The Ultimate Evil

The Ultimate Evil is a work’s most evil, powerful and influential villain. They’re almost always the Big Bad or Bigger Bad of the story, though sometimes they can be a major villain. Their good counterpart is The Ultimate Good.

It’s impossible for a minor villain to qualify since a minor villain by definition has little to no influence in the story.

TUEs tend to fall into 1- and 2- ranks. Villains falling under 3- can count if their mitigating factors are Impaired Agency, Insufficient Characterization or Affability (although for the latter it still needs to be limited). Villains in the 4- rank can never count since they fail the Heinous Standard, something incompatible with the TUE criteria.

TUEs can have a varying threat level, but most often than not reach at least global level. Local Threat TUEs appear commonly in single-installments works.

A work can have a single TUEs, in which case they’re called The Exclusive or The Mighty if there’s someone more powerful who cannot count, or can have two. In the latter case there are two different possibilities:

The Predecessor and The Successor, where the latter is a villain following the former’s legacy or exploiting the situation their predecessor created.

The Progenitor and The Product, when the latter was directly created by the former (who is most likely a sort of eldritch being).

Outside of these classes, a TUE can come into different types:

Type A: The most recognizable type. These villains are immediately shown to be immensely powerful and evil and lack any debatable disqualifying factor. They have abilities that surpass any human capability and their presence is felt for most of the story. Examples are Aku from Samurai Jack and Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter.

Type B: The villains meets the criteria but their qualification is not immediately obvious. They may appear to be an average character at first and only later be revealed to be behind the story’s conflict. Examples are Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls and The Dark Lord from Animator vs. Animation.

Type C: The villain is a mindless destructive creature. While they may not be exactly the most evil due to lacking a personality, they’re still the most dangerous and influential villain in their work. Examples are GOLB from Adventure Time and the Brush from Chicory: A Colorful Tale.

Type D: The villains is far from being an otherworldly monstrosity, but is a more realistic kind of evil that makes them event creepier. Their crimes are not detached from reality and feel like something that may actually happen in real life. They’re more common in veristic settings, although they can still appear in fantasy stories if there aren’t other villains with true magical powers. Examples are Samuel Norton from The Shawshank Redemption and Jimmy from Mouthwashing.

Type E: The character doesn’t perfectly meets all the criteria, but they manage to surpass any other TUE contender. They may not be the most powerful villain, but fit the remaining criteria while still being one of the most powerful in the work or they may be slightly less dangerous and heinous than other villains, but make up for that by being more influential than anyone else. Examples are Excelsius Winner from Ace Attorney.

Type F: The work doesn’t have a central arc and is more episodic, but the character still manages to be the most powerful and dangerous. Often their influence is due to being the most recurring villain rather than being the cause of the main conflict (which may not even be there due to the work’s nature), although the episodes where they appear may be a story themselves when considered together. Example are Katz from Courage the Cowardly Dog, Agent Trout from We Bare Bears and HIM from The PowerPuff Girls.

TUEs can also variate due to their following. They may be working alone, have a right-hand helping them or be the leader of a group/organization.

Not every work with many heinous and evil villains will have a TUE, as there are times where the villains all cancel out each other in the vary criteria.

An example of this is Super Mario, where, despite the franchise definitely not lacking heinous characters, most of them lack the necessary influence due to being just major villains of a single or couple game at best, and the ones who do have the influence fail to be the most evil. Another example is EPIC: The Musical, where the most evil villain surpass in heinousness the most powerful one, who can’t count due to failing the heinous standard to him.

Close Contenders[]

Close contenders for The Ultimate Evil status are villains who have characteristics that make them close (or at least made them look like a possible candidate at one point) but don’t fully meet the criteria. There are three possible cases of close contenders:

The villain meets one criteria but there’s another villain who outclass them in the remaining areas. For example, the villain X may be the only villain lacking redeeming qualities in the story and be extremely sadistic and cruel, but there’s the villain Y who despite having a couple of redeeming qualities and being more pragmatic and oriented to their goal manages to be more heinous than the villain X, is the one pulling the string behind other villains, and has entire armies working under them. In that case, the villain X, despite being technically the most evil in their work, would be outranked by the villain Y who meets the majority of the requirements and the gap in evilness between the two isn’t very large, so the latter would qualify as The Ultimate Evil. Examples are Sozin from the Avatar franchise and Aggie from The Loud House.

The villain meets a good part of the criteria. The most common situation (but not the only possible one) is where the villain X has huge power and resources and committed extremely heinous deeds, but the villain Y is more influential to the story than them. Y’s crimes may not have X’s scope, but due to quality over quantity they do enough to stand out. Examples are Kai the Collector from Kung Fu Panda and Gzar Theodore Malik from Psychonauts.

The villain fails all the requirements. They’re a good candidate for TUE and manage to be impressive in their villainy, but are outclassed in every area. They’re very dangerous, but there are bigger threats in the work. They’re important to the plot, but other villains are more. They may even pass the Heinous Standard, but someone else manages to set it. Many times the margin between this contender and The Ultimate Evil in the work is low, and the former would likely qualify if not for the latter’s presence. Examples are Demise from The Legend of Zelda and Francis from SMG4.