Emperor Palpatine, the Big Bad of the Star Wars franchise.
The Big Bad is the main villain of their story. The main conflict and problems in the plot are caused by them and are typically resolved with their defeat, though sometimes the story can continue after they’re neutralized, and some stories may even be set after the Big Bad’s defeat.
Big Bads come into different classes:
- Class A: The villain is immediately introduced as the Big Bad from the start and actively work against the hero. This is the most simple class and thus very common in works that don’t try to have a particularly complex narrative. Examples are Bowser from Super Mario Bros and Aku from Samurai Jack.
- Class B: The villain is revealed later in the story as the instigator of the conflict. They may have been hidden for the first parts of the plot and directly confront the heroes only at the end or just be more prominent as the story progresses. Examples are Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls and Invictus from Final Space.
- Class C: The villain is a twist villain who had appeared before but wasn’t revealed as evil (or at least, wasn’t revealed as the primary villain) until a certain point. They may pretend to be an ally at the beginning, although in mystery-related works they typically are just showed as neutral characters. Examples are Makima from Chainsaw Man and Bradford Buzzard from DuckTales (2017).
- Class D: The villain appears from the start but doesn’t do the heavy lifting most of the time, leaving their minions and underlings to do the job. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re unable to act, they may actually be very powerful enemies, but for any reason they stay within their bases. It is very common in show with the Monster of The Week format, sending every episode a different villain to fight against the heroes. Examples are Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars and the Major from Hellsing.
- Class E: The villain is narratively the Big Bad, but when thinking about the grand scheme in-universe, they’re ultimately just working under someone else. This is the rarest class (in long-running stories, as it’s pretty common for the Big Bad of a single installment to fall under this) since a Big Bad, even when they’re the Bigger Bad’s pawn, is usually acting on their own rather than being a cog into a bigger organization following orders from them. Examples are Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events and Zeke Yeager from Attack on Titan.
- Class F: The Big Bad is dealt with but even after their demise they keep affecting the plot. They may have left several other villains to follow their legacy, with none of them becoming important enough to take the Big Bad role from their master. There are rarer situations where the Big Bad died before the story even began and only appear in flashbacks and prequels. These villains are a couple of steps from becoming the Bigger Bad, and the only reasons they aren’t it is due to the absence of other candidates for the Big Bad role. Examples are Obake from Big Hero 6: The Series and King Runeard from Frozen.
- Class G: A variation of Class B where the villain isn’t yet the Big Bad when they’re introduced but starts slipping into the role during the story. They can be once innocent people who were corrupted by traumas, or unpleasant people who become dangerous after starting as simple jerks. Examples are Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball and Griffith from Berserk.
- Class H: The Big Bad is the main protagonist of the story. While villain protagonists don't necessarily equal Big Bads, they can count if they are the one causing the events and are the source of the story conflict. A villain protagonist may oppose a heroic main antagonist who serves as the Big Good, but there are also cases where there are another villainous main antagonist who serves as another Big Bad. Examples are Light Yagami from Death Note and Walter White from Breaking Bad.
The Big Bad is the second highest role in villains’ hyerarchy, only surpassed by the Bigger Bad, and most of the times they will be the most thought enemy to defeat, regardless of their physical strength, as physically weak Big Bads almost always have high intelligence to compensate.
Despite this, there are situations where the Big Bad isn’t actually thought and may even be a mere nuisance. This is common in works aimed towards very young kids, as these villains tend to be extremely standard and comedic, often committing mischievous acts rather than serious crimes.
While many Big Bads are given an evil is cool presence and likeable characteristics like comedy, manipulation skills and/or redeeming qualities, there are cases where the Big Bad is meant to be pathetic to represent a negative characteristic or ideology and show the viewers how harmful certain behaviors can be. This means there’s a possibility for a Big Bad to be a Hate Sink, although an extremely small one.
Differences from other types of villains[]
Although sometime the term Big Bad is used to indicate the main villain of any installment, it’s technically more correct to use it for characters who are the main villain of a whole long-running work. While calling Big Bad the main villain of a movie, especially stand-alone movie that isn’t part of a bigger story, is not an unproper use, the Big Bad category can’t be put in pages for these characters.
It’s more evident with one-shots villains. While most of them is the main villain of their episode, and thus theoretically the Big Bad of it, using the term with them is discouraged since a minor villain by definition is the furthest type of villain from the Big Bad. One-shot villains more often than not have no presence outside of their sole appearance.
Arc villains are a type of major villains where the character is the main villain of a story arc, like a season of a tv series. They can have a level of influence after the end of their arc and even appear later, but their most important role is in their arc. Arc villains have to be categorized as such rather than Big Bad since they’re not the source of conflict of the whole work, but just for a part of it.