—Ron Stoppable referring to Señor Senior, Senior on Kim Possible
Most of the time, when there is a villain, they're going to have a personality or manner that underscores how evil they are. They may kick puppiesfor giggles, be particularly insensitive, even during sex, or might just be too unknowable to be anything but evil.
And then, there are villains who are Affably Evil. There is absolutely nothing separating them from being normal, polite people except for the fact that they want to Take Over the World or use human souls to power their Artifact of Doom. They're not the Stepford Smiler — their affability is a genuine part of their personality, not a mask. If they have underlings, expect them to be a Benevolent Boss. In one way, they're the opposite of an Anti-Hero. They may Pet the Dog on occasion, but won't hesitate to kick it with steel-toed boots the next second if it helps them accomplish their goals. They may well be a Villain with Good Publicity.
This villain will invite the hero out to tea, offer hima favorite dish, make pleasant small talk, try to appeal to the hero's better nature, and convince the heroes that the villain's plan isn't worth getting involved in. Of course, if the hero still won't change their mind, the villain will remind them that they are, after all, still a villain. It may or may not involve a Death Trap, depending on how nice the villain really is when crossed. Of course, inviting the hero's mom out to tea might send a stronger message. The friendliness of said villains can serve to humanize these guys.
Almost always either comedic, or a charismatic Magnificent Bastard, or a Well-Intentioned Extremist who really believes that they are the good guys, but the occasional Complete Monster can exhibit such qualities as well. Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor is not true for them, and their affability even makes them easy to "compliment" with an Insult Backfire. Captives of an affably evil villain won't be kept in dungeons, but in a Gilded Cage.
Please note, in the event an Affably Evil villain does undergo a Villainous Breakdown, the very traits that make them so pleasant often serve to make their breakdown extremely creepy or outright scary. A kind, friendly man suddenly going into a psychotic rage is made all the more scary by the simple fact that he was previously so nice and kind. If they keep their inviting personality while going utterly Ax Crazy, it makes them seem downright creepy and disturbing.
Compare:
Punch Clock Villain, who isn't necessarily evil at all — they simply have a job to do, and if that job involves slaughtering innocent children or stealing people's life savings, well, that's what they get paid for.
Faux Affably Evil, which is a villain who adopts an affable demeanor that isn't genuine, basically mocking Affably Evil. *
They'll chat pleasantly with their victims while engaging in Cold-Blooded Torture, or hum cheerfully to themselves while setting an orphanage on fire. Unlike Affably Evil characters, they're genuinely mean, and often do things For the Evulz, but you'd never know it just by talking to them.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, where the character hides a more sinister side behind a nice facade — unlike them, Affably Evil characters are genuinely nice.
Harmless Villain, when the villain is only affable, without the actual Evil part.
Good Is Not Nice is the good(ish) Sister Trope, and such good guys are particularly good at giving the Affably Evil a proverbial punch in the nose. I'm Not Hungry is often dealing with this villain. A villain will often engage in Too Funny to Be Evil to achieve this effect.
Examples
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Most major villains in Kaze No Stigma are very composed and polite even while making their destructive intentions clear .
Tokyo Babylon and X1999, amongst their body of work, highlight CLAMP's apparent love for beautiful, charismatic, fashionable men doing good, honest work in the service of others with secret homicidal tendencies. Here's hoping it's not an instance Author Appeal.
Sakurazuka Seishiro is a friendly, charming, and generally mild-mannered veterinarian...when he isn't killing people on government contract with his dark onmyoujutsu and feeding their souls to a demonic cherry tree.
Also from X1999 is Fuuma Monou, perfectly willing to indulge in "innocent enjoyments" when not busy reducing Tokyo into rubble bit by bit.
A couple of the antagonists in Saiyuki fit this. Homura may want to completely destroy and recreate heaven and earth, but he's genial and charismatic, and would rather Goku joined him than have to take him and his abilities by force. Ditto Hazel, only switch 'and recreate heaven and earth' with 'youkai' and 'Goku' with 'Sanzo.'
Greed, one of the homunculi who are collectively the antagonists of the series, won't put his fist on a woman, has a policy for always saying the truth, is respected and loyally followed by his comrades, and can even be nice if he wants to. That's not stopping him from being a pompous, greedy bastard and performing dubious acts for his own sake. He ends up doubling as a Noble Demon, especially the second Greed, from the manga and Brotherhood anime, who ultimately ends up an Anti-Hero. It's probably because he's Greed. He is greedy for everything, which includes as many comrades/subordinates/friends as possible, as he explains in the first anime, though in the manga and second anime, he is much more reluctant to admit this. He's quite protective of anyone or anything he considers his "property", and would rather admit defeat or run from battle than risk losing any of them to death or injury. Being a big humanity-hating jerk like the other Homunculi won't get him anywhere with that goal.
Father, the main villain of the manga and second anime, briefly becomes an Affably Evil Cloud Cuckoo Lander when he absorbs Greed into himself. As soon as he creates a new Greed, though, he turns back into his irredeemable self.
Perfect Cell acts very polite saying things like "Excuse me", has well-mannered speech, plays a prank on Vegeta in the middle of a battle, and even offers Goku a chance to heal himself in the middle of their battle. All this after he selfishly kills millions and holds a tournament where, if he wins, the Earth will be destroyed.
The fact that Cell started a tournament to decide whether the earth would be destroyed or not, instead of just destroying it outright also has a way of adding to this.
Freeza from the original Japanese version was also very well-mannered and spoke in polite form. Completely unlike the US version. Try watching the pre-fight dialogue he has with Neil/ネイル for a good illustration of this.
Majin Buu as well. So cheerful and childlike that he doesn't seem to bear ill will towards anyone: he's just trying to have some fun; in fact, the moment it's pointed out to him that, you know, killing people by the millions isn't a nice thing to do, he (genuinely) promises to stop. At least at first...then his truly evil side takes over and he becomes an Ax CrazyOmnicidal Maniac who is a legitimate threat to the universe at large.
There's also the robot worker in "The Return of Cooler".
Robot: Excuse me. Your attention please. If you'd all be so kind as to follow me. We'll begin chopping you up. (Everyone gets scared) No no. It's not what you think. We don't want to hurt you. We only want the energy from your bodies to power the Big Gete Star. So we just have to chop you up.
Also, Freeza's henchman, Zarbon, who is hinted to be a prince in the game Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team.
Goku's father, Bardock, falls into this trope. He has a surprisingly relaxed personality for a Saiya-jin, and he visibly gets on well with his teammates, going as far to avenge them when Frieza's henchmen kill them. Oh, and he commits mass genocide for a living.
Blackbeard (Kurohige) is a large but extremely affable villain, and is furthermore implied to be similar to the protagonist in outlook. However, he is willing to remorselessly murder a comrade to achieve his goals, and is shaping up to become one of the major villains of the series. That, and most, if not all, of his crew kills For the Evulz.
Admiral Kizaru is incredibly polite, as when he asked a pirate who shot a bullet at him, as it was passing through his head, where his subordinate was. When they replied by running away, he saw no choice but to kick an entire mangrove tree down in a light-based explosion. Light Is Not Good, indeed.
Kaku of CP9 is equally polite and very honest. Before his identity as a villain was revealed, many fans speculated that he would be the shipwright to join the crew.
Friendly Punch Clock Villain Mr. Two Bon Clay was a total asshole when acting as an enemy, cheerfully exploiting Sanji's weaknesses while mocking him about them and so on. Still one of the nicest entries under Villainous Crossdresser, even before his Heel Face Turn. He is also completely bananas.
Hild from Ah! My Goddess. She is a goddess' mother, very playful, very powerful, likes to hug people...and the queen of Hell. Her affability is more potent than most on this list. It's also heavily implied that she performs some notable..."good" in her role — she effectively keeps Hell's more aggressive and (self-)destructive tendencies under wraps, and even negotiated a cease-fire with Heaven. She prefers a much more subtle Deal with the Devil means of furthering her goals than the open warfare some of her underlings seem to favor.
The Earl of Millennium from D. Gray-Man is a usually-jovial, eccentric gentleman who loves his family. He also happens to be plotting to destroy the world. His army is also Powered by a Forsaken Child. His Noah lieutenants (especially Tyki Mikk) fall into this occasionally as well, but just as frequently fall out.
Fin Kruder of Rental Magica is so affably evil that Itsuki and Honami eventually comment about how, though he can terrify them, they don't really hate him, despite what he puts them through. Either that, or he's well-meaning, but just thatcrazy. It's hard to tell in his case.
A recurring theme with the villain Sunshine in the Kinnikuman series. At first portrayed as just a standard member of his Quirky Miniboss Squad, in a later arc, Sunshine is genuinely moved by the displays of friendship between two of the heroes, because it turns out he feels the same way about his own friends. He even goes so far as to declare "Friendship exists even amongst demons!" at one point.
Riful is on a permanent recruitment drive and will frequently greet her opponents politely, proceed to make small talk with them, congratulate them for their efforts in their fight, and even give them tips on how to make a successful strike against her, all the while asking if they want to join her. When diplomacy fails, she just tortures them to the brink of death to force them to permanently give in to their Superpowered Evil Side, all the while lamenting the pain she's inflicting and what a shameful waste of resources the death of the tortured would be.
Riful: My goal isn't your death. I will just torture you, make you awaken and then make you my friends! But if I kill you I lose everything. [She joins her hands in supplication] Please understand, I really do not wish to kill you!
Kazutaka Muraki from Yami No Matsuei is a polite doctor who approaches people in the most sympathetic manner when he is not raping, cursing, and killing 13 year old boys, or conducting human experiments to bring his dead brother to life so that he may be the one to kill him.
Not to mention the shinigami - Ryuk loves video games and apples and considers Light his roommate, Rem is actually a genuinely nice person to anyone who's won her affection, and Sidoh seems like an ordinary guy. No, they don't give much of a damn for human life, but seeing as they have to kill humans to stay alive themselves, it's somewhat justified.
Fate Averrancus is leading a group which is trying to carry out the destruction of his world. Despite this, he's actually a very sociable and polite young man, and Nodoka Miyazaki's mind reading artifact reveals that he would have rather preferred not harming anyone from her world, but the fact that she CAN read minds made her a liability enough to his plans that he has to eliminate her.
Earlier, there was Chao Lingshen, who gave the main hero the item of her eventual defeat as a simple thanks for his help. She was also more than willing to deliver a short, cheerful advertisement for her dim sum cart after a long pronouncement of evil towards the opposing army.
Many of the main Gundam villains are more or less affably evil. It'd be easier to list the utterly evil ones (and believe us, we've tried). Some of them are also Punch Clock Villains since they only fight because they are soldiers. Thinking about it...it's hard to come up with a straight example, as Gundam mostly lacks really evil people and many of its villains (and sometimes protagonists!) are mostly Well Intentioned Extremists.
If you want a straight example, there's Prime Minister Wong from G Gundam. A Manipulative Bastard with dashes of The Chessmaster and Mad Scientist (or at least, Mad Researcher), who loves red wine, chocolates, and sunglasses, and is also very polite and snarky to his rivals when in a good mood.
Another one would be Jerid Messa from Zeta Gundam. Nasty Jerk Ass in the beginning, Hot Blooded, somewhat of a Butt Monkey when not in combat...but genuinely cares for his instructor, Lyla, his girlfriend, Mauar, and his friend, Kakricon, and is sympathetic enough to be a sort-of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain.
And before all of them...Ramba Ral from the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
In Gundam SEED, Andrew Waltfeld, is this at first. Thank to his immense popularity amongst fans, he miraculously "survived" from the death in war and did a Heel Face Turn.
Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond has the Yoshioka clan, who seem to be one big happy group of True Companions who just have a penchant for cutting down or maiming those who besmirch the name of Yoshioka (and in the case of clan head Seijurou, ambushing those who could be an actual threat to them). The clan heads Seijurou, Denshichirou, and their right-hand man, Ueda Ryouhei, all get arguably sympathetic backstories, and they genuinely care about their followers and vice versa. Finally, when the first duel between Denshichirou and Miyamoto Musashi is interrupted by a fire breaking out and eventually consuming the dojo, Denshichirou tells Musashi to improve and then face him again in a year. (Unfortunately, Musashi ends up making far better use of that year than he does, leading him to cut down both brothers Seijurou and Denshichirou, one after the other, in their respective duels.) Heck, after Ryouhei decides to have Musashi ambushed rather than let him leave Kyoto, during the ambush, one of the minor henchmen of the Yoshioka actually gets a flashback scene where Denshichirou is giving the henchman's younger self a good luck eel, since his wife was going to give birth soon! (Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a seventy-on-one killing ends up with him, Ryouhei, and the rest of the seventy swordsmen of the Yoshioka school all being slaughtered by a single-katana-wielding Musashi.)
Get Backers has two: Kagami Kyogi and Kuroudo Akabane. Both act like perfectly normal, polite people — even while they're cutting people into bloody bits as a hobby (Akabane), or "observing" a 14 year old build WMDs and doing nothing to stop him (Kyogi).
Dio Brando—at least, when his bloodlust for the Joestar family isn't in effect. His greatest weapon isn't his vampiric abilities, or even his ability to stop time. His biggest weapon is his pure charisma. This trait is emphasized in Pucci's flashbacks, which are through the eyes of a man who only knows of Dio's charm and charisma, and not his crossing of the Moral Event Horizon.
Dio's affable evilness is debatable, as it can be argued that he was only charming Pucci and playing with his emotions so he would make a more effective servant. He is definitely Faux Affably Evil, though.
Schneizel from Code Geass. You don't realize he's evil until he leads an emotionally unstable Nina to believe that building FLEIJA was what her idol and Schneizel's own half-sister Euphemia would want, and later manipulates an even more conflicted than usual Suzaku, after fooling him into apparently betraying Lelouch, into carrying it into combat - and firing it, destroying the Tokyo Settlement. To top it all off, he undoes Lelouch's work of forty-something episodes in less than fifteen minutes - by convincing the BlackKnights to betray Lelouch. The fact that they're both Magnificent Bastards doesn't help. Schneizel has the advantage of hiding his manipulative nature well under his layer of Dissonant Serenity.
Around half the cast of Baccano falls under this, Lovable Rogue, or a combination of the two. Luck Gandor particularly exemplifies it, as he's generally an intelligent, amicable, and interesting bloke who is unfailingly polite even when he's telling someone he has no use for them whatsoever, and just happens to associate with absolutepsychos and do horriblynastythings to guys who cross him.
Claire Stanfield is another great example; he's perfectly friendly, charming, and polite to people who he isn't currently trying to turn into bloody messes of gore.
Balalaika from Black Lagoon. This former Soviet special forces commander turned mob queen is generally calm, collected, funny, has only lost her temper once in the entire series, will occasionally spare people's lives on the grounds that they amuse her, and is usually willing to negotiate before resorting to violence. Of course, if said negotiations don't go her way, she won't even blink before casually gunning down everyone in the room.
Hell, basically every major character in Black Lagoon is either this or a woobie
Askeladd from Vinland Saga is a nice enough guy, despite being a vicious murderer and raider.
Omamori Himari: Shuten Douji. In his first introduction to the main characters, he has a casual conversation with them...while putting everyone else in sight to sleep, and fighting the heroes with the intent to eat them.
Naruto has Akatsuki member Kisame Hoshigaki, an affable and genteel sharkman who will rip your fucking face off...but there's no reason to be rude about it. He's also arguably the Akatsuki's Only Sane Man.
Nagi from the Mai-HiME anime speaks in a relaxed tone and tends to address the heroines with polite words instead of taunting them. Naturally, a few of them suspect rather quickly that he's up to no good.
First, there's Gadved, an actually kind pastor who saved Van's life previously, and who still tries, in the most affable way possible, to convert Van to the other side, but he kinda goes a bit batshit when he enters the battlefield...
Then, there's Fasalina, an ex-prostitute. Her speech is considerably kind and soft-spoken (it doesn't hide her malicious intents), and she doesn't lose her cool for the most of time...well, until The Claw got killed, but even then, unlike the others whose Villainous Breakdown is going batshit, her breakdown is the 'affable' version of it: crossing the Despair Event Horizon. There's a really good illustration of Fasalina's affability in one scene. She and Carmen 99 are both seeking the services of the same electronics expert. While Carmen 99, one of the heroes, stiffs him of his full payment, Fasalina is a good tipper and thinks it terrible that someone would behave like that. Also, in the same episode, contrast the Claw being a Friend to All Living Things and the behavior of the ruthless Jerk Ass hero, Ray.
Xellos is so calm, friendly, cheerful, polite, and oftentimes funny that it's sometimes hard to believe that he's part of a race that's literally Always Chaotic Evil — his kind feeds on the people's anger and suffering. But instead of hunting down and slowly killing humans, Xellos just tricks them and plays embarrassing or painful pranks while otherwise remaining so nice and helpful that his regular victims sometimes groan when he appears, but never tell him to get lost. This guy once wiped out a flock of dragons with but a gesture, and we see him shaken like a doll by some mortal he thoroughly frustrated...and smiling. He even saved some humans.
Red Priest Rezo is polite, well-mannered, and spends a lot of his time traveling from village to village, performing miracles as one of the world's best healers. He would also stop at literally nothing to heal his eyes which have a fragment of the Lord of Darkness sealed in them, even disfiguring his own great-grandson as an experiment and putting the lives of thousands at risk.
November 11 can be a smug bastard and has a warped sense of humor, but is kind and protective of his partners, and brings a sort of amusing style to his job. Equally friendly and likable is his Bottle Fairy partner, April.
Amagiri, Amber's Dragon, is the quiet type of the Big Guy in personality, is really quite likable, and gets an amusing Please Put Some Clothes On scene with a hot female Contractor with no nudity taboo. He also participated in blowing up a series of embassy buildings.
Wei was probably the most psychopathic Contractor in the first season, gleefully killing with his Bloody Murder powers, but when he allies briefly with Hei, his "off-the-job" personality is surprisingly friendly and down-to-earth.
The series also has human examples in Dr. Schraeder and Youko in the second season. He's a miniature senior citizen and she's a moe nerd, and both are friendly people, but both are completely devoted to the mantra of For Science, and are utterly amoral in this respect.
