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alt title(s): Big Bad Evil Guy
It's good to be king.
I've learned that, in every story, there is a big, bad something. An evil force that, no matter the size, corrupts the world of the story, and tries its best to destroy the hero. A wolf, a witch, a giant, a dragon, a knight... or an idea, a desire, a temptation... or even a book. — Lullaby
Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
— The Three Little Pigs (1933), a Disney Silly Symphony
A Big Bad is a jeopardy, usually a character with evil designs (though it may also be a situation, such as a comet heading towards the Earth), that is behind all of the other bad happenings. The Big Bad can have effect across a number of episodes, and even an entire season.
Note that Big Bad is not a catch-all trope for the biggest and ugliest villain of any given story. The Bad Ass leader of the outlaw gang that the heroes face once or twice is not the Big Bad. The railroad tycoon who turns out to be using the gang as muscle is the Big Bad. In general if there is a constant Man Behind The Man story going on in order to reveal the big bad then whoever is behind it all is the Big Bad, not every major villain in the lead-up. At other times if a new enemy shows up to replace the previous big bad, then they are the big bads of their individual storyline.
The Big Bad may be confronted frequently, but is too powerful to finish off until the last episode of the sequence. The Big Bad may work through Evil Minions and will almost certainly have The Dragon protecting him, to keep interest up and provide something for the good guys to defeat. When you look at a season-long story or a major Story Arc and you can identify that one villain as being the biggest and baddest villain, that is the Big Bad.
The term "Big Bad" was popularized in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It was characteristic of Buffy's Big Bads for their identity or nature, or even the fact that they are the Big Bad at all, to remain unclear for considerable time. Occasionally characters would even refer to themselves as "the Big Bad", whether or not they were.
The Big Bad is also an integral part of the Five Bad Band dynamic. The role remains largely the same, but it should be noted that they are the Big Bad of that particular organization. They are not just the leader of a Quirky Miniboss Squad, but is a set group to counter the roles in the heroes' Five Man Band. Whether or not they turn out to be the Big Bad of the entire work of fiction is not set in stone (although more often than not, they will be).
If a show has a series of Big Bad jeopardies, they can function like a series of Monster Of The Week that take more than a week to finish off. If there is a Legion Of Doom you can expect the Big Bad to be involved somehow. They're probably sorted by power, with the strongest for last, following the Sorting Algorithm Of Evil.
Evil Overlord, Diabolical Mastermind, The Chessmaster, Arch Enemy, The Man Behind The Man, and often Manipulative Bastard are specific types of Big Bad. If he's a Magnificent Bastard, Complete Monster, or Hero Killer, the good guys are in big trouble. The heroic counterpart of this character is the Big Good, who will very often be the focus of this character's attention over The Hero at the beginning of a series.
See also Big Bad Diumvirate for two Big Bads working together.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- Johan Liebert, the Monster
- Rurouni Kenshin had Makoto Shishio and Enishi Yukishiro.
- Dragonball Z has at least one a season: Vegeta, then Freeza, then Cell, then Majin Buu in all his myriad pink forms.
- The original Dragon Ball has Pilaf, Commander Red of the Red Ribbon Army, Piccolo Sr. and Piccolo Jr.
- Dragon Ball GT has Dr. Myu, Baby, Super 17, and Syn Shenron.
- Sonic X has Dr. Eggman in the first two seasons and Dark Oak in the final season.
- SoulEater has the Kishin.
- Ranma ˝ has Pantyhose Taro, Herb, and Saffron.
- Digimon has the following, by series:
- Digimon Adventure has Devimon, Etemon, Myostimon and finally the Dark Masters all in the lead up to the true big bad with their creator, Apocalymon
- Digimon Adventure 02 has the Digimon Emperor, Arukenimon & Mummymon, and Oikawa who were are manipulated by Myotismon, back in a more powerful form.
- Tamers has first had Hypnos, then the Devas and Zhuqiaomon, and finally the D-Reaper
- Frontier begins with Cherubimon with the evil Legendary Warriors as a Quirky Mini Boss Squad and ends with the Royal Knights under the orders of Lucemon.
- X-Evolution had Yggdrasil.
- Savers/Data Squad had Merukimon, then Akihiro Kurata and finally Yggdrasil (again).
- The Digimon manga has the following:
- C'mon Digimon Shin and Desmon
- Digimon V-Tamer has Daemon, with Neo as The Dragon who replaced Etemonkey.
- Digimon Chronicles has the first incarnation of Yggdrasil.
- Digimon D-Cyber has Metal Phantomon, who got taken over by Dexmon.
- Digimon NEXT begins with Barbamon but ends with his project, NEO.
- Dr. Shiro Makinoha in Midori Days.
- The series Monster Rancher actually has a group of overarching villains called the Big Bad 4, each with their own territory and has a part of the story dedicated to them. Despite this, the Big Bad 4 are not an example of the trope, but were more like nobles to a king — the evil Moo — who fit the definition perfectly.
- Naraku from Inu Yasha.
- An even better example might be the Shikon no Tama, when it's revealed to have a mind of its own — one that isn't very nice.
- The same is true for D.Gray-Man's Millennium Earl. Just look at how his foot soldiers are created...
- Most action anime tend to revolve around this concept, as do most ongoing Magic Warrior Magical Girl series. Sailor Moon, for example, has:
- First season: Queen Metaria with Queen Beryl as her Dragon
- Sailor Moon R: The Makaiju Aliens in Part One, and the Death Phantom in Part Two.
- Sailor Moon S: Pharaoh 90
- Sailor Moon SuperS: Queen Nehellenia
- Sailor Stars: Chaos/Sailor Galaxia (the manga states that Chaos is the source of all other Big Bads)
- Naruto has Orochimaru, who later gets replaced with Akatsuki's leader Pain and founder Madara.
- With Pain gone, his place as the biggest threat has been taken by Madara, and what's left of Orochimaru is still running around somewhere.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Season 1: Pegasus
- Seasons 2-3: Dark Marik (or Malik)
- Season 4: Dartz, leader of the Cult, Doma
- Season 5: Bakura/Zorc
- Yu-Gi-Oh GX:
- Season 1: Kagemaru (or so we're told)
- Season 2: Saiou, possessed by the Light of Ruin (or so we're told)
- Season 3: Yubel
- Season 4: Darkness, introduced in Season 1, who has apparently been behind everything
- Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds:
- Season 1: Godwin starts off looking like one, but turns out to be more of a Stealth Mentor. In the second half of the season, Rudger seems to take over, until it turns out that nope, it really was Godwin the whole time.
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha likes using Mad Scientists for their Big Bads, what with Precia Testarossa in season 1 and Jail Scaglietti in season 3. Meanwhile, the second season's Big Bad, was a, uh... cheerfully optimistic Ill Girl who only wants to live a normal, happy life with her family and really stretched the definition of the term.
- Arguably, the second season's real Big Bad was the Artifact Of Doom that was bonded to said Ill Girl.
- That Artifact Of Doom is sentient, motherly and cries when it has to hurt people. It only acts antagonistic because a part of its programming responsible for self-defense got corrupted. So the second season can actually be seen as a subversion of the trope — every villain turns out to be well-meaning at the end.
- The Claw from Gun X Sword is a sweet old man, with a track record of crimes agains the protagonists as long as his artificial right arm. Every single bad thing in the series ultimately traces back to him.
- The current Big Bad in Bleach is The Chessmaster Sosuke Aizen. That particular Reveal came as a Wham Episode.
- The anime seems to set up Grand Fisher as the Big Bad of the first arc, implying that he hollowified Sora and sent other hollows after Ichigo.
- Kinnikuman has had, in terms of Big Bads that were actually dangerous, Robin Mask for the 20th Choujin Olympics arc, Warsman for the 21st Choujin Olympics arc, Buffaloman for the Devil Choujin arc, Akuma Shogun for the Golden Mask arc, the tag-team of Neptuneman and Big the Budo for the Golden Mask arc, and lastly Kinnikuman Super Phoenix for the Throne arc.
- Yu Yu Hakusho breaks these up by season as well, except that there are only two seasons with one Big Bad in them:
- Sakyo in season 2
- Sensui in season 3
- In the manga, it's revealed that pretty much all of the villains had been pawns in an enormously elaborate publicity stunt overseen by King Enma, the true villain.
