With a big enough cast in each games that comes with various shades of morality and likable traits, there are just some characters that Intelligent Systems designed to be despised by the audience, like these guys. For those who went beyond that, go to this page. (Warning: May overlap with this page)
- In Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, most of the villains have some redeeming qualities (Rudolf is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Fernand has a Dark and Troubled Past plus his pride, Berkut is a Tragic Villain, Duma has some good intentions and is a Graceful Loser, and Jedah is genuinely loyal to Duma and is doing what he earnestly believes is the right thing). That said...
- Desaix is a simple power-hungry schemer, traitor, tyrant, and child murderer whose only desire is to gain even more power.
- Slayde combines such vices as Dirty Cowardice (abandoning Clive and Fernand after they save his ass in a DLC map), Chronic Backstabbing Disorder (betraying the king to become Desaix's lackey and selling out Zofia to earn a post as a Rigelian general), and willingness to hurt children (burning down the preteen Celica's villa with the intention of killing her and attacking the preteen Alm and his friends For the Evulz). It's saying something when he's one of the very few people that Nice Guy Clive shows open disrespect towards.
- From the backstory, there's Lima IV. Despite being a Posthumous Character, Lima shows himself as a spoiled and misogynistic Psychopathic Manchild who forced Celica's mother to marry him, taxed the commoners into oblivion, and forced a noblewoman from the starving country of Rigel (who had been allies with Zofia for years) to become his concubine in exchange for giving Rigel desperately needed food, a deal which Lima IV reneged on anyway even after getting what he wanted. Nobody, not even his surviving children, speak positively about him, and the heroes fight his murderer Desaix not because they want to avenge him, but because Desaix is no better.
- Lang from Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem is one of the earliest examples. He was a noble of Archanea who betrayed his nation to Medeus and stole wealth from the poor, then went back to Archanea but once Dolhr lost the advantage and avoiding punishment falsely claiming to have been forced into their service. Upon being made overseer of the defeated Grust, replacing Lorenz, Lang commits a wide series of atrocities against the civilians including selling girls into slavery. When the nation rebels, Lang immediately makes it clear, he intends to not only kill all the rebels, but execute their family members and destroy their villages as well. He is ultimately revealed as a Dirty Coward who tries to scapegoat his superiors when faced in combat.
- Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is full of sympathetic villains, so it features some who exist solely to show off what horrible, hateful people they are.
- Queen Hilda exemplifies the Evil Matriarch trope, happily supports Child Hunts (for reference, even her husband Bloom doesn't like them), and takes such pleasure in killing off Tailtiu/Ethnia that her attempts to take revenge for her son and fight for her country are put aside so you can see how much of an evil bitch she is. The only one that shows respect to her is her daughter Ishtar, who is just being a dutiful daughter in general despite not approving of the more evil actions of the Loptous sect that Hilda herself enjoys doing.
- King Chagall of Agustria, a man who is nothing like his peace-loving father, killed his father under the advice of Manfroy, is clearly going to be a horrible king, manipulates Erinys into fighting his battles while mocking her for it, opposes and provokes Grannvale out of powerlust instead of wanting to protect Agustria from imperialism, and perhaps worst of all, continuously treats the one person who did look out for him, Eldigan, like shit and eventually ordered his execution simply for suggesting that they negotiate a truce against Grannvale rather than fight a battle they can't win. He does all those things without a single tinge of regret, casually informing Lachesis of her brother's death. And even the people of Agustria would have welcomed Eldigan as their king instead of him, had it not been for Eldigan's utter loyalty.
- He might not be playable or be living when the game rolls in, but Victor of Velthomer, Arvis' father, is designed to be hated as well. He was Cigyun's husband and Arvis' father, but he was abusive, unfaithful, a violent alcoholic, and a rapist. He assaulted Cigyun's favorite maid while in a drunken stupor and would have banished her for becoming pregnant if not for Cigyun's interference. (This maid would give birth to Azelle, Arvis' half-brother.) The misery of living with Victor eventually drove Cigyun into the arms of Prince Kurth, and despite being a philanderer himself, Victor's reaction was to kill himself and denounce the pair in a vicious suicide note. This broke Cigyun's spirit and she fled for her hidden home village to die in childbirth with Kurth's daughter. This in turn traumatized young Arvis, leading him to become disdainful of women, cold, and ruthless, which made him a perfect accomplice for Manfroy's Evil Plan. So basically, not only was he the worst husband who ever lived, Victor accidentally set up a chain of events that nearly doomed Jugdral.
