Devil Complex

"Now, make your declaration... Declare that demonkind will rise up against God!"

— Naoya, Devil Survivor

Some villains are proud of the fact they're villains, fully admitting they're evil and boasting about it. But some go even further, by claiming to be who many consider the ultimate villain, the Devil himself. Or a God of Evil, or a high-ranking demon or demon king. In short, they have a Devil Complex.

While it may be an exaggeration on how much of a Card-Carrying Villain they are, sometimes they actively want to be a devil, even if they have to overthrow the current one. Perhaps they simply want to boast they're Eviler than Thou to Old Scratch, or share wicked goals like a world of chaos, Hell on Earth or a regime of tyranny. Either way, don't expect them to be subtle about how they feel.

A Sub-Trope of Card-Carrying Villain, a character who identifies as evil or otherwise wrong but not to the extent of calling themselves a demon. Sister trope to A God Am I, where someone boasts of being a divine being and not an infernal one. If the narrative is comparing them to the Devil instead, they're a Satanic Archetype.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• In Code Geass, several characters accuse Lelouch/Zero of being the devil after he simultaneously outsmarts them and proceeds to do something worse than they imagined. Lelouch himself plays into this through being a Large Ham Card-Carrying Villain with a boisterous Evil Laugh, but it is all part of his (ironically) Zero-Approval Gambit to bring peace to the world by uniting everyone against a common enemy, even if that enemy is himself.
• Both Milverton and William James Moriarty have one of these in Moriarty the Patriot.
  • Milverton sees himself as "evil itself" and enjoys corrupting people.
  • William recognizes his murders as evil, and evil means devil in his head. Counting how many times he calls himself one could be a drinking game.
• All For One of My Hero Academia idolized the demon king of a manga series he and his brother were fans of. When he got his Quirk and began to amass a following, he proudly declared that his goal is to be the world's ultimate evil. He spent over a century after that making good on his goal.
• A downplayed heroic example in Tricks Dedicated to Witches. Makito really doesn't think he's the devil but, given that the church is (at that time) The Caligula whose idea of entertainment is the torture and execution of witches (some of whom are really just talented people or those with an empath for animals), he decided to use that moniker (and getup) when opposing them.

Comic Books

• Played with in Diablo (Chile). After making a Deal with the Devil to come Back from the Dead as the Lord of Entropia's herald, Alex got the disguise and the codename of "Diablo" (Devil in Spanish), but he says he serves the Devil himself instead of being one, as said in the first issue:
  Alex/Diablo: The mask isn't for hiding, it's to show you who sent me.
• In the Marvel Universe, there are a vast number of actual demons and rulers of various underworlds and afterlives. However, if any of them were ever to try and claim to actually be the Devil, the others would promptly put aside any and all disputes to rip the pretender apart.
• Inverted in the French comic Professor Bell. The devil goes around Earth and at one point gets into a conversation with a priest, asking questions on the nature of good and evil. When the devil asks what the priest would do if a man came up to him claiming to be the devil, the priest would recommend seeing a psychiatrist.
• In the first English translation of Tintin: Flight 714, Rastapopoulos and Carreidas both declare "I am the Devil incarnate!" during their Eviler than Thou fight. (In the animated series, this was toned down to "I'm the baddest!")

Fan Works

• The Bridge: Kaizer Ghidorah claps back with this after having listened to Grand King Ghidorah's repeated boasts of A God Am I, before proceeding to kick the other astral hydra's ass:
  Kaizer Ghidorah: "You are no god, but I am the Devil."

Film — Animation

• Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan: When Broly is called a monster, Broly replies back "No, I'm the devil!" in a Badass Boast.
• At the end of Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion, Homura Akemi grabs hold of Ultimate Madoka to keep her close forever, stealing away some of the Law of Cycles's power for herself. Using that power to rewrite the universe according to her own wishes, Homura grows a pair of huge black wings and switches to a new outfit. From there, she declares herself akuma, or the Devil, to Madoka's God. Though the description is quite fitting (the entire film is a Whole-Plot Reference to Paradise Lost), it is never quite made clear what Homura has become aside from a memory-manipulating Humanoid Abomination, and for all her self-proclaimed devilry it is clear that she hates every minute of what she has created.

