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A crafty, cruel, and cunning villain. Just like her father.

"Rather than simply being an attractive stage prop, make sure that you know every detail of the running of the Evil Empire, so that if anything unpleasant happens to Daddy, the transition of power will go smoothly. Then make sure that something unpleasant happens to Daddy."
— #14. of the guide for the "Wicked but Beautiful Daughter"

The Evil Counterpart of Daddy's Girl. She's the daughter/niece/granddaughter/etc of an Evil Overlord, who shares said Evil Overlord's ambition, cunning, and cruelty. She could be anything from a simple Spoiled Brat to an Overlord in waiting. She's also likely to be a Princess (since even villainy is improved with that), although she will still prefer wearing black or dark colors over pink.

Viewers should neither expect her to be The Ingenue nor expect a Heel–Face Turn from her, even if she falls for the hero. That would more be her just wanting him for herself than willingly joining his side; she'll want him to willingly join her side (and his refusal is likely to inspire Woman Scorned, however little reason she had to believe that he might accept).

She is more likely to be a Dark Action Girl than a Dark Magical Girl, because the latter has a high chance of becoming good after her Magical Girl counterpart defeats her in combat or otherwise convinces her to switch sides with The Power of Friendship. On the other hand, she is prone to Revenge by Proxy subjected by an Anti-Hero in a darker setting.

She might team up with the heroes, but only for the same reason any other dragon would team up with them. Then it's enemies again.

If she's above a certain age, she is going to be hot, often a cooler character than the female lead, and might wear less. If the bad guys are the Yellow Peril or otherwise "Asian-themed", expect her to be a Dragon Lady.

If her father is defeated, she will be the one doing the avenging. On the other hand, she might get impatient waiting for Mommy and Daddy to die so she can take their place. In this case, she might decide to become a Self-Made Orphan and The Usurper all at once. In the meantime, mom or dad might give her a first rate education by sending her to the Academy of Evil. If it turns out her Evil Parents Want Good Kids, expect a disappointment. To correct this acquired morality they may send her to a Superhero School.

Compare Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter (who may or may not be evil), The Evil Prince, Protected by a Child, and Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas.

Contrast Princess Classic, Defecting for Love, Evil Parents Want Good Kids, and Mafia Princess (unless, of course, she's being groomed to take over the family business). Sister Trope to Overlord Jr. (perhaps literally if both characters exist in the story) and Villainous Mother-Son Duo.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • A Certain Magical Index: We're not entirely sure if Amata Kihara is Telestina Lifeline's father or if Gensei Kihara had another son, but they're both him and Telestina really fits this trope well. Really, really well.
  • She's not his daughter, but the Millennium Earl and Road Kamelot of D.Gray-Man behave like this. She also behaves like this with her real father. But it's really odd since she's older than he is...
  • Inverted in Dangaioh. Pai Thunder, the Big Girl from the Five-Man Band, was the daughter of Big Bad Garimoth and had a Face–Heel Turn once she recovered her memories. But when Garimoth told her to kill her teammate Roll before taking her back, Pai rebelled and rejoined the group.
  • Doki Doki Pretty Cure has a very complicated example in Regina, the daughter of King Jikochuu. On one hand, the villains, herself included, are powered by selfishness (it's kinda in the name; "Jikochuu" (selfish) isn't just his name but the whole monster race) and have it as their foremost trait, and the king can force this part of her to become dominant. On the other hand, Regina learned to love as she was befriended and taught about humanity by the heroes. On the other other hand, her father is who she loves most of all. This keeps her very conflicted and going through the Heel–Face Revolving Door. There's one point with the heroes trying to awaken her good side and seeming to succeed, and she goes from her evil colors to her good colors and keeps on attacking, going from doing it For the Evulz to doing it for her father.
  • Eureka Seven: Anemone is very much this trope towards her commander Dewey Novak, with a dash of Yandere thrown in for good measure. Unlike most, she does make a Heel–Face Turn in the end, after she realizes just HOW depraved Dewey is, how he admitted to her that she's another expendable pawn in his grand scheme after going through the entire series treating her with extra special attention and "Love", and Dominic's love for her changes her for the better.
  • Subverted in Flame of Recca: Renge thinks she's this to the Big Bad, but in actuality, he kept her around just so he could devour her to be immune to Kurei and Recca's flames.
  • One of the stories adapted in Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics is "The Magic Heart"/"Donkey Cabbages", where a Wicked Witch is aided in her plans against the huntsman Frederick by her beautiful daughter, Lisbeth. It fails. Epically.
  • Gundam:
    • Mobile Suit Gundam: She's far from childish or spoiled, but Princess Kycilia Zabi still fits the trope, sharing her father Degwin's philosophy and remaining loyal to him even after his death. In fact, her care for him is one of her few redeeming qualities.
    • Mariemaia Barton from the Mobile Suit Gundam Wing OVA. She is (allegedly) the illegitimate daughter of Treize Kushrenada and a nurse. She tries to Take Over the World at the age of eight, "the way her father would have wanted."Some evidence, however, suggests that she is not Treize's daughter at all, but just a random girl found and groomed by Dekim to assume the role.
      • Treize's daughter or not, the ultimate irony is that Kushrenada was more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist who ultimately believed in peace, while Mariemaia knowingly tried to start another war just after a rather devastating one had finally wrapped up.
  • Mathilda Toulonchamp from Honoo No Alpen Rose, willing accomplice to her Manipulative Bastard father in his Batman Gambit to manipulate Jeudi's maternal family. Averted by her older sister Madeleine, though. And later, Mathilda herself starts backing off, since she realizes she's in deep shit after their accomplice fails to kill Jeudi and such a situation scares the crap out of her.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
  • In My-HiME, Alyssa's most important person, even more than her robotic bodyguard and companion Miyu, is her "father," the Searrs president.
  • A reveal in One Piece firmly sets Charlotte Pudding as this for her mother, Charlotte "Big Mom" Linlin. The girl claims to be her horrible mom's favorite child and is just as terrible, only able to hide it MUCH better, making herself look sweet and gentle until it's time to attack. It turns out there's a huge reason for it: Pudding possesses a Third Eye, which according to Big Mom, should help her read the Poneglyphs' content without understanding the language, like how Roger used his mysterious ability of "hearing the voices of all things" to read Poneglyphs. Plus she psychologically abused Pudding ever since she was a little kid, by endlessly mocking her Third Eye and how it looked.
  • Rue from Princess Tutu is a normal ballet student until she becomes her alter ego, Princess Kraehe. Later it's revealed that the Big Bad Raven kidnapped her as a baby. Meaning he'd lied to her about her being HIS daughter. The Raven is definitely not going to win the "father of the year" award.