- While many villains in The Blazing Blade are Grade-A Moral Event Horizon-crossers, nearly all of them have some quality that makes it difficult to say you really, truly want to throttle them.note So who can you hate?
- King Desmond of Bern, a man who — out of sheer envy and spite for his wife — arranges at least two assassination attempts on his own son. Lundgren also gets some of this for how petty and racist he is, but even he commands some respect for being an exceptionally powerful boss for someone his age; by contrast, Desmond's entire motivation for being evil is that despite being King, he's a huge loser and nobody likes him. As if Desmond weren't hate-worthy enough already, it turns out twenty years later that his son was driven to become a would-be dictator with continent-destroying ambitions. In other words, he's indirectly responsible for Zephiel's mad campaign, and the death of many innocents, including one of The Blazing Blade's heroes, Hector. Way to go...
- Whilst Nergal has an extremely tragic backstory, Limstella is a Dark Magical Girl who reveals they only wanted to be loved, and Ephidel isn't particularly developed, Sonia stands out as someone the audience can easily hate. Her cold-blooded murder of Nino’s parents and brother (who was only a child) through a Wounded Gazelle Gambit is described in vivid detail by a gleeful Sonia to Nino herself. And despite Nergal ordering Sonia to take good care of Nino, Sonia constantly abused her loving stepdaughter to the point Nino was never even taught how to read or use magic. Believing she was the smartest person in Nergal’s employ, Sonia ultimately dies after she disobeys her orders in a selfish attempt to claim glory for herself.
- In Hector's story, Pascal Grentzer is one of the most vile and unsympathetic characters in the entire game (he invited the entire population of his village to his castle, then killed them all, simply For the Evulz), but is only relevant to the plot for one chapter.
- Valter from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a Wyvern Knight general who, after touching a cursed lance, had his bloodlust multiplied tenfold. He was originally kicked out of the Grado army for massacring even retreating enemy soldiers, even when ordered not to. When he's brought back, the only reason he doesn't capture Eirika and Seth immediately at the start of the game is so he can "savor the hunt...and the kill" (his exact words). Later, he toys with Selena's emotions, telling her Emperor Vigarde is doubting her loyalty and ensuring that she dies fighting Ephraim. When his more honorable foil Glen begins to doubt the Emperor, Valter not only murders him, he tricks his little brother Cormag into believing Eirika is responsible, which may lead to his death if you don't recruit him with either Eirika, Duessel, or Tana. To top that all off, he's a Giggling Villain who delights at the thought of capturing Eirika and Ephraim — after a long-winded chase — because he enjoys tormenting, taunting, and holding back. Even Riev states that Valter doesn't care about rules and morality, simply doing what he wants. His death is honestly one of the most satisfying in the game (especially if you kill him with Cormag on Eirika's route), as his dying quote implies that he died in extreme pain.
- From Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Schaeffer stands out as particularly heinous for a one-off boss character. His introductory scene shows him threatening Tomenami with the execution of his clergy for not going along with his plan, and when he is confronted by the Greil Mercenaries, he forces Tomenami's companions to act as Human Shields for his own band of fighters despite most of them being unable to fight themselves. Getting to him without accidentally killing the priests requires precise movements, and even upon killing Schaeffer, he laments that he ought to have brought babies along to defend himself from Ike's group.
- Radiant Dawn:
- Most of the Begnion senators fill this role through their boundless greed and cruelty, and most of them are ludicrously self-righteous to boot. They aren't the Big Bads or even Co-Dragons, but they are responsible for everything bad that happens in the game.
- Izuka helps with the senators' plot and kills countless laguz in gruesome experiments to create Feral Ones, laguz that are permanently kept in their animal form at the cost of their sanity. Then he surrounds himself with the successful specimens and has them fight for him. The hate for him applies in gameplay too, as these atrocities make him a Goddamned Boss.
