How to make Pure Evil Villains work 

"well, go on. tell me a joke" "..you ... slaughtered my entire race..." "Hahahaha, you're right! That is funny!!"

We need pure evil Villains back. I miss those kind of Villains.

I also think we should keep in mind that a purely evil villain can have a reasonable character/backstory. All 3 examples here are characters that are purely evil, but you can understand why they do the things they do (Frieza takes glee in being superior to others, since he was born that way so he wants to secure that position, Jack is used to getting everything, so he wants the one thing he never had and Dio learned early on to hate the rich and that you can't even trust family).

I love how the first 6 parts of JoJo have pure evil villains. Then part 7 and 8 have purely logical and understandable villains. While yes Tooru and Funny Valentine are pure evil it makes total sense why they’re doing it and they even confuse the main characters into kind of understanding their motives too

The main issue is that these days people tend to try and make villains into anti heroes "Wanda isn't evil, she's just sad"

The fact he didn't mention Sauron is a crime against pure evil villains

I’d say the other route they can take is to make the villain unpredictable, yet consistent - and that can be done through making them insane. Not in the ‘joker’ style grab-bag of vague mental illness, mind you, but by using a specific pathology and sticking with it. Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men an example of a villain who doesn’t go for the ‘glorious bastard’ route, and is instead just utterly bone-chilling - almost egoless in how he sees himself as a mere instrument of his idiosyncratic moral code and meting out death in response to violations of it that you can’t even predict. Every scene is tense, because you don’t actually know if he’s going to suddenly decide someone needs to die.

I feel like the main mistake writers make is that they think that the way to make a pure evil villain complex and interesting is to give them a sad backstory, sympathetic/likeable/entertaining traits etc. and then use that as a vehicle to pull on the audience's heartstrings. Which contradicts the essence of a purely evil villain to begin with. You can still do that, just don't try to gain sympathy. To expand on your points Dio, Frieza and Jack Horner are *great* examples of how to do it right in my opinion: 1. Dio *does* have a tragic backstory and he later *does* develop into a introspective and almost wise person. Someone who's behaviour reflects his age, even when his appearance doesn't. He also , despite his arrogance, knows better than to underestimate the Joestars and the fact that he only ever calls Jonathan *Jojo* shows how much he really respected him. In his mind he was the only one worthy of that nickname. But none of that takes away from the fact that Dio is an *evil* sonnuva bitch 2. Frieza, while we don't know his backstory, does actually get some subtle developement. Frieza used to be a petulant, spoiled brat who hid his sadism and arrogance behind a veil of condescending politeness and flowery dialogue. But after his second revival, he actually seemed to have chilled out a little bit. For one, he actually seems more invested in running his empire now, instead of just going around, doing whatever he wanted with no thought or care other than what suited his whims And he no longer wants to be immortal for 2 reasons: A) After being trapped and psichologically tortured in Hell for over a decade, he understands the horror of being trapped but, being unable to die. So he doesn't wanna risk it B) Becoming immortal would remove his drive to train and to one day defeat Goku and Vegeta in the most humiliating and brutal way possible He's atill the evil douchebag he's always been, but there *are* layers to his character. 3. Jack Horner is kind of amix of both. There are layers to him, for instance he outright lies to the ethical bug about being raised by loving parents, having a mansion and inheriting thriving pie industry. We know he's lying because that contradicts his little flashback he has shortly after we meet him. Not ti mention that he seems to feel genuinely ashamed that he's only a nursery rhyme character instead of a fairy tale one. But none of that is explored, becaude it doesn't matter. Jack is callous, doesn't care for anyone else's life aside his own and even seems to take pleasure in using his arsenal of artifacts to hurt others ,he wants to horde all the magic in the world for himself and damn the consequences etc. He's just a bad person through and through, but it also makes him insanely entertaining in a movie alredy chock full of complex characters going through their own arcs. Hell, you could argue he's the opposite of Perrito, someone who also had nothing, yet is happy with what little he has.