    Comic Books 
  • All-Out Avengers: The first issue's villain is Arrok the Seventh, queen of the Sinnarian Empire. Her father was the Big Bad of the Black Order series, published a few years earlier — and now he's dead she's following in his footsteps. Not only is she just as malevolent, she's also using similar tactics (albeit on a smaller scale), with the mutagenic 'Bow of Attican' replacing the world-wrecking 'Bow of Gabriel' her father acquired.
  • Talia al Ghul from Batman, daughter of Ra's al Ghul. She often flip-flops between loyalty to her father and to her "beloved". The page image shows Talia from Batman Beyond, though by that point, her father hijacked her body.
    • There's also Talia's sister, Nyssa, who lacked any of Talia's loyalty issues by being emotionally numb (losing everyone you loved and being horrifically tortured/experimented on while interned in a concentration camp can do that sometimes) and trying to Starscream her dad and become leader of the League of Assassins. Don't feel bad for not having heard of her: the coup didn't last and neither did she.
  • Played for Drama in Batman: Beyond the White Knight. Everyone knows that Bryce and Jackie Quinzel are the children of The Joker. While Bryce passes off as normal, Jackie suffers from a lot of angst over it, presuming that she's expected to be "more like Joker", a problem only compounded by bullies at school rubbing it in her face. Because of this, she starts dressing like Joker and behaves like a delinquent.
  • Sybil Mayhew, daughter of Blackhawk's Evil Counterpart Death Mayhew, who follows in her father's footsteps after his death.
  • Captain America: Sin, the Red Skull's completely Ax-Crazy daughter. She was a looker until the final issue of Captain America: Reborn, in which she gets an extreme makeover courtesy of an exploding mecha. She truly was her father's daughter at least until Kobik repairs her face.
  • Winnowill from ElfQuest was vaguely retconned to be Haken's daughter, though the hinting started pretty early on in the series. She really takes after him... and once she starts living inside Rayek's mind, she flesh-shapes his body to look exactly like her father's.
  • In Empire, Golgoth, supreme villainous overlord of the world, has only one joy in life: his sweet, innocent daughter. Only she's not as innocent as he thinks, as she's been sleeping with one of his lieutenants and eventually convinces him to betray her dad for her. Then it turns out she had been manipulating the guy all along, intentionally setting him up to be caught and executed just for her own amusement, and the whole thing was just a way of expressing her disturbing obsessive feelings toward her father. Even worse, she poisoned her own mother and made it look like a suicide because she felt she was making Golgoth soft.
  • Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: Freddy Krueger's daughter Kathryn a.k.a. Maggie Burroughs has fallen to the dark side and is now working with her father. Not only that, she's become a daddy's girl in all the wrong ways...
  • In The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #13, one of Dr. Jones' more trouble-prone female students turns out to be the daughter of a notorious mobster and a willing participant in his criminal schemes, and at least some of her klutziness is an act intended to keep Indy distracted from what her father is doing.
  • It Takes A Wizard: The little girl the Corrupt Corporate Executive valued so much that he busted the hero out of his impending death sentence so he could rescue her? Not only did she join the Big Bad in the wasteland of Manhattan, her father supported her decision to do so. Sending the hero on this mission was all part of a grand Evil Plan — to avenge Gaia by dethroning humanity from its place at the top of the food chain.
  • The Justice Society of America have had to deal with two of these. First is the daughter of the Mist, the archenemy of the original Starman, who took her father's place after his death. The second is the appropriately named Junior, daughter of the first Ragdoll.
  • New Gods: Darkseid has a daughter named Grail. She's his favorite child (for all that’s worth), and also the one who takes after him the most.
  • Planetary: Flashbacks explains how Doc Brass fought mysterious Fu Manchu-like Hark and eventually convinced him to join the side of the good guys. Hark's daughter Anna, however, had been raised as a villain, survived her father and became a thorn in the heroes' side.
  • Darla Aquista from Robin (1993) started out as a Mafia Princess who wanted to be involved in her daddy's business but he wanted to shelter her from that life. After she was "adopted" and given powers by the the super-villain Johnny Warlock she delved right into acting as a super-powered murderer on his behalf, even taking up the name "Warlock's Daughter". A little while later, though, she joined the supernatural hero team Shadowpact.
  • Shazam! has a good example of the difference between this and Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter. Captain Marvel's archenemy Sivana has four kids. Two of them are beautiful and good, siding with Captain Marvel, while his other two children are ugly and evil like him. Though in some appearances, his beautiful children were bad as well.
  • In Spider-Girl, we get a Distaff Counterpart of Electro (don't call her Electra just because she looks like Electro; her name is Aftershock, dammit!) who wants to follow in her father's footsteps, but by now, Electro has long since retired and doesn't want his daughter making the mistakes he did when he was her age. Subverted with a different character named Aftershock in the main Marvel Universe continuity, who claims to be Electro's daughter who had inherited his powers. When confronted about it, Electro points out that she's around seventeen and he's had powers only for thirteen years. It turns out that she was brainwashed into believing herelf to be his daughter.
  • Spider-Man: Ana Kravinoff, the daughter of Kraven the Hunter, has followed in her father's footsteps despite only being 12.
  • The Superior Foes of Spider-Man has somehow managed to combine this with Evil Parents Want Good Kids. Beetle's father Tombstone is proud that his daughter wants to be a criminal, but he doesn't approve of her being a supervillain; he believes that she'll be able to steal much more as a lawyer.
  • Superman:
  • Teen Titans:
    • Played with for Duela Dent, who introduced herself as the Joker's Daughter in the 1970s, but flip-flopped between heroism and villainy; her first "evil" acts being elaborate pranks (which included pretending to be the daughter of other Bat-villains) meant to get Robin's attention so he could induct her into the Teen Titans, as a way to turn over a new leaf, but her own craziness meant she remained trapped in the Heel–Face Revolving Door (when the writers bothered to remember her, that is). It would eventually be revealed that she is indeed the Joker's Daughter... but to the Joker from pre-New 52 Earth-3, a.k.a. the Jokester, who was a hero, and her looniness is because she was constantly and subconsciously universe-hopping.
    • Trigon wants his daughter Raven to be this. How well he succeeds is Depending on the Writer. Most of the time, she resists... It's when she can't that her teammates are screwed. In New 52, Raven was reintroduced as a villain and therefore is this, willingly.
  • One short strip from Tharg's Future Shocks is about a goth chick who leads a bunch of Vampire Vannabes to the Creepy Cemetery so that her vampire father can eat them. Tharg commends their family values.
  • X-Men:
    • Magneto's daughter the Scarlet Witch is an inverted example; she was originally a villain and one of the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, as was his son Quicksilver, but their hearts weren't in it, and they eventually turned against him. They had been Avengers for quite some time before realizing who their father is (and he didn't know, either).
    • Mastermind had two daughters with similar powers who have been villainesses. The younger one, Regan, even briefly joined the X-Men under the guise of a Heel–Face Turn before showing her true colors.

