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alt title(s): Evil Redheads
Congratulations, you're now contemplating breasts switching to the Dark Side.
Evil redheads make boy bands say "Ewwww!"
We all know that Heroes Want Redheads. By contrast, there are also Evil Redheads. These are characters who are Exactly What It Says On The Tin. (Not to imply that heroes can't want evil redheads.)
This trope is Older Than They Think - red hair was supposedly a mark of a witch, and favored by Satan himself. In the Balkans, people unfortunate enough to be born with red hair were said to be doomed to rise as vampires when they died, if they weren't vampires already.
Bullies in school media often have red hair because of the temperamental redhead stereotype. Note the dovetailing with the Violent Glaswegian, though that seldom overlaps. Contrast Redheaded Hero and Redheaded Stepchild.
May be used to visually demonstrate the difference between this character and the blond or dark-haired hero.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- While not so much evil as "egotistical", flame-haired Maaya Nanako of Umisho claims to be leading male Kaname's Unlucky Childhood Friend. His memories of her are not at all pleasant.
- In Death Note, Light's hair would turn stylistically blood red when he was at his most sinister.
- Jessie, the self-appointed leader of the Team Rocket's Terrible Trio in the Pokemon anime.
- Also Silver, The Rival in the Gold/Silver/Crystal game versions, and Maxie, the leader of Team Magma in Ruby/Emerald. In "Sapphire", he's good.
- Subverted to some extent by Silver's manga counterpart who is a redhaired Anti-hero.
- Asuka Langley Soryuu of Neon Genesis Evangelion is more of a bitchy redhead, but enough of a bitch (though she does have some good reasons for her bitchiness) to get damn close to this mark.
- Nao Yuuki of Mai-HiME, being an Ineffectual Loner and Dark Magical Girl, also counts, though she's more "amoral" than outright evil.
- In the third volume of the manga}, Nao actually assists the other HiMEs by luring Nagi into a trap after their escape from a cavern deep underneath Fuuka. Of course, she says she's not doing it for them.
- In Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, the first shown member of every Quirky Miniboss Squad is a redhead (Izuuru, Sheshe, Fuku). Also twisted with Sara, whose natural colour was bright orange, but, as a villain, has jet black hair.
- Aside from Fuku (who never attacks directly the Mermaid Princesses, anyway), the first real member of Michel's Winged Ones who shows up is Lady Bat, who also has burgundy red hair.
- Sailor Moon pulls this one on multiple occasions.
- The first season's Big Bad, Queen Beryl.
- The second season's first member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad, Rubeus.
- Kaolinite, Eudial, Mimete *and* Cyprine, all from the Witches 5, in the third season.
- VesVes the Tamer in the fourth season. At least she has the excuse that the Quirky Miniboss Squad to which she belongs is themed after the colours of the senshi. Strangely, though, the exception is CereCere the Illusionist, who is given pink instead of orange.
- And Akane Karasuma aka Sailor Lead Crow in the fifth. Also a Dark Skinned Redhead.
- Her boss has gold hair . . . which fades into blood red.
- Ali Al-Saachez, Nena Trinity (though she's more batshit insane than anything else) and Patrick Corlasawar (though Patrick is more of an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain than truly evil) from Gundam 00.
- Sir Luciano Bradley, the Knight of Ten, from Code Geass. Enough said.
- Vita and Nove of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, who are shown to be vicious, aggressive foes before their Heel Face Turn, then they become vicious, aggressive allies.
- In Naruto, there are five red-headed villains to date, Gaara (before his Heel Face Turn), Jiroubo, Tayuya, Sasori and Pain (which includes both Yahiko, who was a good guy when he was alive [orange] and Nagato, the actual controller [blood red).
- Though she's not quite evil, Karin could qualify as well.
- Movie villain Bojack from Dragonball Z. His hair actually gets redder when he transforms.
- Baccano's Claire Stanfield straddles the line between this and Red Headed Hero as a red-headed Ax Crazy Heroic Sociopath in a Black And Grey Morality universe. It doesn't help that he's a complete Wild Card.
Comic Books
- Dark Phoenix from X-Men, in both the comic and the movie.
- Not to mention her clone, Madelyne Pryor, who became the Goblyn Queen.
- Of course, Dark Phoenix is simply redhead Jean Grey (a founding example of Heroes Want Redheads) on too much power or a confused godlike being, depending on the story/retcon/ret-retcon. The way she's thought of more for that one arc than for her decades of being a hero before and after it is a trope of its own. Maddie didn't start out evil, either.
- Also in X-Men, Cain Marko aka Juggernaut is a redhead, though it's rarely explicitly shown thanks to his signature helmet of psi blockage.
