Affably Evil - Television Tropes & Idioms

Johan from Monster is a handsome, charming, charismatic young man, even when he is busy corrupting, manipulating and/or killing anyone and everyone he comes into contact with, for apparently no reason other than he likes it.
Sakurazuka Seishiro of Tokyo Babylon/X1999 is a friendly, charming, and generally mild-mannered veterinarian... when he isn't killing people.
- Also from X1999 is Fuuma Monou, perfectly willing to indulge in "innocent enjoyments" when not busy reducing Tokyo into rubble bit by bit.
- Also, Yuuto Kigai, similairly to Seishiro, is charming, cheerful, friendly, charismatic... and also a Dragon Of Earth who has no problems with fighting, destroying or killing.
Ryoko Asakura of the Suzumiya Haruhi series is constantly polite and cheerful, even while attempting to slit the main character's throat with a combat knife and later being dissolved into dust for her pains.
- Although it's implied that she's not that way by choice, but rather because that's the way she's programmed. That is to say, she has no personality other than being polite and cheerful, placing her squarely in Stepford Smiler territory.
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 from Fullmetal Alchemist. He won't put his fist on a woman, had policy for always saying the truth, seems to be respected by his comrades, and even had rather good taste in clothes as villain. He can be nice if he wanted to. That's not stopping him from act greedy and and performing dubious act for his own sakes.
- That's probably because he's Greed. He must have a greed for as many friends/comrades/subordinates as possible. Being a big jerk like the other Homunculi won't get him anywhere with that goal.
Freeza from Dragon Ball addresses his enemies as "Mr." and is very cordial, even as he brutalizes his opponent, with terms like "Oh, my!", and even has the manners to say "thank you" when he (forcibly) gets what he wants.
- 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 Crazy Omnicidal 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.
Blackbeard (Kurohige) in One Piece 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 Nakama to achieve his goals, and is shaping up to become one of the major villains of the series.
- Admiral Kizaru is incredibly polite, as when he asked pirates who shot a bullet at him, as it passed through his head (He actually happens to hate pirates with a passion, though) were 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.
Hild from Oh My Goddess. She is a goddess's mother, very playful, very powerful, likes to hug people ... and the queen of Hell.
- Her affability is more potent than most on this list. She isn't just the series equivalent of Satan, but she's actually also an ex-lover of The Almighty, as evidenced by her giving birth to Urd. 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 the Heavens. 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 created via Soylent Green.
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.
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 displays of friendship two of the heroes display towards each other because it turns out he feels the same way about his own Nakama. He even goes so far as to declare "Friendship exists even amongst demons!" at one point.
Riful from Claymore 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 one in the most sympathetic manner when he is not raping, cursing and killing 13 year old boys or conducting human experiments to bring back his dead brother to life so that he may be the one to kill him.
Light Yagami from Death Note is generally very charming and polite with everybody, including his helpless pawns and murder victims.
- In his case this is definitely a mask though, as it is repeatedly demonstrated how underneath his smooth, kindly behaviour there is pure, unadulterated madness, and manic sociopathy. In the recent director's cut he's even show lying down on L's grave, screaming down how he has won. Affably Evil villains aren't prone to such tantrums.
- Light's girlfriend, Misa Amane, is this trope played straight. While Light is a deeply unpleasent person beneath his stepford smile, Misa is a genuinely sweet if somewhat ditzy indivual. That said, she is also seemingly unable to comprehend the fact that murder is fundamentally different from any other mundane activity.
- While Light does seem to use a mask, specially by the end of the series, this mask does seem to be based on his original personality prior to becoming Kira, which is best shown in the arc where he loses his memory as part of his Memory Gambit. During this time Light is not using any "mask", and no one (apart from L) notices any difference between the pre-Kira Light personality, and the mask he shows while he is Kira.
Maximillion Pegasus from Yu-Gi-Oh. He steals people's souls and cheats at the card game he created with a magic eye. In between all this, he's fond of reading comic books and watching cartoons (he even has a cartoon-based card deck!). Not to mention his courtesy toward opponents, usually ending their names with "boy" ("Yugi-boy", "Kaiba-boy") as a weird term of endearment.
- Not to mention that in the anime, after his plans are foiled, he immediately releases the souls he captured, just as he said he would. He then comes back in later series to help the heroes and is never actually in a villain role again.
Fate Averrancus from the Mahou Sensei Negima! manga, is leading a group which is trying to carry out the destruction of his world. Despite this fact, 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 to have to eliminate her.
- Earlier 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 dimsum 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 listing 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 Chess Master and some of 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 he 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... Ranba Ral from the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
- Most of the Innovators from Gundam 00, but chiefly their leader Ribbons Almark.
Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond has the Yoshioka clan, who seem to be one big happy Nakama 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.)
Dio Brando from Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure (at least when his Joestar bloodlust 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.
Schneizel from Code Geass. You don't realize he's evil until he undoes his half-brother Lelouch's work of forty-something episodes in less than fifteen minutes - by convincing the Black Knights to betray Lelouch. The fact that they're both Magnificent Bastards doesn't help.
- Some would point out the fact that he spent most of his time prior to this moment — pushing a mentally unstable girl to build nuclear weapons for him — does not exactly indicate him as a candidate for sainthood even before he shows his true colors...
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 that just happens to associate with absolute psychos and do horribly nasty things to guys who cross him.
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.
Askeladd from Vinland Saga is a nice enough guy, despite being a vicious murderer and raider.
Bleach has Aizen, who tends to act cheerful, reliable, and polite even as he explains why you're lying on the ground, with your spine literally the only thing keeping you in one piece after he slashed you.
- Gin Ichimaru, too, who would be calmly standing behind him, enjoying the weather, considering it all intensely amusing.
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 with his BFS. Politely.
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.

