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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.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby
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.
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.
The term "Big Bad" was coined 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. 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.
Evil Overlord, Diabolical Mastermind, The Chessmaster, Arch Enemy, The Man Behind The Man, and often Manipulative Bastard are specific types of Big Bad. 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.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Rurouni Kenshin had Makoto Shishio and Enishi Yukushiro.
- Dragonball Z had at least one a season: Vegeta, then Freeza, then Cell, then Majin Buu in all his myriad pink forms.
- The original Dragon Ball had Pilaf, Commander Red of the Red Ribbon Army, Piccolo Sr. and Piccolo Jr.
- Digimon had the following, by series:
- Digimon Adventure had Devimon, Etemon, Myostimon and finally the Dark Masters with the creator, Apocalymon
- Digimon Adventure 02 had the Digimon Emperor, Arukenimon & Mummymon, and Oikawa and they were are manipulated by Myotismon, back in a more powerful form.
- Tamers had first had Hypnos, then the Devas and Zhuqiaomon, and finally the D-Reaper
- Frontier began 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 had the following
- C'mon Digimon Shin and Desmon
- Digimon V-Tamer had Daemon, with Neo as The Dragon who replaced Etemonkey
- Digimon Chronicles had the first incarnation of Yggdrasil
- Digimon D-Cyber had Metal Phantomon, who got taken over by Dexmon
- Digimon NEXT began with Barbamon but ended with his project, NEO
- The series Monster Rancher actually had a group of overarching villains called the Big Bad 4, each with their own territory and had 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 more or less personifies this trope.
- 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 Millenium 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.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Season 1: Pegasus
- Seasons 2-3: Dark Malik (or Marik)
- 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 BigBads 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 usurper king of Drum Island.
- Alabasta arc: Mister Zero, a.k.a Sir Crocodile.
- Jaya arc: Bellamy the Hyena.
- Skypeia arc: Eneru. 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: Currently seems to be Warden Magellan, but other possibilities include Shiryuu and Blackbeard.
- With every arc grouping together to form Sagas, there's always the biggest Big Bad out of them all. They are; Arlong, Crocodile, Eneru, 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.
- 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 Jojos 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.
Comics
- The DCU has a couple of common big bads:
- Dr. Doom has a big habit of being this, as does the Kingpin. Galactus can be this.
- 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 Comics 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: Ysanne Isard.
- 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: All over the place, but technically Palpatine.
- Darth Maul: Alexi Garyn.
- Jedi Council: The Yinchorri Council of Elders.
- 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.
Films
- 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 from Star Wars.
- 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).
- 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.
Literature
- 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.
- 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.
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 bad than previously thought when it is revealed that he is actually a time traveler from Earth's far future who will institute a 1,000-year reign of terror.
- Angel had Wolfram and Hart as the big bad for the first two seasons.
- Babylon 5: At various points in the arc: President Clark, Psi Corps, the Shadows and the Drakh.
- Buffy Big Bads were, 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 for the first two seasons was The Yellow-Eyed Demon aka Azazel. Lilith emerges as the new Big Bad in Season 3. In season 4 it is revealed that the true, ultimate Big Bad is Lucifer, who is trying to break the seals that will let him rise from hell. Bets on whether he succeeds?
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine
- Dominion/Founders
- Rogue Starfleet officers
- Klingons
- Cardassians
- Star Trek Voyager had two Big Bads over the course of the series:
- For the first two seasons, the ship was hounded by a sect of the Kazon, although the exact Big Bad is debatable: their leader was First Maje Jal Culluh, but The Mole, Seska, had 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 took over as Voyager's main adversaries, the role of Big Bad went to the one controlling them (or the one personifying them, or whatever was going on there), the Borg Queen.
- Silik of Star Trek Enterprise was almost the Big Bad of the first two seasons, but being that he was being controlled by Future-Guy, he fell short. The whole story was never really concluded because the Temporal Cold War didn'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, Louie Kaboom, Prince Gasket, and King Mondo again.