- Duke Lekain of Gaddos is the Vice Minister of Begnion and an extremely heartless and bigoted man. Before the events of both games started, he and a few other Senators murdered Apostle Misaha and blamed the murder on the peace-loving Serenes Forest Heron Laguz, leading to the people of Begnion massacring all but four in a single night, and bedridding one. At the beginning of Radiant Dawn, he allows Duke Numida and General Jarod to brutally enslave the conquered kingdom Daein and cruelly mistreat and or kill them. He tells Izuka, a man the Mad King Ashnard had as his loyal adviser, to work with him and together they find a young man named Pelleas who appears to be Daein's prince, and manipulate him into signing a blood pact tricking the ruler into thinking it was a sign of goodwill. After approving laguz slavery between the various nobles, and the usage of a drug made by Izuka, to turn the laguz into Feral Ones, he murders an ambassador of goodwill which kickstarts a massive war between the Laguz Alliance and Begnion. Using the king of Daein and his nation, as well as Kilvas, he takes this opportunity to attempt to wipe out the Laguz for good. Upon Ashera unleashing her divine judgment, he quickly sends fanatics of the goddess to murder the remaining heroes. In short, he's nothing but a despicable, bigoted human. No fewer than seventeen separate characters have unique dialogue for facing him, all of which point out how utterly revolting a sapient being he is.
- Fire Emblem: Awakening: Whilst all Grimleal have no redeeming qualities, two prove especially unlikable.
- Excellus, Tactician of the Valmese Empire and a secretly spy for the Grimleal. In a faction composed almost entirely of Noble Demons, he stands out as a massive Smug Snake who is hated and despised by his own faction for his dirty tactics and dishonourable conduct. He gleefully reveals at one point that he blackmailed Prince Yen'fay of Chon'sin to fight for Valm by threatening to kill his sister Say'ri, which he only does after Yen'fay's death so that Say'ri would suffer a Heroic BSoD. When his tactics fail utterly to drive back the Ylissean counter-offensive against Valm, Walhart reveals that he knows Excellus has been plotting against him on behalf of the Grimleal, which he tolerated only because he knew Excellus was too pathetic to pose any threat to him, and forces him onto the frontlines, where he inevitably dies a pitiful death at your hands (or, if you want to make it more satisfying, Say'ri's hands).
- In the main timeline, Algol is already a murderous Grimleal priest trying to bring the apocalypse, but in an alternate timeline where he wasn't killed, Algol showed how bad he could be. Creating his own personal offshoot of the Grimleal, Algol murdered the entire populations of countless defenseless villages, than tortured the survivors until they agreed to serve them and turned them into undead abominations that beg for death. Algol's Super-Soldier is a tormented zombie created by sewing many of his victims together into one Humanoid Abomination. Not even having the Villainous Valor of the other bosses, Algol proves to be a Dirty Coward that tries to flee the map, and if he is killed by the player, he dies begging like a child for the mercy he never gave his victims.
- Fire Emblem Fates: Most of the Hoshidans and Nohrians are playable in their own route and sympathetic antagonists in the other, so it is hard to dislike them. King Garon is certainly villainous, but has a tragic backstory revealed in supports and it's not even the real Garon, but rather the corpse puppet of the true villain, Anankos, who himself has a tragic backstory and is unseen for the vast majority of the game. On the other hand, there are a few villains who simply exist just to be loathed.
- The Nohrian commanders Iago and Hans. The former is the strategist of Nohr who repeatedly tries to have Corrin killed on every route, even in Conquest when they're supposedly on the same side, simply because he never liked them. Hans is a former criminal who in his first appearance tries to kill Corrin and Gunter and supposedly succeeds in the latter in Birthright, as well as killing Lilith in the same route, and shows no qualms with killing civilians or unarmed prisoners. They also happen to be two of the only bosses to be fought and killed in every route, and always as a result of them attempting to kill Corrin and their army. They're also completely unrelated to Anankos and his plot. Even Elise hates them.