Film — Live-Action

• Batman Begins: During his brief time in a prison in Tibet, Bruce Wayne is attacked by the leader of the local prison gang, who boasts that "You are in Hell, little man, and I am the Devil!". Bruce finds the whole intimidation attempt comically overblown, and fights off both him and multiple other men simultaneously, to the point where the guards have to take Bruce away, not to protect him from them, but to protect them from him.
  Bruce: You're not the Devil. You're practice.
• Done in The Devil's Rejects when Otis B. Driftwood marks himself as the Devil doing his work to Roy as a mockery of Christian beliefs before he brutally murders him.
  Otis: I am the devil. And I am here to do the devil's work.
• In The Exorcist, the possessed Regan insists that it is "the devil" to Father Karras. He is unimpressed, already skeptical that she is actually possessed and noting how cliched it is for a crazed person to claim such a thing, "like saying you're Napoleon Bonaparte." He's both right and wrong to be skeptical: she is possessed, just by another demon trying to mislead.
• Highway 61: Mr. Skin is a delusional man who thinks he's Satan and has taken upon himself to "collect souls" by making deals with people when they are still alive, then returning to steal their corpses when they die. He is one of the antagonists of the film when he follows the protagonist hoping to claim the corpse of someone who previously made a deal with him, but whose body has been stolen by the protagonist to use in a smuggling drug-mule trip under the guise of giving it a decent burial back in his hometown. Mr. Skin also believes he is the devil due to a bizarre belief that he was born on the same day that multiple famous celebrities died (including Elvis) and that their deaths were the costs to bring him into Earth.
• For most of Street Fighter, Bison alternates between having a god complex and a messiah complex, but he begins directly comparing himself to Satan in the final battle with Guile when he starts using his Shock and Awe lightning powers.
  "You still refuse to accept... my godhood? Keep your own God! In fact, this might be a good time to pray to Him! For I beheld Satan as he FELL FROM HEAVEN... LIKE LIIIIIIGHTNIIIIIING!"
• In the Live-Action Adaptation of Tokyo Tribe, crime lord Buppa boasts that he's the real devil, and wishes to reign supreme as the Devil of Asia.

Literature

• Hannibal Lecter:
  • Lecter himself, while he never explicitly expresses it, is strongly implied to view himself as the Devil or something similar, as he has a cynical view of human and divine morality as well as of God himself, while himself being significantly smarter and more cultured than every other character in the franchise. In Hannibal, he even gives a lecture about a sinner stuck in Hell for avarice in Dante's Inferno in the presence of a Dirty Cop he is about to kill for his greed, and his whole pathology is centered about torturing, cannibalising and murdering people he considers to be "bad" in some way.
  • There is a lot going on in the head of the serial killer who serves as Red Dragon's main antagonist... and at one point, his thoughts turn to a snatch of the book of Revelation — about the Dragon casting down with its tail the stars of heaven — as something that, apparently, he fully expects to get to.
• In the Modesty Blaise novel I, Lucifer, the young man known as Lucifer believes himself to literally be Satan. This doesn't stop him from being the Token Good Teammate of the villains, for a Blue-and-Orange Morality version of "good"
• In Phantoms, the "Ancient Enemy" (a living mass of primordial protoplasm that has eaten entire towns throughout history) definitely falls under a broad definition of Eldritch Abomination but it believes itself to be the actual Biblical Devil because so many of the populations of towns of people it has absorbed obviously thought it was something unholy as their final thoughts. The result is a tremendous arrogance that eventually brings its downfall.
• An Unkindness of Ghosts: Giselle publicly declares herself the Devil at her execution. Given her mental state, it's unclear how literally she means it, but she's immediately taken up as an Icon of Rebellion against the Sovereign's despotic regime.
  "It isn't my name! My name's Devil now! And I'll kill you all, I swear it, if not in this life, the next. ... I will haunt you."
• The Wheel of Time: Ishamael was one of the Dark One's greatest servants during the Age of Legends and was (incompletely) sealed outside reality with him. Centuries of Sanity Slippage, aggravated by the Dark One's power, left him believing that he was the Dark One himself, and he used that persona to lead the forces of the Shadow during the devastating Trolloc Wars.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who:
  • Sutekh the Destroyer from "Pyramids of Mars", already the in-universe inspiration for the Egyptian God of Evil, states Satan as one of his identities. Given his answer to being called evil, he's probably unironic about it.
  • "The Satan Pit" has an ambiguous example with the Beast, who boasts that he's the inspiration for all Devil figures. Ambiguous because it's not made clear whether he's a Sufficiently Advanced Alien or actually the real deal.
• Fargo: Lorne Malvo from Season One styles himself as the Devil and is an amoral psychopath who manipulates the downtrodden into ruining their own lives. He tries to scare Lou by comparing his apple pie to the forbidden fruit from the garden of Eden.
• In Hannibal, Word of God has it that Mads Mikkelsen not only played the titular Villain Protagonist this way, but even pitched this interpretation of the character in his audition, as someone who either sees himself as the Devil or possibly even is the Devil himself in human form, though the latter was something they would only ever imply and not outright state for the sake of maintaining a level of realism. As least one character (a Serial Killer, no less) even refers to Hannibal as the Devil at one point, while Hannibal claims he has a certain kinship with God... who he views as a fellow Sadist who enjoys killing people.
• Lucifer (2016): Discussed. Lucifer is completely honest with everyone he meets about who he is. People never believe him. They think he's either completely delusional, or engaging in an act to establish a Devil persona for himself — either as a PR exercise as part of his identity as a club owner or to handle his emotional issues and complicated family situation through the use of metaphors. However, he is absolutely adamant that the Devil is not the villain humanity portrays him as. He is a punisher of evil rather than evil itself, and is incapable of creating sin within humans or forcing them to do anything against their will. All he can do is draw out desires humans already possess and encourage them to embrace those desires. When he does encounter people who worship the Devil, engage in murder in his name, or push the belief that the Devil is the source of all evil, Lucifer tends to become extremely upset and angry about it. This comes to a head in Season 4; after learning the truth at the end of Season 3, Chloe runs afoul of a priest who also knows the truth and inundates her with the history of the Devil as recorded by the Church. When she confronts Lucifer with everything she's learned, Lucifer is both horrified and broken-hearted; it takes Chloe the entire season to reconcile the differences between the Church's representation of the Devil and her own personal understanding of the man she knows.
• Oz: Timmy Kirk starts out as a run of the mill prisoner, before becoming more unstable as the series goes on. After taking over the Christian Gang, he begins a long feud with Father Mukada, accusing him of sexual abuse and later hiring an arsonist to burn down the rectory the priest lives in. As his psychosis worsens, he claims to be Satan while on death row, and it appears to be genuine.
• The "Jimmy Tango's Fat Busters" sketch from Saturday Night Live has one of Jimmy's clients testify that the weight-loss program had helped him lose 65 pounds in four days and find out he was the Devil. The fact that the program involves "an unbelievable amount of pure, raw crystal meth" is possibly related.
  "And I will wash over the Earth, and the seas will run red with all the blood of all its sinners! I am reborn! And I've got you to thank, Jimmy Tango!"

