The Heinous Standards is the standards of the work that is based on the level of violence in its narrative. The Heinous Standards are comprised of two standards, the General Heinous Standards and the In-Story Heinous Standards. In addition, the Heinous Standards consist of the System Standards. A character is considered Pure Evil (Rank 1 -) if they can surpass both standards. If the character is not Pure Evil, they are bound to be Near Pure Evil (Rank 2 -) or Inconsistently Heinous (Rank 3 -) if they can surpass both standards. They can still be Near Pure Evil (Rank 2 -) if they fail the ISHS, as long as they pass the GHS and don't fail the ISHS too hard.
Quality of Heinous Standards
There are three quality of heinous standards.
High Heinous Standards
A story have a high heinous standards when extreme violence is a consistent part of the narrative. This means that violent actions are the norm for the story and that either a select few or nearly all characters including the protagonists engage in extreme violence. Due to the level of violence and destruction, having characters stand out can be difficult. Stories may not always start off with a high heinous standards. However, as the story progress, certain characters and their actions can make the standards very high. It can be high enough that newer villains with their crimes would have a harder time standing out because of the actions of other villains or characters or those that appeared before them.
Stories with high heinous standards may at times have elements of being dark stories with serious tone presence. Some stories may light-hearted, but have still retain very dark elements due to introducing certain characters or a new vile villain that changes the tone of the story.
It is common for stories with high heinous standards to have multiple Pure Evil villains. It is also very common to have very heinous villains appear in these works, but are outdone by more heinous villains that appear.
Average Heinous Standards
This type of standard is for a narrative that shows violence but is limited. The level of violence is not always consistent or part of the norm. This type of story can contain certain characters that can stand out for their violence while the majority of the characters are not as violent, destructive, or evil. These types of stories may explore certain elements that detract from very serious elements in the story. The average bad guy is usually not too heinous but there can often be a select few characters that are heinous enough to stand out to leave a very dark tone in the episodes or chapters that they appear in.
Low Heinous Standards
This type of standard is present in stories that either rarely or barely have violence let alone extreme violence. These stories may focus antagonists such as jerks or bog-standard villains. Extreme violence, if it is shown, is rare and often stands out a lot in works such as these. Characters that do engage in extreme violence in stories with low heinous standards are often considered to be Game Changers.
Works with low heinous standards are often light-hearted, comedy, or geared towards an audience such as very young children where violence is rarely or barely part of the narrative.