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Comedy is considered a factor that detracts from a villain's heinousness. This is not because there is anything inherently moral about being funny; rather, it is because a villain needs to be taken seriously as a threat to be considered Pure Evil. If a villain is not taken seriously by the narrative, then their actions do not have much moral weight to them. Pure Evil villains darken the story's tone by their very nature.
With that said, it is still possible for a Pure Evil villain to be Laughably Evil; that is, they can still have notable funny moments in the story. This is only if said funny moments do not stop them from being taken seriously as a threat, or do not detract from their villainy.
Being played for laughs does not necessarily detract from a hero's admirability, unless it's a case of comedic sociopathy or something similar.
Comedy as a major prevention
If a villain's entire character is written for comedic purposes, that obviously means that none of their actions are taken seriously by the narrative, and thus they cannot count as Pure Evil or even as Near Pure Evil. Such a character would not be taken seriously as a threat by the narrative. For this reason, they are likewise unable to count as the Ultimate Evil, as an Ultimate Evil must be taken seriously by the narrative.
Similarly, if a villain's most heinous crimes are all (or virtually all) played for laughs, then they likewise cannot be taken seriously enough to be PE or NPE. For a villain to be PE or NPE, their crimes need to have some sort of moral weight in the story.
The villains who stand out for their heinousness, yet fall into the above-described camps, will usually automatically qualify as Inconsistently Heinous.
It’s also important to note that being taken seriously in-universe doesn’t make the villain’s comedy non-preventing if the narrative still portrays them to the audience in a mitigating comedic way.
Parodies
Villains who are written as parodies, for the above-listed reasons, cannot be PE or NPE and are automatically disqualified from being the Ultimate Evil of the work they're from. This is because a character written to parody certain tropes or to parody another character is obviously written as a joke. They, too, usually count as IH.
Comedy as a minor prevention
It is possible for a villain to have all (or most) of their most heinous crimes taken seriously by the narrative, yet still have comedic moments that detract from their overall heinousness in the narrative. Such a state is quite rare, and identifying these types of characters may be difficult. It would effectively mean that a villain is too comedic to be Pure Evil, though not to an extent that would make them Inconsistently Heinous instead. As a result, such characters are often classified as Near Pure Evil instead.
To explain things breifly, such NPE villains would have all of their crimes taken seriously, but not the entirety of their character. The category on the NPE Wiki for this type of character is Minor Comic Reliefs.
Comedy as a non-prevention
As mentioned before, it is entirely possible for a villain to have numerous comedic moments in the story that do not detract from their overall heinousness. In order for such to be the case, said comedic moments would have to do nothing to mitigate the severity of their crimes or their personal heinousness in the narrative. Such comedic moments would exist independently of the character's overall impact on the story's tone.
It is these sorts of villains with comedic moments who are able to qualify as Pure Evil, as their comedic moments do nothing to detract from the severity of their threat. However, they can still be Near Pure Evil or Inconsistently heinous if they have other preventions unrelated to comedy.
Laughably Evil
Laughably Evil is a term that refers to villains with notable comedic moments more broadly. As explained above, laughably evil villains can be of any moral rank whatsoever, as it being funny is in and of itself unrelated to heinousness.
Comedic villains are a sub-type of Laughably Evil villains. The distinction between the two concepts is that Laughably Evil villains merely have notable funny moments, whereas purely comedic villains are themselves primarily intended to be funny.
Illustrative examples
Pure Evil
- Most versions of the Joker (DC) are Laughably Evil to some extent. However, the Pure Evil incarnations are always taken seriously as threats, even when their heinous crimes have a comedic element to them.