- 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.
- 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...
- Himitsu Sentai Goranger: Black Cross Führer
- JAKQ Dengekitai: Shine
- Battle Fever J: Satan Egos
- Denshi Sentai Denjiman: Queen Hedrian, although some would argue Omnipotent Demon King is the real Big Bad due to his victorious The Starscream plot.
- Taiyou sentai Sun vulcan: The Omnipotent God
- Dai sentai Goggle V: Führer Taboo
- Kagaku sentai dynaman: Emperor Aton
- Choudenshi Bioman: Doctor Man
- Dengeki Sentai Changeman: Star King Bazoo
- Choushinsei Flashman: Great Emperor Ra Deus
- Hikari Sentai Maskman: Earth Emperor Zeba
- Choujuu sentai Liveman: Great Professor Bias
- Kosoku Sentai Turboranger: Great Violent Demon Emperor Lagorn
- Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman: Galactic Super Beast Vulgyre
- Chojin sentai Jetman: Technically didn't have one since the four major villains were competing to see who could kill the Jetmen first for the position, but, Radiguet is the closest.
- Kouryu sentai Zyuranger: Contrary to popular belief that Bandora is the Big Bad, Dai-Satan holds the position seeing as Bandora is his minion.
- Gosei Sentai Dairanger: Shadam
- Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: Daimaou
- Chouriki Sentai Ohranger: Bacchus Wrath, later Kaiser Buldont
- Gekisou Sentai Carranger: Emperor Exhaus
- Denji Sentai Megaranger: Arguably Dr. Hinelar
- Seijuu Sentai Gingaman: Captain Zahab
- Kyukyu Sentai Go-Go-V: Grand Witch Grandiene (also an Evil Matriarch)
- Mirai Sentai Timeranger: At first seems to be Don Dinhiero, later revealed to actually be Gien and Captain Ryuya.
- Hyakujuu sentai Gaoranger: Actually had THREE Big Bads that merged into one and kicked the heroes around, even kill the source of their powers. Of course they got better.
- Ninpu Sentai Hurricanger: Boss Tau Zanto
- Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger: Dezmosauria
- Tokusou sentai Dekaranger: None. All the villains are independent. The closest would be the sole recurring baddie Agent Abrella, who sells them their weapons.
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger: N Ma
- Gougou Sentai Boukenger: Had four different groups working against each other. As such there were four big bads.
- Jyuken sentai Gekiranger: Long
- Engine Sentai Go-onger: Crime Minister Yogoshimacritein.
- Samurai Sentai Shinkenger: Blood Feast Dokoku
- 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.
- Stargate SG-1 had a series of Big Bads, although there were often long stretches in the middle seasons where they became 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 4 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 series Affably Evil Anti Villain Todd, who seems to be making a power play for Supreme Wraith Leader.
- The Wire:
- Season 1: Avon Barksdale
- Season 2: The Greek
- Season 3: Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell
- 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 In The Mouth 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.
- Lost: In season 3 it seemed like Ben Linus was the big bad, but in season 4 the suspicion shifted to his rival, Charles Widmore. Now, at the end of season 5, it seems like Esau/Fake Locke/Smokey has been the big bad all along.
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.
- 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.
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 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 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.
- The Grand Theft Auto series:
- 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
- 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.
- The Robot War in the series is a complete chain of events, starting with Dr. Wily's schemes, somehow making him indirectly responsible for the entire thing: Mega Man (of course) — > Mega Man X (creating The Virus) — > Elf Wars (emergence of The Messiah Mother/Dark Elf, developed to combat The Virus) — > Mega Man Zero (the danger of the Dark Elf causes Neo Arcadia's leader to disappear, and be replaced by an incompetent clone). It all traces back to Wily. Ironically, the chain of war was finally ended by Zero, Wily's last "masterpiece", of all people.