    Comic Strips 
  • Angel Top, the daughter of the infamous hitman Flattop from the Dick Tracy comics.
  • Princess Aura in the original Flash Gordon comic was an early example, though as the stories progressed she became more of a Rebellious Princess. As Ming the Merciless's daughter and only child, she helped him hunt the heroes, and even commanded military forces for him occasionally. She does have a soft spot for Flash Gordon out of attraction to him, and is Prince Barin's lover in some continuities.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animated 
  • Princess of Alpha and Omega 2: A Howl-iday Adventure is a subversion. While Princess is loyal to her father King and serves as his Dragon, it becomes clear that she's an Anti-Villain to his Card-Carrying Villain. Even moreso in the climax when, thanks to Runt bringing out more of her good side, Princess defies King's final attack order and retreats.
  • Princess Aura in Flash Gordon (1979), though her attraction towards Flash may affect her judgement.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Assassin's Creed (2016): Sophia Rikkin cooperates with her father in their quest for the Eden Apple of Granada, although she wants to "cure aggression" rather than Take Over the World it still boils down to The Evils of Free Will.
  • In Bulletproof Monk, Nina, who pretends to be a human rights activist, is the granddaughter of the Big Bad Nazi, who has been chasing the titular monk since World War II. She later tries to seduce the monk and has a Designated Girl Fight with Jade. She's enough of a badass that she has no problem breaking into a mansion owned by a Russian mobster.
  • Red Skull's daughter in Captain America (1990) has a prominent role as her father's henchwoman, assassin and right hand.
  • Conan the Barbarian (2011): Marique to Khalar Zym. He's the Big Bad while she's his loyal lieutenant and daughter, being very close with her father. She takes it to extremely creepy lengths though.
  • The Dark Knight Rises: Bane with Talia al Ghul a.k.a. Miranda Tate, who wants to finish her dad's Evil Plan because he was killed in the first movie.
  • Daughter of the Dragon has Fu Manchu's daughter, played by the stunning Anna May Wong.
  • Though we don't get to see them in action, Mr. Han from Enter the Dragon trained his daughters to be his most loyal guards. As Roper says upon finding out how tough they can be, "No one's more loyal than Daddy's little girl."
  • Ming's daughter Princess Aura in both the classic 30's Flash Gordon serials and the '80s Flash Gordon film, albeit in some versions she's not as cruel as her father and may even betray him in order to save Flash, who she (in all versions) lusts after him.
  • The Funhouse Massacre: Eileen is the daughter of Manual "Mental Manny" Dyer, and breaks him and several other Serial Killers out of the Statesville Mental Hospital so they can carry out their plan to kill a bunch of people in a Haunted House Attraction. She even has her own serial killer identity, the Stitch-Faced Killer.
  • A Good Day to Die Hard: Irina is this towards her father Yuri Kamorov.
  • Guns, Girls and Gambling: The Girl Next Door is actually The Rancher's daughter, and has been manipulating John Smith the entire time in order to secure the mask for her father.
  • Kajillionaire: Two petty thugs don't want their daughter to have a better life. Instead, they want her to join in the family business.
  • The Mask of Fu Manchu: Fah Lo is every bit as evil as her father, and is completely on board with making him the new Khan. See entry under Literature below.
  • Angela in Matchstick Men proves to be just as cunning of a Con Man as her father Roy. Justified as she is an actress playing a con against him.
  • Angelica Teach from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is The Dragon for her father, the infamous Blackbeard. Little does she know he's just using her to achieve his quest for immortality.
  • In the Danish film Pusher 3, Serb drug lord Milo's daughter clearly wears the pants in the family, ordering her flustered father around to prepare for her 25th birthday party. After Milo discovers that her boyfriend is an independent drug dealer and forces him to buy his product for distribution, his daughter finds out and hardballs his price down. What a family!
  • Sky High: Gwen was raised by Stitches to be evil, and she absolutely hates whenever someone, including Stitches himself, points this out. Also a rare instance of the "little villain" rather than the "daddy" being the dominant partner. In this case, though, she was already evil to begin with.
  • In The Smurfs 2, Smurfette is played up as this to her "father" Gargamel before her Heel–Face Turn, along with her "sister" Vexy, though to a lesser extent.
  • Thor: Ragnarok: Hela had a grand time with her old man, Odin as a Galactic Conqueror, drenching entire civilizations in "blood and tears". Then he turned good and they had a falling out.
  • War (2007): Kira, the Yakuza boss's daughter, is a Dark Action Girl who is eager to please her father by working as his lieutenant. She briefly works alongside Rogue while not realizing that he's Playing Both Sides.
  • Willow: Initially, Sorsha's a loyal lieutenant to her evil sorceress mother.
  • Yellowbeard: Triola, daughter of the greedy religious leader El Nebuloso.