- Then there's Belasco, the red-haired, devil-horned sorcerer who stole Illyana Rasputin's childhood.
- Notable aversion: Thomas is the evil member of the Cassidy family. Sean and Theresa are redhaired and heroic, while Black Tom has black hair.
- Pamela Isley alias Poison Ivy, of Batman fame.
- In the '90s, Lex Luthor died and was replaced by his young-adult evil clone from Australia, who had shoulder-length red hair and a red beard.
- And who contained the original Luthor's brain. Naturally, the pre-clone Luthor had red hair before he went bald.
- Lightning Lord, older brother of the Ranzz siblings of Legion fame... although his more iconic look is from after his hair has turned white.
- Carnage's alter ego Cletus Kasady has red hair.
- Rorschach isn't technically evil (Antiheroic Sociopath), but he does have red hair and he does act like a stone-cold bastard most of the time.
Film
Literature
- Pictured above: Melisandre of A Song Of Ice And Fire is an absolutely bone-chilling Knight Templar priestess and Evil Chancellor, whose hair, raiment and eyes are all vivid shades of red in accordance with her dedication to the holy fire.
- Jack from Lord Of The Flies.
- Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles have many red-haired vampires. Most notably, Maharet and her scary-as-hell sister Mekare - though the yandere-like Armand arguably fits the bill too.
- In the Illuminatus! trilogy, Satan prefers redheads and they explore this trope in depth.
- Well, it's a reference to old folk-beliefs. It works because the Black Mass participants believe it should. In an inversion, one of the participants is a protagonist who is taking his first steps in his path away from social conventions towards illumination. He and the redhead get some good sex out of the deal, and get to meet Malaclypse the Elder disguised as Satan disguised as Billy Graham.
- Both used and averted in Talking To Dragons, Book 4 of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The first girl the protagonist meets (and his eventual love interest) is a redheaded fire-witch who's rude and temperamental, but basically good. Later they meet another redheaded fire-witch (fire-witches in general are prone to red hair), who likes turning people into statues and uses torture to power her spells.
- Lampshaded in the short story "Nobody Here But-" by Isaac Asimov where the protagonist suspects his girlfriend is bitchy just because she has to live up to her red hair.
- Celia Madden of The Damnation of Theron Ware. (Though perhaps "evil" might be a bit strong, as "bitchy" serves just as well. But it still counts.)
- The ghost of Peter Quint from the Victorian novel The Turn of the Screw, who the main character thinks has come back from the dead to try and corrupt the small boy she's been charged with watching over. Of course, the ghost may just be in her head. Apparently at the time the novel was written, it was quite common for red-haired characters to be portrayed in this villainous way.
- Lumiya from the Star Wars Expanded Universe — formerly known as Shira Brie, as well as Admiral Natasi Daala. Also, judging by the images of his clones, plus some earlier life picture, Emperor Palpatine himself was one. Mara Jade counts, at least until she gets married to Luke Skywalker.
- SO averted in Harry Potter. JK Rowling must like redheads.
- Brand from The Book Of Amber, who wanted to destroy the universe and remake it in his own image. And his redheaded siblings Bleys and Fiona are also fairly morally dubious.
- In Day of the Triffids the protagonist is fired upon without provocation by a nameless gang leader with red hair. He later shows up in an armoured vehicle as 'Torrence', representing a despotic feudal 'government' trying to extend its influence over Britain.
- In the Andrew Vachss novel Strega unlicensed private eye Burke does a job for the title character, the crazy flame-haired relative of a Mafia boss, who wields a mysterious power over men. It later turns out the Mafia boss molested her as a little girl; when Strega told her father she was beaten for telling 'lies', teaching her an early lesson in the use of power that she later puts to use.
- The Lone Power, from the Young Wizards series, often appears as a young man with red(ish) hair.
- Psycho Misandrist Adept Red of the Apprentice Adept series
- Victoria from Twilight
Live Action TV
- In The Kids In The Hall, one sketch was the red-haired "It's A Fact" girl. She appeared in only one sketch besides her "It's a fact!" series. It was in the end credits of an episode where the Queen, portrayed by Scott Thompson, tried to make her jump into Lake Ontario by telling her that there was candy at the bottom, based on her belief that red-haired girls were witches.
- Semi-averted in Waterloo Road. The show's only redhead, Danielle, hangs around with Aleesha, who is pretty evil (sabotaging Park Side Story, tricking Karla into the whole petition thing). However, Danielle, to her credit, has balked at many of Aleesha's more evil schemes and actively refuses to take part in them.
