History FauxAffablyEvil / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'''s [[spoiler: Hades]] loves making jokes and almost always has a smile on his face. However, it takes all of half a chapter from his introduction for him to reveal his cruel, calculating nature.

** The other villain in the series BigBadDuumvirate, Relius Clover, also has shades of this. He conducts himself in a very stoic and very calm manner befitting of his position as a Colonel. He also keeps his calm better than Hazama and doesn't seem to bear any personal enmity for those he fights, conversing in a civil manner without resorting to Hazama/Terumi's [[SophisticatedAsFuck tirades]]. However his depravities [[ForScience in the name of science]], [[LackOfEmpathy complete inability to see other people as more individuals rather than subjects]] separates him
from the truly AffablyEvil.

* Monaca from ''VideoGame/AbsoluteDespairGirls: Franchise/{{Danganronpa}} Another Episode'' at first glance seems to be a nice and cheerful girl. In reality, she's a manipulative psychopath, who deliberately [[TraumaButton triggers]] her friends' past traumas and plays mind games with people while maintaining a cutesy facade. It helps that she's [[spoiler:the protégé of series antagonist Junko Enoshima, who also falls into this herself and has similar dealings with her own followers.]]

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'''s Professor Hojo is a MadScientist who turns out to be ultimately responsible for most of the bad things that happen in the story, including involevemt in Sephiroth's StartOfDarkness, Cloud's FakeMemories, Aeris's abduction, the Clones' creation, and Sephiroth's summoning of Meteor (not to mention some boss battles and [[AngstWhatAngst glossed-over]] physical and sexual abuse of Red XIII). But the whole time, his basic personality is comparatively normal by the standards of ''VII'' characters, if rude. He gets lots of witty lines, and is quite friendly (and popular?) when you meet him in Costa Del Sol which just enhances the creepiness of the stuff he does.

** Arguably Lord Zash in the Sith Inquisitor story, but she may be genuinely nice (in her own opinion, anyway), depending on how you see her personality. True, she will try to [[spoiler: hijack your body to extend her own life]] but it could be that she really just doesn't see a reason for you to object and thinks [[spoiler: she's doing a favour for you as well, since, after all, you get to host her.]]
** And of course player characters can exhibit this behaviour as well; it would seem that the Imperial Agent and Sith Inquisitor have the most conversation options to that end, though it also depends on the player's own interpretation of the character, naturally. It works with all classes, though: due to the nature of the dialogue system, you can threaten the lives of innocent children one moment and make polite conversation the next.

* Handsome Jack in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', best shown in some points in the Southern Shelf. If you're doing the main quest, he banters with the player in a way that's not entirely friendly but seems more jokey than anything else (for example, he tells you that he was thinking of naming his diamond horse "Piss-for-Brains" in your honour). If you're doing a sidequest to collect some audio recordings of him, however, he puts on a seemingly apologetic pose when Helena Pierce tells him the cause of her scarring, then casually guns her down and [[EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor laughs about the noise her head made when he shot her in the face]].

* [[ComicBook/TheJoker "John Doe"]] pulls this in ''VideoGame/BatmanTheTelltaleSeries'' as well. He's ''really'' nice and helpful to Bruce when they meet in Arkham Asylum, but even if you weren't familiar with The Joker you'd realize pretty quick it's all an act and that there's something ''seriously'' wrong and frightening about him. [[spoiler:Him asking for Bruce to "owe him a favor", acting as if you've agreed no matter how you respond, and his PostCreditsScene imply he's going to pull some seriously evil stuff on Bruce as well:]]
--> '''John Doe:''' [[spoiler:See ya soon, Brucie!]]

** The other villain in the series BigBadDuumvirate, Relius Clover, also has shades of this in his interactions with the cast.

