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"Truth...justice, honor, freedom! Vain indulgences, every one(...) I know what I want, and I take it. I take advantage of whatever I can, and discard that which I cannot. There is no room for sentiment or guilt."

Kefka Palazzo: I will destroy everything... I will create a monument to non-existence!
Party Member: Life will go on! There will always be people, and dreams!
Kefka: No! I will hunt them down. I will destroy it all! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!!
Party Member: We won't let you harm another living being!
Kefka: Hee-hee-hee! But what's the fun in destruction if there are no "precious" lives lost?

Here are the vilest, most head-explodingly evil characters in the Final Fantasy franchise.

All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!


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Main Series and Associated Works

Non-connected games

    Examples 
  • Final Fantasy II: Emperor Mateus, the primary villain, is the ruler of Palamecia. A tyrant defined by his arrogance and greed, Mateus unleashes the Legions of Hell to attack the innocent peoples of the world and aid him in his quest of total global domination, seeking to destroy all those who won't submit themselves to his iron-fisted rule. In order to remove the threat of the island of Deist and their Wyvern-riding warriors, the Dragoons, Mateus poisoned the Wyverns' water supply, wiped out the creatures, then exterminated the weakened Dragoons. He also enslaved the peoples of Salamand and Bafsk, the latter of which he forced to construct the Dreadnought, an air warship which he uses to rain death upon cities that oppose him. Following the Dreadnought's destruction, Mateus instead uses a massive Cyclone to completely obliterate the towns of Paloom, Altair, Gatrea and Poft, killing all within. Dying in the attempt to wipe out Fynn as well, Mateus's soul was split into a dark half and a light half. The dark half conquered hell, returned to the world of the living, murdered the last Dragoon, Ricard, and revealed his new intention to destroy the world with his newfound power. Meanwhile, Mateus's light half seized the throne of heaven, and, after briefly pretending to be a pure being to tempt the souls of four heroes who had died in the war against him, vows to grant them eternal suffering once they realize the light half of Mateus's soul is just as evil as his dark half.
  • Final Fantasy IV: Zemus, a Lunarian who pushed for the conquest of Earth, is a despicable, psychopathic supremacist. Put into a coma by his pacifistic people, Zemus uses his powers to manipulate Golbez into becoming his pawn, pushing Golbez into carrying out the genocide of humanity and creating a magical monstrosity to carry it out. Zemus also takes to stringing along the heroic Cecil Harvey's adoptive older brother into fighting his friend and also creates the four Archfiends all out of a desire to wipe out mankind, before empowering himself with his own hatred in his final fight against the heroes.
  • Final Fantasy VI: Kefka Palazzo was the court jester of the Gestahl Empire, but through treachery and atrocity he rose through the ranks and eventually became the world's most dire threat. His notable actions include putting a slave crown on Terra Branford to force her to attack villages and slaughter resistance fighters; poisoning the Kingdom of Doma's water supply against direct orders—killing innocents, including children; brutally murdering the noble general Leo by cowardly tricking him with illusions playing on his loyalty; and killing the Espers at Thamasa—along with his own men—without any remorse. Kefka reaches his worst, however, when he betrays and murders Emperor Gestahl and uses the power of the Warring Triad to turn the world into a poisoned wasteland. In the World of Ruin Kefka rules on high, killing and tormenting on a whim with the Light of Judgement across the whole world. Finally confronted by the party, Kefka is incensed that they managed to find hope in this dying world, and proclaims he will destroy everything and create a "monument to non-existence". Misanthropic, nihilistic and deriving pleasure from suffering and destruction, Kefka serves as one of the most iconic and singularly vile villains in the entire franchise.
  • Final Fantasy XI's Rise of the Zilart Expansion Pack: Eald'narche is revealed as a prince of the Zilart from 10,000 years ago. After he made contact with the Mothercrystal, Eald'narche became obsessed with opening the Gate of the Gods and becoming a god. After the Zilart's plans to open the Gate using the Crystal Line were thwarted, Eald'narche and his brother Kam'lanaut were sealed in stasis until they were freed and began plotting to try again. After coldly dismissing his brother and letting him die, Eald'narche ascends to Tu'Lia to attempt to reactivate the Crystal Line. When Eald'narche is defeated, he attempts to reactivate the Crystal Line prematurely, intending to cause a meltdown that will destroy Vana'diel and kill everyone living on it.
  • Final Fantasy XIV:
    • A Realm Reborn: Captain Madison, the leader of the Serpent Reavers, disappeared to escape his gambling debts and resurfaced after having allied himself with the monstrous Sahagin. Madison goes on a campaign of Rape, Pillage, and Burn throughout the coast of Limsa Lominsa, putting village after village to the torch. Madison murders all the men of the settlements he devastates, and takes the women and children to become slaves, usually of the carnal kind. Madison's worst deed is the creation of the Hole, a dank recess in his hideout of Sastasha where he keeps the women he's turned into sex slaves for himself and his entire crew.