- In Firefly, we have Saffron. Or Yolanda. or Bridget. No one's sure what her real name is, except she has red hair.
- The same actress now plays Joan Holloway on Mad Men, who isn't evil as such, just... not very nice.
- Seska, the manipulative Cardassian spy from Star Trek Voyager.
- Kimberly Mancini and Sydney Andrews from Melrose Place. Also Violet from Melrose Place 2009.
- Peggy from Married with Children - according to Al, at least.
- Garth Marenghis Darkplace has the hero battling evil Scotsmen, with his own hair turned red after a killer bagpipe attack. Fortunately his personality is not affected (probably because he's already a bigoted Jerk Ass).
- Averted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Redhead Willow goes evil her hair becomes black.
- Spellbinder Ashka from, well, Spellbinder was a readhead and also a powerhungry, cunning, vicious bitch.
- Both film adaptations of Dune have this going on: David Lynch's has a strawberry-blond Feyd-Rautha (played by an enthusiastic Sting in brass underpants); the miniseries features Ian Mc Niece as a Baron Harkonnen rocking the henna look.
Mythology
- Judas Iscariot is often depicted as a redhead - most recently in the manga Messiah. There's no real reason that he would have been in real life.
- Actually, while there's no evidence in the text for it, he could well have been; after Europe, the next-highest frequency of red hair occurs in the Levant: modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
- In fact, most of the more villainous characters described in the Bible are believed to have red hair.
- Really? Which ones? Cain, Ahab, Jezebel, Pilate?
- Don't know about the others, but Cain is depicted as having sort of orange-ish hair in The Sandman. (Abel's hair is black.)
- During the middle ages, when most people were illiterate, the church used stained glass as, basically, picture books to illustrate Bible stories. In them, they used certain traits to identify different characters, because you can't get great detail in the stained glass and from a distance. Baddies were red hair to represent the fires of hell. So, Cain and Judas were always red-haired. Also, Eve frequently was shown with red hair...but only AFTER The Fall.
- According to the other wiki, Mary Magdalene is commonly depicted as having red hair (apparently due to the common confusion between her and an unnamed prostitute who appears in the next story). Not evil, but famous as a redeemed sinner.
- David was sometimes said to have red hair. In one legend, the prophet Samuel was reluctant to crown him king, because red hair was often associated with the idea of spilling blood (probably the source for some of the other redheads mentioned here). God's response was that David would spill a lot of blood, but he would do it in the service of good against Israel's enemies.
- Averted — actually, inverted — in Robert Graves' King Jesus, where Jesus has red hair, this being one of the eight "signs of royalty."
- To quote Im Sorry I Havent A Clue, "Judas is carrot".
- The ancient Egyptian pantheon had the god Set, best remembered for hacking his brother into bits and scattering the pieces about the world and doing other nefarious things. He was depicted as being a redhead.
- Loki, the god of mischief in Norse Mythology, in contrast to the much more masculine Red Headed Hero Thor.
- Rumour has it that red hair was considered a positive factor in selection to become a druid - this may account for the malign reputation of red-headedness amongst those cultures that were hostile to Celts. (And probably, among the Christian missionaries too.)
- At least one painting of Pandora, the first-woman whose curiosity brought diseases into the world, gives her fiery red hair and a scary look on her face.
- A few pre-Raphaelites depicted Salomé as a ginger, too.
Theater
Video Games
- Ganondorf from The Legend Of Zelda series.
- All the Gerudo, actually, but they're thieves whereas Ganondorf is out-and-out evil.
- Dahlia Hawthorne in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations.
- Tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem portray the enemy units as having red armor and hair.
- Bowser from Super Mario Bros. Despite being a turtle he still has some hair.
- Erol in Jak II and Jak 3 although most of the time his hair is hidden by his helmet.
- Tiamat from Last Scenario
 (although she was a good person before an ancient power took over her mind
- Walter Bernhard from Castlevania Lament of Innocence. And damn, does he ever have fun with the 'evil' part.
- Subverted in Portrait of Ruin: Stella and Loretta are redheaded twins (though occasionally coloured with violet hair), but they're just Brainwashed And Crazy.
- Partially subverted in Curse of Darkness; Isaac is completely nutters but it's heavily implied that half the time, Dracula is driving or at the very least co-piloting him. Isaac's a willing 'passenger', but still...
- Another subversion: Axel Almer of Super Robot Wars. He's a honest Evil Red Heads in Advance, as well as the GBA version of OG 2. However, in the subsequent remakes, he's more or less a Noble Demon, not outright evil... then he pulls a Heel Face Turn, making him a Red Headed Hero (as does his hero self in Advance)
- The Kingdom Hearts series has one who shares the same name with the abovementioned one.