Tabletop Games

• Genius: The Transgression: One of the sample villains is an Illuminated who believes that he is the Self-Eating Fire, a cosmic entity whose goal is to destroy everything that exists to integrate it into himself, and is opposed by an entity known as the Metal Peacock God that creates things by cutting off parts of itself.

Video Games

• In Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Graham Jones is completely convinced that he's Dracula's Reincarnation because they were born the day he died. Dmitrii and Dario also are the same in the sequel Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. While they all have demon-related supernatural abilities, they are also completely wrong; the real reincarnation is the protagonist Soma.
• Devil Survivor: Naoya Route: The Player (Abel) becomes the King of Bel after killing every last Bel demon during the lockdown. Naoya (who is actually Cain) congratulates Abel as demons in the lockdown zone come to greet their new overlord. If the player continues in Overclocked, he may choose to perform a war against God.
• Elden Ring: The Dung Eater's motives and backstory are largely unexplored, but what is obvious is that he sees himself as a Dark Messiah carrying out a holy duty to curse the Golden Order by defiling those who live by it, to the extent of styling himself as an Omen (humans with hornlike deformities, considered a Very Bad Sign by the Golden Order). According to one item description, he's killed thousands already, and at the end of his quest (if the player hasn't killed him or made him a puppet), he'll do a Villainous Sacrifice to spawn the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse, which will defile the Elden Ring itself.
• In Fate/Grand Order, Oda Nobunaga often refers to herself as the Demon Lord of the Sixth Heaven and fully embraces her Card-Carrying Villain status despite being a total goofball. Later on, the actual Demon King of the Sixth Heaven Mara, the Superpowered Evil Side of the Pseudo-Servant Kama manifested as Beast III/L, shows up to engulf the cosmos in her "love" in the Tokugawa Ooku event and gleefully refers to herself as such.
• Hyrule Warriors: Ganondorf proudly embraces his title as the Demon King and uses his reputation to drive fear in the hearts of the Hyrulean armies, boasting of how he outlived several generations of heroes and that all resistance to his conquest shall falter. It also helps that, thanks to a time rift caused by the events of the story, Ganondorf is able to recruit Zant and Ghirahim to his forces, both of whom are fanatical worshippers of the Demon King.
• In The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, the Devil Hulk names himself when he relates to Bruce how he's powerless to stop him from taking over.
  Devil Hulk: We're going to be gods in this world that's rejected and feared you for so long. We're going to tear it into a billion pieces. I'm your inevitable conclusion. I'm the ultimate you. I'm the devil.
• In The King of Fighters 2001, Igniz at first declared himself a god before our heroes fight him. After he's defeated, however, he claims himself the devil instead and aims to crash the satellite he's on towards the earth.
• Jack Lupino from Max Payne is a mobster whose belief that he is The Antichrist has driven him to raving insanity. Plus, he is so jacked on Valkyr that he is both utterly unhinged and inhumanly durable.
• Mega Man Zero 4: Right before you fight him in the Mega Man Zero series' Grand Finale, Dr. Weil declares himself as the devil (shouting "Ware ga Akuma da" which translates to "I am the Devil") before fighting Zero. Pretty fitting for the guy.
• In Persona 5, when the party confronts Shadow Kamoshida in his Palace and call him more of a demon than a human, he agrees, calling himself "a demon who rules this world!" Cue One-Winged Angel and boss fight.
• Sengoku Basara: Oda Nobunaga, under a massive Historical Villain Upgrade, is a Card-Carrying Villain who openly proclaims himself to be the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. In later games he's become literally demonic after coming Back from the Dead. Of course, given how many Evil Overlord tropes he uses, it's not like having a devil complex could make him any more Obviously Evil than he already is.