    • Stormblood: Asahi sas Brutus is an ambassador from the Garlean Empire who reveals himself to be a sociopathic follower of Zenos yae Galvus. He tries to sabotage the peace between Doma's leaders by trying to provoke the Warrior of Light, and it was revealed that he hired the mercenaries to fake his good nature. However, his worst act is when his parents adopted his cousin, Yotsuyu. When Yotsuyu got mistreated by Asahi's parents, Asahi then came out with the idea to sell Yotsuyu to an abusive drunkard for money and political connections, as well as selling her to a brothel. After Yotsuyu regained her memories, Asahi sent her parents on her, which resulted them being killed. When the prisoner exchange happens, Asahi then tries to invoke the primal Tsukuyomi into Yotsuyu and callously shoots her multiple times when she tries to die peacefully, mocking the player, while brutally beating Yotsuyu, that attacking him would result in a war.
    • Shadowbringers: Valens van Varro is a commander of the Garlean Empire who wants to use the Oversoul and is motivated by petty jealousy. An abusive boss, Valens would leave his men to die without a care if he sees no value in them anymore. Valens forces his young wards to torture a man with a burning rod pressed against his back, in order to warp them into being abusive and cruel like him. Later on, it's revealed that Valens disciplines all of the siblings by using abusive, torturous methods, and this is shown by one of the siblings having permanent scars on her back. He forces a man to go to the Oversoul chamber capsule against his will and lies about how he and his family would be let go with his cooperation. The man's body and mind are gruesomely contorted until it overrides them down to their consciousness entirely.
    • Endwalker: Athena is the first chief keyward of Pandæmonium and the source of all its troubles. Obsessed with ascending to godhood and remaking all life to fit her warped standards, Athena marries and has a son, Erichthonios, with Lahabrea solely to serve as her vessel, ensuring his compliance by tampering with his soul to compel him to love her and stunting his magical abilities so he can't fight back. Even after Lahabrea kills her to protect his son, Athena ensures her plans survive by masterminding the creation of Hephaistos to take over Pandæmonium and enslave its staff while also keeping a copy of her personality and memories within the Heart of Sabik, which possesses Erichthonios's present day reincarnation. Upon her final defeat, Athena spitefully tries to break her son with the truth of how she stunted him and attempts to end all life as revenge for being rejected as a god.
  • Final Fantasy XVI:
    • Ultima is the progenitor of mankind and the puppetmaster of Valisthea's miseries. Introducing magic to reality ages ago, Ultima's tampering brought the Blight into existence, threatening all life. Ultima responded to the threat by creating humanity to be his subservient slaves with no wills of their own, desiring to use them as nothing but worshippers and breeding stock to one day grant him a new vessel to inhabit, "Mythos". After slumbering for hundreds of years and using parts of his essence to create the Mothercrystals, Ultima awakens in the present, so horrified that humankind has developed consciousness that he decides to punish them for evolving beyond the scope he created them for. Ultima uses disguises, powers, and simple words to manipulate various factions across Valisthea into bloody carnage. He has Hugo Kupka annihilate the Hideaway by cutting off the head of Kupka's lover and framing it on Cid; takes the form of the Holy Empire prince Olivier to push the systematic genocide of the Bearers; uses Barnabas's memory of his mother to fool him into turning countless people into the monstrous Akashic; and forcefully activates Eikons to have the users decimate their own kingdoms. Despite his claimed intention to save humanity, Ultima's true goal is to wipe it out entirely and start over with a new creation that will worship him for all eternity as the god he believes himself to be.
    • Imreann, the High Priest of Crystalline Orthodox and leader of the Iron Kingdom, stands as one of the wickedest supporting villains in the entire franchise. Imreann is the facilitator of the Iron Kingdom's Rape, Pillage, and Burn of the surrounding kingdoms, having his men move in and enslave the women and girls as Sex Slaves. Imreann also horribly oppresses and kills the magic users known as the Bearers as part of his fanatical crusade against those he deems impure to the Mothercrystals. Imreann leads the sack of the capital of Rosaria, with the men massacred and the women and girls enslaved. Finding the 13-year-old Jill Warrick, Imreann uses the lives of innocent child magic users—the Bearers—as a way to blackmail her into being his attack dog using her powers as Shiva. Imreann uses her to lay waste to other kingdoms but has been secretly murdering the children as Human Sacrifices anyway due to his fanatical hatred of the Bearers. In addition, the original Japanese localisation reveals that Imreann has himself been sexually preying on the young female slaves that he sacrifices. When eventually confronted by Jill, Imreann is unapologetic, degrading her as useless.
    • "To Catch a Thief" & "Blood from the Stones": The Cast Stones bandit leaders are a pair of Human Traffickers who lure merchants to their territory to rob them and leave them to starve and die en masse. Kidnapping children to use as bait in large numbers, the Cast Stones bandits abuse them with the threat of starvation and beatings. Fully intending to sell them as slaves and pickpockets, they gloat how the children will be mutilated and intend to make full use of them before that happens.