    Literature 
  • Larry Peril from Constance Verity Saves The World is a Mommy's Little Villain, being the son of Mad Scientist supervillainess Lady Peril. Also a reluctant example, as he's long nursed a crush on the heroine and feels far too inept at command to follow in his mother's footsteps.
  • Lila Zacharov of The Curse Workers by Holly Black is the daughter of a manipulative, murdering crime boss, and wants nothing more than to be his heir. However, she's portrayed as more of an Anti-Heroine than a villain.
  • A fascinating example in the Doctor Who New Series Adventures novel Judgement of the Judoon. Hope is an example of Evil Parents Want Good Kids, and knows nothing of her father's activities as The Don. He is determined to keep it that way, and loves his little girl deeply. However, unbeknownst to him, she is also a "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl, and became "Madam Yolanda", his archenemy in the underworld, as a way to get her father's attention. In the end, thanks to a Gambit Pileup, she accidentally kills her father, and then is killed herself.
  • The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden's nemesis Nichodemus has a daughter named Deirdre who is as evil and dangerous as him and is apparently his lover too. The RPG refers to her as Daddy's Little Denarian in her character sheet.
  • Fah Lo Suee, the daughter of Fu Manchu embodies the "beautiful but at-least-as-evil-as-he" version of the evil mastermind's daughter.
  • Gentleman Bastard:All three of Capa Barsavi's children could fall into this trope.
  • Devereaux D'Orsay in (the last book of) Cinda Williams Chima's The Heir Chronicles is male, but he's still the spoiled, bratty, and thoroughly villainous (though handsome) child of one of the main villains.
  • Phaidor, daughter of the Thern (White Martian) Priest King from the second and third John Carter of Mars novels. Her dad is the head of a planet-spanning Path of Inspiration which manipulates the other Martian races into being slaves and/or food for their people, and she's not only completely cool with it, she finds the idea of any other way of life unthinkable, and while she's attracted to Carter, it's mostly because he's badass and she's utterly dumbfounded by why he does the things he does. Then she gets a dose of Break the Haughty when she finds out that another Martian race, the First Born, are using the Therns the same way the Therns use everyone else, followed shortly by Carter exposing the whole thing and toppling it. Then her dad gets offed by the First Born warlord he'd been in a very tense Villain Team-Up with, and she avenges him before committing suicide, though she does express repentance in her last moments.
  • Legacy of the Dragokin: Inverted as Kthonia is not at all evil and her daughter Sali-Ka is the Big Bad. Avenging The Villain kicks in when her daughter is killed.
  • Although not related by blood, Dime Novel villain Zanoni the Woman Wizard was the ward of Dr Jack Quartz, the Arch-Enemy of Nick Carter.
  • In Outlander Leander, Signe the Scraper is this. After her mother dies she fights to take over her crime ring despite being underage. She's involved in kidnapping, slavery and murder, and goes as far as to plan the assassination of one of the country's leaders.
  • Nova from Renegades is the niece of Ace Anarchy, the world's most infamous supervillain, and is dedicated to furthering his cause.
  • Ruler of the Magical Keys: The teenage daughter of Signor Mafioso Banditto in The Island of Captains. Makes her father immensely proud by helping him to snatch property from the local poor and planning to follow in his footsteps. It’s not mentioned what happens when she grows up, but she creates the Tulpa that becomes the Big Bad of the book.
  • Mr. Scratch of Scary Stories For Young Foxes conditions his eldest daughter to abuse her disabled younger brother Uly. She encourages their sisters to join in, making Uly's life quite unbearable until her death.
  • In The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School, several of the students at Drearcliff are the daughters of criminal masterminds, including the protagonist Amy's room-mate, Kali, whose father is a Kafiri warlord. The Distant Finale shows that she has taken over and expanded her father's organization, but frequently uses it to take down worse criminal masterminds and generally acts with honor such that Amy is not embarrassed to consider her a friend.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • Petyr Baelish is trying to get Alayne Stone/Sansa Stark to play this role, although there is much speculation as to where this will lead.
    • Cersei wanted to be this to Tywin Lannister, but winds up as a rare female "Well Done, Son" Guy instead, because Tywin would rather she adopt a more traditional female role as wife and mother to a king.
    • Asha Greyjoy appears to be this while her father is alive, but after his death proves to have a much different and more sensible agenda.
  • Star Trek: In William Shatner's novel Ashes Of Eden, the Big Bad's daughter has been brainwashed by her father into doing everything she can to kill Kirk. Why? Because her mother was killed by Klingons shortly before Kirk helped sign the peace treaty, preventing her father from exacting revenge on them. She opts to die with her father rather than let Kirk save her.
  • Star Wars: Vestara Khai from Fate of the Jedi comes from a whole society of Sith, and both she and her father Gavar are major villains. Then she gets into an Enemy Mine with Luke Skywalker and his son Ben against an Eldritch Abomination which is manipulating her people- and while Ves herself would be horrified at the idea, many fans hoped she'd make a genuine Heel–Face Turn before everything was over. Indeed, in Vortex, she saves Luke and Ben from the Sith. Twice. Also, this trope takes an interesting turn when Vestara killed Lord Taalon, who was "too far above her station", thus making her own father (and lots of other Sith) want to kill her. Afterwards, she decides to stick around and help Luke and Ben and falls in love with Ben. They're set up to have an adorable romance... until she murders someone in a desperate bid to save Ben's life. While he wasn't aware of it, it crossed her personal Moral Event Horizon, and she decides Then Let Me Be Evil.
  • Sonia Steiglitz is the beautiful and sadistic Psycho Knife Nut daughter of the ex-CIA chief/archaeologist villain of The Takers, a modern Two Fisted Tale by Jerry Ahern.
    "My mother would drink while my father was out searching for the damned Gladstone Log. Some nights she'd beat me because she couldn't love him. I'm twenty-six years old. I stopped playing with dolls twenty years ago. I taught myself to hurt things and feel nothing — all so I could be with him when he searched — be with him! It was never my mother — I don't know if he loved her. It was always finding the Gladstone Log... the power... the power he wanted..."
  • In Vampire Academy, Natalie will do anything her father Victor Dashkov tells her to do - even drastic things, like turning Strigoi to help him get out of prison. She is his chief agent in his campaign against Lissa.