I think sympathetic villains need to be unabashedly *right* about what they're trying to accomplish, and thats where most fail. In trying to be sympathetic and tragic, their back stories end up being shallow and non-cohesive with the themes of the story. That's why unsympathetic, pure evil villains are always so much better, because they actually work with or run in opposition to the main theme. Dragon Ball (at least OG to early Z) is about self improvement, technique, mastery, and training being able to overcome impossible odds. Freeza is an unmoving mountain who doesn't need to train, because hes already at the peak. He doesn't have technique, and he's lazy. That's why goku kicks his ass, because Goku pushed past his limits and overcame freeza. JoJo's main theme is humanity being able to overcome anything, even the most inhuman, sickening, and vile people and monsters. Through sheer force of will and heaps of intelligence, the Joestars overcome DIO, someone who threw away his very humanity in favor of immediate power. Compared to a lot of half assed sympathetic villains, ...yeah, no, there's no comparison. Half of them are just being dumb because the story needed a villain to be shoehorned in.

I think the thing that makes characters like DIO, Frieza or Jack work so well is that they’re under no delusions of what they’re doing. They have full agency over their actions, making it harder to infantilize them. Yes, they’re horrible devils, and that’s precisely what they want to be, so what’s your point?

Honestly pure evil villains are the best villains

Sad Palpatine was not in this.

Ganon in Wind waker is often misunderstood by the fans because of his wind speech at the end of the game but they don't realize that the speech isn't about his people or about giving him a sympathetic tragic backstory. It's meant to depict him as a selfish, powerhungry psychopath and a hypocrite who wanted to make himself prosper. Only he wanted Hyrule's prosperous land, he ruled over Hyrule's ruins for 7 years after turning himself into a demon king and left his people in the desert where some of the disloyal ones get brainwashed, his people celebrate his defeat, they used to commonly visit Hyrule in search of boyfriends, they got a bad reputation because of their terrible leader and his foster parents, Ganon hates the gods/kami for stopping and delaying him and creating a world he has no desire to rule over, he attacks the kami after traveling to the Great sea, destroys Great fish Isle and casts a curse on the sea, he is stuck living in the past and functions as King Daphnes's dark reflection in the story, he is still a demon king(called the emperor of hell by Daphnes and calls himself the Master of the demon beast Isle which is the forsaken fortress's name in Japanese and says that the Master sword sealed his demon tribe and magic in Japanese) and his wish was to remove the Great sea and make him king of Hyrule again and force the Great sea's inhabitants to live in an ancient land that he will once again cover in darkness just like he did in Ocarina of time’s era. After Skyward sword some fans started to think that Ganon is a victim of a greater evil and wanted a story where he is saved and becomes a good guy but that isn't the case either as Skyward sword's text tells us that he is a manifestation of a primordial evil whose thoughts ended up decaying into nothingness and whose curse already existed before the start of the game and isn't something he cast upon defeat to make his enemies reincarnate and face his vengeance nor is it something that targets the Gerudo and makes every male evil, in Japanese the curse has a name that shows that it is not a curse related to just one being but something that every evil being has and the curse is mentioned a few more times, in both Japanese and English there is a speech that shows that the hatred/curse of the demon tribe was directed towards the gods before Link got involved in their war. The curse is hatred in-general which creates a bad karmic cycle for evil spirits that allows them to revive or get reborn because of their evil desires, feelings and attachments just like how the enemies of evil are reborn because of a good karmic cycle involving their good feelings, desires and attachments to the world they love and try to protect. Ganon cursed himself by developing evil feelings and desires by being a horrible person and he was already called an incarnation/manifestation of darkness in Ocarina of time by Rauru, he is not controlled or influenced by anyone other than himself nor is he possessed or possesses the same soul as his predecessor as that isn't what manifestations/incarnations are(they are basically just like their predecessors in terms of personality and goals, they are kind of like echoes or spiritual successors). The games never say that every Gerudo male is Ganon, they only say that Gerudo males are rare because only a single male is born once a century, Ganon is also not the only manifestation of evil out there and he has existed at the same time as another manifestation of evil was sealed away(the demon king Malladus who was sealed hundreds of years before Wind waker and Spirit tracks). It is very annoying to see people create this idea of "redeemable Ganon", "good guy Ganon" or just try to change the character, his appearance and his personality until he is unrecognizable. The character is meant to be a pure evil irredeemable villain with a might makes right philosophy, he is meant to hate peace and harmony for the weaknesses and boredom he thinks it brings and he is meant to love war and violence for the power he thinks it brings, he is meant to be a dark magic wielder that uses dark emotions, thoughts and desires as fuel for his power and he is meant to be a demon king(if it is an origin story he will eventually become a demon king) with a boar form that reflects his character and ego(the horrible person he is though he doesn't always have to transform into his boar form), he is meant to be a selfish, power obssessed madman and a psychopath who enjoys the pain he inflicts upon others, he is meant to be arrogant and view himself as more superior and powerful than others, he is meant to mask his true self with a civil persona while sometimes making snide remarks or making other comments that hint at his true nature, he is meant to mock others for their weaknesses and for how pathetic he considers them to be(though sometimes he can show a bit of respect towards someone who has been worth his time even if he doesn't like them in the slightest), he is meant to treat his servants, followers and people as expendable pawns, he is meant to desire a world of darkness where there is eternal chaos, violence and war that will make every greedy and selfish individual happy with many of them becoming immortal demons that can always be brought back from the dead just like him, he is meant to be the main villain and the greatest evil in the series.

