Vaatu isn't possessing Unalaq and using his body as a vessel, Unalaq isn't absorbing all of Vaatu's powers and killing him, they have just merged into the same being like how Raava and Wan, and in turn, all his successors did. Unalaq still had his free will even after becoming UnaVaatu and still is accountable for all the crimes he did. Even before also he was already a horrible and awful person, and his plan on enslaving all life was his endgame even before becoming the Dark Avatar. So basically, unlike with his master, Unalaq's moral agency is no problem.
Taken seriously? Seriously, don't make me laugh. He is played dead seriously, he has no comedic moments at all, not even to make him laughably evil. So overall, eh is played seriously, his good intentions aren't really good intentions, he treats everyone as pawns and has no honor, insecurity, and everything is his violation. He definitely fits pure and complete in this regard that on his own, can count as PE.
Heinous Standards[]
From one high heinous standard from a Nickelodeon show to another. Why am I cursed with this, always ending up having proposed guys from high heinous standards, which luckily succeed. What's next, going to someone from Dragon Ball or Warhammer 4K? That too, not a whole lot actually stand out in the Avatar universe, and if they do, they have so many mitigating factors that they don't even come close. Let me list those guys who stands, Ozai, Vaatu, Sozin, Amon, Zaheer, maybe Kuvira and Hama also. And that is excluding guys terribly villains like Zhao, who plunged the entire world to chaos that also includes the Fire Nation, or the Fire Nation general that has a village's water supply contaminted and bringing an age of sickness, having them feed on mutated fish and polluted water and tried destroying it, or Yakone, a bloodbending crime lord that uses bloodbending to torture multiple people and harshly abusing his sons, having them even bloodbend each other, to the point where one, who ends up being Amon, runs away, or that prison warden of the boiling rock who from what I remember, tortures his prisoners, or just the conditions in the prisons themselves which the waterbenders had to endure by the Southern Raiders, which happened during Azulon's rule, who also ordered Ozai to murder Zuko, who was his grandchild also, because yes, Ozai was selfish, but it is because Iroh is daddy's boy to him and he is showing partiality, Zuko also having burned down most of Kyoshi Island out of rage during his hunt for the Avatar. Ozai's daughter, Azula is very tame by the grand scheme of things, but she has some occasionally bad crimes, such as kidnapping many Fire Nation children, but that is about it if I am being honest with Azula, and I also remember Hou-Ting, who has multiple airbenders in Ba Sing Se kidnapped and forced to become soldiers and undergo harsh training to build her own airbending army while oppressing multiple people to the point of less freedom and severe poverty, children aren't spared from the army as if they are airbenders, welcome to the army kid, considering kai was a kid and yet he ws still abducted and taken.
Ultimately, I believe Unalaq easily stands out. First, his endgame is to enslave all life by plunging it into a draconian age of 10 thousand years of darkness, which could be debatably worse than the mere end of the world. So many villains want to take over the world, but never did they want to to go on and enslave it. Unalaq wants to get rid of all world order using Vaatu, bringing an age of darkness and remaking the world to his image, and in his reign, he will enslave all of humanity, with spirits also being enslaved as they are forcibly corrupted by Vaatu and Unalaq to serve them. No one had this as their method to conquer the world. The only one who did this is the infinitely more powerful Vaatu, and even then, it isn't a problem if Unalaq was the one that convinced him to enslave humanity instead of destroying them. Other than him, who else attempted enslavement on this big of a scale? 2 words, no one, from what I remember. it is taken with full gravity also as it is treated as the end of the world, that the world is doomed. Many people even confused him as an omnicidal maniac, even me, which proves it, that too witht he fact that he was essentially going to remke the world under his image during his reign of terror. If he succeeded, even the revival of the Air Nation will do nothing as the world will be worse than when the 100 year war was around. Due to this, nobody, hero or villain alike, even showed an ounce of respect for him after his death in Korra's hands thanks to this. At least Ozai had some followers after he was imprisoned.
The second reason is imo, for all the Would Hurt a Child scenarios, Unalaq imo has the worst. I ain't kidding, I actually think he has the worst scenario when he harmed a child in the entire franchise, and one of the worst in western animation as a whole. Let us remember Aang's oldest granchild, the 11 year old Jinora. The image in this proposal is Unalaq threatening Korra to open the portal or otherwise Unalaq will use his spiritbending to murder Jinora by corrupting her soul to death while slowly torturing her with it while he tells he isn't bluffing. Due to this, Korra opens the portals anyway to save Jinora. But not only does Unalaq then try dishonorably kill Korra even though she opened the portals for him, he sends Jinora's soul to be imprisoned in the Fog of Lost Souls, which is basically the in-universe representation to hell, where she will still be alive, but she will be trapped forever, with her soul driven to insanity, and looking at Zhao, it will be very awful. So essentially, he not only falsely damned her technically, he put her in a fate worse than death. She was trapped in there for a while, with her physical body under grandma Katara's care, being under constant healing so she won't end up dying from this. She is an 11 year old to tell and he did this to her. We must also remember his son Desna. Ozai may have directly tried killing his own son personally, Unalaq ultimately left him to die a slow death thanks to his injuries he got trying to help him open the Spirit Portal, ordering Eska not to help him like the cold, uncaring man he is. He was only alive because Eska brought Desna to a healer, while Unalaq still continues to open his pathway to unlimited power even though his own son could've died a slow death from his injury because of him and he could've prevented him. Desna notes this in the finale and the twins decided to turn against him. There is also his coldblooded temporary murder of Raava, which permanently severed Korra's connection to her pst lives (the past Avatars), leaving her without support from her past lives and weakening her.