* In ''[[UltimaVII Ultima 7: The Black Gate]]'', we have Batlin. A kindly sage and former druid, who is the head of the Fellowship and always working hard to help the people of Britannia. On the other hand, the Fellowship is a cult intended to subvert Britannia, spread distrust in the Virtues and Lord British, and pave the way for the Guardian to take everything over. In a hard-to-find dialogue (you have to cast the all-destroying Armageddon spell to get it) you find out that Batlin is driven by pure nihilism, having learned that (supposedly) nothing exists beyond death. (In the sequel, he is attempting to gain immortality for this reason.)

** Queen Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in from "VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice" tries to act like a reasonable ruler, a kind mother to Rayfa, and a WellIntentionedExtremist who believes that executing defense lawyers when they lose is truly the best way to maintain law and order in her nation. [[spoiler:The truth is that she only cares about making it harder for people to oppose her, especially the lawyer that she framed for killing her sister, the previous queen. She's also emotionally abusive to Rayfa when the latter is too distraught to perform a Divination Seance.]]

*** Pagan Min on the other hand is almost like a second lap of Troy Baker's turn as TheJoker, right down to the flamboyant suit and LaughingMad radio calls. He is ridiculously casual and polite to his subjects and enemies, only to spout his anger off in furious yet hilarious rants or bursts of extreme violence, depending on his mood. When a human rights organization criticized his rule, he invited the lead doctor and her family over, then kidnapped her family and forced her to run his blood sport arena as a twisted joke. [[spoiler: he also had her family killed and has her in his control on the fake promise that one day she'll get them back.]] His manner when dealing with the main protagonist is noticeably familial, no matter how violent the subject of the conversation may be. In fact, the only person he ''isn't'' faking his affability to is [[FatalFlaw literally the one person who can stop him.]] [[spoiler: And you discover only at the very end that it was very much intentional.]]

* Monaca from ''VideoGame/AbsoluteDespairGirls: Danganronpa Another Episode'' at first glance seems to be a nice and cheerful girl. In reality, she's a manipulative psychopath, who deliberately [[TraumaButton triggers]] her friends' past traumas and plays mind games with people while maintaining a cutesy facade. It helps that she's [[spoiler:the protege of series antagonist Junko Enoshima, who also falls into this herself and has similar dealings with her own followers.]]

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'' has Black Mask, {[spoiler:real name Goro Akechi]], who acts perfectly polite and civil to the whole world even while he's blackmailing the heroes, murdering innocent people, causing innocent people to murder others, and scheming to backstab and ruin the other villains. [[spoiler:He's even polite until the final confrontation with him, at which point he inflicts a magically-induced VillainousBreakdown on himself and starts trying to brutally murder the Phantom Thieves.]]

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' has Ardyn Izunia, a grandiloquent, bohemian Chancellor who manages to be an ObviouslyEvil CardCarryingVillain and ''nothing but friendly''. He tries to justify his most villainous actions as him [[VillainsActHeroesReact trying to kick the plot to get it moving]] according to [[YouCantFightFate what already was preordained to happen]], and whether he has any agency or is simply a pinball of fate is [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation debatable]]. While his murders are of people who would have died soon anyway due to their own actions. His casual villainy takes a form closer to convoluted magic pranks, and seems to be an attempt to annoy Noct rather than inconvenience him. He spends the rest of the time making genuinely funny jokes, rescuing the heroes repeatedly, and at one point escorting them to their destination with bodyguards. ''Episode Prompto'' takes it into even a TricksterMentor territory, implying that his reason for splitting the group up was in part to engineer a personal growth experience for Prompto. All of this though beguiles what an utter psychopath, Ardyn is and the sheer [[EvilIsPetty petty lengths]] he'll go to, so he can succeed.

* ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}}'': [[spoiler:Iris Sepperin is very polite and sophisticated but she orchestrated the whole war and killed her own father and had Karl imprisoned for his attempt to kill her. Her friendly demeanor even allowed all of RKS to trust her without knowing she started the coup [[ForTheEvulz for kicks]].]]

** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'': [[spoiler: Shuji Ikutsuki. He's kind, he makes silly puns, he always answers your questions and generally aids in the mission to bring down the twelve Arcana [[TheHeartless Shadows]]. However, it turns out that he's just been using the protagonists to bring about [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt The Fall]], in addition to being fairly clearly [[AGodAmI insane]]. A cutscene in FES reveals that his jovial personality was indeed genuine, showing him making up puns in complete solitude where there would be no need to maintain a pretense but this is mean to enhance his creepiness and malevolence rather than lower it. Though his motives for bringing about the Fall seem more along the lines of DarkMessiah, rather than OmnicidalManiac, that's simply because he wants to rule the world.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}}'': ** [[spoiler:Iris Sepperin is very polite and sophisticated and she, even if she orchestrated the whole war and killed her own father and had Karl imprisoned for his attempt to kill her. Her friendly demeanor even allowed all of RKS to trust her without knowing she started the coup [[ForTheEvulz for kicks]].]]

* [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX FFX's]] Seymour Guado invites the heroes to his mansion, lays out food for them before seeing them, proposes to the heroine, and acts generally mild-mannered and soft-spoken. But when the heroes prove to be detrimental to his plan to [[OmnicidalManiac kill everyone in the world]], he holds no qualms about unleashing the terrors of hell against them. Even when preparing to engage your party members, he manages to sound affable:

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' has Ardyn Izunia, a grandiloquent, bohemian Chancellor who manages to be an ObviouslyEvil CardCarryingVillain and ''nothing but friendly''. He tries to justify his most villainous actions as him [[VillainsActHeroesReact trying to kick the plot to get it moving]] according to [[YouCantFightFate what already was preordained to happen]], and whether he has any agency or is simply a pinball of fate is [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation debatable]]. While his murders are of people who would have died soon anyway due to their own actions. His casual villainy takes a form closer to convoluted magic pranks, and seems to be an attempt to annoy Noct rather than inconvenience him. He spends the rest of the time making genuinely funny jokes, rescuing the heroes repeatedly, and at one point escorting them to their destination with bodyguards. ''Episode Prompto'' takes it into even a TricksterMentor territory, implying that his reason for splitting the group up was in part to engineer a personal growth experience for Prompto. All of this though beguiles what an utter psychopath, he is and the sheer [[EvilIsPetty petty lengths]] he'll go to, so he caan suceed.

* [[spoiler:Adachi]] of ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' is AxCrazy and committed the murders [[ForTheEvulz for the fun of it]], [[KickTheDog mocked his victims]] while recounting his killings, and, when he reveals his true personality, is pretty funny.

* Subverted in Chairman Drek's first scene in ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002''. He puts on a calm and polite tone when explaining his PlanetLooters plan to the people of [[NoobCave Novalis]] (including nonchalantly predicting the planet's offset mass will send it flying into its sun and cause an EarthShatteringKaboom), but after the cut...

** Ende's EstablishingCharacter moment is to greet Lake and claim they can be friends due to how both are [[AxCrazy full of bloodlust]]. When Lake refuses, Ende sics a powerful Gaia Cancer on him.

** April May in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' - until her VillainousBreakdown.
%%** April May's boss, Redd White, also qualifies. Mr. White passes himself off as a quirky and jolly, if egotistical, businessman. Once Phoenix %%questions him too much though, his true colors are shown.
%%** A better example would be [[spoiler: Morgan Fey]].

** The killer of the first case, Frank Sawhit acts nice and friendly during his testimony.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', Sombra plays the part of the {{adorkable}} PlayfulHacker on the surface, but is actually a ruthless [[TheCracker cracker]] who has no qualms working with the likes of [[TerroristWithoutACause Talon]], threatening and blackmailing people, or even just [[{{Troll}} doing her best to infuriate everyone]], even [[TeethClenchedTeamwork the ostensible allies]] she regards as mere pawns to manipulate.

* Father Donald earl McArthur from ''VideoGame/RidesWithStrangers'' is a PedophilePriest who has killed, raped, and tortured many, and wants to purge the world of those he considers "heretics". He speaks to the player in a very polite manner, which only highlights his creepiness, all while planning to kill them.