The Hakushuu Dinosaurs as a whole, a football team in Eyeshield 21. While you can't really be "evil" in football, they try their damndest, using very dirty tactics.
Marco, the quarterback, is a polite guy, drinks soda, offers under-the-table deals to other teams for the best of everyone, sends flowers to the enemy before a game, and is fighting for the love of his life, the team manager, Maria. However, he doesn't care if he's crushing other people's dreams. Or bones. Of all the team members, Marco best personifies this trope: Nice Guy off the field, but on the field, he uses tactics that would put SS stormtroopers to shame, relying on Gaou and Kisiragi to injure the other teams' players.
Kisiragi is a wilting Ill Boy, prone to frequent fevers and illnesses. He has loads of respect for Marco, a huge man-crush on Gaou, and is self-deprecating about his own abilities while lauding those of his opponents. He also suffers from a bad case of Blood Knight and In Love with Your Carnage, and plays with the intent of dislocating the arms of other receivers.
And King Evil himself, Gaou. He respects the rules and other players, and is pretty harmless off the field (unless you pick a fight deliberately). On the field, he turns his strength Up to Eleven and deliberately tries to smash everyone in his way.
Giovanni from Pokémon Special. Sure, he's the leader of a criminal organization that steals Pokemon and performs horrible experiments on them, but he has never resorted to dirty tricks when it comes to battling. When he fights Red, he's courteous, praising him and giving him pointers while beating the snot out of him. Hell, he even earnestly offered to fight at a disadvantage. This makes him a damn good villain because it shows he is where he is because he's just that strong. Oh yeah, and he really loves his son. This may show why he has a slew of extremely loyal Elite Mooks that refuse to take orders from anyone else claiming to be the new head of Team Rocket. In the HGSS arc, Carr claims to be the new leader of Team Rocket just to have his ass knocked off his seat, with the Four Generals saying that only Giovanni is fit to rule them.
Warrior King Guitar from Violinist of Hameln (the manga version, not the anime) is a heartless, thoroughly egotistical, mass-murdering monster, as befits a mazoku general, but his cheery, somewhat goofy demeanor, and fake humility make this less apparent than his colleagues. Well, until he starts torturing people while remaining as upbeat and polite as ever.
Mister Wiseman from Until Death Do Us Part is very courteous towards his enemies. He's also a college professor and criminologist when he's not plotting against people.
Many of the Demons/Supernaturals in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni qualify. Ronove, Gaap, Sisters of Purgatory, Dlanor, and Zepar/Furfur all demonstrate on a few occasions that they are much more human than they let on. Most of the Witches play with this trope at points (when they aren't cackling at murder) ...and then there's Erika.
And even she swoops in to save Ange in the last chapter and gives her some advice because of her pride as a "detective" (which is also why she accepted a possible fatal challenge from Beatrice). Then again, there are more FaceHeelTurns, HeelFaceTurns, JerkassFacades, and personality twists and turns in this game than you can shake a stick at.
Maxamillion Pegasus from Yu-Gi-Oh!. Although he mixes in enough Gentleman Snarker even when being affable that he's quite easy to hate.
From Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, we have Agaard Jum Sai of Yami. Unlike his disciple, Tirawit Koukin (who is by far the coldest bastard in Yomi), Agaard is almost always smiling and cheerful, and in Chapter 397, he actually thanks Kenichi for being such a good disciple to his nemesis Apachai.
Fortis of Huckebein from Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force, who is quite the cheerful, charming, and polite fellow, even when he's talking about the atrocities the Huckebein commit while trying to convince Tohma to join their criminal group.
In ROD the TV, Joker is a perfect example of this. He is, for the most part, polite, well educated, and very civil. Except for the part about wanting to brainwash the entire planet and how he will manipulate anyone to reach his goal, he would be a rather nice person. He is even willing to have his personality obliterated for the sake of his ideal.
Mononobe from Eden of the East. When he fails to recruit Takizawa Akira into his Evil Plan to attack Japan with missiles, he simply lets him go. When Takizawa beats him, he simply gives up and has a nice chat with Takizawa. This is mostly because he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who actually believes his plans are the best for the country. Takizawa himself never actually blames him or calls him out on his extremist views; instead, he asks Mononobe for advice, and agrees with his Evil Plan, but amends it so that nobody dies.
Goemon in Yaiba, who, after all, enjoys drinking sake, and wouldn't hurt animals no matter what. Also, Kaguya, who flirted with Onimaru...before parrying his wind slash with her fan and tossing a huge ki blast at him.
Charles and Ray from Eureka Seven totally fit this trope. They're friendly, worldly, nice mercenaries for hire, who just happened to have a grudge against the good guys and were paid to take advantage of that. They honestly treat Renton better than most of the main characters, and they even plan on adopting him as their own son. Their deaths are some of the saddest moments in the show.
Kirby: Right Back at Ya!'s Customer Service/NME Salesman is so polite and funny at times that it's easy to forget that he wants Kirby dead, like Nightmare.
And speaking of Nightmare, even though he's bent on galactic domination, he's an oddly enough laid-back sort of tyrant who spends much of his time in his lair. He treats some of his employees, like the NME Salesman, with respect, and those he respects treat him with deep respect as well.
Comics
Otto Octavius, better known as Spider-Man's nemesis, Doctor Octopus, once rented a room from Aunt May, and behaved like a perfect gentleman, even helping her around the house.
He also came very near to marrying her, after she somehow inherited a nuclear plant. May's inability to understand that he was a bad person was a running gag for a long while.
The X-Men's Magneto, during Chris Claremont's first run, went from revenge-obsessed wacko to head of Xavier Institute to not quite back again, thanks in large part to his portrayal as an Affably Evil Well-Intentioned Extremist.
Also, Azazel. Apart from being the mutant equivalent of the Man of Wealth and Taste, he's shown to feel genuine love towards Mystique and his son Nightcrawler.
DC'sVandal Savage (who, having been alive since caveman days, is a little bit more than Really 700 Years Old) has often acted quite genteel towards Earth's heroes.
OTOH, he did have an unsatisfactory minion for dinner with some of his colleagues and other subordinates. Sorry, he had the minion as dinner. And he did pressure his daughter to marry somebody, or at least to have a child. I'd categorize him as Faux Affably Evil; sociopath who is surprisingly persuasive. Not actually likable, but still fairly persuasive, if only through the controversial "agree or I burn your parents alive" technique.
Villain Ra's al Ghul has not only tried to be civil towards "the Detective", but has repeatedly offered Batman the chance to join his organization, and even offered the hand of his beautiful (and mutually attracted) daughter, Talia.
Not affable in the same way as most, but Harley Quinn is known for being so bubbly and cheerful that she's near impossible to dislike (at least, initially), despite being a murdering psychopath at worse and a good hearted but remorseless criminal at best. This is, in part, due to having an almost innocent, childlike personality, (except when she doesn't), but she's lovable enough that Poison Ivy likes her, and one of the reasons The Joker keeps trying to kill her is that he has feelings for her but doesn't like that fact.
ThugBoy and his crew early on. ThugBoy goes out of his way to ensure a hostage's comfort, and assures her that "This is business, not sadism, okay?" The leader, Frank, stays friends with ThugBoy even after trying to kill him for betraying the group, and gives him relationship advice.
For that matter, Ninjette, who was originally hired to take out Empowered, but ended up becoming her best friend.
Manny, a Littlest Cancer Patient who wanted to be a supervillain. His Make A Wish is to tie up a superhero, but is incredibly polite and talks about how he researched how to do it effectively, but also without undue discomfort. He eventually takes a drug that makes him super-smart at the cost of vastly accelerating his cancer, and captures another villain with flesh-altering powers from Empowered, threatening her with several giant mechs while she is barely functional. But he's so darn polite, to the point of being nicer to her in their confrontation than most of her teammates are while working with her.
As can be seen from above, it's almost a bit of a theme that many of the villains are nicer to Empowered than her own teammates.
Iron Man's enemy, the Mandarin, has a heart of stone, but he is always impeccably polite and well-mannered. He also has a strict code of honor, which he always makes sure to uphold. He once vaporized his favorite minion on the spot for using poison in a sparring session, and he also upheld the promises he made on at least one occasion when Iron Man defeated him in fair combat, such as stopping his efforts to prevent Stark Enterprises from setting up in Hong Kong.
The Sleepwalker villain 8-Ball carries himself with a swaggering, casual manner. He is completely unfazed by the appearance of the bizarre alien Sleepwalker, and simply tries to smooth-talk Sleepy when he demands to know what 8-Ball and his gang are doing. He even cheerfully accepts Sleepwalker's claim of being an alien without blinking an eye, and kindly explains the Earthly concepts of money and power to Sleepwalker...before he attempts to murder Sleepy by dropping a bank vault on him.
Gepetto in Fables. His kindly-old-grandfather manner isn't entirely a pose.
The Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper, and Old Witch of EC comics were murderous ghouls, but remarkably personable and humourous.
Ozymandias in Watchmen. In addition to being a Well-Intentioned Extremist (on a par with Ra's al Ghul in that regard), he's also gentlemanly, witty, and even-tempered, even in hand-to-hand combat. He treats his underlings kindly (right until he drugs them and leaves them to die of exposure to prevent his secrets from getting out. When his former crimefighting colleagues track him down and learn of his already-in-progress master plan, he gives them the opportunity to keep silent, and when all of them (except Rorschach) agree, he trusts them enough to not only let them live, but to offer them hospitality in his fortress and allow them to leave freely. Hardly seems fair to hold the deaths of millions of innocent people against him.
An alternate reality version of Mister Sinister proves to be one of these in Cable and Deadpool. Not only is he nice enough to let Deadpool use his bathroom, he has a completely normal conversation with him and doesn't antagonize him at all. He even sits down with Deadpool, Cannonball, and Siryn for a delightful meal...which was laced with barbiturates to incapacitate them so that he could dissect them later.
Hoss, the redneck demon from Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation.
Lucifer from The Sandman and his own Spin-Off series is always polite and eloquent, even in his speech bubbles. Of course, he stops being evil by The Season of Mists, and settles for being a somewhat amoral Deadpan Snarker.
... and dives right back in to being evil in his solo series (the very first plot arc opens with him casually destroying another angel's several millennia of work over a mistake). He is still impeccably polite (until deliberately provoked), and always keeps his word.
Thanos of Titan. The quintessential example of this aspect of his character would probably be the confrontation with the Gardener over his Time Gem: the entire incident consisted mainly of cordial conversation between the two as Thanos made a futile attempt at convincing the Gardener to willingly relinquish his Gem, with even the eventual fatal conclusion being devoid of malice from both sides.
The Serpent Society from the Marvel Universe is a group of snake-themed supervillains with shades of this. In addition to members being friendly with one another, when one of them, Diamondback, semi-reformed, she also began datingCaptain America. Not only were her friends within the group supportive of her, but they also helped thwart other villains' attempts at ruining her first date with him.
Shade the Changing Man encounters the "Devil", who comes across as a civilized, cultured gentleman who eventually stabs him in the back. He is Satan, after all.
Kathy: You haven't...given up your soul or anything? Shade: He's not interested in souls. And he's not really the Devil. And he's not as bad as you think. Quite easygoing, really.
Charon from Negation is the epitome of this trope. The cosmic-powered ruler of a universe-spanning empire that everyone lives in fear of acts like a laid-back, ridiculously mellow guy without a care in the world. Justified in that he purged himself of all his negative emotions eons ago.
Senator Greyshade in the first run of the Marvel Star Wars comics. One can picture him asking Darth Vader "Don't you ever have any FUN?"
Mr. Lamb, one of the late villains created by Floyd Gottfredson in The Syndicate of crime. Sincere tears come when Mickey and Eega Beeva refuse to join his gang and prefer to die: "This is going to hurt us more than it does you!"
Cap'n Blaze from Terry and the Pirates. He may be a warlord, but he is a jolly old soul who enjoys a game of checkers with his captives.
The Doll-Master from Wanted. He's a member of a supervillain Fraternity that rules the world. He's also a loving family man who never swears in front of children.
Fan Works
In Downfall, most of the villains are motivated by truly noble intents. Of course, any fic that has Unohana, Ukitake, and Kyoraku working to overthrow the Seireitei...it's a given. Bonus points for making Aizen, Gin, and Tousen the good guys. Realistically. By the time the reader's done, they want Seireitei burnt to the ground...
Quirrell and Voldemort sing, dance, pick up girls, and watch She's All That in between plotting to murder Harry. Oh, and one of Voldemort's Horcruxes is a Zac Efron poster.
The Dementor shown returning Quirrel's civilian clothes was also quite nice.
The sequel has Lucius Malfoy and Delores Umbridge. The former avoids walking at nearly every opportunity, preferring instead to show off with increasingly complicated ballet moves; Umbridge comes off as an odd mixture of Southern Baptist preacher, yandere, and drill sergeant. And she's played by hella gorgeousJoe Walker*
who played Voldemort in AVPM.
.
In the Twilight fan fiction The (Not So) Short Second Life of Bree Tanner and its companion piece, Ashes through an Hourglass, Alec from the Volturi comes across as charming, insightful, and even sympathetic, without betraying his more villainous tendencies like manipulating Bree, showing a general indifference to human life, and casually ploting and rationalizing murder.
The larger portion of reader reviews consider Alec not just amusing and appealing but actually persuasive in his outlook on being a vampire, which is almost always in stark contrast to the noble ideals and humane lifestyle of the Cullen family.
Luminosity's lower-ranking Volturi are pretty much all like this. The worst is Jane, who is best defined as amoral—if she hits you with her power, then she looks at you funny if you scream.
Several of the villains of Dragonball Abridged, including Nappa, Zarbon, and (especially) Ginyu.
Chaos from the Tamers Forever Series isn't actually evil but still, for a ten billion year old avatar of destruction and disorder, it's remarkable just how normal he seems.
Friendship Is Witchcraft has, naturally, canon Friend Of All Living Things Fluttershy, who still keeps most of what makes her adorable in the actual series, even trying to talk Rarity out of donating her sister's college fund to the local Religion of Evil, finally giving in at Rarity's insistence. And accepting the money; who do you think is cult leader?
Cat R. Waul from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, a cultured, well mannered "gentlecat" who lures New York mice out west in order to turn them all into "mouseburgers", because simply chasing and eating them is an "unnecessary expenditure of calories".
Gru of Despicable Me is gradually softened into this over the course of the story.
Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog. In the words of Prince Naveen, he is "very charismatic". Even when he's manipulating the prince's butler and summoning help from his Friends on the Other Side, he's always polite and cordial. Except when you put his voodoo amuletin danger.
Waternoose from Monsters, Inc. is legitimately avuncular with Sully, and is sincerely regretful when his plans require trapping him in the human world. He even tells off his Mook for not being half the monster Sully is.
Charles Muntz from Up. He's polite and friendly to any visitors he may find...as long as he doesn't think they're after the bird. At that point, he shows just how off his rocker he is
Films — Live-Action
In the X-Men movie, Ian McKellen's version of Magneto — at least, early on.
Ditto for Iron Monger/Obadiah Stane in Iron Man, especially in the scene where he's talking to Pepper Potts. He's as affable as always, but she doesn't know whether he's just making small talk or interrogating her.
Frank Lucas from American Gangster is a very polite, well-dressed man who cares deeply for his family and even takes his mother to church every Sunday. Despite this, he is frequently shown to have no qualms about gunning down people who get in his way in cold blood, or blighting communities with heroin for pure profit.
Arthur Burns of The Proposition is erudite and exceptionally loyal to his friends and family. He appreciates poetry, and is very supportive and patient with his underlings. Arthur also bashes policemen's skulls in with rocks, advocates gangrape, and burns entire families to death. It helps that he's borderline insane.
Some of the best conversations in The Matrix trilogy are between Neo and Affably Evil Agent Smith, who famously insists on calling Neo "Mr. Anderson" even in the thick of battle. One of the best, from Reloaded:
Smith: Now here I stand because of you, Mr. Anderson; because of you I'm no longer an Agent of the system, because of you I've changed, I'm unplugged, a new man, so to speak; like you, apparently free. Neo: Congratulations. Smith: Thank you.
Bill from the Kill Bill movies is very friendly and likable, as well as a loving father, despite being a self-proclaimed "murdering bastard," and even helps the Bride reach an epiphany about herself at the end of the duology.
The Brain, from Gremlins 2. An erudite, genetically-altered gremlin who merely wants what everyone wants, and what you tropers have: Civilization! The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag...
David Allen Griffin in The Watcher is a perfectly sociable and charming guy to have around. Except for the whole garroting young women thing. Oh, and stalking and flirting with a male FBI agent who hates him kinda hinders him in the social department as well.
Harry Waters of In Bruges seems to be an alright guy, apart from his crime boss status and constant swearing. He has a strict moral code and genuinely tries to give Ray a nice vacation before he has him offed. Observe the following exchange:
Harry: Is Ray enjoying it? Ken: Well, no. It's not really his thing. Harry: What? Ken: It's not really his thing. Harry: How the fuck is it not his thing? The whole fuckin' place is a fuckin' fairy tale, so how can it not be someone's fuckin' thing!
The Nome King from Return to Oz displays a disturbing mix of affability and subtle condescension towards Dorothy and her friends (his counterpart in the books, though, was more of a cackling Card-Carrying Villain). Of course, the film Return to Oz plays the same "all a dream" card that the film of The Wizard of Oz played, and the Nome King, in this case, is supposed to be a direct analogue to the psychiatrist running the asylum where Dorothy is being treated at the beginning of the film. He himself is quite Affably Evil in his own right, warmheartedly declaring that electroshock therapy is "just the thing to cheer Dorothy up", words that the Nome King repeats later in the film.
Robert De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables: a Magnificent Bastard who goes from pontificating on the joys of baseball one second to savagely murdering an associate with a bat the next. Every word that passes his lips is met by sycophantic laughter.
