The levels of heinousness.
Heinousness is used to described how evil a character can be. Heinousness is based on the actions committed by a character, primarily a villain, its impact on the setting and how they feel about their actions. Heinousness is also determined from the type of story the character appears in to show that these characters can stand out or not.
Heinousness is divided into three types: Average Heinousness, Above-Average Heinousness, and Most Heinous. In most stories, there is bound to be a character who will fall under one of these three levels. In long-running stories with a multiple characters, the cast of characters are likely going to fall under each of these levels.
Levels
Most Heinous
This is the top of the hierarchy of the heinous characters in a story. These characters are bound to be Pure Evil (Rank 1 -), Near Pure Evil (Rank 2 -), or Inconsistently Heinous (Rank 3 -). At this level, the character stands out as the most heinous character for the acts they have committed.
They are likely going to be considered Atrocious or Astronomically Atrocious for their accomplishments depending on the of crimes they have committed and how they have impacted those in their setting.
These characters represent the minority of characters in a story that have multiple characters. In addition, these characters are all past the Moral Event Horizon. These characters can be redeemed while other characters are likely going to be Pure Evil or Near Pure Evil for the heinous crimes they have committed.
Above-Average Heinousness
This the level between the Most Heinous and Average Heinousness. At this level, the character has committed crimes heinous enough to not be grouped in with the average villains. These characters are likely going to be Near Pure Evil (Rank 2 -). These characters have, at some point, crossed the Moral Event Horizon due to an act that they have committed. These characters are also competent among other villains in their franchise.
Villainous Benchmark (Rank 4 -) characters fall under this tier for committing acts that make them surpass the general heinous standards but fails the in-story heinous standards.
Average Heinousness
Average Heinousness or General Heinousness is for characters who have breached the heinous standards to be considered villains but do not stand out among other villains. At this stage, this is for Standard Villainy (Rank 5 -) characters. In long-running stories and franchises, these characters make up the majority of the villains.