It really annoys me when people love to shove sympathetic qualities or tragic backstories on villains that are quite clearly pure evil. Bowser in the recent Mario movie is a great example of this.

freezer in the namek saga is such an excellent EVIL villain. also, the voice given in the latin version made him so memorable...

I'd suggest looking for the movie "mars attacks!" as the aliens in it are pure evil and the government and scientists in the movie keep defending their evil as accidents or the humans' fault, thus proving Dark Helmet correct when he said "Evil Will Always Triumph, Because Good Is Dumb."

Bro I thought this channel had hundreds of thousands of subscribers from how well the video was made, this is underated as hell my guy, you earned my sub.

I’ve always thought Show Ramsay was a Gary Stu near the end. Book Ramsay is basically a red herring for the reader because his insane bloodlust distracts us from the true villain, Roose Bolton, who is just as violent and malevolent.

Robotnik from SatAM is just pure unapologetic evil. Like, the stuff he does in the show and Archie comics pre and during-Doomsday Saga is just vile

What I know from pure evil is they're serious, they have no comedic moments, no redeeming qualities, my favorite example being Emperor Palpatine (Excluding RoS), and all their crimes must be far greater than any other villains (Example, in my work of fiction universe, for the first three books, each antagonist only wanted to rule the kingdom, nothing more. But in the fourth book, the pure evil villain wanted to destroy the entire Universe,) And a tip I have is make the Pure Evil villain almost win (but not entirely) and make the Pure Evil villain be a force to be reckoned with. And if these are Pure Evil organizations (Very Rare, my favorite example I have is the Party from 1984), have them have a large grip on power or control, but it is optional for them to fall (due to them being more than one entity), and if you want to go that route, make them win (A lot of Well written Dystopian Novels/Movies use this trope) Anyway, that was your advice from the Unintelligent Writer™ (Other Aliases go as "Idiot who thinks they know how to write™" and "Dummy Writer©")

One of my favorite 'pure evil' villains is a surprising example. While the storytelling of Bayonetta 3 is VERY shaky, I've still grown fond of Singularity as an antagonist. One of the reasons being that while the past two games had high stakes, Bayonetta herself still had a handle on things and confidently blew through most threats. Any struggle she had was short term. Singularity was simply a force too strong for her, and he is the only villain so far that caused her to truly be on the losing side for most of the game. It also helps his visual design for both Balance and Definition are among the sickest in the franchise. The fight itself is also very fun.

I think a good depiction of a pure evil villain is version of Dr. Robotnik from Fleetways Sonic The Comic. He starts off as not only a father figure to sonic but as his alterego Dr. Ovi Kintober, whose goal was to contain all of the planet mobius' evil into six of the seven chaos emeralds using a machine known as the Retro Orbital Chaos Compresser or R.O.C.C bringing complete and total peace to the planet. The ways he becomes the evil tyrant Dr. Robotnik is that he forgot to go shopping and the only thing inside of the fridge being a rotten egg. Due to the R.O.C.C being unstable, and tripping over a bundle of wires he falls into the machine which causes an explosion that not only turns him into Robotnik, but turns sonic blue and he previously was a brown hedgehog. Due tho the Chaos energy and the rotten egg the evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik is born. And with the help of a sentient energy field known as the Omni-Viewer send Sonic six months into the future, just enough time to take over most of the planet Mobius.

