Medias: Anime & Manga - Comic Books - Fan Works - Animated Films - Live-Action Films - Literature - Live-Action TV - Pro Wrestling - Tabletop Games - Video Games - Visual Novels - Webcomics - Web Original - Western Animation - others
"The ultimate villain of the story, who's causing the problem the heroes must solve."
Note that Big Bad is not a catch-all trope for the biggest and ugliest villain of any given story. The Big Bad is the one who turns out to be behind several other seemingly independent threats.
- 330 Hours: Revolution: Dr. Yousef Gold, by being the leader of the corrupted and tyrannical Yofrenian government, qualifies as this as he provides the most conflict in the story and is the one Jack and his rebels spend most of the story trying to defeat.
- 30 Days in Spring: Ryan Rhodes, a teenager killing his classmates while stranded in the woods.
- Later seasons of Arby 'n' the Chief have Big Bads.
- Trent Donnovich in Season 5. The CEO of video game company Bad Games, he's to be wed to Arbiter's friend Claire. It's eventually revealed though that Trent is cheating on her, prompting Arbiter and Chief to crash the wedding.
- Clyde, leader of Chaos Theosis, in Season 6. His gang of hackers seeks to get rid of TOSERS via fragbanning all of the organization's members and shut down the Online Multiplayer Network. It's revealed later on though that the clan was actually being employed by Trent Donnovich.
- Season 7 has Eugene and his trolling clan. At first, they seem like a band of harmless, annoying trolls whom the duo befriend. This changes once The Smart Guy, Colin, acquires an upgraded version of Fragban, and the clan goes on a fragbanning spree throughout the OMN.
- Season 8 has Adam McIntyre, a former member of Chaos Theosis now seeking to carry out a destructive plan to bring down the OMN and all of its users. In the finale though Arby and Chief meet the real force behind all of their struggles — Jon Graham himself.
- Ascension Academy: The Darkness serves as the main Big Bad of the series, acting mostly through the Dark Order.
- C0DA, written by former The Elder Scrolls series writer/designer Michael Kirkbride, takes place in the far distant future of TES universe. Numidium, the Reality Warping Humongous Mecha of Dwemer construction, presumed destroyed following the events of Daggerfall, returns after having been caught in a time warp. It continues its war on the Aldmeri Dominion, led by the fascistic Thalmor, leading to an apocalyptic event known as "Landfall", which has forced the remaining inhabitants of Nirn to take refuge on the moon Masser. The story centers around the Dunmer noble, Jubal-lun-Sul, who must defeat Numidium as part of an Engagement Challenge.
- Doctor Insano certainly fits this for the Channel Awesome team, being the Arch-Enemy of Linkara and The Spoony One, as well as an enemy of many others such as Angry Joe, The Nostalgia Critic and Paw Dugan.
- CPU Championship Series: Dark Vincent, a version of Vincent from an alternate timeline who crossed over into the main one to replace it's Vincent.
- Vecna is this in Critical Role, his return and later ascension being the motivation behind the Briarwood's plans.
- Daisy Brown: Alan the Monster, after maturing and subsequently gaining the ability to actively impact the plot, becomes this—his bullying and abuse causes almost every problem for Daisy, and later Lithop.
- Day of the Choosing has "All the Rest," a giant Eldritch Abomination that feasts on thousands of individuals who aren't "Chosen" during the ritual that happens each decade.
- Dis Acedia has Lazarus, a malevolent and sadistic god of magic abducting people to the titular maze.
- Don't Hug Me I'm Scared has Roy, who is implied to have created the DHMIS universe to punish Yellow Guy via a console used to summon and control the teachers. Each installment has its own Big Bad, and they are collectively known as "the Teachers":
- The original Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared/"Creativity": Sketchbook... kinda; it's unclear if they were actually evil or if things just spiraled out of their control.
- 2/"Time": Tony the Talking Clock. While at first appearing to be affable and somewhat goofy, he shows himself to be evil when he speeds up time to rot the puppets alive for questioning time.
- The "HELP" videos: The Money Man (not a teacher, but kidnaps the characters and ransoms them).
- 3/"Love": Shrignold the Butterfly, head of a Love Cult who worship a giant stone face named Malcolm.
- 4/"Computers": Colin, a talking computer who traps the puppet trio in Cyberspace.
- 5/"Health": The Healthy Band, who tell the puppets contradicting things on what and what isn't healthy, with the steak being the most prominent. They're laughable as ever, but horrifically, they go as far as to kill Duck Guy by having his friend eat him.