  • Played With in Worm. Feared supervillain Marquis is visibly shocked when he finds out his biological daughter Amy Dallon is now a beloved superhero with the power to heal, but ultimately seems to be content that she turned out okay. After she undergoes a Trauma Conga Line and is sent to the same prison as him, he becomes very protective of his near-catatonic daughter, even though the other prison bosses see it as a weakness. When she starts to (dubiously) recover though, he’s proud of how well she begins to assert herself amongst the other inmates. By the sequel series Ward, he has happily made her his most trusted lieutenant.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Arrow has Ra's al Ghul as the Big Bad of Season 3, but of his two daughters, Nyssa gets more prominence than Talia. The same season flirts with the idea that Thea will fall under the influence of supervillain Malcolm Merlyn (having recently discovered she's his illegitimate daughter) but she eventually rejects him and returns to her brother Oliver, by which time (ironically) Malcolm has become the next Ra's.
  • Invoked and inverted in the Brazilian Soap Opera O Beijo do Vampiro (The Vampire's Kiss). Zeca is the son of an evil vampire Boris and a human. Boris finds his son when he's about to turn thirteen, when he'll become a full vampire. Zeca is horrified about the whole ordeal. While he turns into a vampire anyway, he manages to remain a kind boy, much to Boris' frustration (doesn't stop him from trying to convince Zeca to change his ways, though). Later, as they spend time together, Boris grows to just be happy as long as Zeca is and that he comes to accept Boris as his father.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Despite not really being his daughter, Faith winds up very much playing this role to The Mayor in the third season — she's his loyal Dragon, of whom he is clearly protective. Her loyalty is based on him being the first (and possibly only) person who ever valued her just for being her (not using her or trying to change her). When he tells her that even if Buffy did a Face–Heel Turn, he'd still pick Faith over her, it's a weird but touchingly sincere moment that clearly means the world to her. Buffy sending her into a coma leads to his one swear word, and Buffy taunting him about said loss leads to his defeat. Many scenes between Faith and the Mayor involve him acting very fatherly and tender, giving her gifts and general life advice (about respecting and valuing herself) alongside assassination missions. Nice little call back in both Season Seven and the Season Eight comics, showing that Faith remembers him fondly despite her Heel–Face Turn.
    • Darla is this, if you remember that The Master is her sire.
    • Drusilla is almost as evil as her beloved "Daddy." The two seem to have a lot in common, killing and making plans together, and in "Crush", Dru even shows Angelus's affinity for torture, while Spike prefers quick kills. Angelus even tells her "no one knows me like you do." Her betrayal of Spike for Angelus the moment he returns probably seals the deal. Of course, Dru and Angelus have been sleeping together since before Spike was born, but that's how vampire families seem to work.
  • El Chapulín Colorado in The Wild West settings has Rosa la Rumorosa (Rosa "the many rumors one") daughter and accomplice of feared gunslinger villain Matonsísimo Kid (the "Kills a lot" Kid).
  • CSI: NY:
    • "Identity Crisis" featured the Victim of the Week, a young woman in her early-twenties, the daughter of an infamous deceased Con Man who taught her everything he knew about grifting. What got her killed was her trying to the tell her boyfriend about a large score she could make from scamming two guys who themselves were trying to pull off a scam. She tells the boyfriend that the deal went wrong, and convinced him to empty his bank account, loan a large amount from his brother, and sell anything of value to pay them off. After months of not seeing her, he recognized her in the old man costume, and when she tried to fight him off, he killed her and fled the scene.
    • "Cavaliino Rampante" dealt with two of a car thief's three daughters following him into the family business. He helps them focus on stealing Ferraris and gets killed for his trouble (along with one of the girls) when they snatch the car of an internationally wanted felon.
  • Forever Knight: Inverted. LaCroix's daughter Divia became a vampire first and is the reason for him becoming one too, not the other way around. She's also far more amoral and embracing of her monstrous nature than even her Machiavellian father, which led him to seal her away for two thousand years.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • The show has a scene where Cersei is showing Crown Prince Joffrey how to be Mummy's little villain. Unfortunately, he takes her advice re: "you are king and can do whatever you want" very much to heart, while ignoring her lessons on prudent policy and government. Cersei herself seems to be trying to be this to her father Tywin, but unfortunately thanks to being a) a woman and b) not nearly as clever as she thinks she is, she doesn't get the appreciation she thinks she deserves.
    • Yara Greyjoy is a straight example when she is eager to participate in her father's plan to attack the North, though she disobeys her father in the finale of Season 3, when she gets word of Theon's imprisonment by Ramsay Snow. Balon's disgustingly cruel dismissal of Theon as "not being a man anymore" and his desire to leave him to his nightmarish fate cause her to openly disobey his command and set out with her own team to take care of it herself.
  • Gotham Knights (2023): Eunice Harmon adores her father, a serial killer, who dotes on her even now, fully supporting his murderous work as the Court of Owls' top enforcer. However, being an old lady in a nursing home, she doesn't actively do anything but voice moral support of him.
  • Nora Darhk was initially one of these in Legends of Tomorrow, acting as The Dragon to her dad, Damien Darhk. Following Damien's death (in which he abandoned his evil plan when he realised it would kill her) she underwent a Heel–Face Turn, and ended up as Ray's Love Interest and a fairy godmother.
  • Alexandra Udinov was nearly an example in Nikita. She adored her Russian oligarch father and swore revenge against Division when they killed him. This trope is subverted when she realizes just how evil he was and that she was being groomed to take over him company. Though she still avenges his death, she gives away the company and continues helping Nikita against Division.
  • Nos4a 2: Millie, Manx's daughter, is almost exactly like him and turned evil at the same time (she's the first of his vampirish kids).
  • Pandora: Both of Harlan Fried's daughters are just as evil and as ambitious as him. Even Tierney, who's revealed to be his third daughter "Odessa" in the season one finale. And unlike Regan and Cordelia, she's actually loyal to him.
  • Power Rangers:
  • Resurrection: Ertuğrul: During the sophomore season, there's Goncagul Hatun, both in the sense that she’s the daughter of the immoral Gumustekin Bey and the niece of his sister Aytolun, and is at least equally malicious as either of her aforementioned relatives.
  • The Rookie (2018): Oscar Hutchinson, a ruthless murderer, applauds his illegitimate daughter for her involvement in crime, and hopes his legacy will continue with her.
  • In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Conscience of the King", the daughter of a former villain in hiding uses their cover as a performing theater troupe to kill off the remaining witnesses to her father's previous crimes as a way of "protecting" him from recrimination. Her father is extremely displeased with her when he finds out, having hoped to start a legitimate new life in their cover identities, and appalled that the blood on his hands had irreversibly stained her as well.
  • Super Sentai:
  • Young Dracula has Ingrid, the elder sister of the title character, who at least in the earlier seasons would love to be this. Unfortunately for her, her father is utterly sexist, and so he despises and ignores her in favour of her White Sheep brother.