- Lord Darcia in Wolf's Rain is not only a Big Bad, his entire family line is responsible for anything evil involved in the story... even in its "happy ending," which is anything but because of him.
- Oddly enough, the original ending (the version that stops at episode 26) seems to present Lady Jaguara as the real villain, especially after Darcia's apparent death. In the OVA, Darcia takes that position back hard.
- One Piece follows this example as well through its story arcs, sit back - this take some doing.
- Captain Morgan arc: Captain Morgan, a dirty Navy official with an axe for an arm.
- Buggy the Clown arc: Buggy the Clown.
- Captain Kuro arc: Kuro of the Thousand Plans, a retired pirate who gets his crew back together for one last pillage.
- Baratie arc: Sneak Attack Don Krieg, self-proclaimed "pirate admiral."
- Arlong arc: Arlong the Saw.
- Loguetown arc: Depending on how you slice it, either Buggy and Alvida again or Navy Captain Smoker.
- Laboon arc: Mister Nine, an agent of Baroque Works. Eventually redeems himself in an apparent Heroic Sacrifice.
- Whiskey Peak arc: At first, Mister Eight seems to be in charge, but he actually answers to Mister Five, who in turn reports to Miss All Sunday who is never fought.
- Little Garden arc: Mister Three.
- Drum Island arc: Wapol, the former king of Drum Island, attempting to reclaim his kingdom after previously abandoning it when the Black Beard Pirates attacked.
- Alabasta arc: Mister Zero, a.k.a Sir Crocodile.
- Jaya arc: Bellamy the Hyena.
- Skypeia arc: Enel. And how.
- Davy Back Fight arc: Foxy the Silver Fox.
- Water 7 arc: At first, the mysterious ship-scrapper Franky seems to have the role, but the real villains are a group of carpenters-cum-secret police.
- Enies Lobby arc: Rob Lucci is the Final Boss, but the main villain role falls squarely on the incompetent shoulders of Spandam.
- Thriller Bark arc: Gecko Moria.
- Sabaody Archipelago arc: At first it seems to be the slaver Duval, but he's redeemed fairly quickly. The real villains are any combination of Saint Roswald, Bartholomew Kuma, Admiral Kizaru, and Science Captain Sentoumaru.
- Amazon Lily arc: None! Though Boa Hancock might count at first
- Impel Down arc: Chief Warden Magellan.
- Marineford arc: It's early to tell, but a likely cadidate can be Sengoku, the leader of the entire Marines
- With every arc grouping together to form Sagas, there's always the biggest Big Bad out of them all. They are; Arlong, Crocodile, Enel, and Spandam with Lucci as a Dragon. Due to the "Whitebeard War saga" not being finished yet, it's unknown who's the biggest bad yet.
- There are many hints (or red herrings) as to who the Big Bad for the entire series will be, the most likely suspects being The World Government and Blackbeard
- Enchu in Muhyo and Roji.
- Akio Ohtori of Revolutionary Girl Utena. He loses Anthy but it could be rightly said that otherwise, he got away with everything, including being responsible for probably hundreds of deaths, if not thousands.
- Friend from Twentieth Century Boys.
- Father in Full Metal Alchemist. However, in the animé he was replaced in the role of Big Bad by Dante.
- Dio Brando in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Every arc that doesn't feature him as the main villain features one who is connected to him, however small. The Pillar Men (Part 2) created the Stone Mask that turned Dio into a vampire, Yoshikage Kira got his Stand abilities from one of the arrows that Dio once owned, Diavolo was directly responsible for Dio getting his hands on the arrow in the first place, and Enrico Pucci was Dio's closest confidante.
- Berserk mainly has the Godhand, and Griffith post-Face Heel Turn in particular, as Big Bads, but several arcs of the manga have seen Guts going against other servants of the Godhand. The Lost Children arc had Rosine, and the Conviction arc had Bishop Mozgus, with the current arc focusing on Emperor Ganishka.
- Most Gundam series have one.
- The original Fist of the North Star had Kenshiro's rival-turned-nemesis Shin at first, later followed by his adoptive brother Raoh, with Souther being the only major antagonist to actually defeat Kenshiro in battle. The second series had Raoh's suspiciously similar elder brother Kaioh.
- In the Pokémon manga, Giovanni pulls this off just like his anime counterpart should be doing, and Mask of Ice possibly outdoes him by making so much trouble and just about killing the heroes tons of times.
- In Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, the Big Bad is nurse Miyo Takano, in what is a Milkman Conspiracy.
- In Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, Beatrice is this at first, until she is usurped by Bernkastel and Lambdadelta. Because of this, Bernkastel is now a Rogue Protagonist and Fallen Hero, since she was the amalgamation of all the dead Rika Furudes from Higurashi.
- In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the Big Bad is Lordgenome. Until the Anti-Spirals are revealed...
- Fushigi Yuugi has the infamous Nakago. In the OVAs, Tenkou takes the throne. Quite literally, as he's a demonic king.
- Mahou Sensei Negima has Fate, who may or may not be the biggest threat.
- In the past, the Lifemaker was undeniably the Big Bad.
- Karas has Eko, the former Karas of Shenjuki, who doubles as a Well Intentioned Extremist.
Comics
- The DCU has a couple of common big bads:
- Darkseid, a Galactic Conqueror as well as a Physical God.
- Lex Luthor, a Corrupt Corporate Executive, Magnificent Bastard as well as the arch-nemesis of Superman. If there's ever a Legion of Doom anywhere, you can bet top dollar he's the boss of it. In some continuities he's a Mad Scientist.
- Brainiac, an evil robot and a being that seeks to control all information.
- The Anti-Monitor, responsible for starting the 'Crisis On Infinite Earths' as well as the Sinestro Corps War. An Omnicidal Maniac.
- In Justice League The New Frontier, the Centre is revealed to be an historical Big Bad, responsible for mass extinctions throughour history. The use of the atomic bomb makes him decide it's our turn.
- The Big Bad of Blackest Night has been recently revealed as Nekron. Before this revelation, other possibilities considered were Lady Styx, Krona, Starbreaker, and the Empire of Tears.
- Some of the more prominent Big Bads that L.E.G.I.O.N. faced were Mr. Starr and Lyrl Dox.
- In Infinite Crisis, the Big Bad was a three-way tie between Alexander Luthor (overall), Superboy Prime (for the Superman family), and Brother Eye (for the Batman family).
- 52 had several villains, as it was about several heroes. However, each of the seven main storylines had its own main villain.
- The Metal Men's story: Chang Tzu (formerly Egg Fu). He's also the power behind the Religion of Crime (antagonists of the Question's story) and the Four Horsemen of Apokolips (antagonists of Black Adam's story) and can thus be considered the Big Bad of these, as well.
- Steel's story: Lex Luthor.
- The space heroes' story: Lady Styx.
- Elongated Man's story: Neron.
- Booster Gold's story: Skeets, of all people, Brainwashed And Crazy courtesy of Mr. Mind.
- Dr. Doom has a big habit of being this, as does the Kingpin. Galactus can be this.
- Currently, the biggest bad in Marvel is Norman Osborn, with Baron Strucker being a close second now that HYDRA has been upgraded to a full-on Ancient Conspiracy.
- In the Captain America comic the Red Skull almost always plays the role of the Big Bad. Whenever there is an evil plot in the Captain America comic, there is 80% chance that the Red Skull is behind it.
- WITCH comics has the following Big Bads:
- Part I: Phobos
- Part II: Nerissa
- Part III: Ari
- Part IV: Endarno aka Phobos
- Part V: Jonathan Ludmoore
- Part VI: Tecla Ibsen
- Part VII: Dark Mother
- Part VIII: Takeda
- Dreadwing and Gothwrain from Gold Digger both fit this trope to a T. Tirant also qualifies by most standards but it's hard to top just how much evil the first two have caused.
- In the Image series Lullaby, provider of the page quote, the Big Bad is, indeed a book. A mesmerizing book that uses a powerful wizard (who appears to be a male version of the Wicked Witch of the West), captivated by its majesty, to gather power and enforce its will.
- Winnowill from Elf Quest. Shes not behind all the misery in the series (Humans Are Bastards, after all), but close.
- In the early series Two Edge would be one of these, he manipulates even his mother, Winowill but is too sympathetic, more of an Anti Villain, turning to Anti Hero after his sanity is restored
- In Fables the Adversary turns out to be GEPPETTO. FUCKING GEPPETTO! Better yet it was originally planned to be Peter Pan but the rights weren't available.
