While Ratchet & Clank is a lighthearted series through and through, it is surprisingly common for its villains to perform some especially heinous acts:
Canon games:
- The Big Bad of the first game, Chairman Drek, has the intention of creating a new planet for his race by stealing parts from others because their homeworld of Orxon is badly polluted. As we find out at the end, Drek himself had polluted the planet so he could sell homes to his race on his artificial planet... and he intends to do this again. In-universe, the moment where Ratchet finally considers Drek as having crossed the line is when Drek intends to destroy Veldin for its orbit, possibly just to spite the lombax.
- In Up Your Arsenal, a musical video of Courtney Gears singing about her genocidal hatred of organic life forms is found in one of Dr. Nefarious' labs. She would only tell Ratchet and Clank what she knows of his plans if she guest stars in a Secret Agent Clank episode. After filming, she kidnaps Clank, sends Tyhrranods to kill Ratchet, captures Skidd and turns him into a robot. And when Ratchet finally tracks her down, she fights him with a sadistic pleasure. And if that is not enough, she even helps lure Ratchet as well as Captain Qwark into Nefarious' trap in the Zeldrin Starport that almost gets them both killed.
- Gleeman Vox of Deadlocked runs a major criminal organization with Ace Hardlight as his Number Two, and has heroes kidnapped all over the universe and forced to fight to the death on television. Note that two of these heroes were teenage girls, too! But if all this mass kidnapping isn't enough to cross the line, him blowing up the DreadZone arena with everyone (including children) inside, all for ratings, while he watches from the sidelines, definitely is.
- Ace Hardlight crosses the line when he shoots Big Al from behind. He does have a Heel Realization upon defeat, but by that point, it is too late to make amends, as Vox announces his death while Ace is tossed into Zordoom Prison as punishment for his failure.
- As they are Always Chaotic Evil, all Cragmites are beyond this line upon birth. However, Emperor Tachyon, the Big Bad of Tools of Destruction, crosses this line by waging genocide against the lombaxes out of anger for them banishing his own race. Oh, and some of the lombaxes raised him. Tachyon's subsequent iron-fisted rule over Polaris, countless offscreen genocidesnote , and engaging in terrorist attacks against Metropolis and Meridian City have indicated that he enjoys crossing the MEH—pretty much every time Tachyon appears onscreen, he crosses the MEH even more.
- In A Crack in Time, "Unnecessarily Evil Initiative Omega 91" is this for Cassiopeia, given that she spends the entire time trying to kill Ratchet and orders the other Valkyries to execute Clank. And like Courtney Gears before her, Cassiopeia is quite the sadist over this, even mocking Ratchet as being "an orphan doomed to spend his entire life alone".
- In the tie-in comic taking place after the Future trilogy, Artemis Zogg tells Ratchet and Clank to turn themselves in, lest Veldin freeze to death in the cold emptiness of space. When the duo complies, Zogg crosses the MEH when he goes back on his word, claiming that the fate he's befallen Veldin will set an example for any other resistance opposing his rule.
- In the film and its tie-in game, Dr. Nefarious crosses this line when he betrays Chairman Drek and attempts to use the Deplanetizer to destroy Umbris, as doing so would cause a chain reaction that would ultimately destroy the rest of the solar system with it.
- Even if Drek is more affable in this version, he still crosses the line during the game when he sadistically brags about his intention to repeat the process of planet-building on the rest of the galaxy to create a Blarg-owned empire, shoving off the fact that untold trillions across the galaxy would be left homeless or dead.
- Emperor Nefarious, the Big Bad of Rift Apart who has spent the entire game already being an insufferably arrogant piece of work, crosses it when he decides to overclock the Dimensionator to destroy all of reality just because he can't handle losing for the first time. By the time he's defeated, everyone is absolutely done with him, including Dr. Nefarious, his mainline counterpart who he spent the entire game needlessly abusing, who proceeds to let him get dragged away to his doom.