While I don’t disagree with most of what you said in the video, classifying Heath Ledger’s joker as “Just evil” completely misses the point. His “we live in a society” is just different. The Joker thoroughly believes everyone deep down is a terrible person who only care about themselves, and he is the only person who is willing to embrace it rather than hide it. It’s supposed to act in juxtaposition to Batman, who believes in the exact opposite, which is what makes Harvey Dent’s fall so important, and why it was important at the end for people not to know that he in fact did fall from grace.

My favorite pure evil villain is Diavolo from Golden Wind. What an over-the-top, paranoid, and spine-chilling force of nature

Make them hilariously petty and/or self-aware.

There’s also Bowser and Eggman. Bowser may be simply a moustache twirling villain who captures a royal that the hero needs to save but he is entertaining and intimidating to the audience cause of the obstacles and challenges he puts in Mario’s path and only comes to fight in the finale. In a real life scenario, you’d put any type of weapon to use against your enemy to stop them. He’s also a great arsenal of weapons and powers to destroy him and yet lets other people do it. He’s also a pretty good leader with a good intellect along with brawn.

Kinda late to the party but one of my favorite just pure but very entertaining villains came from the studio that forgot how to do those in modern day: disney. By that i'm talking about Hades from Hercules erverytime he enters frame the whole movie just becomes the Hades-Show and i'm al here for it.

I stand my ground as making my villains irredeemable to the limit

Lalo is actually only nearly pure evil due to the fact that he genuinely cares about his family and is visibly sad wen he sees Hector in a wheelchair. This can basically apply to all the salemanca family

Only 280 views ????? This is criminal u deserve so much more.

Lore of How to make Pure Evil Villains work momentum 100

4:16 To be fair, I wouldn't really call Diavollo a pure evil villain in the strictest sense. He does have a motivation other than just being bad - his strongest desire is power, and to retain that power through absolutely minimizing any threat to it that could come as a result of his identity being exposed.

My favorite pure evil villain of all time (not because of his actions because they are extremely fucked up but because of the way he is written) is probably Judge Holden from blood meridian

This is just a theory, but... I think part of it is not just the character themselves, but the role they play in the larger narrative. For instance, the Joker isn't nearly as compelling when pitted against Superman; it's how he fits into Batman's individual story that makes him a great villain. I could be wrong, though.

Have you ever heard about Yuuki Terumi from blazblue? I think he is a very good example of a pure evil villain