Compilation of Final Fantasy VII

    Examples 
  • Professor Hojo may not be the primary antagonist, but is responsible for nearly everything bad happening in the game. Prior to the game proper, he injects Jenova cells into the womb of his wife, Lucrecia, in order to turn their son Sephiroth into a Super-Soldier. He later murders Aerith's father and experiments on both her and her mother, his research leading to the latter's death. Throughout the game he is implied to manipulate most, if not all, of Sephiroth's actions, because he thinks of Sephiroth as research he wants to see blossom. He attempts to mate Aerith with Red XIII to create a half-human hybrid; experiments on the survivors of the Nibelheim massacre; murders Vincent, experimenting on his corpse and turning him into a half-monster; and attempts to help his son destroy the world at the end of the game. Dirge of Cerberus reveals Hojo to have copied his mind into the body of an experimental super soldier and used him to order other experimental super soldiers to commit mass kidnappings and murders, with the ultimate goal of awakening Omega and fusing with it.
  • Crisis Core: Professor Hollander was the chief of Project G, creating both Angeal and Genesis, yet was passed over for promotion in favour of Hojo and his Project S, resulting in Hollander being stuck in a dead-end job. Resenting the Shinra Electric Company, Hollander would manipulate and collaborate with an adult Genesis to take revenge; Genesis defected with an army of SOLDIER operatives whom Hollander would turn into Genesis Copies: slaves to Genesis' will suffering Loss of Identity instigating the Genesis War, which led to much death and destruction, with Hollander having no regard for civilians. Falsely promising to cure Genesis and his Copies' Degradation, an impatient Genesis would eventually infect Hollander with his cells and only then did Hollander try in earnest to find a cure—almost harvesting a comatose Cloud Strife to do so.
  • Final Fantasy VII Remake:
    • President Shinra is the leader of Midgar and the President of Shinra Electric Power Company, which powers Midgar with the Mako Energy from the planet's Lifestream, with Shinra uncaring of what will happen to the planet if the energy runs out. When AVALANCHE fights back against Shinra, he has his men destroy Mako Reactors 1 and 5, endangering many lives while framing AVALANCHE for the crimes. In order to get rid of AVALANCHE for good, Shinra orders Sector 7 to be destroyed, resulting in the deaths of many innocent lives, while framing AVALANCHE and accusing them of being allies for Wutai in order to have a excuse to go to war with them. After Aerith is captured by the Turks, Shinra plans on using her to lead him to the "Promised Land," while also allowing Hojo's plan on having Aerith raped by SOLDIERS in order for her to reproduce to "mitigate the risks". Afterwards, he plans on abandoning Midgar and its people and then building a new Midgar in the "Promised Land" with unlimited Mako Energy for him to rule. A cruel and vile businessman who believes that truth, justice, honor, and freedom are "vain indulgences", President Shinra will gladly kill anyone in order to achieve his own personal desires.
    • Don Corneo, the lord of Wall Market, is a ruthless Mafioso fully on board with Shinra's plan to bomb Sector 7 to oblivion with the promise of a new and improved Wall Market to reign over, and has no compunction calling himself a "villain". A sickening pervert, Corneo is known for claiming nightly brides, from willing and unwilling women alike, passing others to his men to be "enjoyed" by them. Once he is done, the women are fed to his monstrous pet Abzu, a pattern that continues for a very long time, with not even the loved ones of his own subordinates safe.