Close Anime and Manga

Doctor Doom, the main enemy of the Fantastic Four, fits this like a glove, proving to be surprisingly likable and charming even as he commits various evil deeds, to the point where he's had several moments past the Moral Event Horizon retconned, ignored, or smoothed over into Well Intentioned Extremist territory because of fandom outrage.
The X-Men's Magneto, during Chris Claremont's first run, went from revenge-obsessed wacko to head of Xavier Institute and not quite back again, thanks in large part to his portrayal (this editor's favorite depiction of him) as an Affably Evil Well Intentioned Extremist.
DC's Vandal Savage (who, having been alive since caveman days, is a little bit more than Really Seven Hundred Years Old) has often acted quite genteel towards Earth's heroes.
Batman 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.
Lex Luthor fit this trope during his Corrupt Corporate Executive incarnation (not so much in his current Mad Scientist phase).
Thug Boy and his crew early in Empowered. Thug Boy goes out of his way to ensure a hostage's comfort, and assures her that "This is business, not sadism, okay?"
- Hell, the leader, Frank, stays friends with Thug Boy 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.
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.
- His new reinverson now made him even more affably, after he relized he needed to be a lot less arrogent a becoming a Well Intentioned Extremist.
  - Uroo? The Mandarin is more of a Klingon type than an Affably Evil type. He rants about his honor and skill while karate-chopping people to death. He's Worf if Worf was an evil kung fu grandmaster wearing the pimp-bling of dragons and wanting to bring down civilization because it's too soft and corrupt.
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.
Axel Borg, of the French comic Le Franc is a charismatic, cultured and polite villain of the Magnificent Bastard variety, who always treats his captured enemies well and who on occasion will side with the hero in order to bring down a greater threat.
Ozymandias in Watchmen. In addition to being a Well Intentioned Extremist (second only to Ra's al Ghul in that regard), he's also gentlemanly, witty, and even-tempered, even in hand-to-hand combat. He treats his employees kindly (right until he drugs them and leaves them to die of exposure to prevent his secrets 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 not only to 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 three million innocent New Yorkers for the sake of preventing a global nuclear war against him.
- Ozymandias also had the honour of being an excellent example of what an Affably Evil character is: Sacrificing his beloved pet in a revoltingly gruesome manner just so he can buy a few more minutes, but doing so while he begs his pet to forgive 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 barbituates to incapacitate them so that he could dissect them later.
Hoss, the redneck demon from Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation.