Subverted in Shutter Island, where we are led to believe that Dr. Cawley is like this. As it turns out, this is his genuine personality, and, in fact, he has been running a very elaborate simulation in order to snap Teddy Daniels (real name: Andrew Laeddis) out of his self-induced fantasy that he is a Federal Marshall, in order to make him come to terms with his wife's death.
The Operative of Serenity is a man who is convinced of the righteousness of his actions, and holds no particular ill will for his enemies. Indeed, he goes so far as to compliment his foes' tenacity, bravery, or the good work they've done, even when he's impaled them on his sword and watching them die. Even more so is how he kills certain people with the sword. He paralyzes them, then lets them fall on it because he believes it's an honorable way to die. He's even self-aware that, despite his own politeness, he is a monster with no place in the paradise he is trying to create.
The Operative: There is no shame in this. This is a good death, for a man who has done fine works.
Pasquale Acosta in Smokin Aces epitomizes this trope. He doesn't just kill you, he comforts you and waxes philosophy as you die.
The books take this to a whole new level with characters like Marc-Ange Draco. Apparently, you can be guilty of drug-running, extortion, and murder, and effectively be a good guy as long as you're really, really nice and charismatic in personality.
Goldfingeris this trope. Is that mint julep tart enough for you, Mr. Bond? It is? Excellent. Now, going back to my scheme to nerve gas and nuke 60,000 people...
In Rustlers' Rhapsody, the villains realize that the hero, Tom Berenger, always beats "bad guys," so they hire a "good guy" to fight him. The "good guy" appears to be an even nicer person than Berenger and gains the upper hand, but Berenger soon learns that he's actually a lawyer, and is then able to defeat him.
Harry Lime from The Third Man is an early example, with Orson Welles receiving a lot of attention at the time for portraying the Manipulative Bastard as just a regular guy who wanted his old friend to like him even after discovering his actions.
Max from Mission: Impossible is quite a friendly sort. She's not very evil, just greedy.
While his underlings are quite rude, Xerxes in 300 is quite friendly — perhaps overlyso. Even at the moment of his triumph, he takes the time to congratulate Leonidas and offer the entirety of Greece to him, as long as he acknowledges the pecking order. Unfortunately, we don't get to see how affable he is after Leonidas breaks his Dissonant Serenity.
Ben Wade in 3:10 to Yuma is the very definition of affability and charisma.
When not playing the Magical Negro (literally, in some cases), Morgan Freeman has mastered this trope in such films as Hard Rain, Nurse Betty, Dreamcatcher, Lucky Number S7evin, and The Contract.
The eponymous Serial Killer from The Stepfather series of films is fond of stuff like dogs, model building, and gardening; he's actually a pretty nice guy, at least, until things stop going his way. There's a scene in the second movie where he sits down to breakfast and only starts eating after his Rice Krispies pop; he looks as giddy as a kid when they make their trademark noise.
Angela Baker of the Sleepaway Camp series practically becomes some kind of murderous Genki Girl in the second and third films. She also really likes the "Happy Camper" song.
Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York. He's polite, has a moral code, a deep sense of honor...but he just hates those bloody Irishmen invading American soil, and God help you if you get into a knife fight with him. To the point where Amsterdam is conflicted because he finds himself liking the man he intends to take revenge on for killing his father. He does have a few Kick the Dog moments where you realize the guy is not merely a Memetic Badass but pretty reprehensible, so the audience is conflicted too.
At least initially, Wikus in District 9 in several ways; he's an amiable, well-liked low-level functionary...who is casually racist and brutal towards the oppressed aliens, and laughs and makes jokes when 'aborting' alien eggs.
Dr. Terwilliker from The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr. T even says out loud that he's a villain before he offers refreshments and has a Villain Song with the protagonist's mother and friend.
VIKI and the NS-5's from I, Robot. They are polite and calm while trying to take over the world.
(The normally loyal robot blocks Susan's way) Robot: Please remain calm. Robot: Please refrain from going to your windows or doors. Susan: Deactivate! Susan: Commence emergency shutdown! Robot: We are attempting to avoid human losses during this transition.
And later, before attempting to kill people
Robot: You have been deemed hazardous. Will you comply?
Major Koenig from Enemy at the Gates qualifies as this for much of the movie. Sure, he's out to kill his sniper counterpart, but he's polite about it, and when one character, a young boy acting as an informant, hears of his rival's supposed death and is trying not to cry:
Koenig: There's no shame in it. You're a Russian, like he is.
When he figures out that the kid's been informing on him to the Russians, instead of confronting him, he hands him a chocolate and gives the kid a Mercy Lead, telling him not to come back. The kid comes back, so Koenig hangs him from a telephone pole to use as bait to lure out the Russian sniper.
In Agora, there's hardly any completely maleficent villain; the Christians are, after all, still human, and while they were very fanatical and Knight Templar-ish, they still helped the poor and each other. In fact, the only person who was truly villainous was the Bishop, Cyril of Alexandria, who himself is very Affably Evil, caring for his people and all.
Swamp Thing from Con Air. He's such a jolly, good-humored sort that you almost forget that he's an integral part in a scheme to bust out a planeload of mass murderers, terrorists, and gangsters. You also tend to wonder what he did to get himself put on that plane in the first place.
Drug smuggling, but even his actor defends him, pointing out that he didn't kill anyone or get in their faces...wow, I really hope he got out of the film OK.
If you consider getting thrown out of a moving firetruck and then run over OK, then he's OK.
"Good Evening. Welcome to my humble abode. My, how beautiful you are. I hope you will stay the night. Oh, where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Count Dracula."
A clearer example of Affably Evil in Star Wars is Count Dooku, at least in Attack of the Clones; he's clearly more respectful towards the Jedi than they are towards him.
Dooku: It's a great pity that our paths have never crossed before, Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon always spoke very highly of you. I wish he were still alive; I could use his help right now.
Obi-Wan: (With quiet fury) Qui-Gon Jinn would never join you.
Dooku might actually be Faux Affably Evil, slyly delivering the right amount of hints to Obi-Wan in order to plant the seed of division among the Jedi while painting himself as the good guy. Notice how his behavior in the scene he shares with Obi-Wan is very different to the way he behaves in any other moment of the movie or Revenge of the Sith. (Indeed, in the Sith novelization an extended section taken from his point of view has him musing, though not in such terms, that he's a sociopath.)
Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs is an interesting example in that nobody can be really sure if his affability is just an act, particularly as he's prone to sniping insults at visitors who displease him. To credit the "affable" perspective, he never hunts down Clarice (considering such a thing "rude"), and, in the book, mails a substantial tip to an orderly he befriended - specifically, the orderly who ensured that Hannibal never escaped from the asylum until he was moved, and once broke Lecter's arm stopping him from attacking a nurse.
Dredger from the recent Sherlock Holmes movie is basically an extremely large thug who will wreck the place and crush you (with his bare hands, if necessary) if that's what he's been paid to do...but he's surprisingly personable about it.
The HBO movie Conspiracy is an extremely chilling example of this trope. A group of intelligent, cultivated, soft-spoken men having a secret conference in Germany in 1942 about what to do with the "storage problem" of the Jews in Europe. And it is based on the minutes of the actual meeting.
The brother and sister duo, Vincent and Ida, in Motel Hell. They are a hospitable couple who run a nice little motel and provide some great meat pastries which are made out of people.
Dr. Schaefer, The President's Analyst, ends up abducted by The Phone Company. Arlington Hewes, its president, is unfailingly pleasant and polite while he explains to Dr. Schaefer why he needs his professional knowledge for his world-domination plan — and while he inflicts high-tech torture on Schaefer when he refuses to help.
In The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the entire plot of the movie is set in motion when Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), having already won the soul of the Parnassus's daughter in a wager made decades before she was born, agrees to allow Parnassus to try to win it back on the eve of its forfeiture (even though Parnassus has absolutely nothing to offer to sweeten the pot). Throughout the course of the story, it becomes clear that Nick is deliberately trying to lose this wager to avoid ruining his Friendly Enemy status with Parnassus, to the point that he tries to physically restrain the daughter from deliberately damning herself to Hell just to spite her father and, when that fails and he wins the bet, he immediately offers Parnassus a new wager so he can try to win her back again.
Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction is actually a pretty nice guy, for a mob hitman. Just don't say "What?" to his questions. In fact, all of the gangsters in the film are affable and friendly, even when they're casually waving a gun in your general direction.
Big Jake manages to combine Affably Evil with Complete Monster in the villain, played by Richard Boone. He would be happy to have a nice, pleasant, friendly conversation with you...just before pulling out a gun and murdering your children in cold blood without so much as flinching.
Lynch from The A-Team movie. He's just so adorable about being evil.
Lynch: We do have laws, they're just cooler than yours.
Charlie Barrett in Suicide Kings. The nicest guy who ever fed anyone to their own dogs.
Cheyenne in Once Upon a Time in the West is a cheerful, friendly fellow who seems perpetually amused by the events in which he is caught up. He's also a confessed murderer and bandit leader. It helps that A) he's not the villain of the film, just the local badman whose territory the villain trespasses on, and B) pretty much all of his crimes take place offscreen (just outside the door in the case of his slaughter of his prison escort).
Tuco of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He doesn't seem like such a bad guy, he's even pretty funny, but then you remember he's a criminal who isn't above the rape and murder of civilians, if you believe the list of crimes read by his executioners early in the film.
One scene that helps is a brief conversation between Tuco and his brother, where we to get a few hints as to why he is who he is. It's implied that it was simply because he grew up in a poor family and the only way he could survive was to steal.
On a similar note, Juan from Duck, You Sucker! is initially set up as a mean, ruthless, and amoral bandit, then we get to know him and find out that he's just an ordinary guy trying to look out for his family in a world where stealing is the only way to survive.
Reuben (Sid Haig) in Black Mama White Mama, the randy drug kingpin. He's clearly bad, but is just having a blast throughout the movie.
Big Chris of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels is a hitman, but is overall a nice guy, and a good dad to his son, Little Chris. But so much as lay a finger on Little Chris, and the affable part goes out the window, and Big Chris shows off why he's a hitman. Most likely, with a car door.
To some extent, Lyle From Dallas from Red Rock West. Protagonist Michael Williams first meets Lyle after nearly being run over by him - Lyle is very apologetic about it, makes sure he's okay, gives him a ride back to town, bonds with him over their shared past with the Marine Corps, and buys him a drink. Since this is the first we see him, his turning out to be the bad guy would almost be a twist, were it not for him getting very angry about Michael initially refusing his offer to buy him a drink, as well as the fact that he's played by Dennis Hopper.
The villain in Babysitter Wanted chats merrily with the final girl as he's carving up the body of another girl. His accomplice later gets mad at him for being so friendly.
The Three Ministers of Pollution from Gaiark in Go-onger.
Colonel Hepburn from the Hammer Horror film, Cash On Demand, is a friendly and amiable man. When he visits a bank, he is more friendly to the employees, and knows more about them personally, than the bank manager does. Of course, the reason he's visiting the bank is to rob it...
Lex Luthor is played like this in the Superman films, especially by Gene Hackman, with a warm smile and a nice disposition. Yet he's willing to sink California to the bottom of the sea for profit.
All the villains in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur. In between planning and executing acts of sabotage against military installations, we see a kindly grand-father playing with his grand-child, a rich socialite who hosts a charity-dinner, a father who ponders whether he should let his son have long hair, a man who gives their hostage a milkshake, and a man who frets that the confrontation with the hero will make him unable to go to the philharmonica with his niece later that evening.
As in the novel on which the film is based, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather. Warmhearted, reasonable, prefers to think of his partners as "friends", and happy to perform the odd favour for his less-than-fortunate neighbours. True, he does inform them that they might have to do a little something for him in return, but contrary to Amerigo Bonasera's worries, all he usually asks for is a free service from their business. He even adopted Tom Hagen and eventually allowed him to become his personal advisor - even though he knew that none of the other Mafia bosses would approve. Of course, Vito's still in charge of one of the most powerful Mafia families in America, and he's not above the occasional murder or extortion to back up the usual income from gambling and union racketeering. However, Even Evil Has Standards, which Vito demonstrates in his refusal to deal in drugs and prostitution (the most contemptuous line in the film is when he says, "Tattaglia's a pimp"). And, to his credit, he does his best to keep his children and his civilian friends as far away from crime as possible.
Having learned from his father, it's unsurprising that Don Michael also fits this trope; however, though well-mannered and gracious, he lacks Vito's degree of warmth - which, combined with his ruthlessness, eventually begins to distance him from his friends and family.
CLU from TRON: Legacy. He is completely affable and polite with Sam from the beginning, and his personal moments of violence always appear to be casual afterthoughts, as in when he is blowing up the End of Line Club, or yelling and slamming his hands into the table at Kevin Flynn's home, making something of a mess, or de-rezzing Jarvis after a last-straw moment of incompetence after a long string of mild-to-major failures. The rest of the time, he is cool, calm and collected, and polite. After all, his most oddly polite line to Sam is "So, you like bikes." complete with a pleasant smile.
Julian Karswell from Night of the Demon is charming, charismatic, pleasant, loves his mother, hosts parties for local children...and is a Satan-worshiping cult leader who uses black magic to kill casual acquaintances.
Elizabeth Hurley as Satan in the 2000 remake of Bedazzled. She's out for Elliot's soul, but she generally acts friendly and sympathetic to him most of the time. Even after he nullifies their contract and saves himself, she stays polite and cordial before seeing him off. Actually a subversion, since the end of the film reveals that she's not evil at all.
John, one of the main antagonists in Drunken Master 2, is some form of this. He's very cheerful for almost the entire film, except when being brow-beaten by the British Ambassador he's working for, and when Fei-Hong is beating the crap out of him at the end of the film. He even gives a cheery thumbs-up and a big grin after kicking Fei-Hong onto burning coals.
Mr. Bentley (played by Patrick Stewart), the villain of Masterminds, is charming, polite, levelheaded, and witty. He also equips his men with Instant Sedation dart guns during the initial takeover of the school and orders them not to injure anyone while repelling the cops' attempts to retake it (although it's really only through the magic of Hollywood ballistics that no one is killed).
Professor Henry Jarrod, as played by Vincent Price in the 1953 remake of "House of Wax", is a genuinely kind person. The Professor is constantly polite, he never mistreats his deaf/mute assistant (actually named Igor), compliments the ladies for their beauty, and goes to great lengths to save them from pain and horror while he transforms them into detailed wax figures.
Debatable example, as he isn't evil so much as completely out of his mind.
How can you not fall in love with Slim Pickens' character Taggart in Blazing Saddles? He's literally an evil racist who goes along with every evil scheme devised by the film's Big Bad, but there's something about Slim Pickens' accent that causes him to steal the show every scene he's in. He even gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome towards the end with this classic line:
Taggart: PISS ON YOU! I'M WORKING FOR MEL BROOKS!
Literature
Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather. Along with the politeness and generosity that carried over to his film incarnation, it's also established that he really does prefer to negotiate, spending literally hours trying to resolve disagreements between other crime lords without reacting to any insults or jokes made at his expense. Plus, he's shown to be utterly revolted when he discovers that the film studio executive Jack Woltz spends his afternoons molesting young girls - to the point that it became one of the reasons for the decapitation of Woltz's horse, Khartoum.
Of course, the classic here is "Long" John Silver of Treasure Island. Heck, even the writer ends up liking this guy too much for his own good.
Silver does have genuine redeeming features, though. He is a lot brighter than his fellow pirates, wise enough to plan for his old age instead of spending the loot the minute he gets it as most of them do, and is visibly courageous when faced with impending death. He has a sense of honour, too: when he suspects Abraham Gray, the pirate who repented and rejoined the Squire's party, of telling tales, Captain Smollett's angry denial that Gray told or was asked anything is enough for Silver to consider the matter settled on the spot. Too bad that Silver is a liar, conniver, and murderer, of course.
Count Fosco, the polite, jocular, podgy, and harmless-looking arch-villain from Wilkie Collins' Victorian sensation novel, The Woman in White, is an early example of this trope, and makes it Older Than Radio.
Aornis Hades, villain of the second Thursday Next book, Lost in a Good Book, meets Thursday a few times and sees no reason why her plans to destroy Thursday's mind and everything she holds dear doesn't mean they can't be friends.
A literary example which is likely behind the character of Hannibal Lecter, is that of Humbert Humbert, the handsome and erudite pedophile and narrator of Lolita.
A classic literary example is Tom Ripley, who, while a Magnificent Bastard and Heroic Sociopath (in one book he tricks someone who snubbed him at a party into thinking he was terminally ill and manipulates him into committing assassinations for a mobster), is generally a friendly and cultured guy liked by most who meet him.
To those he deems worthy, Judge Holden of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is very polite, frequently engaging in thought-provoking philosophical discussion and, quite often, saving their lives in the midst of warfare through downright MacGyverish inventiveness. If he deems them worthless or should any stand in his way, however, he will mercilessly crush them. This ranges from the leaving one of his incapacitated companions behind to be slaughtered by pursuing enemies to scalping innocent Mexican civilians in the hopes of passing off their scalps as Indian. He also more than likely committed several acts of infanticide, and also possibly child molestation.
Gwendolyn Ingolffsen, the eponymous villainess of S. M. Stirling's Drakon, is quite nice and friendly for a member of a genetically-engineered master race who is attempting to reduce the whole human race of the parallel Earth she find herself stranded on to eternal slavery and degradation. She, of course, sees it as merely a necessary "taming" of "ferals". There are hints in the story (and others in the series) that she's actually quite mellow for a member of her species. In fact, pretty much all Draka are like this. As long as you accept that they're superior to you in every way and do what you're ordered to do, they'll treat you like a favourite pet. Cross them, though, and you'll end up with a four foot spike up you, as they point out to you how it didn't have to be like this, if only you'd obeyed without question. The ones who aren't like this end up in the Security Directorate. They'll stake a few of you at random just to show what you can expect.
Lord Bloodford, the Designated Villain of Kingdom Rattus. He's extremely violent, half-crazy, and has a complete monster for a king, but still tries to hold himself to a higher standard. He actively disapproves of King Marrow's actions and plans for Marrow-Vinjia, but goes along because he feels he has no choice.