- Kotaro, the daimyo of Mokushu and an enemy who's fought on all three paths. Despite Mokushu being a supposed ally of Hoshido, Kotaro was responsible for killing Saizo and Kaze's father, the fourth Saizo, and was also responsible for the destruction of Kohga, forcing Shura to become a criminal in order to survive. Not only does he betray Hoshido for Nohr in pursuit of power, but he isn't even truly loyal to Nohr, either, and uses them as a means to an end, even planning to kill Corrin and their Nohrian siblings to keep his secrets safe. As a Smug Snake with no redeeming features, he's one of the most despicable characters apart from Hans and Iago, and his role was clearly an attempt by Intelligent Systems to show that not everyone in the comparatively peaceful Hoshido is kind and honorable.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: The game is awash with Grey-and-Gray Morality with the majority of antagonists and protagonists committing horrible acts for good reasons, and on the various routes, they will all show good and evil sides to themselves and remain sympathetic even as antagonists. Even the likes of the Flame Emperor/Edelgard is shown to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist with a very justifiable reason for their actions, and Rhea/Seiros, despite her insanity, has a tragic backstory for it. However, there are still a couple of villains who stand out all the more for their wickedness and lack of redeeming qualities.
- The group known as "those who slither in the dark" stand out, with their crimes including turning innocent people into slavering rampaging monsters, destabilizing the three kingdoms, and killing Byleth's father Jeralt with almost Card-Carrying Villain levels of glee. And even when their backstory is revealed, it only paints how unsympathetic they are in an even worse light, as they're the remnants of the advanced civilization of Agartha wiped out by the Goddess Sothis for attacking her after they decided they didn't like the idea of relying on a goddess, and they masterminded the death of said goddess and the genocide of her children later, which led to Seiros' insanity. Notably, even the Flame Emperor hates them and views working them as Necessarily Evil to fight the Church and Edelgard ends up turning on them in the epilogue of her route or providing the details to their base in two other routes upon her death to have Byleth finish them off.
- And even amongst "those who slither in the dark", Kronya stands out. Her role in the group is basically an attack dog, but she revels in copious amounts of taunting and being an extreme Smug Snake to whoever she deems inferior to her (mostly everyone, especially her victims). She punches the player in the gut by killing Jeralt with a cheap shot to the back, which could have been undone by Byleth's time rewind if it wasn't for Thales covering for her. And as opposed to both Thales and Solon, who have either leadership and vision or Villainous Valor, Kronya turns out to be a Dirty Coward Faux Action Girl that is easily cornered by Byleth despite her big talk. From the tone of their voices, even Thales and Solon hold her in contempt and are more than glad to dispose of her, which Solon does ASAP by sacrificing her solely to power his spell. In other words, Kronya is pretty much a Hate Sink that other Hate Sinks can't stand. And for some reason, she ended up becoming the group's first representative for Fire Emblem Heroes, where her personality isn't even given Hidden Depths; she remains the despicable one-note psycho that constantly threatens to kill Summoner and has nothing else to do but to express her joy in killing. As of Three Hopes, you could kill her with the victims she personally attacked from Three Houses Jeralt and Byleth with Monica specifically included in the Scarlet Blaze route.
- Count Varley of the Empire and Baron Bartels of the Kingdom, for similar reasons. Both are major Abusive Parents who are directly responsible for the mental issues and trauma of their children (Bernadetta for the former and Mercedes and Jeritza for the latter). Varley regularly verbally abused Bernadetta and left her tied to a chair to pigeonhole her into a submissive housewife he could marry off for profit, both of which have caused her to become an emotionally devastated Shrinking Violet who can barely stand to be outside her dorm room for more than a few minutes at a time. Bartels took in Mercedes and her mother for the express purpose of siring a child with a Crest for himself and planned to send them off once he had what he wanted, only to change his mind — because he wanted to sire another child with a Crest with Mercedes. The sheer horror of that latter intention caused Jeritza to go berserk, and awakened his evil Blood Knight Split Personality, the Death Knight, who killed Bartels in retaliation. These two are especially notable because the player never gets to meet either of them in person in the original game, with word of Varley being placed under house arrest after the Flame Emperor takes control of the Empire being the only time he becomes relevant to the story for even a moment. Varley does get some nice Offscreen Karma in Bernadetta's epilogue slides where she severs all ties to him so he can't benefit from whatever life choices or marriages she undergoes. Three Hopes also allows you to either kill him or allow him to die depending on which path you chose.