- 6/"Dreams": The Lamp is set up as a decoy Big Bad, while the Big Bad of the whole series is revealed: Roy, the father of Yellow Guy.
- A Game of Gods originally had Omega as the Big Bad, who was behind all the disappearing Champions and was possessing a doomsday device. However, after he kicked the bucket, Lambda came in and some Fridge Horror came up, resulting in them going back for Echidna and confronting the true Big Bad, Digamma.
- In Greek Ninja, it turns out that the no-match-for-any-human-being force that was so strong it could destroy the whole world, was in fact nothing more than a bitter human being himself, who was purposefully reincarnated simply to get revenge and restore the reign of the Olympians.
- Kadu'av: Maria and Joesph are the heads of the Gilded Cross, so they function as this for the whole series.
- KateModern: Michelle Clore is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for nearly everything that goes wrong over the course of the series.
- The Legatum stories occasionally have at least one primary villain in them.
- Smirvlak's Stone has Gnekvizz Corveel, who secretly manipulated Stilyk and Nick into delivering the eponymous stone to his group of villains.
- The Road to Hell... has King Chorn Torgash, the tyrannical orc who took over Kosslivo and has turned the kingdom into a war-driven community.
- Help Not Wanted sub-series:
- Help Not Wanted has Ogrell Syn'Gorrsh, who's secretly a cannibalistic Serial Killer who claimed the lives of dozens.
- Help Not Wanted: Remixed Phallic Memories in HD has Irklorz, an orc trying to start a war between two orc tribes.
- Help Not Wanted 2: Frigid Fornication has Selmeena Rheeman, the leader of a team of drako knighs secretly kidnapping and murdering civilians around the world.
- Lightning Dust: Dr. Josh Sherman, a Mad Scientist responsible for the Tornadoes and Blood Scouts, is this for the pilot story.
- Marble Hornets:The Operator, a tall, faceless, humanoid creature that has been stalking the cast, is the prime antagonist in the series, though he often works in the background and controls the villainy of the series through various characters. Alex is often treated as the greater immediate threat and a straighter example of this trope by the characters, although it's clear that for all his actions, the Operator is pulling his strings from the background.
- Mirror World has the krylyrk, the Eldritch Abomination ruling over the titular mirror dimension called Inoptica that traps countless people. Eventually, this ends up being subverted; the krylyrk, or "Cheshire," intended none of the fallout that results from its machinations, which causes a series of miscommunications just as at fault.
- The Neverkind Saga is a crossover of The Never Mythos and The Kindness of Devils, but each story seems to have their own major villain nonetheless.
- The Kindness of Devils:
- Girls on Film has Rich Jacobs, a vampire who uses his father's money and connections to operate a snuff porn ring.
- Nights In Lonesome Arkham has Nyarlathotep, the emissary of the Outer Gods and Hardestadt's Arch-Enemy.
- None Too Holy has the Pijavica, a vampire who frequently raped her son, killed one of Hardestadt's allies, and put an entire orphanage in jeopardy.
- Under The Cold Moon has Siegfried Gunmarsohn, a werewolf who hunts humans for sport and also wants to destroy the world with the aid of Ithaqua, one of the Great Old Ones.
- The Dreams of Lonely Stars has Thomas Nero, the leader of the cult of Cthulhu who's trying to summon Cthulhu.
- In the Castle of the Night has Count Nicolai Gabriel von Krolock, a vampire who's trying to revive his spirit by massacring dozens.
- And to All a Good Night has Krampus, who kidnapped several children and is trying to destroy Christmas.
- A Conspiracy of Serpents has the King of Serpents (or Apophis), an Omnicidal Maniac who is attempting to devour all worlds in his path.
- Only A Lonely Heart Y'golonac the Defiler, who uses his powers to possess, rape, and murder innocents.
- Over High Seas has Sebastian Hawkins (who's really Henry Avery), a blackguard who is trying to control the seas using an underwater monsters known as the Cthonis.
- The Lonely Dreams Cycle:
- Sangue Serenissima has the "thing in the patchwork cloak," who's actually Eliphas Coyte, an abomination longing to kill Seers and devour their brains.
- Empty Memories and Cold Graves has a Big Bad Duumvirate between Nyarlathotep and the Shadows' Consultant, the respective arch-enemies of Hardestadt and Eliza.
