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.
The cause of all bad happenings in a story. A Big Bad could be a character with
Evil Plans or it could be a situation, such as a comet heading towards the Earth. The Big Bad can (and often does) exert 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
Badass 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. 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 storylines.
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 one in control of everything, that is the Big Bad. In many cases, you will find that while the Big Bad may be in control, the
Dragon-in-Chief would still be the greater threat.
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; this is a
Big Bad Wannabe (although Spike, the former
Trope Namer for
Badass Decay, was the character to do this most and he was part of the
Big Bad Duumvirate of Season 2 along with Drusilla, until Angelus showed up).
A Big Bad character 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
Monsters 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 villains who are liable to show up as Big Bads. If he's a
Magnificent Bastard 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. If a work of fiction is conspicuously lacking a Big Bad, it may be a case of
No Antagonist.
See also
Big Bad Duumvirate for two (or more) Big Bads working together (
or not). Sometimes a Big Bad will get his start as a servant to another villain — if that's the case, he's a
Dragon Ascendant. If the character who fills the role of Big Bad in most meaningful ways is nominally subordinate to someone else (someone significantly less menacing by comparison), he is a
Dragon-in-Chief. If the story has many Big Bads at once who
don't work together, see
Big Bad Ensemble.
Note that the Big Bad of a story is not always the most powerful or oldest existing evil force. Perhaps an evil presence along the lines of an
Eldritch Abomination overshadows the work's setting, but is mainly divorced from the story's events — that would be the
Bigger Bad. The Big Bad is distinct from that by being the main obstacle that the hero must contend with, though the Big Bad might try to harness the
Bigger Bad in some way as part of their plan. (Whether or not
this backfires may vary.)
It is one of the most well-known tropes on the TV Tropes community,
it being the only one to have over twenty thousand wicks. This is probably due, of course, to the fact that it's incredibly common - it's
Older Than Feudalism, and it applies to almost every villain in any multi-part speculative work.
Examples