Ivalice Alliance

    Examples 
  • Tactics:
    • Hashmal(um) is second only to Ultima/Altima in the Lucavi and is the demon possessing Folmarv Tengille. The mastermind of nearly every misfortune in the game, Hashmal manipulates the massive war that claims countless lives so he can manipulate the resurrection of Altima. Upon confronting Ramza, who had learned that the Ultimate Church was corrupt, Hashmal massacred all present, including his host's own son. Tricking others into being possessed by the Lucavi and broadening the monstrous conflict, Hashmal kidnaps Ramza's sister Alma to use her as the host of Altima, only caring about creating more death and destruction to revive Altima and unleash her upon the unsuspecting world.
    • Dycedarg Beoulve is a ruthless schemer obsessed with achieving more power for himself. The elder brother of the hero Ramza, Dycedarg slowly poisons their own father over the course of years to kill him and take control of the noble family. To gather even more power, Dycedarg helps plunge Ivalice into a brutal civil war against Duke Goltanna. Dycedarg proceeds to backstab and murder his partner before allying with the demonic Lucavi, even murdering his brother Zalbaag. Unlike most of the Lucavi, Dycedarg seems to be a willing host to his demon, and while he may claim to have good intentions, he is merely a hypocrite willing to resort to any means to obtain the power he craves.
    • Gerrith Barrington is a rapacious Grand Duke who believes that anything he doesn't possess is better off eliminated. Barrington had the village of siblings Marach and Rapha butchered, including their parents, so he could take the children in as his personal weapons and assassins. Using an entire string of "charitable" orphanages to further find children he can indoctrinate into his loyal agents, Barrington's true vileness comes from the fact that he is a pedophilic rapist who has been molesting Rapha—and potentially many other children—for years. Barrington hopes to eventually spawn a new child from Rapha herself for him to turn his lusts upon, and when the girl and her brother finally stand up to him, Barrington murders Marach and tries to once again assert his dominance over Rapha.
  • Final Fantasy XII: Judge Bergan is a ruthless Judge Magister of the Archadian Empire. He supports Vayne Solidor's rise to Emperor because he admires his desire for power and the ruthless means he uses to achieve his ends. When his ally Judge Drace accuses Vayne of murdering his father to take the throne, Bergan gleefully strikes her down and is the only Judge who is unmoved by her execution. Later he and his fellow Judges travel to Mt. Bur-Omisace, a major religious site and home to many refugees, to retrieve Vayne's brother Larsa. While there, Bergan leads a slaughter of the innocents who live there and murders the religious leader known as the Gran Kiltias. Even though the men he served had good intentions, Bergan was simply interested in power.
  • Vagrant Story: Romeo Guildenstern is a power-hungry man cloaking his ambitions under false piety. Abusing the woman in love with him, Guildenstern slaps her hard enough to draw blood. Hiding his devotion to the forces of darkness by attacking one of their temples with his forces, Guildenstern, in his lust for power, throws aside his religious facade and sacrifices his abused lover in return for immense power. With his newfound strength, Guildenstern intends to take his rule worldwide and enact a cruel dictatorship in which he is worshipped above all else.