- The Star Wars comics have at least one for each storyline:
- Marvel Star Wars stories: Varied, but the Tagge family and Lumiya were always popping up.
- Dark Empire and Empire's End: The cloned Palpatine.
- Tales of the Jedi: Naga Sadow, Exar Kun.
- Boba Fett: Orko the Hutt.
- X Wing Series: Ysanne Isard for Rogue Squadron. Warlord Zsinj for the Wraiths.
- Shadows Of The Empire: Prince Xizor.
- Crimson Empire: Carnor Jax, though Burr Nolyds and Xandel Carivus took over for very short periods.
- Leviathan: The titular creature.
- Mara Jade: Dequc
- Republic: Palpatine overall, with Iaco Stark, Volffe Karkko, Sora Bulq and Count Dooku filling in for stories based on the non-movie characters.
- Darth Maul: Alexi Garyn.
- Jedi Council: The Yinchorri Council of Elders manipulated by Palpatine.
- Jedi vs. Sith: Lord Kaan, Darth Bane.
- Underworld: Jabba.
- Empire: Grand Moff Trachta.
- Obsession: Asajj Ventress, Durge.
- Rogue Leader: General Weir.
- General Grievous: The title character.
- Purge: Darth Vader.
- Knights of the Old Republic: Haazen.
- Rebellion: The Empire as a whole.
- Legacy: Darth Krayt.
- Dark Times: Vader again.
- Vector: Karness Muur.
- Slaves of the Republic: Count Dooku.
- Arguably Rastapopolous from Tintin, if simply for his sheer number of appearances and the subordinate relationships that many other recurring villains (Allan, Müller, Dawson, etc.) have with him.
- In Next Men, Aldus Hiltop appears to be this, but the true Big Bad is Sathanas.
- Not sure if it counts as a comic or toy line first, but [[Bionicle]] has the Brotherhood of Makuta, led by Teridax. Taken to the extreme when Teridax steals Mata Nui's 40-million-foot body and banishes him to the depths of space sealed in a mask.
Films — Live Action
- A rare example of a cinematic Big Bad is Ernst Stavro Blofeld, from the James Bond movies (as well as the books they were based on), up until he was killed in the opening sequence of For Your Eyes Only.
- Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious from Star Wars. Before the Emperor made his appearance, Darth Vader easily filled that position for a good while.
- Push has Henry Carver, and on a more broad scale, the Division itself.
- Rotti Largo from Repo! The Genetic Opera has Big Bad among his many diabolical credentials.
- King Ghidorah of the Godzilla franchise fits this trope as he has been Godzilla's greatest rival in six films (one of which he's actually the good guy).
- Godzilla himself could be seen as the Big Bad for some of his appearances.
- The Queen alien from Aliens counts for this trope, as it ruins the life of the heroine/lays facehugger eggs throughout the movie.
- The Ghostbusters have had to deal with two Big Bads: Gozer the Gozerian in the first movie and Vigo the Carpathian from the second.
- Star Trek has Nero, possibly the most pissed off Romulan ever, who is determined to destroy Vulcan and then the rest of the Federation because neither managed to save Romulus from being obliterated by a supernova. He's got a decent reason for being so angry, but good grief, he's got to be the new king of disproportionate response.
- Most comic book movies have one:
- Superman and Superman Returns has Lex Luthor, Superman II has General Zod.
- Batman has The Joker, Batman Returns has The Penguin.
- Batman Begins has Ra's Al Ghul, The Dark Knight has The Joker.
- X-Men has Magneto, X-Men 2 has William Stryker.
- Iron Man has Iron Monger.
- Daredevil has Kingpin.
- The Hulk has David Banner, The Incredible Hulk has The Abomination.
- Blade has Deacon Frost, Blade II has Jared Nomak, Blade Trinity has Dracula himself! (named "Drake" in the film).
- Fantastic Four has Dr. Doom, while Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has Galactus (even though he was just a stupid cloud in the film).
- Spider-Man has Green Goblin, Spider-Man 2 has Dr. Octopus, Spider-Man 3 has several villains, but the most antagonistic is Venom.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has The Shredder.
- The Punisher (1989) has Lady Tanaka, the 2004 Punsiher film has Howard Saint and Punisher War Zone has Jigsaw.
- Transformers has Megatron.
- Although it is later revealed in Revenge of the Fallen that Megatron himself is subservient to The Fallen, who becomes the new Big Bad.
- [[Highlander]] has The Kurgan for the first movie.
- Marcus Octavius was the Big Bad for the anime version of the story, {{Highlander: Search For Vengeance}}.
- Captain Barbosa in [[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Curse of The Black Pearl.
- Davy Jones in Dead Man's Chest.
- And Lord Cutler Beckett in At World's End. You can make a pretty good case for Beckett being Big Bad all along, as he was indirectly responsible for the events of the first movie despite never appearing or being mentioned, and was pretty much pulling everyone's strings in the second.
Close Films — Live Action
Literature
- Small subversion in Animorphs: even though The Council of Thirteen are the leaders of the Yeerks, Visser Three is the Big Bad of the story and the series ends after he's defeated, with The Council havin only one minor appearance in the series and being defeated off screen.
- Voldemort from the Harry Potter series.
- Morgoth in The Silmarillion. He was originally Melkor, but after he crossed the Moral Event Horizon in a spectacular manner, the Noldor renamed him "Dark Enemy" in their tongue. After he was banished from the world, Sauron, previously The Dragon, assumed his Evil Overlord role.
- A Song of Ice and Fire mostly features morally ambiguous and sympathetic humans pitted at odds with each other, making it difficult to pick out any heroes and villains. But when the Others finally come, everyone's gonna be screwed.
- The closest thing to a regular Big Bad after the Others is Tywin Lannister: manipulating events to bring about the downfall of the Starks & their allies (the definite protagonists of the story), ensure his house's dominance, and is guilty of sanctioning or tacitly approving a number of barbaric incidents, most notably the killing of the deposed royal family's children, and the Red Wedding. Of course, he's now dead and buried.
- As mentioned above, Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the latter part of the James Bond novels, finally receiving a more fittingly dramatic send-off in You Only Live Twice.
- Most individual books in The Dresden Files have one of these.
- Storm Front: Victor Sells.
- Fool Moon: Agent Denton.
- Grave Peril: Bianca.
- Summer Knight: Aurora.
- Death Masks: Nicodemus.
- Blood Rites: Lord Raith.
- Dead Beat: Cowl.
- Proven Guilty: Queen Mab.
- White Night: Cowl.
- Small Favors: Nicodemus.
- Turn Coat: Wizard Peabody.
- In the Star Wars Expanded Universe New Jedi Order series, Supreme Overlord Shimrra, absolute ruler of the Yuuzhan Vong is presented as the Big Bad ... until the climax, when it's revealed that Shimrra's insane court jester/slave Onimi was pulling the strings all along.
- Warrior Cats:
- Original Series: Brokenstar (Book 1, a bit in Book 2), Tigerstar (whole series), Scourge (Book 6)
- The New Prophecy: Hawkfrost (whole series, mostly from Book 4 onward)
- Power of Three: Sol (Sort of... from Book 4 onward)
- The Dark One from The Wheel of Time is the living manifestation of evil in that universe. His real name also happens to be Shai'tan.
- The Skulduggery Pleasent books have a different Big Bad for each book. The first one had NefarianSerpine, while the second had Baron Vengeous. However, it seems the Big Bads for the whole series are The Faceless Ones.
- The Codex Alera plays with this one. In the first book we're introduced to High Lord Aquitainus Attis and his wife Invidia, who are the masterminds of several schemes against the Realm, aren't defeated or even directly confronted by the heroes, and keep up their role as main villains in the subsequent books. The catch- neither is the Big Bad. That would be the Vord Queen, a monster The Hero wakes up during a Side Quest early on, and is gradually revealed to be not the mindless creature she initially appeared, but an incredibly powerful and cunning adversary far more dangerous than either Aquitaine could ever hope to be. Meanwhile, Lord Aquitainus has gotten Character Development moving him more towards Anti Villain territory, while Invidia has been pressed into service by the Vord Queen as The Dragon.
- With a blatant disregard for history, Alexandre Dumas makes Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu
 the Big Bad of The Three Musketeers. And he does it again with Catherine de' Medici in Queen Margot!