- The Wolves of War has multiple villains, but the penultimate chapter reveals that the Shadows' Consultant has secretly been manipulating all the other major villains.
- The Unquiet Grave has Lord Silas Ruthven, Carmilla's Evil Uncle trying to kill millions of humans and attempting to turn London—and the rest of the world—into a hellish landscape.
- The Never Mythos, overall, has the Shadows' Consultant, whose ruinous manipulations cause the vast majority of all pain in the series.
- The City of Never has Draynak, the deity who is trying to destroy all of the Teraverse.
- The Red Monarch has Vladik Cardinous, an Eldritch Abomination posing as an animation director.
- Valentine and its sequel Valentine Man has Helen Valentine, the leader of an Italian community who's secretly behind dozens of horrific and deranged murders and forms of torture.
- The Kindness of Devils:
- Petscop has two antagonists. Marvin V. Mark is the primary, in-game threat, as he is Care and Belle's abusive father (and kidnapper in Care's case) who wants to "rebirth" Care, believing her to be he reincarnation of Lisa Lezkowitz, and all the mysterious happenings in the game tie back to him. In the real world, Aunt Jill, leader of The Family, took over the Petscop YouTube channel and is holding Paul hostage, forcing him to play the game for some reason.
- Pinot Noir: Big D is the crime boss who rules over all criminal activity in Kaos, and is responsible for Purge Night, a single night in which criminals are allowed to commit whatever crime they want. Eventually, he sends his men after Pinot himself, who is killing the criminals of the city to get himself some sleep. However, the real villains are Greta Ludwig von Hertz, D's head Mad Doctor who has her own plans that involve the death of D's son and the capturing of Pinot for her own personal needs, while also being the one to pitch the concept of Purge Night to D, making her just as responsible for everything that goes on in the story; and Kleetus Klementine/Christopher Cogswell, a separate villain and preacher who's responsible for multiple child kidnappings, hinted to be responsible for the rampant crime in Kaos via Black Magic, and is actually an immortal servant of Shub-Niggurath that wants to destroy all living things on the planet.
- The Pirates Covered in Fur: Captain Lyle Krinkor, the wolf pirate who's trying to destroy Diamond City and doesn't care how many innocents are caught in the crossfire.
- The Mysterious Somebody, Bracket Fungus and League of Mary-Sue Factories take this role for the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. Despite being long dead, the Mysterious Somebody could be said to be the most influential Big Bad, as his actions more or less shaped the PPC's identity in-story; the League is a series of offshoots from his original Mary-Sue Factory, and the organisation of the PPC itself is a reaction to his actions as its head.
- Puppet Reviews Stuff has the Puppet's Arch-Enemy Vonstrucker who is planning on enacting revenge on him for past offenses unclear.
- Originally it was implied that Ozzie Arcane was the Big Bad of The Quest For Geekdom, but it was eventually revealed to be Eric Rosethorn.
- Plenty of Big Bads in The Questport Chronicles: The Master of Darkness, The Prince of Shadows and Illusions, and the mage.
- Slimecicle Cinematic Universe:
- For "Minecraft, but every 5 minutes there's a natural disaster", it's Schlatt, who torments Charlie and his friends throughout the video.
- "Patient Zero"/Tommy fulfills this role in "We Spent 100 Days in a Hardcore Minecraft Apocalypse" as the one who started the whole apocalypse and the one responsible for the zombie hordes.
- Stampy's Lovely World: No matter what the problem, whether it be missing dogs or an army of clones, it is a safe bet to assume HitTheTarget is behind it.
- Stellar Ranger Dark Star:
- Series One: Hollow Hearts: Baron Stellos is the leader of the Hollow Hearts Army who desires to conquer the Earth and add the star hearts of its inhabitants to his collection. The reason he is doing this is because he is collecting the Star hearts in memory of Kilaua, his beloved who was killed by the Savage Stars... or so it seems, but Stellos was being manipulated by her all along.
- Series Two: Savage Stars: The Eye of Despair/Kilaua/Lynneth Ursula Card/Lanessa de Vran Sie is the one who hired the Savage Stars to kill June and friends and is manipulating Prince Halloway Decembren as part of a plan to become goddess of the universe and surpass the rest of her family of Star Vampires.
- Series Three: The Fallen Star: Zanra and Vanra control the prisoners of the titular Fallen Star and use them to spread havoc around Solar City, intending to devour the citizens' star energy. They are actually two halves of Anra de Vran Sie/The Jaws of Despair, Lanessa's sister, who wants the energy to revive their mother, the Hand of Despair, and have her destroy the planet.