- Frankly, he skirts the Anti Villain line more than anything else.
- His predecessor Reno certainly counted in the original FF7. Guy was a bastard to fight if you were underlevelled on that bloody pillar.
- Lara's evil doppelganger in Tomb Raider: Underworld.
- Late in Talesof Symphonia, it is revealed that Zelos Wilder was a spy all along. However, just prior the boss fight, he defects back to the heroes' side. If you choose to talk to Kratos in an event prior to this revelation, though, you kill Zelos instead, and Kratos takes his place.
- Kerrigan from Starcraft had red hair, but it changed colour when she turned evil. Forshadowing?
- Neither is entirely evil per se, but Vermilion Akiha and Kohaku are both red haired yandere psychopath characters in Tsukihime, and both have rather unsavory goals. Akiha is 'evil' here precisely because her hair is red, even. Kohaku is essentially the poster girl for stepford smiler, break the cutie, emotionless girl and woobie destroyer of worlds.
Web Comics
- Psycho For Hire Valentino from the Marilith webcomic. To her defense, she was made a psycho killer in a gulag.
- Lysinda and Oasis from Sluggy Freelance. Particularly emphasized with Lysinda, who sports red hair even when the rest of the strip is in black and white.
- Belkar Bitterleaf generally looks bald in most panels, but look at the close-ups or his feet: He's a stubbly Chaotic Evil redhead.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Vicky, the babysitter from hell from The Fairly Oddparents.
- South Park did an entire episode, "Ginger Kids", where Cartman was convinced that "gingers" (pale, freckled, red-headed kids) were monstrous, Children of the Corn-like abominations. In what would have been a surprising example of Hypocritical Humor were we speaking of anyone other than Eric Cartman, after his friends tried teaching him a lesson by making him up to look like a "ginger" while he slept, Cartman soon decided that "his people" were the master race. And since this is Cartman we're talking about, he was attempting genocide before the end of the episode.
- Unfortunately, this set-up is not quite but almost Truth In Television, as some places in the UK have very heavy prejudice against ginger hair, almost to the point of racism. Hate crimes, up to and including sexual abuse and stabbing, have been exercised against red-headed victims for "being ginger."
- Which is quite ironic, as the British Isles have some of the highest populations of redheads in the world. Then again, the, ah, "gingerists" are just jealous idiots. Also, such tensions between groups tend to occur where there is a mix. It should be stressed that, as above, it is 'not quite but almost'. The supposed prejudice against gingers does linger on, but very rarely beyond childhood teasing (and even then in the same way others are teased for being tall, short, fat, or whatever), and is grossly exaggerated in media and on this very wiki.
- Oh, they're just mad the heroes don't want them.
- Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown, Hotstreak from Static Shock, and Montana Max from Tiny Toon Adventures, all voiced by redhead Danny Cooksey, who also played red-headed antagonistic jerk Budnick on Salute Your Shorts. Perhaps Danny Cooksey himself is evil, too. Nobody knows.
- If he is, he's bound to be harmless. He also lends his voice to the heroic-but-cowardly Dave from Dave the Barbarian (who, notably, is not redheaded-but his more aggressive sisters are). This overlaps with Jack's notable cowardliness, so we've little to worry about from Mr. Cooksey if he's a villainous type.
- And back to Xiaolin Showdown, Wuya's true form has red hair.
- The Wicked Witch in Cyberchase has bright flaming red hair. In fact, it could be considered orange.
- Princess Morbucks from The Powerpuff Girls, who is probably the best example of Screw The Rules I Have Money.
- Don't forget Blossom's two Evil Counterparts Brick of the Rowdyruff Boys and Berserk of the Powerpunk Girls(who is a comic-only character)
- Subverted in the sequel and the prequel of disney's Cinderella: Anastasia, who was a Rich Bitch in the original movie, is now less evil and more like a Well Done Daughter Girl.
Tabletop Games
Real Life
- Semi-example: Niccolo Paganini took a lot of flak for his luxuriant red hair. This, combined with his psychotic violin-playing technique, inspired many people to believe that he had sold his soul to the Devil, long before Tommy or Robert Johnson even contemplated it.
- Ex Roman consul and dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Whether he was truly evil or not, though, it's still subject to much debate among historians.
- Red hair was not uncommon among the Romans. Julius Caesar was also a redhead if Suetonius and Tacitus are to be believed, although by the time he was assassinated he didn't have much hair left. Nero and Caligula, who are often considered the Big Bad emperors of the post-Augustan age, were blue-eyed blonds.
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