Frost is broken along with the fallen hero named Frieza

Two very recent examples of pure evil villains to go alongside Big Jack Horner are Sigma from Red vs Blue and Scourge from Transformers Rise of the Beasts. I'll start with Sigma. For those who haven't seen RvB or RotB, this is your only spoiler warning. Let's begin. Sigma is what Red vs Blue calls an A.I. fragment and was created by driving an A.I. called the Alpha, an A.I. based on Dr. Leonard Church. The Director was only given this one A.I. to create the perfect soldier. However, to work around this, the Director tortured the AI after the Alpha fragmented to create Beta, the A.I. fragment based on the Director's late wife, Allison, the Director then decided to create more fragments by torturing the Alpha which the Director believed to be a form of self-torture. It was from this that the Alpha would fragment several more times to create more fragments representing various aspects of the Alpha (ie Gamma = deceit, Delta = logic, Omega = rage, etc.) one of which was Sigma which was based on creativity and ambition. Sigma was originally given to Freelancer agent Carolina, the Director's daughter, and the project's best agent at the time. Eventually, Sigma was handed to Agent Maine after he was rendered mute during a mission. Later, Sigma would learn about rampancy, a process where AI became self-aware, and became highly interested in the final stage, Metastability, where an AI is considered fully human. Sigma quickly developed an ambition to become the perfect AI and his creativity led him to manipulate Agent Maine to attempt to steal the implants that housed the other A.I. that led to the near-death of Carolina, the hunt for Agent Texas, Beta with a robotic body and other freelancers like the late York who had Delta before his death. By then, Agent Maine had taken on the moniker of the Meta, a rogue freelancer who sought to collect all of the AI so Sigma could become perfect. Despite the Meta being the antagonist, what makes Sigma so terrifying as a villain is two things. One is that while he wants to become perfect, it's not because he longs for perfection but rather because he only knows two things, creativity and ambition. The result of this leads to the deaths of hundreds of simulation troopers as well as the deaths of several Freelancers via his control of the Meta/Agent Maine. Two is how he recontextualizes Season 6 of RvB. Originally, it was thought that the Meta was the one in control and simply desired all of the AI for himself when the reality of it was much more terrifying once Season 10 rolled around. On top of that, with RvB coming back for one last season, it looks like the memory of Sigma will be returning and he seems to not have given up on restoring the Alpha to become perfect. With the potential return of one of the most influential villains in Red vs Blue coming back, it's highly likely that his machinations will no doubt shape the ultimate fate of our heroes as they prepare to face off against Hargrove's forces and what will happen afterward. Next is Scourge from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. He is a character whose very presence instills fear in a similar manner to Death to Puss in Boots. However, unlike Death (who I believe is an antagonist and not a villain), Scourge is a villain who's rotten to the core in the same vain as Big Jack Horner, Dio Brando, and Sigma. Before the film began, Scourge's planet was attacked by Unicron, a planet-sized Transformer who devoured worlds to survive and brought chaos where ever he went. Scourge sold his soul to Unicron so he could survive the destruction of his planet and eventually became Unicron's most powerful servant. He even developed a habit of taking the emblems of his victims and welding them to his armor to display as trophies. Eventually, Unicron learns of the Transwarp key and how it would make traveling the universe much faster and goes to the Maximals' homeworld and sends Scourge to collect it. This fails and he is forced to scour the universe to find where the remaining Maximals fled. He eventually reaches Earth along with Battletrap and Nightbird where he kills Bumblebee, corrupts Airrazor, and mocks Prime for his failure to beat him. His unwavering faith in his own strength would prove to be his downfall because for all the strength and power Unicron gave him, Scourge was no match for the combined efforts of the combined forces of the Maximals, Autobots, and humans who overpowered his forces giving Optimus, the Autobot leader and disciple of the Cybertronian god, Primus (Unicron's brother) the opportunity to meet his opposite in a one on one fight and finally allowed the last Prime to behead the herald of the chaos bringer once and for all and destroy the key, trapping his master in the distance galaxy forever and losing his life to the last of the Primes. Scourge easily became one of the most beloved villain in the live-action Transformers film series as he is only driven by devotion to his dark master so he can devour all worlds and rule over all as a supreme being and he has the power to back up his skill set. Every time Scourge is in a scene, he always leaves a massive impact with major consequences. Simply put, without Scourge, the story of Rise of the Beasts.

Father Pucci did nothing wrong apart from the mordor

Honestly I’m so frustrated when writers give that advice “every villain is the hero in their own story”. I find the “I’m not evil just misunderstood” ones kinda boring plus those characters are more like anti-villains not true villains. Some people are just selfish and don’t give a crap about good intentions.

I only see people saying they miss pure evil villains, not that they hate them.

this is very underated

Goes to show not every villain needs a sob story.

And on the opposite end there is doofenshmirtz (I don't know how to spell his name)

I think bad examples of pure evil villain is Stella from helluva boss. Since her character comes off as more as justifying other characters, bad behavior.

You forgot the most pure evil villain manny heffley

Why would you show me scenes from Doctor Strange 3 again I could have gone my entire life without that

ok but vinland saga goes way too hard

one of th ebest mad pure evil villains is kefka from ff6

Point to Hairy Spray as trash.

1:06 Sword Art Online

why do people keep calling me out? ;-;

Even Hitler liked his dog, Blondi

Jojo and yu you hakushiro had great evil villains.

Sorry, saying that a medium of entertainment is made for kids and the goofiness and stupidity of said medium didn’t isn’t an argument when avatar the last airbender is dumb and goofy when it still conveyed mature and deep themes while also having their own characters mature into their own way that doesn’t get in the way of the overall story contradicts the very argument.

Darkseid Is

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For God so loved the world he gaved his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life John 3:16

Wtf Dio isn't really pure evil

This vid is good and all but the beginning is insufferable with you basing it off of a random strawman argument that barely anyone actually makes. Yeah boo hoo, a handful of people on twitter liked the last jedi and said that villains need to be sympathetic, cry me a river.

Anime and kids movies?