- The Big Bad of 7th Son is John Alpha, the initial subject of a decades long cloning experiment who got bitter, got crazy and got his hands on advanced cloning and memory manipulation technology.
Live Action TV
- The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.: The main Big Bad is John Bly, who is eventually revealed to be an even bigger threat than previously thought when it is discovered that he's actually a time traveler from Earth's far future who will institute a 1,000-year reign of terror.
- Angel has Wolfram and Hart as the main antagonist for the entire series, though they were not always the Big Bad.
- Season One has Wolfram and Hart.
- Season Two begins with Wolfram and Hart, though they are upstaged by Darla and Drusilla halfway through the season.
- Seasons Three and Four both have Well Intentioned Extremists as Big Bads — Holtz and Jasmine, respectively.
- Season Five has the Senior Partners, operating on Earth through their Dragons, the Circle of the Black Thorn.
- Babylon 5, at various points in the arc: President Clark, Psi Corps, the Shadows and the Drakh.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer Big Bads are, in order:
- Season 1: The Master
- Season 2: At first it looks like Spike and Drusilla are the Big Bads, but it turns out to really be Angelus after his Face Heel Turn.
- Season 3: The Mayor
- Season 4: Adam
- Season 5: Glory
- Season 6: At first it looks like Warren, Jonathan and Andrew, "The Trio", are the Big Bads, but then Willow snaps out and becomes the Big Bad after Tara's death. Joss Whedon has also claimed that "life" was the Big Bad of Season 6.
- Season 7: The First Evil
- Season 8 Comic: Twilight
- Supernatural's Big Bad has actually always been Lucifer. The character who did nearly every action for the entire plan was The Yellow-Eyed Demon aka (Azazel).
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine
- Dominion/Founders
- Klingons
- Cardassians
- Gul Dukat is DS 9's premier Big Bad. He starts out as a fairly bog-standard antagonist, becomes a sympathetic character (an Anti Villain if not Anti Hero), before crossing the Moral Event Horizon and becoming, effectively, the antichrist. He's also the only recurring villain in Star Trek history to kill off a main character.
- Other Big Bads in DS 9 include Weyoun, the Female Changeling, and Kai Winn.
- Star Trek Voyager has two Big Bads over the course of the series:
- For the first two seasons, the ship is hounded by a sect of the Kazon, although the exact Big Bad is debatable: their leader is First Maje Jal Culluh, but The Mole, Seska, has center stage much more often, even going on to menace the heroes a couple more times post-mortem.
- A few seasons later, when the Borg takes over as Voyager's main adversaries, the role of Big Bad goes to the one controlling them (or the one personifying them, or whatever is going on there), the Borg Queen.
- Silik of Star Trek Enterprise is almost the Big Bad of the first two seasons, but since he's being controlled by Future-Guy, he fell short. The whole story is never really concluded because the Temporal Cold War doesn't really go anywhere and wasn't very popular.
- The Xindi story of season 3 spent most of the time trying to figure out who among the Xindi Council was reasonable and who wanted to blow up Earth no matter what, or the Big Bad. Eventually every Xindi species but the Reptilians started to side with the Enterprise instead of the Sphere-Builders.
- The new series of Doctor Who has a Big Bad in every series finale to date:
- Series 1: The Daleks
- Series 2: The Cybermen/The Daleks
- Series 3: The Master/The Toclafane
- Series 4: Davros/The Daleks (again)
- Power Rangers. This might take a while:
- Mighty Morphin: Rita, then Zedd, then Master Vile and a married Rita and Zedd.
- Power Rangers Zeo: King Mondo, even during a time when he was dead, but everyone knew he would get better.
- Power Rangers Turbo: Divatox
- Power Rangers In Space: Dark Specter, who was revealed to be in control of all of the above. Intended to be the final villain, and remains the biggest bad seen on the show to this day. Although in terms of having an actual relationship with the heroes, and usurping power in the final episodes, Astronema also fits the role.
- Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Scorpius and Captain Mutiny, opposed to one another.
- Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue: Diabolico, then Olympius, and finally Bansheera.
- Power Rangers Time Force: Ransik (redeemed, a rarity for these villains).
- Power Rangers Wild Force: Master Org, usurped by Mandilok, then Master Org again.
- Power Rangers Ninja Storm: Lothor
- Power Rangers Dino Thunder: Mesogog
- Power Rangers SPD: Emperor Gruumm and Eldritch Abomination Omni.
- Power Rangers Mystic Force: Morticon, Imperious, and finally The Master.
- Power Rangers Operation Overdrive: Flurrious, Moltor, Kamdor, and the Fearcats, opposed to one another.
- Power Rangers Jungle Fury: Dai Shi.
- Power Rangers RPM: Venjix, a disembodied computer virus, though another example might be Alphabet Soup, a pair of MIB whose abuse essentially forced the creation of Venjix.
- It's gonna take even longer for Super Sentai but here goes...
- Dark Angel:
- Season 1: Manticore, at first personified by Colonel Donald Lydecker, who was later ousted by the even eviler Madame X.
- Season 2: Ames White, who is secretly a government agent assigned to cover up Manticore by hunting down transgenics, and even more secretly a leader in the Familiar Breeding Cult.
- For a time, Ben appeared to be Lost's Big Bad, then it seemed to be Penny's dad, former leader of the Others, and wealthy Jerkass Charles Widmore, and now it seems to be Jacob's unnamed nemesis. However, since the conflict with Widmore has not been resolved yet, it's possible that the show may now have two in separate conflicts.
- Heroes
- Season 1: Sylar, Mr. Linderman
- Season 2: Takezo Kensei/Adam Monroe
- Volume 3: Arthur Petrelli
- Volume 4: Initially Nathan, then usurped by The Dragon Danko, who is in turn usurped by Sylar in the season finale.
- Volume 5: Samuel Sullivan
- Stargate SG-1 has a series of Big Bads, although there are often long stretches in the middle seasons where they becomes fairly uninvolved with the plot.
- Season 1 to 4: Apophis
- Seasons 5 to 8: Anubis
- Season 9 to 10: The Ori / Adria
- Stargate: Continuum: Baal, the final(?) villain, ascending to Big Bad status after 6 seasons as The Starscream.
- Stargate Atlantis: Although the general premise of the series is the battle against the Wraith, even after four and a half seasons no individual character seems to have emerged as a specific Big Bad. There are currently several prominent candidates, including:rogue Wraith and Evil Genius Michael; Oberoth (the leader of the Eviler Than Thou Replicators); and Affably Evil Anti Villain Todd, who seems to be making a power play for Supreme Wraith Leader. Had the series continued, it looks as though the evil Asgard would have been the next adversary.
- The Wire:
- Season 1: Avon Barksdale
- Season 2: The Greek
- Season 3 had none due to the number of sides in the conflict.
- Seasons 4 & 5: Marlo Stanfield
- Sliders after its premise was changed:
- Seasons 1 & 2: Original premise, no Big Bads.
- Season 3: Colonel Angus Rickman.
- Season 4: The Kromaggs.
- Season 5: Doctor Oberon Geiger.
- Charmed, after it partially abandoned its Monster Of The Week premise in season 3:
- Season 1: To some extent, Rex Buckland & Hannah Webster in the first half of the season.
- Season 2: No Big Bads.
- Season 3; The Triad & Cole Turner.
- Season 4: The Source.
- Season 5: To some extent, the Crone.
- Season 6: Gideon.
- Season 7: Zankou from the demons and Inspector Sheridan in the "real world".
- Season 8: The Triad and the Jenkins Sisters.
- Despite being a science-themed series heavily grounded in reality aside from a few Through The Eyes Of Madness scenes, CSI has had several:
- In The Wild, Wild West, Diabolical Mastermind Dr. Miguelito Loveless.
- The new Battlestar Galactica series had a convoluted myth arc, lots of Grey And Grey Morality, with much of the series concentrating on all the main characters trying to screw each other over rather than focusing on a central villain. However, John Cavil (aka the Number One series) ultimately emerges as the ubervillain of the show, the main man behind the Cylons, and really the only guy on either side of the war who's having any fun.
- 24:
- Season 1: Victor Drazen
- Season 2: Peter Kingsley
- Season 3: Stephen Saunders
- Season 4: Habib Marwan
- Season 5: President Charles Logan
- Season 6: Phillip Bauer
- Season 7: Alan Wilson
- For this troper, season 7's big bad was much more clearly Tony Almeida, with Wilson only showing up in the very final episode to provide Tony's flimsy Start Of Darkness, which Jack doesn't buy and explicitly says does not excuse any of the actions Tony took during the day.
