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 degree of crimes they have committed and how it has 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 a crime that was heinous enough to not be grouped in with the average villains. These characters are likely going to either be Near Pure Evil (Rank 2 -) or Inconsistently Heinous (Rank 3 -). 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.
While rare, some Villainous Benchmark (Rank 4 -) characters can fall under this tier if they commit an act that surpass the Moral Event Horizon but fails both 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. This also include some characters who are not villains but fail the heinous standards to be considered villains. At this stage, this is likely going to be the for characters who are Villainous Benchmark (Rank 4 -). In long-running stories and franchises, these characters are bound to make up the majority of the villains.