For example, there is a notable scene in Batman: Cacophony #1 where the Joker jokingly says to Maxie Zeus that "I'll crush you like a room full of unibrowed school kids." When Maxie says he doesn't get it, the Joker detonates bombs that destroy a nearby school full of kids before saying "Get it?" and driving away. This scene uses comedic timing that add a dark humour to it, but the actual crime itself is taken seriously by the story and it is used to underscore the Joker's evil. Therefore, his comedy is not enough to detract from his heinousness or threatening nature. - Patrick Bateman from American Psycho has several comedic traits, such as his increasingly ridiculous hallucinations, how no one notices the obvious signs he is a murderer, his obssessive detailing of every single aspect of his life, attempts at sounding cultured displaying how shallow he is, and his over the top mental breakdowns. However not only his horrific crimes and sociopathic traits are treated with appropriate gravity by the narrative, but those comedic moments show how Patrick's own depravity is destroying his mental health, and emphasize the negative traits that give him the status of a Hate Sink.
Near Pure Evil
- Bowser (The Super Mario Bros. Movie) has all of his worst crimes taken seriously by the movie's narrative. His torture and attempted murder of prisoners has no comedic side to it, nor does his attempt to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom. With that said, his obsession with Peach (and to a degree, his defeat) is frequently played for laughs by the narrative to the point that it detracts from his overall heinousness in the film. His comedic moments detract just enough to disqualify him from being PE, but not enough to make his entire character too comedic to take seriously as a threat. This minor comedy prevention is the main reason why he's NPE.
- The film version of Big Jack Horner used to be considered PE for a while before he was deemed too comedic. He acts in a comical manner in pretty much every scene he's in, and all of his sociopathic traits are presented in an over-the-top way as a parody, meaning that they aren't taken seriously. An illustrative example of this is the scene in which he shoots his own men in the butts with unicorn horns that make them explode confetti, all the while upbeat dance music plays that illustrates further how this scene is meant to be played for laughs. Another such example is his defeat where he asks what he did to deserve this and then clarifies that he's asking what specifically.
Inconsistently Heinous
- Eric Cartman, even ignoring his redeeming qualities, is from a work of pure black comedy and satire where virtually nothing is taken seriously. Cartman himself is constantly mocked by the narrative for his incompetence and delusions of grandeur. Even some of his worst crimes like trying to restart the Holocaust and going on a rampage with Cthulhu are, in the show, played as absurdist black comedy.
- Jreg, like almost everything on his channel, is played completely for laughs. All his crimes and actions are black comedy, with the joke being how absurd and exaggerated they are (like advocating to kill homeless people), to the point he’s portrayed more as a darkly funny character than a dangerous and monstrous individual.
- El Macho has many comedic moments, but he is allowed to be considered the Ultimate Evil of Despicable Me because his comedy is on the same level as a comedic NPE villain since the level of his comedy is drastically toned down after he is revealed to be a villain, with his plot of unleashing the PX-41-mutated Minions upon the world being treated seriously, although he still has a few comedic moments like growing a gut after he himself transforms into a PX-41 mutant and getting blasted in the face with a fart gun. The main reason he is IH is because he has too many redeeming qualities to be NPE.
- The Virus Bot originates from a GoAnimate/Vyond film, which are usually too comedic in tone to have any of their villains taken as seriously as a PE or NPE villain. However, the reason he is considered the Ultimate Evil of Lost in Vyond is because he is a game changer with no comedy to his name that darkens the tone of the setting, and the reason he is IH in the first place is because he is too insufficiently characterized to be PE or NPE.
Work’s tone
The tone of the work is important to understand if the villain’s comedy is detracting. A very comedic work will rarely have any PE since such works tend to not take anything too seriously. A highly comedic tone is highly likely to disqualify any character in the work from becoming the Ultimate Evil, with the exception being for characters that are Game Changers, meaning that they darken the tone of the work.
While just being from a mostly comedic work isn’t automatically preventing, there are cases where the work’s concept is too comedic for any of its villains to have a rank higher than IH.
South Park for example is very much a dark comedy where everything is played for laughs and not meant to be taken seriously through a mix of shock and satirical humor even in the most dire of situations and this extends to the villains as well. Thus, no one can qualify as NPE or PE.
Another example would be Friday’s Night Funkin’ and its mods, as they revolve around fighting your opponents through rap battles, and many of the mods are based on internet memes and creepypastas, most often than not containing goofy and outlandish opponents. This makes it impossible for a villain from this work to be taken completely seriously, since any seriousness they may have is significantly downplayed by the extremely comedic tone.