Close Comic Books

In the X-Men movies, Ian McKellen's version of Magneto — at least, early on.
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.
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 and your tropers have: Civilization! The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag...
The Brain: "We want to be civilized. I mean, you take a look at this fellow here..."
*shoots nearby annoying Gremlin in the face*
The Brain: "Now, was that civilized? No, clearly not... Fun, but in no sense civilized."
David Allen Griffin in The Watcher is perfectly sociable and charming guy to have around. Except for the whole garroting young women thing.
Observe the following exchange from In Bruges:
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 displayed a disturbing mix of affability and subtle condescension toward Dorothy and her friends. (His counterpart in the older books, the Nome King, 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 (in the books, Oz is, in fact, very real, as are Dorothy's adventures, and the first one ends with Dorothy appearing outside her house, as opposed to a wake-up sequence), and the Nome King, in this case, is supposed to be a direct analogue to the electroshock-happy psychiatrist running a facility in which Dorothy is placed at the beginning of the film.
Robert DeNiro 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.
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 works 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.
The Operative: "There is no shame in this. This is a good death, for a man who has done fine works."
- 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.
A Disney example is Jafar from Aladdin. It's half the reason people love him, and probably why he's one of the few Disney villains that survives to the end of the movie (albeit trapped in a lamp).
- Yet another Disney example is Duke Igthorne from the Gummi Bears TV show.
- Hades is another example with his car salesman speaking style and wisecracks.
Pasquale Acosta in Smokin' Aces epitomizes this trope. He doesn't just kill you, he comforts you and waxes philosophical as you die.
Noah Cross of Chinatown invites our hero to lunch, has a friendly conversation with him and makes jokes about his advanced age before actually throwing him some business that seems to dovetail with an investigation he's already pursuing. Of course, the truth is far more disturbing.
Dr. No, the early James Bond villain, treats James Bond to dinner and shows him around his evil lair!
- So does Scaramanga in The Man Withthe Golden Gun.
- 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 person.
- In his Diamonds Are Forever incarnation, Ernst Blofeld is a snarkalicious aristocratic Large Ham and possibly the best thing about the movie.
Nyssa Damaskinos in Blade II, probably the only example of affability and honor out her otherwise Always Chaotic Evil species. She even helps the main character attain a modicum of acceptance of his vampire half, and is probably the closes thing to a Love Interest he would receive in the entire trilogy.
Dr. Raymond Cocteau from Demolition Man. Lampshaded by Psycho For Hire Simon Phoenix, who compares the man to an "evil Mr. Rogers".
In Rustler's 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.
Quite a few characters played by Vincent Price (not counting the ones who are Evilly Affable, of course).
Harry Lime from The Third Man is an early example, with Orson Welles receiving a lot of attention at the time for portraying the Complete Monster as just a regular guy who wanted his old friend to like him even after discovering his actions.
'Max' from Mission Impossible the movie is quite a friendly sort. She's not very evil, just greedy.
Max (Edward Herrman) from The Lost Boys.
While his underlings are quite rude, Xerxes in 300 is quite friendly—perhaps overly so. Even at the moment of his triumph, he takes the time to congratulate Leonidas and offer the entire 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, Lucky Number S7evin, and The Contract.
Leslie Vernon, Villain Protagonist of Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is jovial, friendly, intelligent and takes a camera crew with him as he kills various townspeople in elaborate ways.
Elijah Price from Unbreakable well spoken, expensively dressed.. and is actually a super villian,or at least a mass murder.