Visual Novels

• Downplayed with Reinhard from Dies Irae. In spite how hammy he usually is, he treats his title of Mephistopheles and his whole Satanic Archetype deal as more a statement of facts than any grand aspiration. He is just called that way due to his methods and thus decides to roll with it.
  "Someone undeniably related to you once described me as Mephistopheles, the Harbinger of Beguiling Light... and a man not unlike a devil."
• Kagaki Minato from Full Metal Daemon Muramasa is a somewhat tragic example in that due to the Law of Balance which forces him to kill allies for every foe slain, he has developed the mother of all Guilt Complexes and as such views himself as nothing more than a devil. By the end of the story, he eventually decides to just lean into it and become a full Satanic Archetype in order to spread the ideal of the Law of Balance until war is no more.

Web Original

• 8-Bit Theater: Black Mage temporarily becomes King of Hell, gaining extremely destructive powers in the process. However, he's very shortly overthrown by Lich.
• Dr. Clef of SCP Foundation has claimed he is the Devil. This may or may not be true.

Western Animation

• Beast Wars: It's revealed that both the current Megatron and the one from Generation One took their names from an Antichrist figure mentioned in the Covenant of Primus. Later in the series, Megatron starts identifying more and more with this figure as he goes off the deep end, eventually seeming to genuinely believe they're one and the same. It's heavily implied that he's right and that the whole thing is just another part of the Stable Time Loop; the Covenant records the future actions of both Megatrons, and they are inspired to fulfill those prophecies by reading them.
• The Simpsons has this little gem:
  Mrs. Bouvier: I swear, Monty, you are the devil himself!
  Mr. Burns: WHO TOLD YOU?! Oh, ah, yes, I'd say you were an angel, but angels don't dance like that!

Real Life

• It is alleged that Charles Watson — member of the Manson Family and conspirator of the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders — said "I'm the devil, and I'm here to do the devil's business" during the act.
• According to various people who knew him, famed British occultist Aleister Crowley claimed to be "the Great Beast 666". Many used this as justification to call him a Satanist, though it was more likely done to annoy the Christian authorities of the time.
• Oda Nobunaga claimed to be "the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven". This line — combined with his life full of conquest and genocide — would go on to inspire the trope Demon King Nobunaga.^note The title Nobunaga claimed was "Dairokuten Maou" (第六天魔王), which is the demon/devil king of the sixth of the kamaloka, realms of desire within Buddhist cosmology. The Demon King of the Sixth Heaven is an aspect or title of Mara, the Anthropomorphic Personification of desire and the closest Buddhism has to Satan, attempting to prevent Buddhists from reaching Nirvana by tempting them with power. Nobunaga, known for being something of an eccentric, probably picked the title because he thought it sounded cool, wanted to be sarcastic by claiming to be the devil himself, or wanted to intimidate his fellow warlords: He was probably not being serious about living up to the declaration, but with his brutal conquest being remembered by many people after his death, many future generations afterwards thought he was actually serious.
• The Axeman of New Orleans would frequently mail letters to local papers describing himself as being a malevolent spirit or demon from Hell itself, voicing how amused he (as well as the likes of His Infernal Majesty and Franz Joseph I of Austria) is by the local police's attempts to track and capture him.
  "I am not a human being, but a spirit and a demon from the hottest hell. I am what you Orleanians and your foolish police call the Axeman."

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