Fabula Nova Crystallis

    Examples 
  • Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII's English dub: The cruel perfectionist Bhunivelze lacks any potential redeeming qualities. The Greater-Scope Villain of the XIII trilogy, Bhunivelze takes centre stage in the finale seeking to create a New World for humanity to inhabit as his puppets. To this end, Bhunivelze cut out Lightning's emotions and tortured and tormented Hope until his mind broke, reverting him to a teenage body to better manipulate Lightning. Using Vanille as a medium to commune with and summon the souls of the dead, Bhunivelze seeks to sacrifice her to initiate the Soulsong to destroy these souls, which in turn will erase the memories of the dead from the still living whom he can then mould them as he sees fit. Bhunivelze also plans to force Lightning to become the new Goddess of Death to ensure balance in his new world, and when Lightning manages to defy him, he is so enraged he almost destroys the New World and all of humanity with it.
  • Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future: Bahamut, the Draconian, is the leader of the Astrals and a tyrant who views all the world as his garden. Angered by the war of the ancients in the past, Bahamut was barely stopped from erasing the world, later arranging the fate of Ardyn Izunia to spread the monstrous Starscourge and see the world overrun by Daemons. Believing mankind to be flawed, and obsessed with his own view of destiny, Bahamut intends to erase the world entirely, having no compunction killing the Astrals when they attempt to defend humankind.