    Mythology 

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Lady Apache and her daughter Fabi tend to compete as tecnicos, while Lady's husband Gran Apache often works with the rudos, especially in AAA, and their other daughter Mari tends to work with him against her mom and sister. That said, Gran and Mari more often choose to switch to tecnico to appease the other Apaches.
  • Stephanie McMahon, daughter of billionaire Bad Boss Vince McMahon, definitely qualifies.
  • Charlotte Flair, daughter of the dirtiest player in the game, Ric Flair. She especially shows this after she Took a Level in Jerkass.
  • After Act Yasukawa relinquished control of Oedo~tai back to Kyoko Kimura, Kyoko's then rookie daughter joined her mother's efforts to knock over the STARDOM promotion, helping Kyoko and Kagetsu take the Artist Of STARDOM from the seemingly unstoppable babyface alliance holding them. Hana technically counts as daddy's little villain in a literal sense too, as dad Isao Kobayashi is also a pro wrestler, but due to the relative rarity of mixed gender cards in Japan she doesn't team up with him nearly as often as mom.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Dungeons & Dragons has two prominent examples, both archdevils from the Nine Hells of Baator.
    • Glasya is nothing less than the daughter of Asmodeus, Overlord of Hell. She went through a long rebellious phase, but then the two of them reached an accord and Glasya was given the sixth hell of Malbolge to rule over - her first act was to do some remodeling using the Hag Countess, the layer's previous ruler, as a building material. This act sent shockwaves through Hellish politics, reminding the other archdukes that Asmodeus could replace any of them at any time, particularly unnerving Levistus, the duke who murdered Glasya's mother, and Mammon, her on-again off-again paramour. As for Glasya herself, she's too busy these days to seduce paladins and other righteous mortals herself, but still enjoys promising a victim carnal delights beyond imagination only to instead rot the flesh from their bones with a horrible contagion.
    • Lady Fierna is the nominal ruler of Phlegethos, though for most of her reign her dear father Belial wielded most of the power while Fierna enjoyed herself (often with him). But she's recently become best friends with Glasya and is taking a much more active role in governing, even setting up her own cultist and intelligence networks "just in case" of her father's sudden demise. Belial is smart enough to be very, very worried.

    Theatre 
  • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child:
    • Delphi is the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, eagerly following her father's steps.
    • Augurey, a powerful Death Eater whose parents supported Voldemort during the first Wizarding War. The two Death Eaters never met their child, but the Augurey still feels an incredible closeness to them and seeks to destroy the Potters in their honor. The Augurey's status as an orphan also creates a parallel scenario for Harry Potter, who fights for good because his deceased parents did.
  • Older Than Feudalism: Medea of Euripides' tragedy is an excellent illustration of what this character type is like when they are in love with the hero, and how just dangerous said characters are if you betray them. After Hera made her fall madly in love with Jason, in order to aid him she betrayed her father, cut her brother into several pieces to distract her father so Jason had more time to escape, and tricked Jason's cousins into murdering their father — Jason's usurping uncle. Jason married her and vowed eternal love, but when he changed his mind and abandoned the very powerful witch to go marry someone else, she not only murdered her own children by Jason (to keep them from becoming slaves, which they would have been under Greek law at the time as she was a foreigner) but had her revenge by magically incinerating Jason's wife. She's also a major Karma Houdini, since her fate was to become a goddess and get paired with some handsome hero in the Elysian Fields. Although it makes some sense as not only she was part-divine, and from her actions she was clearly following in the footsteps of the rest of that pantheon, what she did was nothing but a sadistic take on what was the punishment for an oathbreaker and thus, for the Greeks, Jason himself was the only one to blame.