- 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 had its own Big Bad as well in Kristoph Gavin, who used 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 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 (the only exceptions being the titular Artifact Of Doom from Majora's Mask and Vaati from The Minish Cap).
- The textbook Big Bad for the Sonic The Hedgehog series is Dr. Eggman/Robotnik.
- Only Eggman hasn't really been the Big Bad since Adventure. In a majority of core Sonic games since Sonic Adventure, and even some of the handheld/spinoff titles, Eggman ends up being overthrown, manipulated or played like a pawn in a bigger villains game.
- 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 SuperStar, 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 Clockwrek a Owl that traded his human flesh for robotic immortality all to wipe out a rival family of thieves.
- Sly 2 saw the return of the above but in pieces so disqualify him from Big Bad status, he actual Big Bad was kept secret until near the end when it was thought to be Arepigeo who was resembling the Clockwrek pieces to reform the mechanical bird and fuse with him to gain immortality. How ever at the vary end Neyla (the Chronic Backstabbing Disorder Goddess) Quadruple crosses him, and fuses herself with the frame, dubbing herself Clock-La. This leads to a dramatic Dog-Fight with the games Battle Couple.
- Finally, in Sly 3 the big bad turned out to be a Mad Scientist, who had his own vendetta against Sly and his family. Again defeated by the local Battle Couple.
- 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, the 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 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 AI's 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, and, in Wrath of the Lich King... well, take a guess.
- 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.
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 Advisor Toh
- 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.
Web Original
- 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.
Western Animation
- 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.
- 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:
- Season 1: Slade
- Season 2: Slade, featuring Terra as The Dragon.
- Season 3: Brother Blood
- Season 4: Trigon featuring a newly resurrected Slade (with FIYAH POWUHZ!) as The Dragon.
- Season 5: The Brotherhood of Evil, led by The Brain.
- 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, except 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 was really behind it all, ordering the Beast Megatron to go back in time and kill the G1 Autobots while they were in stasis.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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 by far the strongest character seen in the series. It's never explained exactly how they beat him, a fact about which a joke is cracked at the end of the episode.
- 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.
- 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.
- G.I. Joe has the Cobra Commander as their Big Bad. Sometimes, he is replaced by Serpentor.
- Each of the Scooby Doo movies has their own, and unlike in the series, there is occasionally a twist ending of the classic twist ending, in which the monster or person posing as one is not the Big Bad.
- Boo Brothers: The Skull Ghost aka Sheriff Busby aka Sheriff Busby's crooked brother.
- Ghoul School: Revolta
- Reluctant Werewolf: Dracula
- Arabian Nights: The Caliph
- Zombie Island: Simone
- Witch's Ghost: Ben Ravencroft
- Alien Invaders: The titular invaders aka the SETI staff. There is a bigger twist than this, but it does not involve a villain.
- Cyber Chase: The Phantom Virus aka Bill
- Legend of the Vampire: Wild Wind aka Two Skinny Dudes aka Wild Wind
- Monster of Mexico: Mr. Smiley the amusement park designer
- Loch Ness Monster: Mc Intyre. There are at least three people in the titular monster suit, none of whom are evil.
- Aloha!: The Wiki Tiki aka Manu
- Where's My Mummy? Hotep and Amelia von Butch
- Pirates Ahoy: Woodenleg Wally aka Mr. Mysterio
- Goblin King: Krudsky. The titular Goblin King doesn't even appear until halfway through the movie, and he turns out to be good.
- Samurai Sword: The head of the dojo, though a Giant Space Flea From Nowhere shows up in the movie's last scene.
Real Life
- Sadly it's true. Technically every politician could be seen as this.
- Hitler. End of Discussion.
- Britain during the whole technical "conquering the world thing".
- Depending on where you lived, the Soviet Union or the United States were the Big Bads of the Cold War.
- For some people, both of them.
- Saddam Hussein, and later Usama bin Laden.
- Jefferson Davis during the American Civil War.
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