Other Games

    Examples 
  • The Final Fantasy Legend: The Creator is the true power behind Ashura, the Four Fiends and all the woes they've inflicted on the world. Creating a tower separated into numerous worlds, the Creator made a "game" where adventurers would climb the tower believing Paradise to lie at its Apex. To create his game, the Creator deliberately made the worlds miserable, which included setting up a war in the World of Continent between three kings, having Byak-Ko establish a cruel dictatorship in the World of Clouds and having Su-Zaku turn the World of Ruin into a post-apocalyptic wasteland. When confronted by the party the Creator callously claims that because he created everything he can do anything he wants with the worlds and the people within, revealing himself to be a cruel and narcissistic god.
  • Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time: Larkeicus is an immortal Clavat and a nasty piece of work. Originally, his goals were for the good of humanity, as he invented special crystal powered inventions to give the people of the world untold riches. Once the crystals began vanishing, though, the citizens blamed the collapse of the world on Larkeicus. They found a crystal in the forest and at first, Larkeicus wanted to investigate it, hoping to find more crystals. He instead had a change of heart and killed the villagers (including the children) in the village near the forest, which disgusted his apprentice Veriaulde the Yuke. Veriaulde tried to stop his master, but was knocked out. Sherlotta, the only survivor of the massacre, was a prime target of Larkeicus as she was given the ability to spawn crystals. Larkeicus decided to capture her and experiment on her and his apprentice so he could obtain immortality and be treated like a god again. Because of his master's experiments, Veriaulde transformed into a monster on contact with any crystals, which was a boon for Larkeicus, who wasn't concerned with the Yuke's well-being. Throughout the game, Larkeicus is shown to have free agency and is perfectly able to stop what he's doing, but is too engrossed in the scientific experiments he is conducting to really care about his apprentice or anyone else.
  • Dissidia series:
    • The Emperor from Final Fantasy II is one of the oldest warriors serving Chaos in his ongoing war with Cosmos. When Tidus appears in the 12th cycle of war as another Chaos warrior, the Emperor manipulates him into conflict with his father Jecht, culminating with him taking Jecht to Chaos and having him be converted into one of his warriors. Cosmos had granted her warriors fragments of her divine power that would manifest as Crystals, and the Emperor's ulterior motive was that Jecht's Crystal would not manifest as a Crystal attuned to darkness. In the 13th cycle, the Emperor masterminds a scheme to allow Cosmos's warriors to get their Crystals, as doing so will siphon her power so Chaos can kill her. With Cosmos dead the world begins to fall apart, and her warriors assault Chaos's realm to destroy him before they fade away. The Emperor reveals he will use the Crystal of darkness Jecht manifested to claim god-like power and reign over the world once both of the gods are dead, and until then he waits for Cosmos's warriors to kill off rivals to his power in their final stand. Cruel, condescending, and caring about no one but himself, the Emperor treats everyone including the gods as pawns to manipulate in his scheme to become a God-Emperor ruling their world.
    • Opera Omnia: Kefka Palazzo is an insane mage who causes destruction and chaos just because he can. Controlling the mind of Terra Branford and manipulating Vincent Valentine to fight the heroes for him, Kefka later aids in the defense of the Blackened Will, so that it may finish its goal of destroying the world the characters are fighting in. In Arc 2 Chapter 5, Kefka breaks away from Spiritus and makes his own play for power, seizing control of a number of Dark Manikins and killing another Planesgorger to absorb its ability to devour worlds. Infusing his own hatred and the Planesgorger's power into the Dark Manikins, Kefka cultivates dark energy in them that he uses to create another Blackened Will. So dangerous is Kefka's ploy that not even the other villains want any part in it, and the threat of another Blackened Will convinces Materia and Spiritus to work together to create a Torsion the heroes can use to pursue Kefka and destroy his creation. Possessing no empathy for anyone, having no goal but destruction for the sake of destruction, and expressing interest in unleashing in his Blackened Will on other worlds once he's done here, the Warriors of Light themselves consider Kefka the worst of Spiritus's warriors.
  • World of Final Fantasy: Brandelis is the King of Bahamut and a member of the Exnine Knights, a group dedicated to destroying worlds ruled by their Arch-Enemy Alexander. When Lann and Reynn open the Ultima Gate and release Brandelis into Grymoire, his forces spend the next hundred years extracting the souls of Grymoire's people, using them to power their fortress while their bodies become vessels for Brandelis's minions to cross over with. When Lann and Reynn return, Brandelis tricks them into opening the Ultima Gate again, unleashing the Cogna on Grymoire to cause mass destruction and death. Even in defeat, Brandelis refuses to go quietly and attempts to take the heroes with him as he's dragged back through the Ultima Gate. A cruel and vicious warlord who prefers to brutally annihilate his enemies over less-violent options, Brandelis is a genocidal fiend who would conquer and destroy all of Alexander's worlds if he could, and does so proudly.
  • Stranger of Paradise: Nil, a high-ranking and truly vile Lufenian, is Jack Garland's Arch-Enemy. Complicit in Lufenia's attempts to control Cornelia and the rest of the world, when that is foiled by Jack becoming Chaos Nil takes drastic action. Using Gilgamesh to smuggle the Death Machine—driving him to painful madness—Nil tries to use said machine to assassinate Jack and his allies, threatening to destabilise and destroy multiple dimensions in the process. In a final attempt at purging Chaos, Nil summons an army of Manikins that slaughter all the other Lufenians, intending to destroy Chaos and erase the entire dimension, creating it anew as a utopia free from "corrupting elements".

Other Media

  • Legend of the Crystals: Ra Devil is a malevolent cyborg who seeks to become Deathgyunos, the God of Oblivion. He stole Cid Previa's brain from his grave before murdering Cid's young grandson Mid. He then kept the brain alive and in torment to forcibly extract the knowledge of the elemental crystals that stabilize the world. Returning to Planet R two hundreds years later, Ra Devil steals the crystals, dooming the world to destruction. Setting sight on the Wind Crystal, he launches raids on Rouge Island and later the city of Tycoon. He then abducts the heroine Linaly, whose body hosts the the Wind Crystal and uses her as a battery to drain the energy of the universe and complete his transformation. After the heroes interrupts the process, Ra Devil fights them back and sadistically electrocutes Prettz and Rouge in front of their friends.

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