Close Film

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.
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.
- Ironic, because Nabokov himself viewed the character of Humbert with extreme contempt and intended the reader to see him as repulsive.
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 of worth to him, the character Judge Holden of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is very polite, frequently engages in thought-provoking philosophical discussion, and quite often saves 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 commits several acts of infanticide, and also possibly child molestation.
Gwendolyn Ingolffsen, the eponymous villainess of S. M. Stirling's Drakon, who 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 the others in the series) that she's actually quite mellow for a member of her species.
- Pretty much all Draka are like this. As long as you accept they're superior to you in every way and you do what you're ordered they'll treat you like a favourite pet. Cross them and you'll end up with a four foot spike up you, all the time while they point out to you 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.
General Zaroff of The Most Dangerous Game forces protagonist Rainsford to participate in a hunting trip in which Rainsford is the prey after literally 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 childrens' 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.
The Star Wars Expanded Universe villain Grand Admiral Thrawn is almost terrifying because of this. He's such an Affably Evil Magnificent Bastard that he reached the second-highest formal rank in the xenophobic Imperial Fleet despite being a visible alien. His troops revere him, and his enemies respect him. A single line in the novel Dark Force Rising, when a pregnant Leia despairs 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 protege Captain Pellaeon started out this way before turning into an Anti Villain and protagonist in his own right.
- Possibly failed in Prince Xizor in the Shadows of the Empire. To some, a civilised, at times charming facade over the mind of a Manipulative Bastard, but others found him creepier and less impressive than that.
- Xanatose and Granta Omega of Jude Watson's Jedi Apprentice and Jedi Quest series also seem to fit this trope in fact both use this to their benefit in fooling the respective Padawans of both series (Obi-Wan and Anakin respectively Granta even fools Obi-Wan after he's dealt with Xanatos in the past) They could also be examples of Magnificent Bastards and do very well in pulling off Xanatose Gambits and Roulettes
Rupert of Hentzau from The Prisoner Of Zenda.
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 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.
Magnificent Bastard Littlefinger in A Song Of Ice And Fire, a small, slender, charming, and rather witty fellow who suffers from Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. May the Seven help you if you're in his way.
- To his credit, he generally warns people not trust him.
  Litlefinger: I did tell you not to trust me, you know.
- The ex-maester Qyburn from the same series looks like "some child's favourite grandfather" and is such a genial and competent man that everybody wonders why on Earth he rides in the company of a bunch of mercenaries of seriously ill repute. It is later revealed that he is a Mad Doctor who was expelled from the ranks of the Citadel for performing vivisections on humans. He is also very good Torture Technician, and takes perverse joy in his work.
The White Court from The Dresden Files is arguably an entire race of Affably Evil Vampires. As the most human-like of the three vampire courts, it's very easy to forget that they eat people's souls. This prompts the series' protagonist to label them as the most dangerous of the three courts.
- In Turn Coat, Lara Raith 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.
- Also Nicodemus from of the Order of the Blackened Denarius. He's so evil that he has an equal partnership with the fallen angel that possesses him, yet very calmly and in almost a friendly manner tried to recruit Harry instead of killing him outright. Nicodemus even had a nice breakfast brought in for Harry in Death Masks if he accepted.
- 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. One gets the impression that Harry constantly reminds himself that Marcone is criminal scum at least in part as a safeguard against liking the man.
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 from the Necroscope series 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 being polite, concerned, and surprisingly tolerant of Helen's quirks, for most of the book.
From Jacqueline Carey's Kushiels 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.