General Zaroff of The Most Dangerous Game forces protagonist Rainsford to participate in a hunting trip in which Rainsford is the prey after wining and dining him, giving him a night's stay in his lavish island mansion, and complimenting him on his book.
Dexter can be quite kind and considerate, devoting much time to gaining his girlfriend's children's trust and doing his best to keep his sister and coworkers at least not displeased with him. This, of course, sometimes puts a dent in his recreational activities, although his protective response to children can lead to his selection of "quality time" targets.
Grand Admiral Thrawn is almost terrifying because of this combined with his tactical genius. He's such an Affably Evil Magnificent Bastard that he reached the second-highest formal rank in the xenophobic Imperial Fleet despite being visibly alien. His troops revere him, and his enemies respect him. A single line in the novel Dark Force Rising, when a pregnant Leia despairs that he's going to succeed in his attempts to kidnap her, is what really makes his charming demeanor creepy.
"... who would smile, and speak politely, and take her children away." [emphasis added]
Thrawn's Watson and protégé, Captain Pellaeon, starts out this way before the Hand of Thrawn Duology, where he's a protagonist in his own right and really can't be called evil despite being the head of Imperial forces.
Professor Moriarty, archnemesis of Sherlock Holmes. Yes, he was the mastermind behind virtually every criminal activity in the whole of London. But he also behaved in a relatively curious fashion in "The Final Problem", when he and Holmes faced off. He was tracking Holmes and Watson up the mountain in Switzerland and could have attacked at any time; instead, he sent a fake messenger to lure Watson away from the place, as he had no intention of killing the doctor. He also, when he finally did confront Holmes, was polite enough to give him the time to write a farewell message for Watson to find when he came back. Upon learning that Holmes was on the verge of putting him away, his first response was to go to Holmes' lodgings and politely ask the detective to withdraw, as it'd be quite a shame to have to kill him to preserve his empire. This is continued in Moriarty's second appearance in the (much underrated) novel "The Valley of Fear", where an Inspector who meets him describes him as "a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man", and states that "When he put his hand on my shoulder as we were parting, it was like a father's blessing before you go out into the cold, cruel world." Holmes couldn't help but chuckle at the irony.
The master healer Qyburn looks like "some child's favourite grandfather" and seems to be a genial and competent man in an otherwise psychotic band of mercenaries. It's later revealed that he is a Mad Doctor who was expelled from the ranks of the Citadel for performing vivisections on humans. In spite of his atrocities and work as a Torture Technician, he always seems to maintain a demure and professional demeanor.
How has no one mentioned Aro from Twilight? The man is nothing but friendly and charming to Edward, Bella, and Alice, even going so far as to ask after Edward's father. But yet, he's a power-hungry maniac who attacks the Cullens unprovoked because he wants the talented members of the family to join his coven.
Also, James. He wanted nothing more than to eat Bella but yet he was completely kind to her all throughout the torture session and always had a smile on his face.
The White Court is labeled as the most dangerous of the three vampire courts because many of them act like this. The rest are Faux Affably Evil, but are still quite skilled at being friendly and nonthreatening up until they rape you to death or kill you through sheer terror. In particular, Lara Raith is shown to be a genuinely civil and affable woman who tries to limit bloodshed and talk out her issues with others, before resorting to cat's paws to kill her competition in inordinately elegant manners. In Turn Coat, Lara hangs a great big lampshade on this. "A monster. A habitually neat, polite, civil, and efficient monster" as she's feeding wounded employees to her kin. One of the creepiest scenes in the whole series.
And Marcone. He's a mob boss, responsible for much of the drug and sex trade in Chicago, along with various murders and the like, but he does have a highly developed sense of honor, and has helped pull Harry's ass out of the fire more than once. The heroes reluctantly admit that a united Chicago criminal underworld in Marcone's control tends to be less dangerous for bystanders (thanks to the Mob Bosses' Freudian Excuse) and sex workers. They still think he's scum, but know well there's worse humans out there.
He's the devil we know.
Also, Aurora, the Summer Lady: kind, caring, friendly, and helpful to a rather angry Harry Dresden, right until she goes batshit insane.
Played with: later books suggest that she'd been purposefully driven crazy by the Black Council, seeing as Mab is becoming (even more) aggressively unstable lately.
Devi from The Name of the Wind is a polite, pleasant wizardess with an interest in literature. She is also a loan shark who collects the blood of her clients in order to perform unpleasant sympathy magic on them if they are delinquent in their payments.
Max Batu is a jolly, almost monk-like figure; he is polite, genuinely friendly, and the last person in the world to be suspected of murder. However, Max earns a living as a psychic assassin with the power of the Evil Eye, putting his victims through the most agonising pain of their lives before their deaths. On no account call the man a liar.
Faethor Ferenczy shows particular Affably Evil traits: despite spending most of his existence as an Evil Overlord and Psycho for Hire, slaughtering and raping countless thousands of people, out of all the vampires in the Necroscope series, he appears to be the only one that could be remotely described as charismatic, in both life and death. Most notably, however, Faethor accepts his death and the sentence of eternal isolation from the rest of the dead where other vampires chose to bemoan their fate for the rest of existence.
Clemael, the (self-employed) Angel of Mercy and protagonist of Hand of Mercy, is unrepentantly Fallen. But that doesn't stop him from being polite, concerned, and surprisingly tolerant of Helen's quirks, for most of the book.
From Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy: the main villainess, Melisande Shahrizai, is evil through and through, but she is always smiling, calm, and collected. Not even engaging in Maniacal Laughter when it might be appropriate. She's intelligent, charming, very pleasant company, and will even give you a fabulous farewell party before killing you off.
Lucius Malfoy from the same series is a partial example. His tone is almost always even and coolly polite, but his words tend to range from mildly to extremely insulting to whoever he's talking to.
Warrior Cats has Sol, who, although a bit self-centred, is seen as nice and polite by most cats who meet him...Until he starts playing mind games and manipulating them for fun.
Abraham Quest in Stephen Hunt's The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, so much so that for much of the book you're not sure if he's good or bad until he decides to destroy every sentient being on the planet who isn't a follower of his.
You couldn't find a better example than the Angel, Islington, from Neverwhere, if you tried.
George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice. He is described as quite charming and "amiable", which causes both Elizabeth and Lydia to fall for him. It is only when Elizabeth finds out the truth from Darcy, that Wickham tried to seduce and then elope with his sister Georgiana in order to get access to Darcy's fortune without having to do a day's work, that his true character comes out. And then, Wickham runs off with Lydia, nearly ruining the Bennet family until Darcy pays him to marry her.
The insanely smart, educated, and incredibly cultured radio deejay, Jean-Loup Verdier, in I kill, with his highpowered knowledge of music, a voice that melts your socks, and a personality to woo women AND men. Switch off air and he's still cultured, highly intelligent, and oh so grammatically polite, but he kills and skins the faces off people to make his dead brother beautiful again. Still very polite, though.
In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Rogues in the House", Nabonidus courteously draws Murillo aside, to give him the box with the ear in it.
In Lord Dunsany's The Charwoman's Shadow, the Evil Sorcerer is perfectly polite to the hero, even if he omits that, by asking for his shadow, he is effectively asking for his soul. He's even polite when describing how great magicians have high honor in Hell.
Yefim, the Mordovian gang enforcer in the Dennis Lehane novel Moonlight Mile, is quite friendly and jovial. Even when he's threatening Patrick Kenzie's wife and daughter.
Jarlaxle, of R.A. Salvatore's novels. He won't hesitate to kill innocents, works for the highest bidder, doesn't seem to be inclined to turn down any sort of job, uses slave labour consisting of "lesser races", and once had a guy's face set on fire as a method of coercion. He manipulated events to start a war over the port of Luskan. After the fighting was over, with tons of citizens dead and the city partially destroyed, he made sure that food was scarce by preventing the flow of supplies into the city, and starved the people of Luskan until they were ready to rebel against the new establishment and install Jarlaxle's associate as the new ruler. But he's almost always in a good mood (even when his life is in danger), is a clever Deadpan Snarker on those occasions when the situation doesn't visibly amuse him, has joined forces with Drizzt and his friends on more than one occasion, and and has saved Drizzt's life seemingly out of the goodness of his heart at least twice. Search this wiki for CMOAs and CMOFs associated with Jarlaxle. There are quite a few, because a lot of fans consider Jarlaxle both awesome and funny.
In other words, he's a mercenary-minded adventurer, but of the "sneaky bastard" type, rather than the "Blood Knight" type. Also, Luskan wasn't an innocent halflings' glade. It's (among other things) a major pirate nest with Arcane Brotherhood and Kraken Society jostling behind the High Captains' "throne". These behaved halfway decently only due to being bullied by Waterdhavian "superior firepower".
Cory Doctorow's For The Win contains a tale of a sweatshop manager who would take the poor workers out to theatres, buy them stuff, be their bestest friend - but always find some (seemingly sincere) excuse to avoid paying their wages. One day, he vanished with all the takings, never having paid a single rupee.
Captain Shannon from The First Casualty is the personification of what the corruption war can do to the human soul. He is convicted that his merits in combat and the horrors he experienced first-hand pardon him for every atrocity he commits, like raping indiscriminately or murdering a Warrior Poet who got disillusioned with the war and was about to come out with it. He maintains a nonchalant and amicable demeanour most of the time, and apparently is sincerely devoted to the cause of victory and is concerned with the morals of his comrades in arms, at that.
O'Brien from Nineteen Eighty-Four. Rather disconcerting, given how he manages to do this while torturing Winston.
Mule from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series is a more suitable target for pity than anger: he's ugly, sterile, and physically weak, but is amiable enough to befriend the protagonists. Too bad he's a psychic bent on conquering the Galaxy.
The Malazan Book of the Fallen has Bauchelain, who can calmly explain to the woman he's just raped why he should not have raped his manservant instead.
Crell Moset from the Star Trek Novel Verse, though in his case, it's a crippling need to be liked. He genuinely wants the subjects of his invasive medical experiments to appreciate him. He's not really cruel in the usual sense, he's just totally lacking in empathy, and believes his science takes priority. Not only does he take steps to try and make his victims feel at ease - including singing pleasant songs - but the closest he gets to threatening is childish pique when people won't let him perform his experiments. In the Star Trek: Voyager Relaunch, as part of a Continuity Nod to Star Trek: The Battle of Betazed, he seems to genuinely think that the Betazoids were selfish in the extreme for taking back their planet and disrupting his earlier work there.
The Overlord of the Redeemers in Star Trek: New Frontier. His entirely self-serving moral code allows him to justify anything he wishes, as it's all "the Will of Xant", to which he, humble as he is, is a mere servant. Affably Evil definitely applies, as, true to his self-image, he's pleasant, soft spoken, and comes across as entirely reasonable in his conversations with others. He's quite friendly, really, for a genocidal warlord.
Huffer is happy and friendly, and willing to cut deals with the enemy to solve things non-violently if he feels he can get something out of it.
Swoop just genuinely wants to be everyone's friend and hug and love everybody, and apologizes profusely whenever his orders involve nasty things like holding people hostage.
Ratchet is a cheerful Mad Doctor who loves to make strange modifications to people, because he thinks the modifications make them interesting and genuinely can't understand why nobody ever likes or wants his changes.
Belvedere Delaney from Bernard Cornwell's Starbuck Chronicles is a cultured and charming spy for the Northern States against the Confederacy (explicitly not because he thinks they're right, but because he believes they'll win). He is probably (in story) responsible for more deaths than anyone else (he caused the Battle of Antietam). He also caused the capture and torture of the protagonist on spying charges (he was innocent and was eventually released), and caused the abduction (and forced abortion) of Starbuck's love interest, although they are both unaware of his role and regard him as a friend.
The old Count Magpyr in Carpe Jugulum has excellent manners, keeps vampire-slaying props around his creepy old castle to give his prey a sporting chance, and holds no grudges over the actions of past vampire hunters - even the ones who did succeed in staking or decapitating him.
In Death: the murderer in Portrait In Death is this. He truly believes that he is doing mankind a great service by killing young innocent people. In fact, he truly seems like a Nice Guy, if you ignore the murdering part.
Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: Henry "Hank" Jellicoe most certainly has elements of this, complete with the reveal that he had reporter Virgil Anders beaten up to the point of being wheelchair-bound and put in a Gilded Cage for calling him a "monster" in a book he was writing about Jellicoe title "Man, Myth, Monster" in Déjà Vu. Although the fact that he talked to Anders like they were best friends for a few minutes after putting him in the cage would indicate that Jellicoe is actually Faux Affably Evil.
Caine is a perfectly pleasant, polite person, until you imply that he doesn't deserve to rule the world.
Mayor Richard Wilkins III, who provides the page image. Harry Groener who portrayed him claims to have based him in part on Ted Bundy: charming, able to talk you into anything, will kill you without blinking. Wilkins is friendly, mannerly, and is implied to be an upstanding, hard-working and honest politician. He also provides well-meant (and, frankly, accurate) relationship advice to Buffy and Angel, inspired by his own marriage a century ago where she aged and died while he was immortal, and the exchange makes it obvious he did love her. He also genuinely cared for Faith, and while he was The Corrupter to her, Faith was already corrupted by the time she sided with him. By contrast she has fond memories of him into the rest of the series, seeing him as the only friend she's had who didn't try to manipulate or use her.
D'Hoffryn, master of the vengeance demons, seems to be a pretty nice guy, making conversation with Willow, showing up to Anya and Xander's wedding, etc. He got really nasty in his final appearance, though.
Sweet, the demon from the musical "Once More, with Feeling". He never even engages in physical violence. On the other hand, he can cause people to catch on fire, bring whole cities to ruin, tries to marry 15-year-old Dawn — and still has time to get a soft shoe in.
Halfrek, an evil vengeance demon, who is best friends with Anya and truly cares about her. She was the only person to notice how screwed up Dawn was in season 6, and her raison d'être was enacting vengeance for mistreated children. It's honestly very sad when D'Hoffryn murders her.
Anya. She's cheerful and quirky and bubbly, while reminiscing about the days when she had vengeance demon powers and flayed men alive.
Mr. Trick. Always smooth and cool, even when he's about to chomp on a hapless fast food employee (that he'd cheerfully conversed with just a few seconds before).
Holland Manners in Angel: charming, charismatic, and fatherly, particularly towards Lindsey McDonald.
Sahjhan. He's rarely without a one-liner, and even chats up Connor, seemingly without malice, whom Sahjhan knows is destined to kill him in the fight that's about to start.
In a stunning Face Heel Turn, the demon, Skip. Known previously for his gregarious nature, when Angel asks whether the character's a patsy or in on the latest evil goings-on, he smiles, shrugs, and says he's no patsy just before laying in to Angel. This, in turn, foreshadows the next Face Heel Turn... Cordellia.
Angel: So, I'm thinking either you've been played for a dupe like the rest of us... or you've been in on this from the start, Skippy.
Skip: Angel, buddy, whatever's going on, I'm telling you true... [dagger shoots out of arm]Not a dupe.
Scorpius embodies this trope a good majority of the time he's on screen — particularly in keeping his minions rewarded and loyal. Even whilst performing horrific acts, his cool, personable demeanour remains...until you push him too far.
Another good example to be found in Farscape is Kaarvok, a one-off villain appearing in "Eat Me". Despite being a cannibalistic and badly-decomposed Mad Scientist with a penchant for cloning his prey to prolong his food supply, Kaarvok was eloquent, well-mannered, and almost charming if you could ignore the fact that his reedy English accent was emerging from one of the purest and most evil examples of Accidental Nightmare Fuel on television.
Even though they never forgot the purpose of their experiment, The Mads (and later Pearl) on MST3K oftentimes have a strangely chummy relationship with Joel & Mike. In the Time Chasers episode, Pearl and Mike even hang out on her spacegoing Volkswagon van, enjoying a cuppa while chatting like neighbors on a front porch. "So, Pearl: why are you so evil?" "Hmm...I'm filled with hate, I don't know if that helps."
Satan himself in Reaper appears affable, caring, and fatherly to Sam, his newest reaper, although his generosity is quite limited, and he quickly withdraws when Sam rebels. Despite his paternal attitude, he's no pushover.
Lionel and Lex Luthor in Smallville's early seasons. Later seasons have Lex distrustful and paranoid, delving him into traditional villain territory. Lionel becomes a vessel for Jor-El and mentor to Clark, but is no less a Magnificent Bastard.
Linderman is Affably Evil combined with Well-Intentioned Extremist. Particularly in his initial appearance, where he reveals that he likes cooking, as it relaxes him. When Nathan draws a gun on him, he says firmly, "Now you can't have any of my pot pie." In one season 3 episode, he is shown to deeply care about Angela, hating the mental abuse that Arthur has put on her all throughout their marriage. It's hard to believe that a guy who almost cried when trying to convince her to let him restore her memory would be the same guy who tried to blow up New York City and get Nathan into the White House to further his global ambitions.
Siegfried from Get Smart. In one episode, he even joins forces with the heroes (at least, until the very end). Not so, however, in the 2008 remake film, in which he is stylish but not exactly friendly.
The Master, especially as portrayed by Roger Delgado. His later incarnations were a little less affable and a little more psychotic.
He wants the Doctor dead, but that doesn't mean he can't be friendly towards him. The Claws of Axos and The Sea Devils show this. Later incarnations don't even seem to want to kill him.
An even better example would be the Meddling Monk, another renegade Time Lord. A charming fellow who just wanted to "improve" history here and there...by blasting the Vikings with a thermonuclear bazooka, allowing Harold's forces to pwn the Normans at Hastings!!
Count Grendel of Gracht in "The Androids of Tara". Oh so polite, even as he outlines how he means to kill the Doctor and use Romana to get to the throne and then kill her.
Li H'sen Chang in "The Talons of Weng-Chiang". A superb illusionist, and a very charming fellow. He also hypnotizes young women and leads them to his fifty-first century war criminal master, who basically cannibalizes them.
Tilda and Tabby from "Paradise Towers", who are courteous and welcoming to passers-by, until they break out a knife to butcher the guest and cook them. It's a creepy affability, however.