There is also that he has betrayed the Red Lotus in an extremely callous way also. Essentially, he started the plot to kidnap his 5 year old niece, sent some guys after them, said guys get captured, to cover up his involvement, not only does he leaves his associates to rot in prison for the rest of their lives in ghastly conditions to cover up his involvement and merge with Vaatu for his own end, he went as far to build an actual prison for P'Li, no secret escape, no coring her imprisoned in constant freezing temperatures that dying seems better. The conditions for the other prison aren't that better also, withMing-Hua not getting any water at all. Zaheer hated him for it which adds even more salt to the injury. At least the Fire Nation batch Ozai tried sacrificing will die anyway. Not a whole lot mistreat associates in callous ways, with only Ozai (who let's admit it, should consider his children as associates of his) and Vaatu, especially with the latter and Unalaq enslaving multiple spirits together, oh and Zaheer, whom we all know trapped Aiwei in the Fog of Lost Souls, and of course Kuvira, who fired a laser at a building where her fiancee/right-hand was in when Team Avatar used him to blackmail Kuvira to surrendering.
Let's also not forget how badly he treats his family. He can even give Ozai a run for his money in some cases. Unalaq essentially shatters his reputation by tricking him to do reckless behavior that caused mass destruction across the Northern Water Tribe and having him exiled, moment he could get a chance to live a quiet life after what all happened, he became the Avatar's father, to which Unalaq orders her kidnapping not just because she was necessary for his plans, but because he was bugged out that despite having finally usurped his elder brother's birthright, the fact that he is the Avatar's father has brought back his jealousy for him considering Korra told he was always jealous of him. Then let us remember, he was about to sentence him to death for a crime he knew he didn't do, only lowering it to life just to keep his niece on his side after trying to turn her against him, viscously beats his own brother to near death and only spared him just to rub his victory on being the ultimate ruler of the world and bringing a draconian age onto his face after having defeated his daughter. Worse brother than Ozai, which yes, using his son's death to usurp his birthright before doing itself is a major d[-] move, and having him imprisoned is also bad, but it falls short to what Unalaq did to his brother. And essentially, Unalaq has been responsible directly and indirectly for many of the misfortunes Korra had to endure. He is why Korra was isolated in the first place considering he started the plot to kidnap his own niece, indoctrinate her and then dispose of her when her use is complete, which due to that, has not only lead to her being a spiritual failure, but lead to her being an anger management failure. He also directly and indirectly caused trauma, considering with Vaatu's help, he ripped Raava out of her and viscously beaten her to death that lead to her connections to her previous Avatars, which contributes to her eventual PTSD from Zaheer, who ended up being a threat once more indirectly due to Unalaq. That too, in his attempt to destroy Republic City, the spirit vineshe used eventually got Korra banned from it and brought her approval ratings to 0. And I already explained his children. And as told, he basically killed Raava. Raava is eventually recreated (thus revived), but still, he is one of the few villains to outright murder onscreen in the franchise, along with Zhao, Long Feng and Zaheer from what I know, and it still has permanent consequences as the connection between Korra and her past lives are severed permanently, the next one in line will only have Korra as advice, and is the second slowest kill in the franchise (may or may not be a bit quicker than Zaheer killing the Earth Queen).
Yeah, ultimately, he does stand out in the franchise' high heinous standard easily, and is clearly along with Ozai as the most monstrous human in the entire franchise, doing some of the worst actions in the franchise is no wonder nobody likes him, especially if there are some aspects that can really give him a run for his money and caused the most harm to a child in the franchise, ever, and if he succeeded, even the now Air Nation would be begging to come back to when the 100 year war plagued the world.
Final Verdict[]
Ultimately, I believe Unalaq definitely counts. His "good" intentions are ultimately an excuse to gain more power, lacking any other redeeming quality unlike other villains in the show, and remains as one of the franchise' most monstrous villains ever all on his own accord. The uncanny similarities between him and Ozai will just grow and grow. I ain't going to be doing some formality in a long time, but if there is one villain I could make a formality post, (cue evil laugh). Yes, it is indeed Luke Skywalker or I should say, Darth Joker, and have another villain I need to approve as I think this villain has been unapproved long enough that it is time now.