- Smallville initially had Lionel "Mr. Burns" Luthor as the cause of most of the town's woes, although his son Lex would eventually succeed him as the resident main nasty. Later, as the show introduced more elements from the Superman mythos, it would start to introduce actual seasonal Big Bads in the form of Superman's greatest enemies: Brainiac for Season 5 and 7, Doomsday for Season 8, and (finally for Season 9) the man responsible for most of the evil in the show's backstory (including Brainiac, Doomsday, and the destruction of Krypton), General Zod himself.
Tabletop Games
- Abbadon the Despoiler is perhaps the best example in Warhammer 40000, though he's by no means one of the real Big Bads, which tend to be Cosmic Horror grade gods, forces, and the like.
- The entire Chaos faction seems to be the overall Big Bad of the setting.
- Tech Infantry has a variety of Big Bads, from The Bugs, to Rashid King, to Modred. Ultimately, the biggest bad of all is the Crapsack World nature of the universe itself.
- Dr. Methusala. This guy is so much more powerful than any other character that the book suggests you treat him as an event, rather than have go into straight up conflict with him.
Video Games
- Video games usually centre around some form of combat, and to do this it needs bosses. An ideal candidate for the role — especially the Recurring Boss or Final Boss — is, of course, a Big Bad, and so games often feature a whole host of the things. Big Bad bait-and-switch is incredibly common, especially in the Mind Screwier kind of plotty game, and it's not uncommon to have to fight one Big Bad possessed by another, or several at once, or one who morphs into another (see One Winged Angel and Bishonen Line). Some of the greatest Big Bads in popular culture were spawned out of video games — for instance, Pyramid Head (the Implacable Man from Silent Hill 2), who became a meme (and even appeared in the Silent Hill film because of his popularity), and System Shock's SHODAN.
- Xenosaga: The Xenosaga game series (as well as Xenogears) makes particular use of Big Bads, specifically by using bait and switching the big bads multiple times. A routine of the Xenosaga games is that once a Big Bad has been "dethroned" from their role, their connections to the main characters are deepened and explained. This happens with Albedo and Margulis, among others.
- The ultimate Big Bad of the Xenosaga series turns out to be Wilhelm, The Chessmaster par excellance who was manipulating all the previous Big Bads (and pretty much every other character as well).
- The ultimate big bad in Xenogears is Miang, introduced as the White Haired Pretty Boy's sidekick.
- The Kingdom Hearts series has Xehanort's Heartless, Ansem in the first game and his Nobody, Xemnas in the second.
- The Final Fantasy series is famous for its Big Bads. Some of the most well-known, one in every game:
- Final Fantasy I had The Four Fiends as the initial big bads, until it's revealed that Garland, the very first boss you fought, is behind the whole thing, just before you fight his true form Chaos.
- Final Fantasy II had The Emperor as the big bad.
- Final Fantasy III had Xande as the big bad, who gets trumped by Dark Cloud after she gets released
- Final Fantasy IV had Golbez, who is being manipulated by Zemus, a giant space flea from nowhere
- Final Fantasy V had Exdeath, who was the evilest tree ever.
- Final Fantasy VI had Kefka, a Monster Clown who
thinks he is a god.
- Final Fantasy VII had Sephiroth, a Bishonen Super Soldier with mommy issues.
- Final Fantasy VIII had the Sorceress Edea, but the real Big Bad turned out to be Ultimecia.
- Final Fantasy IX had Kuja and Garland, as well as a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere in Necron.
- Final Fantasy X had Sin, which turned out to be the vehicle of Yu Yevon, the true Big Bad.
- Final Fantasy XII had Vayne, the Well Intentioned Extremist prince of Arcadia who is actually part of a Big Bad Triumvirate with Mad Scientist Cid and the rogue Eldritch Abomination Venat.
- The Grand Theft Auto series:
- Gary Smith in Bully.
- Tekken has Heihachi Mishima (1, 3 and 4), Kazuya/Devil (2, and arguably 6) and Jin Kazama/Devil Jin (6) as Corrupt Corporate Executive, Chess Master style big bads, Ogre (3) and Azazel (6) as demonic final bosses, and Heihachi's father Jinpachi (5) along with Devil (2) as both.
- Need For Speed:
- The Ratchet and Clank series gave us a nice selection of Big Bads as well:
- Supreme Executive Chairman Drek in the first game.
- Captain Qwark in Going Commando.
- Dr. Nefarious in Up Your Arsenal .
- Gleeman Vox in Deadlocked.
- Emperor Otto DeStruct in Size Matters.
- Klunk in Secret Agent Clank.
- Emperor Percival Tachyon in Tools of Destruction.
- Captain Romulus Slag in Quest for Booty.
- Possibly Nefarious again in A Crack in Time.
- Most Nasuverse works have one.
- Roa/SHIKI (whoever is dominant at the time) in Tsukihime.
- The Night of Wallachia, then White Len, in Melty Blood. It's taken over by the Dust of Osiris in Actress Again.
- Kotomine and Gilgamesh in Fate/stay night (they didn't start everything, but are lying in wait).
- Araya Souren in Kara No Kyoukai. Notably, he was confronted about halfway through the series and never heard from again.
- No matter who starts the plot in each original Mega Man game, you can guarantee that Dr. Wily is behind it in some way. Same goes for Sigma in the X games (with three exceptions), and eventually, Dr. Weil in the Zero games. Even Mega Man Battle Network does this, with the villains of the 2nd, 4th, and 5th games being connected to-you guessed it- Dr. Wily.
- Not only that, but we find out that prior to Mega Man X, then leader of the Maverick Hunters, Sigma, was infected with the Zero Virus after he fought the rampaging Zero, the last creation of — yup — Dr. Wily. Sigma eventually succumbed to the virus and turned maverick himself.
- Dr. Weil of Mega Man Zero fame seems to be following in Wily's footsteps. Not only is he the one who caused The End Of The World As We Know It, he continues to plague the world, even after his and Omega's exile. Most of the machinations behind the series' first half can be indirectly linked to Weil. And, in Mega Man ZX, it was hinted that it wasn't Serpent, Master Albert or Master Thomas who was the true Big Bad, but it was actually Model W, which is what remained of Dr. Weil's own consciousness.
- The Kurain Village Arc of the Phoenix Wright series eventually revealed that it had a Big Bad of sorts in Morgan Fey, whose schemes to get her daughter Pearl installed as the "Master" of the Kurain Spirit Channeling technique spans two games and strikes the main characters from beyond the grave. She also has her daughter Dahlia as a Dragon of sorts.
- Two of the games had their own Big Bad.
- In the first game, the Big Bad is Manfred von Karma, who essentially set the entire series into motion with the murder of Edgeworth's father. A murder in the present that was orchestrated by him to get back at Edgeworth ultimately results in his comeuppance.
- Damon Gant is revealed as the true criminal of the bonus case in the first Ace Attorney. Gant eventually states that he is responsible for controlling Lana Skye, the High Prosecutor who in turn was responsible for "helping" Edgeworth with cases, which resulted in the rumors of Edgeworth's backhanded deals and forgeries that DIDN'T already come about from Edgeworth's already established relationship with Manfred von Karma.
- The third game has Dahlia Hawthorne, who on top of essentially being Morgan's Dragon is a Big Bad in her own right because of all the murders she conducted that had to be cleaned up by the end of the game, resulting in finally facing her spirit in court.
- Apollo Justice has its own Big Bad as well in Kristoph Gavin, who uses every trick in the book from forged evidence to outright murder to take down Phoenix Wright and keep everyone quiet about it.
- Then Ace Attorney Investigations has Ambassador of Arebast Carnage Onred, who is the head of a crime syndicate and is quite possibly the first ever Ace Attorney villain to be the The Man Behind The Man to nearly all the other murderers in the game. With the exception of the criminal of the third case, and even then it's the criminal's father who has a connection to Carnage's syndicate.
- Beiloune in Okage: Shadow King, who turned out to be surprisingly sinister.
- Seiken Densetsu 3 puts an interesting twist on this: there are actually three different Big Bads: the Dragon Emperor, the Prince of Darkness, and the Dark Lich. The three fight among each other as well as against you throughout the first half of the game, but at the halfway point, one of the three will annihilate the other two and become the main antagonist for the second half of the story. Which one wins depends on which of the six characters you've selected to be your main character.