    Theme Parks 

    Video Games 
  • Tabitha/Larissa from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, who is Caulder's/Stolos' Dragon. She's also the most loyal to him (though not slavishly so; for some reason they seem to have a relatively normal father-daughter relationship).
  • Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin plays with this: while Stella and Loretta aim to take down the heroes, they do it independently of Brauner, who insists they stay out of harm's way. They're also not his daughters, having been brainwashed to believe that Brauner is their father.
  • Nina Cortex, the niece of Dr. Neo Cortex (although it has been speculated that she may be his daughter) in the Crash Bandicoot series.
  • Disgaea 2: Rosalyn believes herself to be one of these, but in reality she's the reincarnation of Lord Zenon, not his (or possibly her) daughter.
  • The DragonFable villain Sepulchure (one of the more serious bad guys in the normally lighthearted game) is revealed to have a daughter during on the Elemental Orb storylines. You may think of her as an innocent baby, but that's only unless you haven't played AdventureQuest Worlds, AE's MMO, which shows her already a grown woman (or teenager, it's hard to tell) and takes over as the leader of the Evil faction in the game. The two even wear the Doomknight armor.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • You'd think Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord would feature this... but it doesn't, exactly. The current Darklord is all Evil Overlord, but according to the intro and the previous game, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, her father was an Anti-Villain who just wanted to protect monsters and provide them a place to live in peace.. but was more than willing to kill those who stood in the way of this goal. So... she doesn't take after her father in that she's more unambiguously evil and less sympathetic than him. though by the end, it's flipped, in that she doesn't even qualify as an anti-villain anymore, having realized that the ruthlessness of her father's methods actually failed to help anyone and trying to out-ruthless him isn't the way to succeed where he failed.
    • Final Fantasy X: Yunalesca being one of these to her father Yu Yevon is one of the reasons Spira is such a Crapsack World. Apparently she could have designed the Final Aeon to be able to permanently destroy Sin and Yu Yevon, but she just couldn't bring herself to kill what was left of her father and Zanarkand. Cue 1000 years of suffering.
  • The animatronic known as Circus Baby or rather, Elizabeth Afton to her father William Afton AKA Springtrap in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator. She is perfectly willing to kill you alongside her father and is fully capable of doing it.
  • She's only his daughter in name, but Mileena has this relationship with Shao Kahn in the Mortal Kombat games, especially in the altered timeline, where she becomes a twisted and evil sort of Daddy's Girl. Unfortunately, despite proving herself in her "father's" eyes, and becoming empress of the Outworld after his death, she becomes a poor one; in Mortal Kombat X she is almost universally hated, both by Earthrealm and Outworld natives alike.
  • In Mystery Case Files: 13th Skull, the actual villain of the story has a disturbing little girl who is fully aware of and involved in their plan to use and then kill the protagonist.
  • Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell: Satan has a daughter, Jezebel, who he's decided to marry off to the most powerful being in the universe, The Boss. Subverted in that Jezebel hates her abusive father and sides with the heroes to get out from under his thumb.
  • Silhouette Mirage has Geluve, Har's biological daughter and one of the Guardian Angels.
  • Vaylin from Star Wars: The Old Republic is a tragic, but twisted example. Valkorian had no intention of giving up power, and Vaylin was so potent with Force power that she was making furniture move in utero. From the time her and her brothers could stand, Valkorian was training them to be his Dragons. When Vaylin lost her temper during a sparring session, her outburst crushed several men to death inside their armor. Valkorian, fearing she would overthrow him someday, dumped her on a world that had been stripped of the Force, put her in the hands of a crazed Mad Scientist and equally insane cult, subjected her to horrific tortures and "experiments," and conditioned her with a Trigger Phrase that could stop her from acting. Her mother tried to storm the prison and carry her to safety, but she was so far gone she stayed with daddy. The end result is a bloodthirsty and insane young woman who acts more like a rabid dog with Force powers and a lightsaber than a Sith.
  • Wendy O. Koopa from the Super Mario Bros. games, though Word of God says in modern games she's not directly related to Bowser. One of the Nintendo Adventure Books centers around Wendy trying to be The Usurper by stealing her brothers' magic wands and combining them with her own to create a super-powered wand. She plans to use the wand to overthrow Bowser and rule the Koopas in his stead.
  • Olivia Mann to her father Gray in Team Fortress 2. She's completely willing to help her father take over Mann Co. and its Australium reserves, even if she's still in elementary school.
  • Vanessa VanCleef from World of Warcraft. Daughter of the head of the Defias gang Edwin VanCleef, Vanessa watched her father be killed by the heroes of the Alliance. In Cataclysm, she was hell-bent on revenge, and the entire Westfall questline revolves around her desire for vengeance.

    Visual Novels 
  • Subverted with Eris Illmater in Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane. At first, she's revealed as the daughter of the Eyetaker, a notorious crime boss, and is just as involved in his day-to-day operations such as pressing Ruby into making sure the heir to House Frega gets away with murder. Then it's revealed that she's not his real daughter at all, and was merely disguising herself as the real Eris, whom she already disposed of. However, during the game's end credits, we see her having a conversation with her real father, where she's whining about him "grounding" her from Wyverngarde.