- Danya commands the terrorist organization in charge of Survival of the Fittest, and is therefore primarily responsible for the students being abducted and forced to kill one another. At least until he's killed by Dorian Pello.
- Each Survival of the Fittest Endgame tends to have one major villain from the students too. V1 had Cody Jenson, the killer of Adam Dodd's girlfriend and best friend, V2 had Mariavel Varella, the biggest killer on the island, who further cemented her status when she killed Bryan Calvert's girlfriend, and V3 had J.R. Rizzolo, who actually ended up winning.
- Tails of the Bounty Hunter has The Baron, the leader of an intergalactic cartel who is trying to kill hundreds of millions on a distant moon.
- Garret Meyer in this Door Monster's The Guards Themselves, imprisoning most of The Anarchists and trying to take control of the entire city.
- To Welcome Oblivion has Noah T. Trepaly, who is the true mastermind of the entire plot. He's also secretly Nyarlathotep.
- This role is occupied by whoever currently controls Team Noir in Toro League. This was originally Shadow X, though later the role was taken over by the since-defeated-but-not-yet-replaced Reaper Z.
- T.O.T. has Maximus Slade, the malevolent werewolf who constantly torments the main characters and slaughters dozens of innocents on Halloween in a twisted form of entertainment.
- Twitch Plays Pokémon: Yes, the entire "canon" is made up of Ascended Fanon, but surprisingly each instalment so far has had one character whom the Mob basically all agrees to blame for anything bad (Pokémon getting released, countdown timers, etc).
- Twitch Plays Pokémon Red had the Dome Fossil, a Satanic Archetype God of
Order and Democracy said to be served by Bill (and therefore, by extension, the PC). - Twitch Plays Pokémon Crystal had Lord Helix, Big Good of the previous game, God of Chaos and Anarchy.
- Twitch Plays Pokémon Emerald had Bill ascend into this role himself as a Neutral Evil mastermind.
- Twitch Plays Pokémon Red had the Dome Fossil, a Satanic Archetype God of
- There are lots of Big Bads in the Whateley Universe
- The unseen supervillain Nimbus seems to be behind everything. The superweapons at Halloween, the deviser drug used on Merry and maybe also G-Force, and so on. Even some of the Christmas holiday adventures had Nimbus lurking somewhere behind the scenes. We still don't know what he's up to.
- That said, "Señor X" seems to be responsible for everything that Nimbus isn't. Among other things, he's indirectly responsible for everything Hecate did, and by connection, half the bad stuff the Alphas were up to early on. More importantly though, a recent story revealed that There was a very powerful and very subtle spell active on campus designed to increase tension and conflict, and he's implied to be the one responsible — making him indirectly responsible for the actions of more or less every on-campus bad-guy to date. Oh and it's practically been confirmed by this point that he's masquerading as a student.
- In the recent story "Razzle Dazzle", Thomas Townsend, alias Mephisto the Mentalist, alias Cerebrex the Super-Brain, claims to have been scheming against many different heros for over eighty years. Under the alias Dominus, he's the current boss of the Syndicate. We don't know for such how much of this is true, since Thomas Townsend admits that he's an Unreliable Narrator.
- Considering how little we know about these Whateley Big Bads, it's possible that two or more of them are the same person.
- Worm at first appears to have a Big Bad Ensemble, between the multitudes of supervillains, the three Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse 9, and Cauldron, but the best contender for the role is the Simurgh, the third of the Endbringers, a malevolent, massively powerful telepath and precognitive with a fondness for Disaster Dominoes and brainwashed pawns, who is essentially responsible for the world being in the state that it is by sabotaging any attempts to improve the world almost before they start, and who may be The Man Behind the Man for any of the above.
- In Yandere High School, Yuki. She killed the first main teacher, Gareth's wife, leading to his haunting of the school, because Taurtis jokingly had an interest in her. She also framed Chan-Yandere for running over Salex, Taurtis' girlfriend, and led her father's yakuza against Sam and Taurtis in the first season's finale. The showdown resulted in Sam, Taurtis, Grian, and Dom having to go into the witness protection program and move.
- Israphel is this in Shadow of Israphel, having antagonized Knight_Peculier all his life, and is currently trying to destroy the world, and we still don't know who he actually is. Then it turns out he may have actually been working for the Sand God/Jade Sentinel, but we may never know.