- Revolver Ocelot is an overarching Big Bad in the Metal Gear Solid series. This is usually confirmed in a phonecall at the end of each game.
- The Super Robot Wars games tend to have many Big Bads, due to the fact that they're made up of multiple mecha series in a single game. The result is that said game will (usually) have each and every Big Bad the series included did. And even still, they tend to add an extra-big Big Bad unqiue to that game, often the final boss. The greatest example in the series is Keisar Ephes, who turns out to be the Man Behind the Man for every single original villain in the Alpha sub-series, and, by extension, is more or less responsible, at least in part, for many of the Big Bads belonging to the various anime included. It also helps that he presents himself as the anti-Ide, making him an indirect Alternate Universe big bad for Ideon. Not bad for a guy who never shows up until the final battle.
- The Edel Bernal is a bit of a twist on this, but not that much of a subversion. We technically see him around occasionally, but he doesn't reveal his nature and part of the plot until, like Keisar Ephes, the final battle. Pretty much, he's just a Psychopathic Manchild with ridiculous levels of power that organized the entire situation for his sick pleasure and let his unwitting Dragon do all the dirty work with a simple utterance of "I love you" once in a while."
- The Mario series often has Bowser as the textbook Big Bad in the main series, while having newer villains in the spinoffs.
- The textbook Big Bad for The Legend of Zelda series is Ganon/Ganondorf. Hell, Ganon's practically incapable of not being the Big Bad. There are exceptions, however:
- Link's Awakening: Ganon only makes a cameo appearance as part of the Final Boss. The Big Bads here are the Nightmares plaguing the Wind Fish.
- Majora's Mask has the titular mask, though it spends the majority of the game possessing Skull Kid.
- Four Swords and Minish Cap both have Vaati as the Big Bad.
- This goes as far back as The Adventure Of Link: there's no defined Big Bad, but rather Link must fight the remnants of Ganon's army and the guardians of the jewels.
- Phantom Hourglass has Bellum, an evil demon of chaos.
- For now, Nintendo claims the Big Bad of Spirit Tracks, the "Demon King", is not Ganon. But if he turns out looking even remotely simmilar to that Evil Train of his, he might as well be Ganon's long lost twin brother.
- The textbook Big Bad for the Sonic The Hedgehog series is Dr. Eggman/Robotnik.
- Braid inverts this trope. The supposed Big Bad in the final level is in fact rescuing the Distressed Damsel from you.
- From Sam and Max:
- Conroy Bumpus in Hit The Road.
- Mack Salmon in the TV series.
- Hugh Bliss in Telltale Season One.
- The Soda Poppers in Telltale Season Two.
- In the Kirby series, the Big Bad is usually either King Dedede, Dark Matter, or Meta Knight. However, there have been some exceptions — in Kirby [uper Star, the Big Bad of the final section of the game, Milky Way Wishes, is a completely new villain known as Marx.
- The Halo series had two Big Bads, the Prophet of Truth (the leader of the Covenant), and the Gravemind (the leader/Hivemind of the Flood).
- The big bad of Fable is the demon Jack of Blades. Fable II has Lord Lucien.
- At first, the rogue agent Saren seems to be the big bad of Mass Effect. As it turns out, however, he's being controlled by his own starship, which is actually a member of an ancient race of "machine devils" who wipe out all civilization in the galaxy once every few aeons.
- The Diablo series has a Big Bad tag-team-trio: the "Prime Evils" Mephisto, Baal, and Diablo.
- City of Heroes has a number of especially powerful and influential bad guys that compete to take over the world.
- In the Metroid games (at least, the original 2D ones) and the accompanying official manga, the original Big Bad is Mother Brain, but for a few of the games, it's Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates. It turns out Ridley was working for Mother Brain, either because she had become corrupted by the Space Pirates so they could use her information and power, or because she swayed the Space Pirates to her side when she recognized their potential in achieving her true goals. No one seems able to agree on whether Mother Brain was corrupted by the Space Pirates or if she was just corrupt, including canon. Either way, Ridley is the Dragon of Mother Brain, but the one with whom Samus has a personal score to settle.
- Dead Space has two, Mercer and Kendra. The situation is unique as you fight neither of them, though you do fight what may or may not be considered as the third Big Bad, the Hive Mind. Well, you do fight Mercer.
- As a normal enemy, if you're daft enough to let the Infector get through necromorphing his corpse.
- Considering it's puppeteering the other Necromorphs and is the final boss, yeah, I'd consider the Hive Mind to be a Big Bad. Hell, Mercer even talks about "...the Hive Mind's gift", suggesting he considers himself to be it's servant.
- All three Sly Cooper games feature Big Bads though they where not always how the appeared.
- Sly 1 featured Clockwerk, an owl that traded his flesh and feathers for robotic immortality, all to wipe out the Cooper family.
- Sly 2 saw the return of Clockwerk, but in pieces, so it disqualifies him from Big Bad status. Arpeggio was resembling the Clockwerk pieces to reform the mechanical bird and fuse with him to gain immortality, but at the end of the game, Neyla quadruple-crosses him and fuses herself with the frame, dubbing herself Clock-La.
- Sly 3's Big Bad is a Mad Scientist named Dr. M who has his own vendetta against Sly the Cooper family.
- The Metal Gear Solid series has several of this particular kind of trope. Ranging from the diabolical, death-defying (literally, he defies death) machinations of Liquid Snake to the super-judo limb-breaking The Boss dishes out. Of course, just about everything, including the aforementioned "Big Bad's" individual plans or objectives, were manipulated or created by a shadow government - first an organization called the Philosophers, followed after the events of Metal Gear Solid 3 by The Patriots, then later run by near-omnipresent Artificial Intelligences named after past United States Presidents. And to add to that, nearly every event NOT manipulated by The Patriots that the player encounters outside of Metal Gear Solid 3 is manipulated by a single man, Revolver Ocelot, who by himself acts as a third-party entity against The Patriots. The removal of all mentioned is the eventual goal of the games in question.
- To sum it up; if the Patriots are the true villains of the series, then Major Zero (founder and leader of the organization) is the de facto Big Bad of the series. Either him or the Proxy AIs he created to run the Patriots when he grew old.
- Metal Slug has General Morden, although he's constantly upstaged by the Mars People or some other threat. In Metal Slug 6, both Morden and the Mars People are forced into an Enemy Mine situation by a bunch of aliens who eat Mars People.
- After being around for years and dropping hints to an overarching storyline, Runescape has finally gained a Big Bad in the form of Lucien, the seemingly-wussy dark mage the player once did a quest for who turns out to be an exceptionally powerful demigod who kills several recurring characters and absconds with the Stone of Jas, the artifact that created the world, which he appears to intend to use to free the Dragonkin.
- While the original Paper Mario has Bowser as its Big Bad as usual, the other Mario RPG spin-offs featured original ones:
- In World of Warcraft, the big bads are Kel'Thuzad in the original, Kil'jaeden in the Burning Crusade, in Wrath of the Lich King... well, take a guess and Deathwing in Cataclysm.
- In the Dept Heaven series, while "the biggest villain" is Hector the treacherous magi, each game has its own Big Bad.
- In the Legacy Of Kain series, while the morality of pretty much all of the characters is somewhat difficult to determine, by the end of Defiance, it seems to be firmly established that the big bads of the series are the Hylden Lord (and his entire race in general) and the Elder God.
- Mother 3: Porky.
- Captain Syrup is the Big Bad in the first two Wario Land games, although the later ones have one off main villains instead.
- The Street Fighter franchise has:
- Street Fighter: Sagat.
- Street Fighter II (and the upgrades): M. Bison, OF COURSE!
- Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Akuma, if you can reach him.
- Street Fighter III series: Gill.
- Street Fighter Alpha series: different characters have different final opponents in the storyline modes, but the Big Bad of the series storyline is generally M. Bison.
- Street Fighter IV: Seth.
- Albert Wesker of Resident Evil has emerged as the main villain, having been a double-agent from Umbrella in the very first game all the way to outright trying to take over the world in RE4 and RE5.
- Many people argue the AI Director itself in Left 4 Dead is the big bad behind every possible bad thing that happens to the players, especially on Expert difficulty where all it does is punish players for doing badly and slaughtering them for trying to be good.