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 

    Western Animation 
  • In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius, Beautiful Gorgeous, the Femme Fatale daughter of Professor Finbar Calamitous, constantly bickers with daddy when they scheme together. Their one mission together involves kidnapping Action Hero (real and TV star) Jet Fusion.
  • The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 amps up this tendency in Bowser's daughter Wendy O. Koopa, as mentioned in the Video Games folder. Bowser lets all of his kids wreak havoc in the episodes where they appear, but is particularly adoring of his only daughter.
  • Arcane: Jinx in Acts II and III. Silco regularly dotes on her, enables her destructive and unstable behavior, and takes her occasional moments of violence towards him in stride. Meanwhile, his other lackies and fellow crime bosses see her as a unstable wild card who tends to complicate any given operation, which Silco even privately acknowledges as true; he just cares too much for his daughter to seriously punish her for it. In the season one finale, when Silco is actually given the option to receive everything he ever wanted on a silver platter, he decides to reject it, as it would mean giving up his foster daughter. Jinx learns that he was going to reject the offer a bit too late, but even then, his final words to her are those of loving encouragement and affirmation.
  • Avatar franchise:
  • Played With in the Batman Beyond episode "Out of the Past". Talia al Ghul (pictured above) appears to have given up being a villainess and decided to fully accept that she loves Bruce. She offers him eternal youth via constant dips in the Lazarus Pit and declares that his life as a vigilante is over. Bruce undergoes the process and much of his youth is restored. He promptly declares that if he stays in the house with Talia and keeps taking dips in the pit, he'll be weaker than ever. Talia is unwilling to let him leave, and it is discovered that she isn't Talia at all but rather Ra's Al Ghul himself. Ra's had Talia kill herself so that what remained of his consciousness could be transferred to her body. His real reasoning for inviting Bruce was to transfer his consciousness to a more suitable form and gain all of his millions to top it off. The fact that Talia was willing to die just for her father's plan to work definitely makes her a cross between this and Love Martyr.
  • Shreeky from the Care Bears series is No Heart's spoiled and bratty niece. As a villain, she and Beastly act like a Terrible Trio (with No Heart being the leader).
  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • Numbuh 86 is extremely unpleasant, feared by everyone, and is the daughter of Mr. Boss, who is one of the show's biggest villains outside Father... but she defies this trope, as she's one of the leaders of the Global KND. This doesn't stop father and daughter from getting along, with any conflict related to their jobs being kept outside the home (not that this means Mr. Boss is nice to any kids other than his own).
    • The female Delightful Children could count as an adopted variation of this trope.
  • Danger Mouse (relaunch):
    • Baron Greenback is given a daughter named Delilah, who is just as evil but also an awkward teenager. He tries to encourage her to come out of her shell and conquer somewhere.
    • Dawn/Princess, an Enfant Terrible with a pink fixation, is later revealed to be the daughter of Augustus Crumhorn IV, a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
  • Rava from Galtar and the Golden Lance is even more full of scheming and betrayal than her uncle Tormak.
  • Demona from Gargoyles would like to turn her daughter Angela into this. It's not happening.
  • Star Nightingale, one of the fellow cheerleaders of the titular trio of superheroines in Groove Squad, also happens to be the daughter of Dr. Nefarious Nightingale, the film's main villain—Star also combines this trope with Evil Redhead (Star has red hair while her dad has black hair), Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter (since her dad's a Mad Scientist bent on world domination) and The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter (just look at the profile pictures for Star and her dad on the character page).
  • Played completely straight with Creeping Ivy, daughter of King Thorn, in Herself the Elf, who shares her father's evil nature-ruining ambitions and wants to become queen.
  • Phineas and Ferb's resident Mad Scientist, Dr. Doofenshmirtz, likes to think that his daughter Vanessa is this. While she was completely unreceptive to the idea at first, later episodes seem to hint that she might be heading in that direction after all, even if she still denies it. And then it's completely inverted in the finale when, while considering an internship with the good guy agency that serves as a counterforce to the Tri-State Area's many evil scientists, she gets him to question his own investment in villainy and directly causes his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Princess Morbucks on The Powerpuff Girls. Her daddy virtually finances all her schemes. (Although, he himself has never been known to do anything evil other than that.)
  • Danuvia of Robozuna is the daughter of Evil Overlord Caesar Mallam (although at least in the first season, he is not seen onstage and Danuvia is the Big Bad).
  • Samurai Jack: Aku seems thrilled with the idea of having a daughter and an heir once he discovers his dark magic sired Ashi, especially when he is able to control her and use her as a weapon against Jack. Sadly, Ashi does not approve, and is helpless to resist as he controls her like a puppet.
  • Cerina in Skysurfer Strike Force. She is a very active participant in Cybercon's schemes, including stealing (back) a vial of an enlarging formula from Jack and sneaking into the hotel room Nate's mother is staying in to steal a magic figurine.
  • The Spectacular Spider-Man: Towards the end of the second season, Spider-Man meets the villainess Silver Sable, a well-trained and deadly mercenary. She's a walking example of this trope: her father, Silvio Manfredi (aka Silvermane) was the biggest crime lord in New York, and he trained her to follow in his footsteps. She shows the utmost loyalty to him, and is devastated when the four-way battle between Silvermane, Tombstone, Doctor Octopus, and Spider-Man lands her father back in prison.
  • Kitten, the daughter of Killer Moth in Teen Titans. She steals her father's technology purely to create mayhem and get Robin's attention, and when her boyfriend Fang dumps her she latches on to Robin purely as a trophy boyfriend to make Fang jealous. She unleashes a horde of man-eating moths on the city. Her Evil Plan is a partial success; Fang does come back to her and profess his love, but they both end up in jail at the end.
  • Even though it's not a biological relation (Programs do not have families in the way humans do), the dynamic between General Tesler and his more sympathetic Dragon Paige has shades of this in TRON: Uprising, with a side order of Deconstruction. Tesler clearly prefers Paige over Pavel (who isn't very good about disguising the fact he'd like to stab Tesler in the back and take charge), and acts like a mentor to her. Paige believes Tesler saved her life from an ambush by Isos, and gave her a new function as a soldier when her medical facility was destroyed. The reality is that Tesler slaughtered his way through the medical center, killing all of Paige's "family" to discredit the Isos. Paige was only spared because Quorra knocked her out, making Paige think she'd been ambushed. That, and Paige's talent for combat impressed Tesler enough that he found her useful. If she weren't useful to him, he'd de-rez her in a picosecond and not feel a whit of remorse.

    Other 
  • The Evil Overlord List recommends that if an evil overlord ends up having kids, make them get involved in the family business early and shower them with love. That way when the hero shows up you have a no-win situation for them: they either kill the evil overlord in front of his little girl and walk away a lot less morally upstanding, or convince said little girl to come with them (at which point she pulls out her little gun and shoots him in the kneecap).

 
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Alternative Title(s): Mommys Little Villain

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Nine Realms conquest

With the mural revealed, Hela describes how she assisted her father Odin in a brutal subjugation of the Nine Realms.

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