Close Literature

The Mayor from Buffy The Vampire Slayer (pictured above) fits the mold. A cheerful guy who just really wanted to turn into a giant snake demon that feeds on people, and even offered well-meant relationship advice to people he was trying pretty hard to kill.
- Harmony Kendall from the same series - the only person ever to have their personality improved by being turned into a souless undead monster. As both a human and a vampire, she pays no attention to her internal voice telling her right from wrong, and simply wants to be popular and liked. Bad results when her ignored inner voice is a human superego and she shows no empathy, good results when it's a demon and she shows no malice.
- Likewise, D'Hoffryn, lord of the Vengance 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.
- Don't forget Sweet, the demon from "Once More With Feeling". He never even engages in physical violence. On the other hand, he can bring whole cities to ruin, tried to marry 15-year-old Dawn (though that would involve dragging her to hell, yay!) and still have time to get a soft shoe in.
- Halfrek, an evil vengeance demon - who is best friends with Anya and truly cares about her, was the only person wwho noticed how screwed up Dawn was in season 6, and her raison de'tre was enacting vengeance for mistreated children. It's honestly very sad when D'Hoffryn murders her.
- Anya also probably counts. She's cheerful and bubbly, while reminiscing about the days she had vengeance demon powers and flayed men alive.
- Mr. Trick also fits this trope, always smooth and cool, even when he's about to chomp on a hapless fast food employee.
Scorpius of Farscape 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 was 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 Nightmare Fuel on television.
Even though they never forgot the purpose of their experiment, The Mads (and later Pearl) on MST3K oftentimes had 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 is affable, caring, and fatherly to Sam, his newest reaper, although his generosity is quite limited and quickly withdrawn 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 in Heroes was Affably Evil combined with Well Intentioned Extremist. Particularly in his initial appearance, where he reveals that he likes cooking, as it relaxes him—and when Nathan draws a gun on him, says firmly, "Now you can't have any of my pot pie."
- Don't forget the season 3 episode where 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.
- Bob, too. Maybe even more so. Also HRG, before his Heel Face Turn.
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.
Nancy Botwin, the drug dealing protagonist from Weeds is a loving mother and fairly amiable character in general. It is debatable, though, whether the show presents selling marijuana as a villainous act.
The Master in Doctor Who, especially as portrayed by Roger Delgado. His later incarnations were a little less affable and a little more psychotic.
- 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 later to use Romana to get at 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.
The Cardassians from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine 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 in 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 pure malevolence 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.
- A recent Expanded Universe novel manages to up Dukat's creepiness quotient: he keeps a Cardassian agent who's been surgically altered to look like Kira Nerys imprisoned and on drugs so that he can periodically rape her.
Weyoun, also from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Also 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, immune to most poisons.
Sheriff Lucas Buck of American Gothic certainly falls into this territory most of the time.
Ben Linus from Lost is affable and polite most of the time, and has only occasionally whipped 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 scarier than if he were malevolent all the time.
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 Chaotic Stupid. 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 said to be trustworthy, as he honors a deal with Sheppard even though Sheppard is completely at his mercy. Todd would probably get along reasonably well with the cast if he didn't need to suck the life of humans to live...
- Good news! He no longer does.
Baal in Stargate SG 1, despite being rather sexist and genuinely malevolent, was 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 something of a "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?
Star Trek's 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....
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's 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 he's Satan himself?
Topher Brink from Dollhouse. He has something of a god complex regarding the Actives, but manages to be extremely likeable.
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.
Jonas Hodges of 24. Charming, witty, charismatic, psychotic. When he suspects the chairman of the board of his company of helping the government take 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, on Kings. 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 then 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.
I've got to nominate a seemingly peculiar choice: Peg Bundy from Married with Children. I know most people would classify her as merely a Jerkass, but her increasingly vile behavior throughout the run of the series (and her complete ~~obliviousness~~ indifference to the same) calls for something stronger. Towards the end, she wasn't merely neglecting the housework and spending too much money while putting down her husband, but actively allowing her own children to starve and suffer so she can live a life of idle leisure and nonchalantly exposing her husband to lethal situations for her own personal gain...all while painting herself as the victim without the slightest hint of irony or self-awareness. Even on a live-action cartoon, her behavior is downright disturbing. The writers even tried to give her some Pet The Dog moments in the form of the dream pregnancy and Seven, but in the end those plot points not only failed to soften her character, they actually served to emphasize just how hideous Peggy really was. And yet within the show's fictional universe, she was probably the most-liked of all the Bundys! She would ALMOST qualify as a Magnificent Bastard, but since at the end of the day she was only as smart as she needed to be (slightly more than her kids and a lot more than her husband) and she really isn't all that admirable, I don't think she qualifies. YMMV.
- Not that the other characters were much better. But still.