Tobias Vaughn from "The Invasion". Very courteous, even to trespassers, as long as one is not hindering his plans. But when he gets upset...
Well IntentionedMagnificent BastardSir Charles Grover from "Invasion of the Dinosaurs". So courteous to everyone he meets, all the while planning to Ret Gone the Silurians and nearly all the human race in the name of Gaia.
Monarch from "Four to Doomsday", who carries a pleasant and civilized demeanor (which unfortunately wins over Adric for most of the last two episodes) despite looking like a giant crusty frog, and also wants to destroy everyone on Earth for its silicone so he and his android army can travel back in time and meet himself "creating the universe".
Yvonne Hartman, head of Torchwood's now-ruined London branch, is such a thoroughly pleasant Benevolent Boss, it's easy to forget she's in charge of a xenophobic scavengers with imperialistic ambitions.
The Slitheen, for the most part. They're only doing their business, after all, even if said business does involve destroying entire planets. Besides, hunting and killing are a trait of their species. They can't really help that. And they're pretty polite until you upset them.
The original Cybermen from The Tenth Planet. You see, their planet was dying, and they needed Earth to save it. It would destroy Earth instead, but that's no problem, we'll convert you all to Cybermen and you can come to Mondas. You'll have better technology, no disease, no fear or despair, and your lifespan will be dramatically increased! It's reasonable to say they weren't even evil. At worst, they treated the humans like children who didn't want to get their vaccinations. They honestly did not understand why anyone would reject their gift.
The new series Cybermen are less so, being far more Borg-like. "You will be upgraded" and "upgrading is compulsory" are pretty much the new "You will be assimilated" and "Resistance Is Futile". Ironic, as the Borg were often accused of being based on the Cybermen. However, what hasn't changed is that they still believe they're improving people, genuinely pitying the poor, emotional humans, and working to "free" them of that unenviable state.
Bilis Manger, the antagonist in the last two episodes of the first series of Torchwood. OK, he's a being of unknown origins who apparently has supernatural powers and is working to resurrect an ancient demon that feeds on the life force of all those who fall under its shadow. But he's a really nice old guy. And so classy.
The famous Khan Noonien Singh. It is often pointed out that once you strip away his limitless need to rule the universe, he's really a mirror image of Captain Kirk: polite, charming, a bit of a swaggering rogue. Of course, then came the weird ear parasites, and the charm mostly vanished...
The Cardassians tend to act this way when not obviously evil. This is especially true of Elim Garak and Gul Dukat. The former has pleasant chats with Bashir during which he often chastises the doctor for trusting him and praises him when he doesn't. Garak isn't so much evil as a pragmatic "former" spy with few, if any, scruples. Gul Dukat, on the other hand, is a charming fellow who has many Pet the Dog moments, at times seeming like a Nazi with a heart of gold; however, his acts of villainy are malevolent and supervillainy. His heart may well be gold: cold and metallic. Then, there is the example of Picard's torturer, Gul Madred, who has some father-daughter time at the office and only really gets angry when the human proves so darn uncooperative. It would seem that Cardassian society does not condemn many acts we (and the Federation) might consider morally reprehensible, but also has many virtues we would find admirable—concern for children and the family foremost among them. Affably Evil almost seems to be the Cardassian hat.
Weyoun, also from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the others of his species (the Vorta), who are the Founders' "carrot" race (with the Jem'Hadar as the "stick"). But Weyoun is the finest of them, genetically engineered to be efficient, evil, and oh so polite. Also, useful for a diplomat, immunity to most poisons.
Although he is specifically designed to be polite and persuasive, most characters (especially some of the Cardassians, who are supposedly on the same side) find him intensely irritating.
Nucky Thompson, the Treasury Secretary of Atlantic City and Villain Protagonist from Boardwalk Empire, is polite, funny, snarky, intelligent, and very progressive for his time (the 1920s). He's also such a corrupt politician that he supplies enough illegal liquor to incapacitate a bull elephant, and, while he usually seeks to avoid such confrontations, has no problem with killing those who cross him.
Gus from Breaking Bad plays this almost to a fault. Not only are the employees at his chicken restaurant punctual and polite, but the people who run his massive underground drug empire are too. He even apologizes to a fellow kingpin when his hideout is not wheelchair accessible. Whether this is a stone cold facade or simply the way he prefers things has not yet to been clarified. It works slightly to his disadvantage, however, when Walt is easily able to identify the all-too-humble fast-food manager as his "mysterious" contact.
Ben Linus from Lost is affable and polite even when informing you exactly how terrible he's just made your life, and has only occasionally let out his scary side. Even when he does act scary, he usually waits a beat or two and returns to his affable demeanor with a small exhale or chuckle, which is much, much more frightening than if he were malevolent all the time. When he doesn't go back to being nice? Someone dies. Just call him Ben "I've Prepared You a Nice Breakfast Because the Next Few Weeks Will Be Very Unpleasant" Linus. This exchange from third season between Ben and Jack really says it all:
Ben: I'd like you to take a walk with me. Jack: You say that like you're not going to knock me out and put a bag over my head if I say no. Ben: Then don't say no.
Todd the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis is surprisingly charming and personable for a life-sucking monster (and has a sense of humor — he even makes some jokes that aren't morbid), especially since every other member of his Always Chaotic Evil species seems to lean heavily towards the Large Ham school of Stupid Evil. He shows signs of being a budding Magnificent Bastard, and is honest enough not to pretend to be anything other than a human-eating monster, and is quite frank with the heroes in pointing out that, no matter how many times they cooperate out of necessity, their fundamental nature will inevitably make them enemies at some point (though the Atlantis expedition has begun to take steps to remedy this). Todd can even be said to be trustworthy, as he honors a deal with Sheppard even though Sheppard is completely at his mercy.
Baal, despite being rather sexist and genuinely malevolent, is at least fairly reasonable and relatively subtle compared to the rest of his megalomaniacal, Always Chaotic Evil, Large Ham species. This was especially the case in the last few seasons, after he spent some time living as a human after losing his empire, and started to adopt Earth behavior and mannerisms (including talking like a normal person instead of in standard Goa'uld scary echo speak). In Stargate: Continuum, Ba'al goes so far as to take over the galaxy using a fake "We Come in Peace" slogan instead of the typical "Kneel before Zod (or die)" approach. He even calls the U.S. President using a satellite phone, and invites him to lunch.
Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell of Prison Break. Capable of being charming, urbane, soft-spoken, and erudite, he's a sexual predator, a cold-hearted killer, and all around "raw animal".
Played for laughs in The Goodies, an episode of which features Dr. Wolfgang von Petal, a Mad Scientist who just wants to be liked. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have a bit of a skewed idea of how to actually go about getting people to like him:
"All I've ever done is tried to help people! I helped the Russians with their nerve gas, I helped the Americans with their H-Bomb, I helped the British with their anthrax — I even helped the Nazis! Now how generous can you get?"
Prince of Fire (later "Isambard Prince") from Lexx could be best described as an Affably Evil, Card-Carrying Villain. Introduced as the de-facto ruler of the inhospitable desert planet Fire, he seems incredibly pleasant and unceasingly polite. He will unhesitatingly order the brutal deaths of his enemies and cheerily tell the protagonists that he's an evil and untrustworthy monster...right before offering them ''exactly'' what they want. And did we mention it's all but stated that he's Satan himself?
Ari Haswari of NCIS. He's always calm and polite, even when pointing a gun; he's charming and persuasive enough to convince several groups of his loyalty, which is truly only to his own agenda.
Guess who turns out to be the Big Bad? Yeah, that's right, the ever-affable and fatherly Boyd Langton, who had seemed so much more moral than everyone else on the show since his transgressions against all that is decent and right in the world had merely been implied. It turns out he's really one of the two founders of the RossumCorporation.
There's also Bennett. She's a surprisingly shy and sweet girl, a complete genius, and while she's a little quirky and an oddball, she's endearing and likable, especially with her geek crush on Topher. Then she gets her hand on Caroline....
Jonas Hodges of 24. Charming, witty, charismatic, psychotic. When he suspects the chairman of the board of his company of helping the government in taking down his company, he engages him in a conversation discussing their long history together and the virtues of loyalty before savagely beating him to death with a glass pitcher. He then proceeds to dab the blood of the man he had treated like a son from his shirt with a wet napkin. That's just the most extreme example.
Abadon. Yes, a dude named Abadon is affably evil. It helps that we also see that Silas knows his weak point and convinces him to do the stabilizing, if not exactly right, thing for Gilboa even after years of imprisonment. Of course, he's played by Brian Cox. So in order to drive home that he's, y'know, evil — since he can't do much, locked up as he is — they have him remark offhandedly that when he was king and bored, he'd rape a serving girl.
Silas himself has more than a touch of this trope.
The Bernie Madoff lookalike and his wife on Law and Order are friendly and cheerful even as their assets are being seized and he's being arrested on suspicion of murder. He's innocent (of murder, anyway), and allowing himself to get caught was better than having his family killed by the South American gangsters he was cheating. The ending reveals the flip side of their affability: while the couple truly loved each other, they completely screwed their investors, childhood friends, and their own daughter out of their savings.
Oz. Sayid (before his Heel Face Turn) and Ryan O'Reilly. Ryan O'Reilly in particular, since his entire "Iago" gimmick requires him being able to charm the pants off of just about anyone to further his schemes.
General Xaviax of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, to the degree that if he'd come along earlier, this trope might've been named The Xaviax. What would you expect, though, from a guy whose entire MO is luring those capable of being Riders into a Deal with the Devil?
Dexter Morgan, the title character of Showtime's show Dexter, exemplifies the Affably Evil. His affability is his primary means of hiding his murderous outings.
He's not the only one. Many of the show's Big Bads also employ this method of keeping their second life a secret. In fact, one could argue that Dexter's rivals can be more charming than he is.
Most of the (relevant) villains in Supernatural are this:
A Christmas Episode has the main characters encounter some festive gods, who pleasantly start to sacrifice the pair, while making polite conversation about Christmas traditions, tell Dean off for his potty mouth, and generally act like a sweet old couple making dinner.
Crowley, even more so as of "The Devil You Know". And so much more so after the Man Who Would Be King.
Lucifer is portrayed as a calm, collected, soft-spoken villain who always treats the Winchesters (particularely Sam) with courtesy. The facade fades only when Dean tries to foil his plans one too many times by removing his brother Michael, prompting a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
Although it's arguable whether or not Death is actually evil. His main concern is to get out of Lucifer's control so that he can go back to doing his own thing. Even though his thing is killing people (he is Death, after all), he generally seems apathetic towards individual human lives, and even to the destruction of entire cities. Basically, he's just playing the waiting game until he reaps God.
Herrick in Being Human is friendly, funny, and actually quite polite to the protagonists. On the face of it, Mitchell could do worse than have Herrick as a boss ... or a father. He's also a complete bastard plotting to Take Over the World. Towards the end of Season 1, he takes a turn to Faux Affably Evil.
Number 2 from The Prisoner, sometimes. It depends on which one you're talking about. The one played by Leo McKern certainly is.
Also Guy Doleman, Peter Wyngarde, and Georgina Cookson. None of them are ever unpleasant to Number Six.
Bester tries to be this, and although he manages to be a character of great pathos and complexity, he's still a bit of a subversion — his efforts at affability are a creepily obvious front for a somewhat sociopathic and thoroughly broken personality.
Mr. Morden. Like Bester, he's a very broken individual, but in completely different ways. His veneer does crack when he's pushed too far, but there's only a handful of cases of that throughout the series.
Then, there's Sheridan's torturer in season 4, who was basically a middle-aged accountant who just happened to be delivering large electrical shocks and doses of agonising, vomit-inducing poison, instead of doing tax returns. Somehow, his Why Did You Make Me Hit You? attitude and philosophical digressions on the nature of truth managed to be creepier than he could ever have been as a frothing sadist.
Senator Clay Davis from The Wire is a blatantly corrupt, money-grubbing politician who will take anyone he can for as much money as he can. He's also friendly, charismatic, and cheerfully open about what he is.
"I'll take any motherfucker's money if he givin' it away!"
Brother.Fucking.Mouzone. You know, the man with the thick glasses, the dorky bowtie, the exceedingly polite speech, a love of Harpers magazine, and who has no problem shooting hoppers with hollow-point bullets or gunning down Stringer Fucking Bell!
Larry, a recurring character (yes, Dead Larry), is a consistently polite and cheerful man. He seems to truly care about his friends, tries to be a positive influence on the people around him, and will never do anything harmful to anyone without a good reason. He's also a remorseless sociopath, so "good reason" for Larry means "it would be marginally more convenient for me if you were dead". In his latest reappearance, Michael and Sam walk into Michael's house and are greeted warmly by Larry, who is very apologetic about the still-bleeding corpse on the floor, and makes himself as helpful as he can in dealing with the cartel that wants Michael dead. Well, actually, they want Larry dead, but he was using Michael's stolen identity at the time.
Sam: That guy sucks.
A real life example was heavily hinted at in Long Way Round, when Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman are put up for the night by a very friendly Russian "businessman" who always seemed to have a bunch of very large friends hanging around, and an unsettling number of assault weapons in his compound.
Jonathan in Bored To Death has a friendly conversation with a man holding a hostage. They end up smoking pot together before the cops break in.
Finster from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers is more of a friendly old guy than an out-and-out villain. It seems that he does what he does more out affection for Rita than any real desire to do evil deeds. In fact, while Lord Zedd is in charge (prior to marrying Rita), Finster doesn't create any monsters at all.
Lothor from Power Rangers Ninja Storm. Although he tends to be more comic-relief and Evil Is Dumb, he's probably the most lovable villain ever, mainly because of his character and the way his actor portrays him. The fact that he has two even more evil nieces (again, Evil Is Dumb) he has to look after only makes him even more affable.
The Tech Bandit from the episode "Common Enemies" of Fox's The Good Guys. A nice fellow that only steals so that he can support his love of traveling and food blogging.
Warehouse 13: H(elena)G. Wells. Let's begin with the fact that she started her tenure as Big Bad by pulling off a massive Batman Gambit in order to get her hand on the last existing picture of her dead daughter, and go from there.
No matter what nasty (and sometimes downright evil) deeds Neighbours' Paul Robinson has planned, he will always do them with an air of debonair class.
Johnny Johnson from NewsRadio, in a fifth-season story arc, exemplifies this trope. A rival businessman who takes over Mr. James' corporate empire (after hatching a secret plot to have the tycoon imprisoned for the infamous real-life "D.B. Cooper" skyjacking) succeeds in temporarily duping everybody at the station in to believing that his motives are good (even going so far as seducing Lisa, one of the main female characters), with the exception of Dave, the news director. When Dave calls Johnny on his evilness, he flat-out admits it, and says that he would be willing to give it up if Lisa were to marry him. Dave balks, to which Johnny replies, "I happen to have a talent for evil - doesn't mean I like it."
Jimmy James himself is not without his own misdeeds. While we never see him doing anything evil, he'll often commend his employees for engaging in duplicitous behavior (as long as it's good business practice), even when it's against him, as well as admitting (or heavily implying) to having done unethical things. The implications are that Jimmy may be a very friendly person, but he didn't get rich without all the standard business villainy.
The Cigarette Smoking Man was this sometimes. Ever so polite and conversational until you get in his bad books, and he genuinely seemed to have a liking for Mulder, among others. The Well-Manicured Man could be classified under this trope too, but a good case can be made that he was never really particularly evil in the first place, especially by the time he died.
Jubal Early of Firefly. Polite and charming, if a little bit sideways in his thinking. He's also an unrepentant sadist under the daffy exterior, both physically and psychologically.
Dr Dave from an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He's an elderly small town dentist, avuncular, well liked, very set in his routine, unfailingly kind to his patients and everyone else... and he's been torturing and murdering young women for decades.
Rafael Hendrick of Children Of The Stones, played by the very urbane Iain Cuthbertson, is polite, cultured, friendly, and brainwashes the villagers of Milbury into becoming "Happy Ones".
Gatehouse from The Shadow Line. He's always scrupulously polite, and yet commits horrific acts of violence in pursuit of his goal.
Lionel Luthor on Smallville has no interest in hurting people pointlessly. As long as you're not in his way (and aren't related to him), you're in no danger. The same can be said of Tess Mercer, who eventually took over LuthorCorp; the same can not be said for his son Lex, or his Alternate Universecounterpart, Earth-2 Lionel, who are both classic examples of Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
Moriarty in Sherlock is this, much like the original. However, Jim is friendly in a very cheerful, Camp Straight way. Which is infinitely creepier.
Nikola Teslaloves Helen Magnus unconditionally, will do absolutely anything for her, and has pretty much always come through when the titular Sanctuary needs him. This does not stop him from wanting to Take Over the World, or constantly getting himself into trouble that he then needs the Sanctuary team to help get him out of. He's also one of the good guys (mostly).
Harry Montebello from The Straits loves his daughter, is always polite to the police, and even built a special set of steps so his cute, tiny dog can more easily get up onto his bed. He also is the head of a crime syndicate who will cheerfully have you stung to death by jellyfish if you cross him.
A relative rarity in pro wrestling, as the heels (villains) usually try to make the audience as angry as possible in order to garner Cheap Heat. Even so, there are some exceptions...
One of the earliest well-known heels, Gorgeous George, defied the JerkassHeel stereotype even as it was being formed. He seemed to genuinely want to be accepted by the fans, and would even toss commemorative bobby pins to them as souvenirs.
Nurgle, the Chaos god of disease, decay, despair, and destruction in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 settings is a jovial, avuncular figure who lavishes attention on his "children" and sees himself as a creative force in the universe. He is often referred to as Grandfather Nurgle, or even Papa Nurgle. The same can be said for his mortal followers. In the fluff, you'll almost always see them joking or having a good time. At one point, after a POW gave up and agreed to worship Nurgle, his jailer just smiled and hugged him.
The bread and butter of both[1] incarnations of the Tabletop Game/World of Darkness.