- Mercedes' adoptive father is a greedy merchant who adopted her while she and her mother were taking refuge in a church in Faerghus, bribing the church when they refused to let her go. His goal in doing so is to marry her off to another house, thereby treating her as a bargaining chip to improve his own social status. On the Azure Moon route, he sucks up to the villainous Cornelia when she is in control of Faerghus, then opportunistically flip-flops to supporting Dimitri when the latter liberates Fhirdiad. Even Mercedes is completely disgusted with him and makes the decision to cut ties with him in her S Support event with Byleth, presumably doing so offscreen in her other endings.
- Fire Emblem Engage:
- Veyle herself is normally an aversion as she is a Nice Girl who is at worst a Dark Magical Girl. Her Fell Princess persona is a Card-Carrying Villain and a massive Sadist who revels in her cruelty and following Sombron's Will. After Chapter 10, Alear had difficulty trusting Veyle because they didn't know about her Split Personality and Veyle herself is horrified by her own actions; so Sombron created a crown to permanently seal away her true personality and let her evil side completely take over. No one misses her evil side when Veyle regains control and destroys the crown to permanently end her evil half.
- In the Fell Xenologue, the royals of Alternate Elyos oppose the protagonists, but most of them are not necessarily bad people, with their more hostile personalities implied to be partly due to having been revived as Corrupted, and most of them having bonds with their siblings and retainers. Alternate Ivy, however, is a fanatical worshipper of Alternate Elyos's Sombron, to the point at which she has her father sacrificed when the latter tries to stop the ritual. She is also verbally abusive to the Hortensia of the main Elyos, mistaking her for her Alternate Elyos counterpart, and apparently had all of Alternate Hyacinth's illegitimate children executed. While she appears to care for Kagetsu and Zelkov, the original Japanese script implies that she slept with Zelkov and was disappointed that Kagetsu had refused her, and has no qualms with killing either of their main universe counterparts. The main universe Ivy is furious at hearing what her counterpart has done to her world's Elusia, and is heartbroken upon seeing how terrified Alternate Hortensia is of Ivy. However, not only is Alternate Ivy also influenced by her being a Corrupted(although Rafal claims that she asked him to make her one), but after being defeated in the final map and fatally wounded, she expresses remorse and a desire to apologize to Hortensia, showing that perhaps she had some redeeming qualities.
- Alternate Fogado, likewise, is a depraved hedonist who, despite claiming to have been sad about his retainers and friends Bunet and Pandreo dying, is rather gleeful about getting to kill their counterparts from the main universe's Elyos. Similarly, if he faces his older sister's main universe counterpart, he will express disappointment that he did not get to kill Alternate Timerra personally. Unlike Alternate Ivy, he not only is aware of his status as a Corrupted, but fully embraces it, glad to be able to pursue his twisted desires without anything holding him back. Unlike the other alternate royals, his final death scene has no Alas, Poor Villain element whatsoever, with him remarking that this death will be the one that "sticks" for him.
- Fire Emblem Heroes:
- Book II: Surtr is the tyrannical king of Muspell, Nigh-Invulnerable and extremely aggressive in his conquest. He commits atrocities with utter glee and he especially likes the sight of people screaming in terror and pain, and likes to goad people to lament in despair as they get overwhelmed with his power. He gleefully killed Fjorm's mother and then sister Gunnthra because he could and is absolutely merciless to his men (such as Helbindi, who obeyed him because otherwise his family members suffer) or subjugated people (Laegjarn, his daughter, at the very least, treated them with respect).
- Book IV: Much like Count Varley above for being unseen characters, several backstory characters of the dökkálfr do count as this. Especially Plumeria's mother. To count what she did: She was abused by her abusive husband and because of that abused Plumeria in return. After said husband left just because, she tried to marry off another man for wealth, but considered Plumeria to get in the way of that and then threw her down a well and abandoned her to die. Even after Plumeria became a dökkálfr, she continued to fight for the impossible dream of becoming a hero so this mother could accept her back and be proud of her. And you still cut her down and she died miserably... while begging for help from this mother who probably still couldn't care less about her. Even in mobile games, you can't escape unseen characters designed to generate such hatred.
- Book VII: Njörðr's nothing more than a cowardly, manipulative megalomaniac who commits horrid actions and uses everyone as his puppets, purely out of disdain for mortals. Seeing him plead for mercy as he gets vaporized by the woman he intended to have kill off all mortals was all he had deserved.