Close Live Action TV

Nurgle, the Chaos god of disease, decay, despair and destruction in the Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 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.
- Of the Four Gods, Papa Nurgle is the only one who actually cares about his followers. Khorne will have you killed the moment there is more blood to be spilt from you than by you; Tzeentch's favor lasts exactly as long as your usefulness, with your eventual defeat likely planned a millennium in advance; while Slaanesh gets bored rather quickly. Even Nurgle's demons follow in his footsteps: beasts of Nurgle, despite being massive, shambling, plague-spreading slug-monsters, have the temperament and mentality of puppies, licking and nuzzling their newfound friends who sadly and quickly succumb to their virulent diseases and acidic tentacles.
  - 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.
- During the fall of the Eldar, Nurgle, being moved by their goddess's plight, launched a war to save her and her children from being consumed by Slaanesh, eventually keeping their goddess as a guest/prisoner. Of course, being the god of decay, he shows his love by giving her all his newly made poxes before he uses them on the galaxy (the goddess then gives the galaxy the cure). Has Ugly Guy Hot Wife gone past the point of parody? You be the judge.
  - in Warhammer she's his daughter, curing people so her papa can infect them agian.
The bread and butter of the World Of Darkness, especially 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 is the Tzimisce, 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 a living, tortured abomination. 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...
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 best taverns catering to any sentient being (with special floors for freshwater, saltwater and flame-dwelling clients).
A few of the more sociable Darklords in Ravenloft comes off as this - in some campaigns Von Strahd can be downright charming, as long as you're not getting in his way in his never-ending quest to claim the woman he lusted after or do anything he perceives as harming his beloved Homeland; Lukas is the classic Bard - a Ladies' man who loves to entertain his guests - it just so happens that's he's a cannibalistic werewolf, etc.

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The Pirates of Penzance are likeable chaps who refuse to attack a weaker party or harm an orphan (they're all orphans themselves, you see). Unsurprisingly, they are not very successful pirates.
- Other Gilbert & Sullivan examples include 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. Also Wilfred Shadbolt, who is head jailer and assistant tormentor, but wants to be more affable by becoming a jester.
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.
During his dealings with Christine, the titular Phantom of the Opera carries this off in spades. Otherwise...
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.
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.
The Wizard from Wicked is friendly, kind and supportive to Elphaba, presenting himself as a kind fatherfigure 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

Close Theater

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.
- To a lesser extent, Mr. Burke, as well.
  - Burke was neato. 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.
Most if not all of the Dark Brotherhood from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion are likable people (save for maybe M'raaj-Dar) if you can get past the fact that they'r all murderers. As well, some of the Daedric Princes (like Sheogorath) can be quite pleasant.
- Unfortunately, M'raaj-Dar decides that he's been being to mean to your character at one point and from then on greets you cheerfully and amiably. Why unfortunately, you ask? Because this is scripted to occur right after you're given the quest to kill him and every other Dark Brotherhood member. This troper was so conflicted here that he used a mod allowing you to leave your favourite characters alive.
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.
Shelly de Killer from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: 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.
  - Additionally, in-game dialogue states that if you're short on cash, he's the man to ask to borrow from.
Gilgamesh of Final Fantasy V 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.
Rubicante of Final Fantasy IV is quite affable and polite for a Boss. He restores the heroes prior to battling them! Even though he's defeated after doing this, when he fights the heroes again his chivalry still compels him to heal his opponents before fighting them.
- He's also outraged when he learns of his Mad Scientist subordinate Dr. Lugae's cruel experiments on humans. Lugae only escapes Rubicante's punishment because the heroes have already killed him.
- Not only that, but his first appearance has him easily defeating ninja prince Edge. Rubicante doesn't finish Edge off though, instead praising his current abilities and potential and bidding him to train and become stronger and then return for a rematch.
A third Final Fantasy example comes in the form of Vayne Solidor from Final Fantasy XII, the game's primary overt antagonist. Vayne is cultured, polite, affable to the public, and an extremely talented speaker. 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, much worse things in 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 a 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 established fact that they never insult foes. And this fact can be exploited by PC too.
The villains of the forgettable game Night 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...
A certain vampire victim turned vampire herself in Tsukihime 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 he grants her the only peace he can...a quick death. Isnt It Sad, Sacchin?
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."
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 and Super Smash Bros Brawl. King DeDeDe saves a few characters lives, and then hugs Kirby when he finds out 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 Shadow Hearts, has the appearance of an elderly British gentleman and often acts the part when he's not brutally slaughtering anyone in his way.
- Oh, when beaten, acknowledges you're better, and heals you up.
Kane of Command And Conquer, the resident Big Bad Magnificent Bastard, is a strikingly erudite, educated, and charismatic leader whos 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 swine they are.
Leopold Goenitz from The King Of Fighters speaks in borderline Purple Prose about messiahs and religion, treats his opponents with utmost politeness and wears silver jewelry along with his priest robes. He's also a Magnificent Bastard with the power to control wind, who can gouge your eye out without breaking a sweat, kill a young Shinto priestess with ease, or manipulate children into killing their families...
The Sniper in Team Fortress 2 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.
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 making 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 your 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.
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 the Fall seem more in line with the Dark Messiah than the general Omnicidal Maniac.
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.
Vladamir Len 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 swave demeanor or his cordial disposition: "Max! Dearest of all friends..."
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.
Kirei Kotomine of Fate Stay Night is a perfectly polite fellow who never lies to you nor avoids answering questions. He lets his enemies come right up to his base of operations, helps you out in the third scenario, where it's revealed 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 villan. Widely considered one of the most popular characters in the series.
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 from The Suffering. He's modelled 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.