- Doom 2's big bad is the mook maker, the one who spawned all the enemies in the first place. Considering that it only appears once in the game, and its destruction damages untold miles of Hell's surface, we can assume that the big static face we call the Icon of Sin is the big bad of the game.
- Adam from the first Trauma Center game.
- Maple Story seems to be angling to have the Black Magician as the Big Bad. He sure fits it. He forced a knight named Killian to make a very sadistic choice and kill himself, just to get a damn Warlord, had a guy frozen in ice for a while, chased the people from continent to continent, and is willing to do it all twice.
- The Big Bad of Epic Mickey is the Phantom Blot, retooled into an Eldritch Abomination made of paint and thinner. Oddly enough, he was created accidentally by Mickey Mouse himself!
- From Jak and Daxter:
- Gol and Maia for the first game.
- Baron Praxis and Metal Kor for the second game.
- Count Veger and Erol for the third game.
- Kaeden, Metal Kor's Dragon, in Daxter.
- The Dragon Quest games have their fair share of Big Bads:
- Dragon Quest I had the Dragonlord.
- Dragon Quest II had Hargon who attacks Moonbrooke and summons Malroth upon his defeat.
- Dragon Quest III had the Archfiend Baramos who is revealed to be a minion of the true Big Bad, Zoma.
- Dragon Quest IV had Psaro the Manslayer, aka Necrosaro until the DS version added a new chapter.
- Dragon Quest V had Nimzo (also known as Mildrath.
- Dragon Quest VI had Mudo until his defeat which you find out evil still plagues the world. After Duran is defeated, he tells them that he, Mudo, and the other demon lords were just pawns of the true Big Bad, Deathtamoor.
- Dragon Quest VII had Orgodemir, the Demon Lord who sealed most of the continents of the world to prevent God from defeating him. in the second disk, he tries to seal the continents again, while posing as God Himself.
- Dragon Quest VIII had Dhoulmagus until it turns out the scepter he stole had been containing the real big bad Lord Rhapthorne.
Web Animation
- The Big Bad of Broken Saints fits this to a T, down to his identity being unknown until the brilliantly timed closing epigraph of the penultimate chapter: "'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind." — King LEAR
- Super Mario Bros Z's primary Big Bad is Mecha Sonic, though Bowser and Dr. Eggman are a close second.
- Spoilers for season 2 shows the next Big Bad might be either Chaos 0 or Smithy using a revived Mecha Sonic as Axem Blue.
Web Comics
- The Order of the Stick: Xykon.
- Sluggy Freelance: Hereti Corp and K'Z'K.
- The Law of Purple: Silver, Lord of Caligula.
- Adventurers! played around with this, even having a PR war between two of the villains over who was going to be the Final Boss.
- Gunnerkrigg Court: In keeping with the lack of clear-cut villains, the true Big Bad is the divide between the Court and Gillitie Wood.
- Bob and George had a new big bad each year, though Dr. Wily would always come up and Bob stayed consistent.
- Year One: The Yellow Devil who undergoes a Heel Face Turn and becomes Nate
- Bob could be considered the Big Bad too.
- Year Two: Mynd
- Year Three: Megaman
- Year Four: The Helmeted Author Who was the Man Behind The Man in year three
- Year Five: Non-Alternative Mynd (though Bob comes in a close second)
- Year Six: Megaman X
- Year Seven: Bob
- In Blade Of Toshubi, both the Feline Emperor and Advisor Toh count.
- The Life of Nob T Mouse: The Pie Ghosts of Somewhere in Pie Noon and probably also King Nastie from the Nasties stories, although he's also something of a Dragon.
- Probably Lord Tedd in El Goonish Shive.
- Or that universe's Shade Tail.
- Formerly Daiman.
- And now there's chaos...
- Abraham is a punch clock example.
- King Radical in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.
- Persumably N'Grall in Elven Lacryment.
- Most likely Aelloon in Looking for Group.
- 8-Bit Theater: Sarda. Or Black Mage, depending on how you look at it.
- In Dominic Deegan, it could (could being the opritive word) be said that Helxia and (insert name of other guy here because I can't find it at the moment) were the Big Bads during the Storm of Souls arc seeing as how they were the founders of The Choosen. It can (again can being the opritive word) most likely also be said that Serk Brakkis earned this big bad trope for his return with the oracle hunter before being horribly massacred by Clesteo.
- Ansem Retort's Big Bad tends to change every season.
- Season 1: The FOX president.
- Season 2: Cloud for the first half of the season.
- Season 3: Cid.
- Season 4: Xemnas
- Season 5: none, as the season focused on Axel and Aerith's wedding.
- Season 6: Xemnas, Ansem, and oddly enough Belle are competing for the Big Bad title this season.
Web Original
- 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.
- Michelle Clore from KateModern is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for nearly everything that goes wrong over the course of the series.
- 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, even though as of yet it is unknown if he has ever directly killed anyone. This makes his status as Big Bad inarguable.
- 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, and V2 had Mariavel Varella, the biggest killer on the island, who further cemented her status when she killed Bryan Calvert's girlfriend. Do you notice any pattern there?
- The Shadows from The Tale of Gaven Morren.
- Bunny Kill had a differend Big Bad for each installment. (each takes place in an {{alternate continuity, you see.)
- Smoke in Bunny Kill 1.
- Dust in Bunny Kill 2.
- Professor Sludge in Bunny Kill 3.
- Flint in Bunny Kill 4.
Western Animation
- Corrupt Corporate Executive Charles Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons.
- Disney's Zeke, the Big Bad Wolf from Three Little Pigs (1933) and its sequels, was originally the Big Bad of his forest world — as befits his name.
- Subverted by later comic books, though: while Zeke is always a menace to the Pigs, the real Big Bads in the forest are bears (usually Brer Bear, occasionally others), who are larger than Zeke, can easily pound him, and who he invariably offends regardless of whether they're actually bad guys. In stories starring the Big Bad Wolf, confronting Brer Bear or other bears is often the climactic challenge.
- Vilgax, from Ben 10, is a textbook example. He's wounded grievously in the pilot, drives the plot of most of the first season from behind the scenes, and finally shows up in person in the first season's finale, bigger, meaner, smarter, and tougher than anything Ben's faced before. From there on out, he's usually put somewhere between appearances that keeps him from getting involved... He's also an Implacable Man and a Determinator, so he HAS to be kept out of the picture for other plot arcs to happen.
- Here are the other Big Bads for the following seasons:
- Season 2: Kevin 11
- Season 3: Ghostfreak
- Season 4: The Forever King
- The Big Bad of the Cadmus Arc of Justice League Unlimited was constantly being teased. At first it seemed Amanda Waller was the mastermind, then Lex Luthor, until it was finally revealed in the next-to-last episode as Brainiac.
- This was far from the only example in the DCAU. Batman Beyond had Derek Powers, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who soon became known as the supervillain Blight, as its Big Bad for the first season.
- Superman The Animated Series featured an ongoing arc of Superman's struggle with the Galactic Conqueror Darkseid, and his increasingly daring designs on Earth. (By contrast, Lex Luthor's schemes were almost purely episodic in nature.)
- Even Ra's al Ghul in Batman The Animated Series arguably qualified, being introduced in the final moments of one episode, and following up on it later with a cataclysmic two-parter.
- Legion of Superheroes had a Five bad band led by "The Emerald Empress" as the most common villain in the first season, in the second season the Big Bad was deafinetly Imperiex who was a A Galactic Conqueror even though Imperiex was upstaged by Braniac 1.0
- Teen Titans followed a Big Bad formula similar to Buffy:
- Fire Lord Ozai from Avatar: The Last Airbender, usurped the throne from his older brother, deliberately disfigured his son and kicked him out at age thirteen, and is the lead suspect in his wife's mysterious disappearance. A real piece of work, all right.
- Megatron in almost every incarnation of Transformers, only to usualy force an Enemy Mine when Unicron appears.
- Generation 1: Led the Decepticons on Cybertron and constantly tried all sorts of evil schemes to steal energy from Earth. Since these plans tended to fail, the writers eventually resorted to an Enemy Mine plot every other episode to avoid Villain Decay.
- In Beast Wars, he was the Big Bad twice. Firstly he's the standard ruler of the Predacons, fighting against the Maximals. During The Reveal, it is shown that the G1 Megatron had orchestrated the plan, ordering the Beast Megatron to go back in time and kill the G1 Autobots while they were in stasis.