This is especially common in the Vampire The Requiem series. Since vampires are evil within the context of mundane human in-game morality, they do what they can to prevent themselves from appearing evil. The Ventrue and the Daeva clans, particularly, thrive on this trope, even going so far as to have an active rivalry between each other as to which style of manipulation (Honey vs. Vinegar) is superior. Unlike their Masquerade counterparts, the Nosferatu of Requiem can also handily play within this trope, and can even outdo their classier and prettier opponents.
Then there's the Tzimisce clan from Vampire The Masquerade, a race of complete monsters, even by vampire standards, who are generally affable towards guests in their domain. This is due to their ancient hospitality rites, which transcend even their desire to turn everything fleshy into living, tortured abominations. A perfect example is Andrei, a Fiend from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, who openly, calmly, and truthfully converses with the Player (unless they're Tremere) when they first meet in his mansion decorated by human flesh...
In the Mekhet clanbook, Frances is funny, sweet, apologetic, and into indie music. She also brainwashes a house full of female students so she can feed on them, turns her boyfriend into her devoted ghoul ("I think I've broken him"), and toys with a female executive before killing her in the most humiliating way possible.
Forgotten Realms has Sshamath — technically, it's an evil drow magocracy, and they didn't disown Lolth, having only thrown off the theocracy. But for the sake of trade, it was made as pleasant as a drow city could be. This includes restrictions on slavery and having one of the best taverns catering to any sentient being (with special floors for freshwater, saltwater, and flame-dwelling clients).
Pathfinder: Laori Vaus. Dear Zon-Kuthon, Laori Vaus. She's a friendly, upbeat allied NPC cleric in the Curse of the Crimson Throne module, who happens to be a devout follower of the god of darkness, pain, and loss (and not in a Dark is Not Evil way, either). She's one of the more popularPathfinder NPCs.
Some of the Krynnish evil deities can be very friendly when they want to be. Sargonnas really does care about his followers, and has standards and a sense of honor. Nuitari can get along well with Solinari and Lunitari, due to the three deities representing Evil, Good, and Neutral magic. He also can get along fairly well with mortals. Chemosh, the God of Undead, is apparently capable of caring enough for another being that he can feel genuine grief when that being is hurt. Zeboim, the Goddess of Storms, really does care for her son. In terms of mortals, the Black Robes frequently come across as being rather nice (Dalamar and Iolanthe) and are able to get along with their White and Red Robed fellow Wizards.
The Mikado of Japan, who isn't a bit angry that three of the main characters killed his son (or claimed to) on accident, but he's going to burn them in melted lead or boiling oil.
Wilfred Shadbolt, who is head jailer and assistant tormentor, but wants to be more affable by becoming a jester.
Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera seems to have some level of inspiration from the Pirates of Penzance in its Karma Houdini ending, and much like the quote above, a stage direction notes of Macheath's henchman at the wedding feast that rather than the stereotype of criminals as crude and covered in scars, they are all soberly dressed and look like the average person you would see on the street. They are nice chaps and make sure to bring wedding presents, although regrettably, they procured these by killing or maiming several people. Macheath himself is charming and charismatic and wins the affection of numerous women, although the Moritat ("Mack the Knife" in English) which opens the play tells of deeds such as killing an entire family in an act of arson and raping a child bride. The Karma Houdini ending comes from an 18th Century work, The Beggars' Opera, which Brecht adapted to a 20th Century setting. In the original work, the play's narrator says outright that the protagonist deserves to hang but he is being spared to placate all the sentimental fools in the audience.
Hamlet, speaking of his uncle, laments that "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain".
Abby and Martha Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace are the kindest pair of old maid sisters one could ever meet. Better watch out, though, whenever they pour someone a glass of wine. Arguably, it's more an act of misguided charity than actual evil in their case.
The Wizard from Wicked is friendly, kind, and supportive to Elphaba, presenting himself as a kind father figure who only wants to help every citizen of Oz to fly. Unless, of course, you're one of the talking animals, in which case you are to be cowed into submission, brainwashed, and/or exterminated. Elphaba is his mirror image, nasty, insulting, and condescending to others, and flies into classic villain hissy fits (in the book, she mutilates an old woman's corpse because the woman had the audacity to die before Elphaba could kill her; in the play, she responds to her friend's death by having her minions unleash a wave of off screen terror upon Oz), but has good intentions. It's no surprise that the casual observer in Oz mistakes which one is the villain.
Video Games
Bob Page from Deus Ex and Deus Ex Human Revolution. While in reality, he is a short tempered man who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, he frequently puts on a friendly approachable face to those who do not know his true intentions. To the public at large, he is a wealthy philanthropist. To his workers, he is warm and caring, will not shy away from using smilies in his emails, and will insist on being called Bob, opposed to the more formal Mr. Page or Robert.
President John Henry Eden from Fallout 3 has a kind voice broadcast across the wasteland on Enclave radio; it will lift your spirits as you traverse the wasteland hearing about how the Enclave will come and begin to transform America back the way it was before the nukes fell (unless you played the other Fallout games). He is similarly polite and gracious when you meet him in person. What he doesn't mention is that his bold new vision requires killing off pretty much everyone.
President Richardson of Fallout 2 is very similar in character, greeting the player in a friendly manner ("I am the president of the United States, and you are...?") and then going on to explain his plan of genociding the entire continent with a virus he intends to release. He's also so gullible that you almost feel bad for him when you have to kill him to get his security card. If you pick the right conversation paths, he admits that he really doesn't like what he's going to do and derives no pleasure from it, but he's come to accept that it is ultimately the right thing to do (to him, anyway).
The player can easily become this trope if played evil while still picking the friendly speech options.
To a lesser extent, Mr. Burke, as well. A nice suit, a sweet hat, and a smooth voice makes him incredibly charming. Oh yeah, he also wants to destroy an entire town with a nuclear bomb, all because his boss made an off-hand complaint one day. Nice guy.
And Alister Tenpenny for that matter. He wasn't "cool", but he was polite and kind as hell.
The add-ons to the game have their fair share of affably evil characters too. The Pitt gave us Ashur, while Point Lookout gave us Tobar.
In Fallout: New Vegas, this includes most senior Legion members and Benny
Dr.Robotnik/Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog has his moments of this trope throughout his various depictions. This is most noticeable in Sonic X and its subsequent comic, and in the movie, where he makes a big show of holding the President and Sara hostage, but gets along with them marvelously well whenever Sonic isn't around.
In Sonic Heroes, he is described as "a romanticist, a feminist, and a self-proclaimed gentleman", but also as possessing a mania that often obscures this side of his nature.
Shelly de Killer from Justice For All appears to be a rather intelligent and likable man who just so happens to brutally murder people for a living.
Within five minutes of meeting you, Police Chief Damon Gant has probably given you an affectionate nickname, laughed uproariously at something funny you said, and extolled to you the many virtues of swimming. Oh, and he framed a child for a murder he committed so that he could use her apparent guilt to manipulate her sister, the Chief Prosecutor, essentially giving him complete control over both the police and the prosecutor's office. But other than that, he's a nice guy. In-game dialogue states that if you're short on cash, he's the man to ask to borrow from.
Investigations: Ernest Amano is a pretty friendly and conciliatory person who happens to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive whose business group is in cahoots with an international smuggling ring. He even tries to get his guilty-as-sin son acquitted for murder, but drops the idea when charged with obstruction of justice.
Calisto Yew/Shih-Na, as well. Very likable, amusing, and relatively friendly, but also a treacherous spy who took up the role as a member of the Yatagarasu, only to betray them and murder everyone involved in the end. And then, as she's being dragged away, she gives you the key to figuring out what really happened.
Rubicante is quite polite and articulate for an Archfiend. He restores the HP of the party prior to battling them, he's outraged when he learns of his Mad Scientist subordinate Dr. Lugae's cruel experiments on humans, and his first appearance has him easily defeating ninja prince, Edge, where Rubicante praises his current abilities and potential, and encourages him to train and become stronger and then return for a rematch.
Gilgamesh was an over-the-top goon whose respect for the heroes' fighting talents after they'd beaten him a few times grew into actual affection to the point that he sacrificed himself (with a strangely amusing Final Speech) to protect them from one of the Big Bad's meaner minions. He also has a devoted fanbase, probably explaining his many, many reappearances.
Seymour Guado invites the heroes to his mansion, lays out food for them before seeing them, proposes to the heroine, and is generally mild-mannered and soft-spoken when he isn't trying to kill your party members or scheming to kill everyone in the world because he thinks death is a release from the pain of a sad life. Even when preparing to engage your party members, he manages to sound affable:
"Ah, of course. "Protect the summoner even at the cost of one's life." The Code of the Guardian. How admirable. Well, if you're offering your lives, I will have to take them."
Final Fantasy XII's Vayne Solidor is cultured, polite, affable to the public, and an extremely talented speaker. One entire scene centers around him getting so fed up with a merchant refusing to drop "Lord" from his title, he invites him to dinner at the palace! Arguably, Vayne isn't so much evil (though he does have his moments) as a Machiavellian statesman, ruthless in his pursuit of personal power and glory.
The Ur-Quan Kzer-za of Star Control, while the rulers of a brutal slave empire spanning a quarter of a galaxy, are actually pretty nice guys when you talk to them. They do any of the following: fully accept surrender and mention that your crew will be treated well and taken back to Earth, acknowledge your status as a Worthy Opponent, mention that they are protecting their thralls from much, muchworsethingsin the galaxy, and entreat you to go home should you win against them, as the more of their ships you destroy, the less likely they are to win their current war with their Omnicidal Maniac kin. They also give the races willing to fight for them an absurd amount of autonomy, find a new (and very nice) homeworld for the defeated race, avoid wasting resources whenever possible, accept the wishes of the races they've beaten, and generally conduct themselves with honor whenever possible. All of these things, quite naturally, aid in their downfall. Moreover, it's an established fact that they never insult foes. And this fact can be exploited by PCs too.
The villains of the forgettable gameNight Trap, who are a nice family who donate to charity and have friends over. Of course, they eat the friends, and the charity they donate to is zombie vampires...
Tsukihime - A certain vampire victim turned vampire herself is an example. She is a nice, sweet girl, who honestly loves and cares for the main hero. She just happens to require sucking blood to live, is beginning to get a perverse enjoyment of it, and happens to sometimes get the sudden urge to go "fufufufu". She's rather pitiable, and Shiki agrees. It's Satsuki, if you hadn't guessed, and he pities her so much that he grants her the only peace he can...a quick death.
Dimentio from Super Paper Mario is a good example of this trope, always wearing a pleasant smile and showering the heroes with compliments. "Well met, lady. Your beauty is as refreshing as a slap to the face on a crisp winter's day", or "If they make greeting cards to thank people for helping with evil plans, I owe you one."
The greeting card one isn't really this. In context, it's a huge insult to injury.
Count Bleck is also a good example of this. He uses polite language and never punishes his minions physically.
King Dedede, of the Kirby games, is almost always the villain through being possessed, or a misunderstanding (on Kirby's part!). Awesome examples include Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards and Super Smash Bros Brawl. King Dedede saves a few characters' lives, and then hugs Kirby when he finds out that he's OK.
Dagoth Ur, the final boss of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. When you confront him, he politely explains why his plan to spread blight disease and create a giant magical killer robot are really in the best interests of his people. He answers every question you put to him (whether he's telling the truth or lying is up to the player). Finally, he offers you the opportunity to buff yourself up before you start to fight him. Though the last part is largely because he needs Wraithguard (the gauntlet you need to hold the weapons required to thwart him) in order to bring his plan into action.
Albert Simon, the primary villain of the first game, has the appearance of an elderly British gentleman and often acts the part when he's not brutally slaughtering anyone in his way. When beaten, he acknowledges that you're better, and heals you up. When you finally defeat him, his biggest regret is that he didn't get a chance to show you the new world he was going to create. Not in a spiteful "look upon my works ye mighty" way, mind you: he really thought he was creating a paradise, and wanted the heroes to be able to enjoy it with him.
The sequel's big bad, Kato, fits this trope, too. He considers Yuri his friend, and tells him so, even after Yuri fatally wounds him in battle.
Kane of Command and Conquer, the resident Big BadMagnificent Bastard, is a strikingly erudite, educated, and charismatic leader who seems to somewhat genuinely care for his followers. Even when confronting his hated enemies of GDI, he always shows them a little smile and offers a few words of respect, even while mercilessly taunting their powerlessness or promising to gut them like the swines they are.
The Sniper slips into this, given his credo about his line of work: "Be polite, be efficient; have a plan to kill everyone you meet." That, of course, being an old US Marines Badass Creed.
The Engineer is a much more obvious example: he's described as an "amiable, soft-spoken good ol' boy", and generally behaves as such, but, at the same time, doesn't have any concerns about killing people based on the dominant colour in their wardrobe.
The RED Spy, specifically. He is a cold-blooded killer, and hot-blooded lover. Of the BLU Scout's Mom.
You'd think that The Medic was one, but no. Healing is just a side-effect that pays the bills for his evil experiments.
The recent Meet the Medic video may have changed this. While operating on The Heavy, they share some pretty friendly banter. It's quite clear, however, that he has no problem endangering The Heavy's life with his experiments. After all, he claims that the sound of The Heavy's heart exploding is simply, "The sound of progress!"
Actually, a rational explanation for him calling it "progress" is that he was simply trying to keep the Heavy from panicking, which is probably what he would have done if the Medic had actually told him his heart had exploded, and which would also be a bad thing due to the gaping hole in his chest.
Many of the villains in Metal Gear Solid have a lot of innocent blood on their hands, but many of them are surprisingly nice people of they encounter Snake in a situation where nobody would gain anything by fighting. Sniper Wolf, Vulcan Raven, Grey Fox, Fortune, Olga, The Boss, Ocelot (in MGS and MGS3), and Big Boss murdered dozens of people and took part in large scale terrorism. But you wouldn't suspect that when you meet them at any place where they are not trying to shot you. But then, you meet people like Psycho Mantis, Vamp, and Volgin, and realize that some people just need to die.
Drakuru in World of Warcraft. Turns out, he was using you all along, which isn't a big surprise. He accomplishes his goals and is transformed by the Lich King himself. What is a surprise, however, is that he immediately asks for your forgiveness for the deception and invites you to be his right hand man, both out of gratitude and to make up for tricking you, and because the Lich King apparently has some interest in you personally. The story continues in later quests, ultimately ending in you betraying and killing him. Of course, his "gratitude" would have involved you ultimately being turned into his right-hand ghoul, the lowest rank of the Scourge, while he would be living it up as a Death Knight. It is worth noting, however, that despite being (disguised as) a ghoul, Drakuru didn't treat you as such. Ghouls are footmen at best, but you'd have been an officer, far above the cannon-fodder and privy to Drakuru's most guarded secrets. The guy really believed he was doing you a favor. Of course, it could also be that the ghoul graphics used for your character just represent generic undead-ness.
Arguably, any likable warlock falls into this category, including Player Characters.
Nexus-Prince Shaffar, the final boss in the Mana Tombs, also comes across as this. As you barge into his operation, his reaction is to say that he was not expecting company and, somewhat apologetically, that he is preoccupied, but promises to tend to you..."personally", all the while using a tone as though he's about to break out the champagne and offer you a drink.
Persona 3: Shuji Ikutsuki, hands down. He's kind, he makes silly puns, he always answers your questions and generally aids in the mission to bring down the twelve Arcana Shadows. Although it turns out that he's just been using the protagonists to bring about The Fall, in addition to being fairly clearly insane. A cutscene in FES reveals that his jovial personality was indeed genuine, showing him making up puns in complete solitude where there would be no need to maintain a pretense. Even his motives for bringing about the Fall seem more along the lines of Dark Messiah, rather than Omnicidal Maniac.
Subverted with Adachi in Persona 4. Whenever you meet him in the game, he's frequently shown to be clumsy and incompetent, but a pretty nice and reasonable guy. He even lets the protagonists go in order to pursue Namamtame. Needless to say, this is all an act. He's actually an Ax CrazyComplete Monster who committed the murders largely for the fun of it, and would be quite content to let the world succumb to the world of the shadows. He even mocks his victims when recounting his experiences with the protagonists. That said, he can be pretty damn funny in an insane, monstrous way.
GLaDOS from Portal. The computer attempts to put you at ease and encourage you, right up until the moment that it needs you to die. It even thanks you while it does it.
Wheatley from the sequel is pretty much this trope personified after his betrayal. Even when you're within 20 feet of his lair, he reveals a mashing device, and politely asks Chell if she wants to kill herself rather than have him do it. That, and how could you possibly be horribly evil when Stephen Merchant is your voice actor??
Wheatley: Think of it not as a death trap, but as a death option!
Vladamir Lem from Max Payne. Starts off as Max's ally in the first game, but by the second, he fills the role of the Big Bad. Never loses his suave demeanor or his cordial disposition: "Max! Dearest of all friends..."
Vladimir Lem:(answering machine) I'm coming to kill you, old man. You really know how to piss me off, you know...Would it have killed you to say "thank you" for once in your life? To say "Vlad, my son...can I call you my son because I sure do love you like one." "Vlad my son, you are a true prodigy. Everything you touch turns to gold." Oh...wait, it is going to kill you! I'm done doing your dirty work for you. You should be proud. I have learned all you've taught me. I'm coming to show you. ... Vladimir Lem: What the fuck is wrong with you, Max? Why don't you just die? You hate life, you're miserable all the time, afraid to enjoy yourself even a little! Face it, you might as well be dead already. Do yourself a favor, give up!
One of the most evil bastards in all of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is Mike Toreno — who, it turns out, is a fairly nice and friendly guy, who just happens to be the scariest person you'll ever meet. It helps that he has the best line of dialog in the entire game:
Torino: I wanted to see what you were made of. CJ:(Angrily) What it look like I'm made of? Pudding? Torino:(Calmly) No. Anger, and hate. That's why I like you.
And then there is CJ himself, who will have no problem shooting or running over unarmed civilians, assassinate people who never did a bad thing to him and generally steal, maim and kill. However, most of it is because he is given no other alternative in order to keep his family—blood and otherwise—from being harmed and is genuinely nice and polite (outside of whatever the player makes him do) to the people around him. Compare this to Tommy who alienates and belittles his inner circle and Claude who repays the women who save his life by killing the brother of one and then shooting and killing the other for talking too much.