Close Video Games

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 LaughablyEvil 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.
Narbonic was built around this trope.
Snookums from Mixed Myth
Early on, Order Of The Stick Big Bad Xykon is Laughably Evil, and his seemingly unfocused, borderline ditzy mannerisms might make you think he fits in this category. You'd be very very wrong. He is still kind of funny, though..
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 is very much 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 the flick of her hand, but chooses not to, because she likes the evil scemes of the villains. But woe if they harm her boyfriend...
Most villains from Dan And Mabs 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 big.

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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's Senior's a "bad man. Good manners."
Hank Scorpio from The Simpsons, a decent 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.
David Xanatos in Gargoyles. 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.
The Brain, the smarter half of Pinky And The Brain. An erudite, genetically-altered lab mouse who merely wants to do the same thing he does every night: try to Take Over The World!
- It's eventually revealed that he wants to take over the world in order to help people by ending war and enacting humanitarian efforts.
In The Venture Brothers, 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 villan he sets up an appointment to see what Venture's allergic to since its part of 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.
- It could easily be said that Rusty Venture and Brock are the most villainous characters in the show.
Long Feng, resident Evil Chancellor of Avatar The Last Airbender, 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.
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.
Zebedee in the TUGS episode "High Winds".

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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!"
Osama bin Laden. Volleyball.
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 sack 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, and Vlad the Impaler committed atrocities because they felt it was the only way to bring order and safety to a dangerous world. Hell, even Hitler had moments of genuine concern for others.
- 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. There are many other, less trustworthy anecdotes, but those three 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.
  - Operation: Barbarosa probably made his paranoia worse.
- Stalin has been diagnosed post mortem with a neurological condition that increased his paranoia massively, and would have been treatable, if he had allowed himself to be subjected to the required medical procedures. Instead he treated doctors with unholy terror.
- Stalin was known to have a sense of humor, up to telling jokes about himself. One of his favorites: "A Georgian delegation comes, they talk to Stalin, and then they go, heading off down the Kremlin's corridors. Stalin starts looking for his pipe. He can't find it. He calls in Beria, the dreaded head of his secret police. 'Go after the delegation, and find out which one took my pipe,' he says. Beria scuttles off down the corridor. Five minutes later Stalin finds his pipe under a pile of papers. He calls Beria—-'Look, I've found my pipe.' 'It's too late,' Beria says, 'half the delegation admitted they took your pipe, and the other half died during questioning.' " Admittedly not the nicest joke, but the self-realization is there.
- There's another Stalin joke wherein he's giving a speech and someone sneezes. He stops, and glowers. "Who sneezed?" The room is silent. Stalin orders his guards to take the last row out and shoot them. Shots are heard from outside, and he continues his speech. Someone sneezes again. Again, Stalin demands "Who sneezed?" This time, a man in the 2nd-to-last row raises his hand meekly. Stalin glares at him. "What is your name?" "Nikolai," the man stutters. "God bless you, Nikolai," Stalin says, and continues with his speech.
Though most people today wouldn't consider Napoleon Bonaparte to be evil, many of his enemies considered him to be. In spite of this, most of them 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 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 command of 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...
Heinrich Himmler sent thousands to their deaths with a stroke of a pen but fainted at the sight of blood. He was also a staunch vegetarian.

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