- Only for that plan to be ignored. Beast Wars Megatron only followed this plan as a last ditch effort, in only one plot, which failed. (Thankfully so, or they all would have been killed by Unicron at some point). Other plots include successfully killing both Optimuses (Optimi?), inventing new classes of Transformers (Transmetal 2, Vehicons) and introducing ham to prehistoric Earth.
- Beast Machines: succeeds in conquering Cybertron and ruling over a planet of mindless, sparkless drones. All the happens before the series begins. During the series, he absorbs every spark on the planet and somes within a millimetre of godhood. Yes, godhood.
- Armada: Leads the Decepticons and gets his servos on the three most powerful minicons in the universe and would probably have derstroyed the Autobots if Unicron hadn't forced them into an alliance.
- Energon: Rallies the Decepticons into once again fighting against the Autobots, then hijacks Alpha Q's plan to restore his home planet and instead manages to successfully revive and, for a time, control Unicron. Oh, and he reformats Scorponok's and Demolisher's sparks to make them less moral and more loyal to himself.
- Live-action movie series: Revealed to have crash landed on Earth centuries ago, is awoken in present day, proceeds to lead a major attack on a city, his presence actually makes the Autobots retreat temporarily (except for Jazz who attempts to fight him, but is killed) and then physically overpowers Optimus Prime (the main hero) in single combat. Only by shoving the most powerful object in the known universe into his chest is he finally stopped and killed.
- The Fallen replaces him for the sequel, being the one to cause the Autobot/Decepticon split in the first place. But Megatron is still brought back as his servant.
- Transformers Animated: His body was destroyed in the pilot, leaving him a head in a scientist's lab. Hooked into the lab's computers, and with the right words to Professor Sumdac, he's working at getting a new body, while arranging the construction of an army, and killing the Autobots... and he's not doing too badly. He gets better at the end of the first season, and spends the second season underground setting up a massive Xanatos Gambit to take Cybertron..
- The Japanese series have added some other Big Bads, such as Scorponok, Devil Z, Deathsaurus, Violen Jiger, and Dark Nova.
- The Japanese sequels to Beast Wars also had their own. Beast Wars II had brothers Galvatron and Megastorm, and Beast Wars Neo had Magmatron.
- The comics also added a few of their own, including Thunderwing, Bludgeon, Straxus, Scrash, Trannis, Overlord, Clench, and Jhiaxus. The finale of the Generation II comic revealed that ALL of the G1-era Big Bads were unknowingly reporting to Liege Maximo, the very first Decepticon. Unfortunately, the comic was canceled immediately after this revelation, so that storyline never went anywhere.
- Monster Allergy had Corrupt Corporate Executive Magnacat in season 1, Evil Overlord Moog Magister and Hector Sinestro, a former Tamer, in season 2.
- WITCH had Evil Overlord Phobos in season 1, who was succeeded by Nerissa, a Chessmaster and former Guardian, in season 2. Nerissa was manipulating from behind the scenes even during season 1. Pretty impressive, considering she was trapped in a coffin for quite a while.
- Winx Club:
- Season 1: The Trix
- Season 2: Lord Darkar
- Season 3: Baltor
- Season 4: The Fairy Hunters
- Jackie Chan Adventures has Shendu and Valmont in the first two seasons, Daolon Wong in season 3, Tarakudo in season 4, and Drago in season 5.
- The Professor in Huntik Secrets and Seekers.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man has a four-arc per season format, each with it's own Big Bad of sorts.
- Season 1, Arc 1: Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard (more of an Anti Villain than truly evil though.)
- Season 1, Arc 2: The Big Man aka Tombstone.
- Season 1, Arc 3: The Green Goblin
- Season 1, Arc 4: The Symbiote, culminating in Venom's appearance in the last episode.
- Season 2, Arc 1: The Master Planner aka Dr. Octopus.
- Season 2, Arc 2: Venom again
- Season 2, Arc 3: 4-way split between the Big Man, Master Planner, Silvermane, and Hammerhead.
- Season 2, Arc 4: The Green Goblin again
- In general, one could make a case for the Big Bad for the whole first season being Tombstone, and the Big Bad for the second being the Goblin aka Norman Osborn.
- XANA from Code Lyoko. An artificial intelligence villain who's never seen, but whose influence is certainly felt.
- Dragon, from Skunk Fu. Ironically, he is not The Dragon.
- Vlad Masters of Danny Phantom. He's introduced in episode seven, but his influence is felt as early as the opening scenes. Until his Villainous Breakdown, only two people could claim to lay an effective hand on him: Pariah Dark and Jack Fenton, the latter aided with anti-ghost technology. Some have compared him to Slade in deviousness.
- Pariah Dark himself, despite only appearing twice, one of those being a cameo during a Gondor Calls For Aid situation, probably counts as well. He's essentially Ghost!Darkseid, and is one of the strongest character, if not strongest seen in the series.
- Each of the double-length movie episodes has one. First is Pariah, as mentioned above. Next is Dark Danny, who is somewhat less powerful but a more personal (and psychotic) threat. Then is Freakshow, who spends the movie trying to get his hands on an Artifact Of Doom that will make him invincible. The final Big Bad is not a person, but rather the ecto-asteroid. Of course, as Vlad is still the series-spanning Big Bad, he was active in all of these storylines as well (except for the third).
- The first season of X-Men was divided into arcs of a few episodes each, with none of its villains sticking around long enough to be a true Big Bad. The second season premiere changed this by introducing two season-spanning villains: Graydon Creed, occupying the A-plot in New York, and the real threat, Mr. Sinister, hanging out around the edges.
- In X-Men Evolution, Magneto is the Big Bad for the first two seasons, and Apocalypse takes the role in the last two.
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command has Zurg.
- Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers has two main Big Bads, namely Prof. Norton Nimnul and Fat Cat. But the biggest and baddest is Aldrin Klordane whose pet cat Fat Cat used to be.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles usually has Shredder as the Big Bad, but in the cartoons he is often topped by some alien threat. In the 2003 version of the cartoon, he usually comes out on top, since he took about a hundred levels in badass.
- In the 2003 cartoon, he cements his position as the Big Bad even further by making plenty of Xanatos Gambits.
- GI Joe has the Cobra Commander as their Big Bad. Sometimes, he is replaced by Serpentor.
- Thanks to the Sorting Algorithm Of Evil, the Big Bad of The Fairly Oddparents has changed a few times. In the first three seasons, Crocker was Timmy's worst enemy, appearing as the bad guy in every special that had a true villain. "The Big Superhero Wish" was the first special where he was not the main bad guy, and "Channel Chasers" reduced him to a cameo. After that, Anti-Cosmo of the anti-fairies and HP of the pixies took over for the next three seasons as a Big Bad Diumvirate, especially in season six, where the characters never appear seprete. Then The Darkness for the "Wishology" trilogy. With the birth of Foop, the anti-fairies might take over as the Big Bads, but it's too early to tell.
- Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series: The Evil Incarnate summoned by the Box of Balefire, which Venger attempts to welcome, calling it "master", until it accuses him of failure and reduces his (most recent) castle to a lava-filled crater. Then it goes after the main characters.
Bobby: C'mon, Dungeon Master, who is it? Or what is it?
Dungeon Master: His name is not for your ears, Barbarian! He is not life as we know it. He has many identities, on many different worlds! But all know him as... Evil!
(Dungeon Master teleports himself and the children to the other side of the world.)
Dungeon Master: The ruler of many universes! But his goal is to rule the entire cosmos with evil.
- There are two main villains whose overarching schemes drive the plot of Gargoyles: Xanatos and Demona. As the show progresses, however, Xanatos gets character development leading to a Heel Face Turn (kind of), leaving Demona the unchallenged Big Bad by the time of the Grand Finale.
- Of course, in the third season Castaway and his Quarrymen took on the role, while the (canon) comic continuation has Thailog stepping in to fill the empty shoes of main bad guy.
- Aku on Samurai Jack
Real Life
- Billy Mitchell, as portrayed in the documentary King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters, acts as a bizarre real-life example. He spends the entire movie sitting on his couch (read:throne) and directing his minions who almost make up a perfect Five Bad Band. He has no direct interaction with the hero of the story but thwarts him at every turn from a distance using his resources, contacts and reputation.
- Adolf Hitler, obviously.
- Who here can honestly say they haven't thought about wanting to control the entire world, at least once?
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