Kirei Kotomine of Fate Stay Night is a perfectly polite fellow who never lies to you or avoids answering questions. He lets his enemies come right up to his base of operations and helps you out in the third scenario, where it's revealed that he tried very hard his entire life to be a decent person. Unfortunately, he failed, so now he wants to destroy the world mostly For the Evulz.
Chaos Lord Eliphas the Inheritor from the Dawn of War series is a very suave, witty, and charismatic villain. Widely considered one of the most popular characters in the series.
In the new Retribution expansion pack, the Great Unclean One is decidedly gregarious, laughing and chortling...as he infects anything he touches and cleaves everything in two with his giant, blunt, filth-encrusted blade. But he loves you! And he just wants you to feel Nurgle's love!
Jeremy from Fatal Hearts is polite, charming, studious, a diligent worker in both his mundane job and his more esoteric activities, interested in the environment and the welfare of others, and an all-around gentleman. Unless he thinks you're too stupid to live. In which case, he kills you.
Dr. Killjoy. He's modeled after Vincent Price, so he's naturally the most charismatic individual in the two games; in fact, he's so urbane you might just forget that he's a mass-murdering Mad Doctor with a fetish for film projectors and blood. Plus, being a psychiatrist, he genuinely wants to help cure the main character- it's just that his methods are just a tad...unorthodox.
Blackmore was a particularly affable character in his own right: in all of his dealings with Torque, he treats him like a somewhat misguided little brother - appropriate, considering that Blackmore is a Split Personality of Torque - and continually tries to convince him to join his gang rather than kill him. And then, there was the way he called Torque "my little one".
Edgar Barrett from Psi Ops The Mindgate Conspiracy was Nick Scryer's mentor and best friend before joining The Movement, and still retains some of his old warmth and humour. As such, he treats his own boss battle as little more than an extremely lethal game, shouting happily "JUST LIKE THE GOOD OLD DAYS, HUH, NICK?" while telekinetically hurling fuel tankers at him.
The Temple of Shadows from Fable hold poker night every Friday and left the instructions for their special torture device nice and visible next to it.
Reaver from Fable II and III also qualifies. He's a hedonistic Depraved Bisexual who achieved immortality through some very unpleasant means and is out purely to serve his own interests. But he's also so incredibly Camp you can't help but like him. And he's voiced by Stephen Fry.
The Reapers from The World Ends With You tend to be rather normal people, essentially (aside from the Officers, most of whom are sadistic and/or certifiably insane), who are just doing their job - which happens to be permanently erasing the souls of the dead from existence to prevent themselves from meeting the same fate. Kariya, for example, is rather friendly, and 777 lives a double-life as a popular rock star thanks to the Reapers' ability to exist on the living and dead planes.
Shiranui Gen-An gets this treatment in the Samurai Shodown series. He boasts of becoming the King of Evil. Yet at the end of the day, he's just a disfigured oni-like creature with a glove inspired by Freddy Krueger, a loving wife, and kids he even brings to work. See his ending in Samurai Shodown VI (American numbering).
Helena Blake, a crime lord in Mass Effect, may qualify. She's polite, friendly, and charming in her dealings with you. Whether or not she's even evil is open to interpretation.
The same goes for Aria T'Loak in Mass Effect 2, her mild god complex aside, she is entirely reasonable and rather friendly. She's also a ruthless crimeboss running a stationwide society built on slavery and murder.
This might be a possibility in Mass Effect 2 with the Illusive Man. He runs a pro-human organization, Cerberus, that committed awful acts that includes the assassination of one of the candidates of a political party, running live human experiments, using a helpless autistic biotic girl as their future weapon, and silencing anyone who knew too much about them. Despite all that, he's very polite to Commander Shepard when they first met and he uses his charm to have the Spectre join their cause. He also saves your life, at the cost of billions of credits and nearly two years of hard work, for no other reason than that he believes your story about the Reapers and wants to help you save the galaxy. Or so he claims.
Lucifon (a.k.a. Satan) of Princess Maker 2 appears less a sinister Anthropomorphic Personification of evil and more a guy you can have a (rather corrupting) drink with. It's arguable that he's just doing his job, though he takes a certain pride if he can get your daughter to take his place at the end of the game.
Montfort from Visions & Voices. He just wanted to be an awesome mayor!
Dr. Ned (who is totally not Dr. Zed), from the DLC for Borderlands. He offers you brownies before remembering that he's trying to kill you for discovering his evil plan.
Similarly, General Knoxx from another DLC falls under this. He believes to be the Only Sane Man in his group and actually apologizes over having to kill you.
There is also Mr. Shank. Despite having a really scary name and having an army of cannibal escaped convicts, he's actually a pretty nice guy. Really, he's only trying to kill you in self-defense. He watches you on security cameras while talking about how one of his henchmen who he is totally not in love with or anything makes great chilli-cheese fries. When you kill him, the person who contracted you to kill him starts getting all teary-eyed remembering the good times they had together.
Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones has Caellach, a mercenary who becomes one of the six generals of The Empire. His greatest ambition is to become a King, and he's also That One Boss, since he has an item that negates critical hits. If you fight him with a certain character, the two reflect on their past together, and invites him to switch sides.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn sees Sephiran, who is introduced and interacts with the protagonists as an almost saint-like figure in the first game, a devoted servant of the Goddess Ashera, until it is revealed that he is the mastermind behind the plot to awaken Ashera and wipe out all life with her divine wrath, having totally lost faith in the world after the Serenes Massacre. Also, he's over 1,000 years old.
Gnarl in Overlord always acts in a calm, polite manner, something that simply doesn't cross the minds of most of your other minions. Even after siding with the original Overlord, and betraying you at the end of the first game, he still refrains from berating the player, and, instead, compliments you on doing a good job.
Dr. Warumon from Twin Bee, an Expy of Eggman, is a laughable example of this.
The Arch-Vile of Doom. Bobby Prince sums it up best:
"The Archvile is an evil healer. Anyone getting in his way is blasted with fire and disintegrated. This includes other demons. But, after he has wrought his destruction, he then goes around and reanimates all of the demons. Because of this interesting dual personality, I decided to give him a very evil laugh as an active sound. For his death sound, I recorded a young girl saying 'why,' pitch shifted it down and mixed it with other sounds. The Archvile just doesn't understand why anyone would want to kill him as he sees himself as only doing good for his fellow demon."
Luxord from Kingdom Hearts is a textbook example. Though it really doesn't show until 358/2.
Xigbar, while he can be alot more of a jerk, also qualifies, as does (possibly) Demyx.
The Dwarf Fortress player community is quite welcoming and helpful to new players, showering them with links to tutorials for the nigh-incomprehensible interface and helping them troubleshoot newbie mistakes and dwarven intelligence. They're also infamous for pushing Video Game Cruelty Potential to new and exciting extremes for the sake of convenience, lulz, and the dwarven way.
Tales of the Abyss has a lot of these, since nearly every antagonist is a Well-Intentioned Extremist to some degree. Van Grants in particular: while he has a fair few Kick the Dog moments when he first shows his true colors, outside of this he is polite toward the protagonists, and offers genuine praise to Luke and Tear when they become strong enough to pose a serious threat to his plans. He was also a very kind and devoted elder brother to Tear, and even after his betrayal Luke still sees him as more of a father figure than his actual father.
Hazama, from BlazBlue, is so friendly-acting, polite, and funny at times, that it's easy for the audience to forget that, since he is actually Yuuki Terumi, he's also the kind of person who's crossed the Moral Event Horizon just For the Evulz before he's even woken up.
Graf Michael Sepperin from Rosenkreuzstilette is truly a nobleman at heart... and a Well-Intentioned Extremist at that. He organized the coup against the Empire and is even willing to become the Devil himself in order to protect Iris, and not to mention he doesn't underestimate Tia's willingness to protect those she loves without letting anyone be sacrificed, nor does he underestimate her well-enough knowledge that there's no sense in fighting for the Empire. And after his defeat, he tells her that she can find Karl in his prison and is even willing to let her know that Karl himself made an attempt on Iris' life.
And speaking of Iris, she earns a spot in this trope as well. She's very polite and sophisticated, even if she orchestrated the whole war and killed her own father and had Karl imprisoned for his attempt to kill her. Her friendly demeanor even allowed all of RKS to trust her without knowing she started the coup for kicks.
Chaos Shogun Kitsune treats his fellow Yokai with deep respect and tells them not to worry when the hero is coming to Yokai Island without heeding his warning and tells them that they have a guest to prepare for. Even when he wants to claim the island for all Yokai by stealing the Hanzamune Sword and using it to free the O-dokuro, he's rarely if ever pointlessly cruel.
Chaos Lord Wolfwing isn't really that evil, he's just a lonely guy who wants to build his own clan of Werepyres so he won't have to feel so alone. Even if he's willing to cause Chaos and Chaorruption to do so.
Zahart, despite being willing to have his Djinn Tibicenas, the eighth Lord of Chaos, do away with others just to remove them from his search for the Heart of the Sphinx, is nice enough to answer the hero's question about what uncovered the ancient city that the Sandsea oasis community is just part of.
Master, while planning to use the Skyguard to create enough mayhem to become a Chaos Lord himself, treats his minions with deep respect when he's not being called by his real name (since having that happen to him usually leaves him having his Dreamweaver make them relive their worst nightmares with her powers). He tells the Dreamweaver to give the recruit she casted her spell on plenty of time to realize how foolish his words were.
The Dreamweaver is also quite affable, acting polite especially while disguised as Granny V or Invidia.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny gives us Gogandantes!Greatest Swordsman of all the Demons! While the other Genma seem perfectly happy with eating children and destroying the mortal realm, Gogandantes' only goal through the whole game is to prove that he is indeed the greatest swordsdemon around by beating Jubei Yagyu. He acts with chivalry and honor, at one point saving the life of Oyu and—aside from an impenetrable magical shield—faces Jubei on equal footing, one-on-one. This conduct earns Jubei's respect and he even honors Gogandantes' last request; to tell Gogandantes that he is, in fact the Greatest Swordsman of all the Demons.
Godzilla himself is a city destroying monster, yet he is noticeably erudite and well-cultured.
Godzilla: Why must we engage in such senseless violence towards one another? Especially considering the glaring fact that both of us face a common foe?
Anguirus as well.
Even Spacegodzilla falls under this. Despite being the one of Godzilla's most evil foes, he, somehow, is able to host his own political talk show.
Webcomics
The Fourth has the Villain Protagonist Lord Tiberius Skarva, as well as his father, who is known amongst villainy as a man who helped keep many monsters and demons in employment.
Usedbooks features a villain named Raidon that fits this trope PERFECTLY. He is such a nice guy, you'd have a hard time thinking of him as a villain.
Garland from 8-Bit Theater fits squarely in this category; he'd just as soon hang up inspirational posters in his dungeon and bake cookies for his enemies as kill them. The one time he did build a death trap, he tried filling it with acid, but the Forest Imps who live around his castle switched it with Mountain Dew. (Forest Imps, incidentally, are the only creatures Garland will go ballistic over. No small wonder, since they tease him all the time and he can't convince anyone that they're messing with him.) He has his moments though. The best one being when his underlings decided to mutiny, and have a meeting about it. It appears that Garland, in true Laughably Evil fashion, is catering the meeting and made tacos just for the occasion. When the smarter minion calls him out on it, he casually breaks down the reasons why the mutiny will fail, and then reveals that the tacos were full of amnesia peppers. "In 10 minutes this meeting will have never happened." It could also be because he is incredibly thick and doesn't know how to be evil.
Which makes you wonder, is he just not very good at evil, or is he Genre Savvy enough to realize that being a competent villain is typically a death sentence in an RPG Verse?
Malack, Tarquin's former adventuring buddy and current Evil Chancellor, is also very much Affably Evil. He gets along very well with Durkon, and may even be more genuinely nicer than Tarquin, even though he's also Lawful Evil. Having lost several children violently, he also has very mundane woes that he openly discusses with fellow parents.
Malack: "...and Tarquin keeps telling me that if I want more children so badly, I should just find the right person and get to it, but...I don't know." Vaarsuvius: "Have you ever considered adoption? Surely your political climate produces no shortage of orphans." Malack: "Yes, but...I'm worried about not having that, you know, special bond..."
He might even be Lawful Neutral. Malack did say that clerics of a Deity of Death prefer Neutrality, as Death claims Good and Evil people.
What about Tarquin himself? Just listen to him describing how he managed to create those big, flaming letters to celebrate that his son has returned. All while telling said son just how much he means to him.
Tarquin: "I mean, the prefects only informed me about the escaped palace slaves around dusk. My men had to get out to the mountains, recapture them, nail them into position, and then get the oil out there in time to light the rebellious little pricks on fire in unison. It's really pretty impressive, logistics-wise, when you think about it."
Dom from Megatokyo is an old college buddy of Piro and Largo, and has even leant them money when they were in a tight spot. He is also a ruthless corporate enforcer who can get quite menacing on occasion.
Ongoing imageboard Choose Your Own Adventure Ruby Quest has Red, who dresses nicely, helps you with his cane, and warns you not to ask questions or he'll have to rip your throat out.
Satan from Casey And Andy seems like a nice person (and she's very cute), but is still the lord of all evil and not unwilling to capitalize on it. Amusingly, she could almost always solve the problem at hand with a flick of her hand, but chooses not to, because she likes the evil schemes of the villains. But woe if they harm her boyfriend...
Most villains from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures fall under this category one way or another. Between this and a generous helping of Villainy Discretion Shots, there is a major part of the fanbase that fails to acknowledge them as evil at all.
Pyroduck said it best: "Discomfort and a saccharine voice of malice! Must be... Fa'Lina!".
The Varn Gene Mage from Terinu is pleasant and forgiving of his Dragon's occasional failure, and is utterly appalled at how one of his allies treats her prisoners. Oh, and he's responsible for a few billion deaths during the original invasion of the Earth. No biggie.
The Beelze family (except Diva herself, who is just affable) of Evil Diva. Notably, her father. He's an all-around nice guy who bakes cupcakes for his daughter to share with friends at school, and he is also the guy who you sell your soul to in exchange for fame/fortune/doughnuts (he likes watching TMZ to "catch up with old friends"). Satan himself might also qualify...or maybe being affably evil is just a requirement for all of Hell's employees, as it certainly makes it easier to corrupt the righteous.
Pretty much everything that talks in the Dungeons & Dragons-influenced comic Speak With Monsters at least reaches this level of goodness. Some monsters break the fourth wall to brag about how useful they are to DMs, some argue that their actions are justified in the long run, and some just get Pet the Dog moments between ripping out humans' hearts.
Capitan Snow from Archipelago, psychopath, pirate, evil to the bone. Yet chats amiably to the heroes as he rips out their souls, threatens pregnant women, and tries to bring about the end of the world. He will even stop in a battle to talk about opera or books.
Pretty much all the main characters in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic. They are all technically evil monsters, but that doesn't mean they spend all their time doing evil deeds. Arachne the drow will give you sensible relationship advice...then return to her dungeon to torture her collection of captives. Lewie the lich will lend you some skeletal minions to help out around the house...then attempt to Take Over the World through mind control. Good old Mrs. Bloodhand is the nicest, most motherly orc you are ever liable to meet...but put her in a position of power and she turns ruthless and Machivellian. Put her in a battle and she turns deadly.
Richard from Looking For Group. Although, whether he falls under this or Faux Affably Evil is up to you.
Temujin in At Arms Length. Very pleasant and friendly for a megalomaniac, she doesn't mind complimenting or flirting with henchmen while planning despicable acts.
Von Gernsbach in Minion Comics presents himself as a WikiLeaks style campaigner for freedom of information, taking the protagonists under his wing.
Jigsaw in Zodiac. He's one of the villains with the more monstruous appearance, but also very polite and suave, and he praises his foes while fighting them.
Niels from Niels. He will always kill enimies with a smile, and is always very polite and nice around his friends.
Web Original
In The Gamers Alliance, Hannibal Losstarot is a teenager who flirts with girls, loves and respects his mother, takes his studies seriously, speaks politely, constantly trains with his elite guard, treats his servants and enemies well, often even preferring to not be called by his hereditary title. However, he is also the son of one of the BigBads and just as determined as she is to conquer the world under the Losstarot family's banner and will stop at nothing to make his mother's dream become a reality.
Christian Brutal Sniper manages to be even more Affably Evil than the actual Sniper. He may be killing people in horrific (and versatile) ways, but he doesn't even try to hide the fact that he enjoys it.
Dr. Horrible is essentially the nerd who does evil things to be a part of the cool kid's club. He especially comes off as this when the "hero" of the piece is a total douche.
Fawkes, leader of the Axis of Anarchy from The Guild.
Troy the Wendigo from Epic Tales seems like he might fit this despite needing to eat humans. Which is interesting, since humans only become wendigos if they resort to cannibalism in the first place.
Tales of MU (this): "Few people mistake a noble dragon for a nice one more than once."
In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, Evil Overlord Lord Doom really is a pretty swell guy, if you overlook the entire "take over the world, tyrannical dictator" aspect of his personality. He's urbane, friendly, and sends get well cards to his enemies when they are sick or injured. He even runs a charitable organization that has helped millions of children in poverty around the world. Did we mention that he wants to rule the world and everything in it?
It's entirely possible he believes himself to be a benevolent dictator in the making.
The thing about Lord Doom is that he realizes that in order to enact his vision for a better world (and ultimately, that is his goal: to make the world a better place for everyone), some very unpleasant decisions will have to be made, and only he can make those decisions. So while he is ruthless, he isn't cruel.
Dark General Argon from Sailor Nothing. He may be an utter monster and a heartless, but he is never impolite and seems to genuinely respect both the heroes and Cobalt for their drive and abilities.
Ganondorf from Melee's End is polite even while kicking the good guys' asses.
Elliott Blackwood is charming and sincere, but the utter lack of hesitation about the more...unsavory aspects of his duties puts him squarely in this territory.
Humon's Neils is a good example of this. This Affably Evil, bisexual Dane is the nicest guy you have ever met! But if you get on his bad side, expect emotional torture and a bullet to the brain, or bludgeoning with a blunt object (courtesy of his black lover, Duncan). Although, he does try to comfort those whom he is about to kill.
Dr. Diabolik of the Whateley Universe. Caring father, hard-working inventor, Benevolent Boss, and by his own daughter's count, directly responsible for the lives of over 15,000 people in his raids on middle-sized cities around the world. When he attacks Cincinnati, he secretly encourages the heroes to triumph over his weapons, and when highly stressful problems occur, he politely asks his minions for ideas and rewards them for speaking up. Still, he attacks entire cities, knowing that tons of people will be killed or injured.
When Dr. Diabolik's children were the target of protestors and media outlets, he called each one of them up, at their homes, at their workplaces, on their mobiles... and calmly, politely, and non-threateningly explained to them that while he sympathized with them, attacking children over such a thing was a decidedly cowardly act. After that, the protestors just... went away.
There are a few others in this vein, in the WU: one of those is Brigand, who deliberately targets corrupt organizations and people, and who went out of his way to ensure that people with weak hearts in a hostage situation would be able to receive medical attention if necessary. And then there are are the ex-supervillains who teach at Whateley...
Dr. Doofenshmirtz is a mad scientist who's at odds with P&F's secret-agent-platypus, Perry. Except that he spends half his time doing stuff like trying to make the perfect sweet-16 birthday party for his daughter or sharing chicken wings with Perry after he's captured him. He really is a nice guy, it's just that, well, he IS a mad scientist, after all.
There's also Norm the Giant Robotic Man, introduced in "Greece Lightning". He's fond of spouting random dialogue more appropriate to a married, white-collar suburbanite than a killer robot originally designed to attack platypi on sight.
Several villains in Invader Zim are Affably Evil, most notably Mortos der Soulstealer. In between granting ruinous wishes, he recharges his malefic hellborne powers by petting puppies, eating yummi snacks, and having fun.
To some degree, Señor Senior, Sr. from Kim Possible falls into this. He's a genteel, wealthy old man...who took up supervillainy as a hobby because his life had become boring. Unlike the archetypal example, he does use Death Traps, although this seems to be because he feels compelled to follow the traditions of villainy, rather than because he enjoys them. In one episode, Ron even comments that Senior's a "bad man. Good manners."
Hank Scorpio, a one-shot character from the episode "You Only Move Twice". A Benevolent Boss and all-around nice guy whom you'd be happy to work for (he invites his employees to go golfing with him), who also just happens to want to take over the world, Bond-villain style. His Villain Song helps even further; apparently his twisted, twin obsessions are ruling the world and his employees' health! He also loves German beer.
The staff actually wanted to bring Scorpio back as the Big Bad of The Movie but changed their minds and instead made a new character voiced by the same actor.
Mister Burns is sometimes this, depending on the episode.
Sideshow Bob also qualifies.
In "Pokey Mom," Marge befriends a prison inmate who had previously robbed the Kwik-E-Mart and shot Apu. The episode ended with him having another Ax Crazy episode, but he was generally very polite and was an excellent artist.
Warden: Lady, I know he charmed you with some "please's" and "thank you's", but he wasn't so polite to the guy he shot.
Apu: Actually, he was. He waited with me 'till the ambulance came, then ran like a deer!
David Xanatos. So much so that he, and many of his fellow villains, are largely considered Anti Villains, or in some cases, Anti Heroes. Gargoyles was very good about having layered and complex villains, particularly for a kids' show, with even the more traditionally vicious Demona have a deep and sympathetic backstory.
Macbeth also fits in with this trope, as he goes after the Manhattan Clan because he thinks they can lead him to Demona, for a rather bizarre reason. They share a magical link so he wants to find her so he can kill her, which is the only way he himself can die.
Whenever a Megatron is played as more intelligent and less shouty, this trope usually follows.
The Transformers Animated incarnation of him is eerily calm in most situations, and the treatment of his troops is similarly so. Not once is he seen to abuse his loyal subordinates (The Starscream is another matter), and even if he's annoyed with them, he doesn't raise his voice. Plus, how does he win over fresh recruits? He gives them rhetoric, over a chalice of his own special blend of oil.
The Monarch's Henchmen #21 and #24 are two harmless, likable nerds who just happen to be Mooks for the Big Bad.
Arguably, most of the series' villains fits this trope. Due to the Guild of Calamitous Intent turning evil into a bureaucratic business surrounded by red tape. An example is that after Sergeant Hatred becomes the new arch villain, he sets up an appointment to see what Venture's allergic to, since it's part of the guild rules. He also says that, "There's no good reason on God's green earth that arching has to be a completely unpleasant experience for either of us." And he brought a gift basket with him. Though he's mostly being so nice to piss off the Monarch for stealing his technology.
Dr. Henry Killinger is this trope.
As is Phantom Limb.
It could easily be said that Rusty Venture and Brock are the most villainous characters in the show.
In which case, Brock easily qualifies for this. While he's prone to go into homicidal rages and kill without a second's hesitation, he's also got a calm, collected nature and enjoys activities like gardening. He also provides good advice to the boys whenever they ask for it.
Essentially, all the villains can be described as a mild version of this, for while they're not "evil", they do tend to be mean, in a realistic way.
Despite appearing to kidnap you if you say his name, Candle Jack is really a pleasant villain. He makes witty comments, thanks one of his victims for calling his name, and has a soft spot for pumpkin p Why, thank you.
Iroh appears to be this in the first season. A mellow, easy-going, Cool Old Guy who loves tea, Pai Sho, and just relaxing. He also just happens to work for Zuko, his Troubled But CuteAnti-Villain nephew (although Iroh is never seen doing anything particularly evil, and he never really helps Zuko make any major progress toward capturing the Avatar). But it that turns out he secretly did a Heel Face Turn several years ago and, since then, he's never supported the Fire Nation in their quest to Take Over the World. And he's also a prominent figure of the Order of the White Lotus.
Pre-Heel Face Turn, though, he fit this trope to a T. In one Flashback, he's seen writing a kind letter to his family in the Fire Nation while leading a brutal siege against Ba Sing Se (in the letter, he even casually jokes about the possibility of burning the city to the ground). Later during this siege, his son died, and this seems to have triggered his Heel Face Turn, possibly because of the uncomfortable realization that this is the kind of emotional trauma that he's been inflicting on Earth Kingdom families for years on end.
Ty Lee, a ditzy, cheerful Genki Girl who just happens to work for Azula.
Evil Chancellor Long Feng is a perfectly reasonable man, willing to give his enemies multiple opportunities to surrender, and an excellent host. As long as you don't try and mess with his Government Conspiracy.
Daemon from ReBoot. When she was first mentioned, everyone expected her to be a huge snarling monster of a Virus, not the sweet, gentle, messiah-like figure she turned out to be (actually lampshaded by Mike the TV, the first Mainframer to meet Daemon face to face). Of course, it turns out she's out to wipe out every sprite on the net, but she still remains mostly sweet and nice throughout the whole thing.
Also Megabyte and Hexadecimal. Megabyte is suave and sophisticated, and treats his minions with respect. Hexadecimal can go from being genuinely nice to batshit insane at the drop of a hat
But, of course! They're siblings. And Megabyte is the one who tortured his sister into insanity.
Darkwing Duck: Compared to the likes of NegaDuck, Quackerjack, and Megavolt, Bushroot seems downright sweet, stemming from his origin as a meek, much-bullied scientist — as long as you don't get in the way of his search to find/make his one true love. Of course, he also has the honor of being the only villain on the show to murder someone onscreen.
On The Fairly OddParents, Anti-Cosmo is a proper gentlemen who loves his wife, sips tea, and wants to generally make things hard for people. HP is also fairly polite, he just wants to force every living creature to be ultra orderly. Doug Dimmadome is also rather friendly if you're not getting in the way of his goals.
Grandma Taters, an alien grandma who would just as happily knit Jimmy a hat or offer him fudge as turn him and the entire city of Retroville into cheerful, mindless meat puppets. Also doubles as a well-intentioned extremist who just wanted everyone to be happy.
It is implied that she eats brains, though. Even this is played affably, though, with others of her kind offering her "brain juice" to console her over her failure.
Another Disney example: Duke Igthorne from the Gummi Bears TV show.
Shannon on Home Movies is a mild version of this trope. (He's not evil so much as he is just a bully, but the show is about eight year olds, so a bully is as close to evil as you're going to get.) In his first appearance, he schedules a fight with Brendon and gives him tips on how to warm up before the fight. Later in the episode, he lets Brendon think he won, just to help out Brendon's ego a little.
In Looney Tunes, Wile E. Coyote, in his pursuits of Bugs Bunny, introduces himself formally, hands out a calling card, and explains why Bugs should just give up.
Sylvester, being a cat, wants nothing but to eat Tweety Pie and Speedy. Except, he's also a loving father to Sylvester Jr, has managed to save the lives of both Porky Pig AND Granny on more than one occasion, and has even proved that his fatherly instincts outweigh his cat instincts when he unexpectedly 'fathers' both a baby mouse (A Mouse Divided) and a baby bird (Father of the Bird).
Marvin the Martian embodies this trope. Chuck Jones wanted to make a new enemy for Bugs who was the exact opposite of Yosemite Sam: quite, polite, but incredibly dangerous.
Several villains from Jackie Chan Adventures could be called this, but the one that sticks out the most has to be the Wind Demon. Of all the sealed demon sorcerers, he was the most relaxed, well spoken, and generally polite. Where the other demons who were released immediately set to begin their rampages, often while berating Shendu for not getting to them sooner, Shendu wasn't even present for the Wind Demon's release, who instead engaged in small talk with Shendu's thugs, and then joined them for lunch while happily eating his prison slop, and generally seemed to be the most approachable of the group. When reality was rewritten so that the demons ruled the Earth, all he seemed to be doing was lounging on his throne, watching masked wrestlers fight while his champion's fanboy fanned him and watched. While it was implied that the battles were to the death, it seemed remarkably mild given the rest of the world's condition.
Adventure Time has Marceline, the Vampire Queen, who, despite possibly being evil, is so affable that she's one of the most popular characters on the show.
She does use her mean side about as much as her nice side, but she's generally mean in a "bullying older sibling" kind of way.
Bull Gator from Taz-Mania, a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to capture Taz for the sake of the zoo-going children. Of course, he also has a Jerk Ass side to him when you see how he treats his poor sidekick, Axel.
Robot Devil in Futurama is actually, most of the time, rather polite as a character, despite being a robot Satan, and the depths to which Bender sinks at times leave even him appalled.
He even included his own hands in his roulette wheel of choices when Fry asks for a better pair.
King K. Rool in the Donkey Kong Country cartoon. One episode where a movie was being made had him cast as the hero.
Satan is often portrayed this way in South Park. He's certainly less evil than Cartman.
ThunderCats (2011) has Turncoat Thunderian General Grune, who maintained a genuine, abiding friendship with his fellow soldier Panthro while plotting long-term to become The Usurper of his king Claudus' throne. Presuming Panthro will go along with his scheme to defect to series Big Bad Mumm-Ra, Grune sincerely offers to rule together. He also enjoys the company of Claudus' son Tygra, training him in swordfighting as a boy.
Real Life
John Wojtowicz, famous for his hostage's declaration that "I know I'm supposed to hate you guys, but I'm having the time of my life." Slightly more famous for his own declaration in the film based on the incident, Dog Day Afternoon: "ATTICA!"
All in all, any person in history frequently portrayed as a monster tends to have some sort of human side to them. Attila the Hun listened to the appeals of Pope Leo I and didn't ransack a defenseless Rome. Nero was concerned for the sake of his subjects and loved his wife before madness consumed him, and ditto for Caligula. Saddam Hussein was described as polite and friendly by his guards, who have told stories of him caring for his daughter and sons when they were ill. Ruthless people such as Cao Cao, Oda Nobunaga (both of whom suffered Historical Villain Upgrade), and Vlad the Impaler committed atrocities because they felt it was the only way tobring order and safety to a dangerous world. Hell, even Hitler had moments of genuine concern for others (just watch Downfall).
Hitler was purportedly very funny and outgoing. He regularly made jokes for his officers to share. One example was about Goering, who liked to wear a lot of medals. Hitler's joke goes as follows: "Why was Goering waving a metal rod over his underwear? He is promoting his underpants to overpants."
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus invokes this trope when he gently scolds his disciples for thinking that they're good people for treating their friends with kindness (as opposed to their enemies): "If you love others who love you, what is so praiseworthy about that? Do not [sinners] do as much?"
Even Josef Stalin had his moments, like defending Bulgakov (the author of The Master and Margarita; Satan Woland was allegedly based on Stalin, by the way) from some of the more rabid critics, and keeping an arrested professor in Moscow when he was supposed to be sent to the gulag, instead assisting him with his translation of a Georgian epic poem. He also raised the son of a Russian Civil War hero (who happened to be one of his closest friends), treating him much better than his own children. Another example is when a little girl wrote to him, saying that her classmates were bullying her, so he moved her from her school and into the best girls' school in the country. There are many other, less trustworthy anecdotes, but those four at least seem fairly veracious. Stalin's atrocities were based in extreme paranoia, on the methods he used to elevate himself to power, and exacerbated by his wife's suicide and his son's attempted suicide. He is supposed to have said, upon learning that his son's suicide attempt had failed, "You see? The idiot can't even shoot straight." Well, it might have been a coping strategy...
How is treating an adopted son better than his own a good thing?
Also, he had Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria as his chief of secret police. Beria was responsible for the Gulags, the Katyn Massacre, and other atrocities. The one that always gets this troper, though, is the fact that Beria would arrest women and interrogate them himself. Young and attractive women, in particular. Beria has a special corner of hell, where the fires burn a little hotter, the pitchforks are a little pointier, and the devils enjoy surprise sex a little bit more.
In fact, Stalin was terrified when he found out that his daughter was alone with Beria, calling the man's house and demanding she leave at once...
What separated Stalin from Hitler was an enormous personal malice. Hitler was remarkably forgiving of inept colleagues, whilst Stalin preferred the Darth Vader school of management. Alan Bullock, biographer of both Hitler and Stalin was once asked who he would rather have a picnic with: "Hitler, because although it would have been boring in the extreme, you would have the most chance of getting out alive.
Though most people today wouldn't consider Napoleon Bonaparte to be evil, many of his enemies considered him so. In spite of this, most who actually met him acknowledged him to be an incredibly charming and likable person. His second wife was a young Austrian princess who would have been raised to hate him, and yet they still had a genuinely loving relationship. Tsar Alexander I, a man who had denounced Napoleon as a usurper and the antichrist only a few months before having to negotiate with him on the losing side of a war, knew Bonaparte for a few days before he claimed to consider the French emperor one of his closest and most intimate friends. And finally, he was able to talk his way into commanding the army sent to arrest him after he escaped exile.
Ted Bundy was known for this, which made him all the more popular. Not to mention, all the more dangerous...
Ted Bundy was more Faux Affably Evil than this. Considering he was a psychopath, most of his charming interaction was a second persona developed because of his (arguable) criminal genius - how likely is it that someone would suspect anyone seeming as genuinely affable as Ted Bundy was?
Monster Clown John Wayne Gacy would be a better example—not only was he an entertaining clown, but he was also keen on community service.
John Oliver made a comment in his Comedy Central stand-up special about how when Britain, in its imperial days, would conquer countries, but they would do it politely.
"And remember how we used to do it? We'd ring you up, tell you where the bomb was, when it was going to go off, and have a chat. How fucking polite were we!?"
Billy Connolly once mentioned that Jeffrey Dahmer seemed like a "particularly nice, intelligent bloke" to him — though he admitted that Dahmer hadn't chased him bare-arsed down the street.
Marge Schott may apply. While not as evil as some of the above examples, she was known as one of Major League Baseball's worst owners, being extremely tight-fisted with the Cincinnati Reds, calling two black players "million dollar niggers" when she thought they were overpaid, and was kicked out of baseball in 1996 for publicly saying Hitler was originally a good man who went nuts. After her death, former Red Rob Dibble spoke on radio about how she was always courteous to the fans, talks to them frequently during games from her infield seat, and always making sure the Reds had the lowest ticket prices in the majors.
Howard Stern was once interviewing a member of the KKK, and was having a fairly civil discussion about races (well, all things considered). At one point, the KKK member, who ran a roofing company, said something about how nobody hired black people, even though they were hard workers. Stern then asked why he didn't hire them, and the guy responded with a remarkable self-awareness by saying that he would, but he didn't think any black people would really want to step up onto a roof with a white supremacist.
Rodney Coronado, during the P&T:BS episode about PETA. Despite his role in the fire-bombing of several animal testing labs, he has a fairly polite and friendly tone in response to a call from the P&T:BS studios.
Despite the fact that they could Take Over the World any time they wanted to, Google still takes the time to make nerdy jokes.
According to xkcd, it’s probably because they’ve no reason to take over the world.
John Dillinger milked this trope for all it was worth, charming the socks off his captors and the press, then taking advantage of his jailors' good will to bluff his way out of jail with a handmade wooden "pistol".
Dillinger despised violence and hated Ax Crazy Machine Gun Kelly. There is considerable debate as to whether he ever killed anybody. A police officer died during a heist, but some historians believe that Dillinger may not have been there.
Jon Ronson meets some of the world's top crazies including Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and Islamists who openly admit that they will not rest until the black flag of Islam flies above the Houses of Parliament in his book Them (and accompanying TV series Secret Rulers of the World). And all, with the exception of the ranting lunatic, Alex Jones, come off as frighteningly likable.
Believe it or not, according to some accounts, Osama bin Laden fit this trope. Some people who knew him say he was a fairly decent, thoughtful person when not arranging the murders of 3,000 innocents. Though kind and polite when meeting him, just don't get on his hijacked planes.
Many spree shooters, such as the ones at Columbine, were described by those who knew them as friendly and perfectly normal-seeming people.
Most, if not all, real life monsters fall under this category. Without charisma, there's no way they could have done much of anything. Of course, it's possible that it was just an act...
