Exaggerated: Emperor Evulz is an omnicidalpedophile rapist overlord, who burns down hospitals and tortures people to death in front of their families for looking at him the wrong way. He then feeds puppies and kittens to them and then makes them puke it up and eat their vomit. Sometimes, he eats the puppies and kittens himself and shits them out, making them eat his shit instead. Oh, and he also Eats Babies (and does the same with them to their parents as he does with puppies and kittens). All at the same time, while singing a Villain Song about how evil he is. And he does that all while gleefully plotting genocide in his spare time, selling heroin to elementary schoolers, and watching illegally downloaded movies. Not to mention, he drives ten miles above the speed limit.And That's Terrible.
Let's face it. It's really freaking hard to exaggerate or parody a Complete Monster, since he or she could be interpreted as already being an exaggeration of various villain tropes.
Downplayed: Emperor Evulz is just evil enough to cross the line to Complete Monster.
Evulz more than crosses the line into Complete Monster, but there are people whose company he seems to enjoy, and he continues to keep them alive so long as their companionship remains enjoyable.
Justified: To clear up any confusion, you can't justify a vile, depraved character like this on a moral level. It's about explaining how and why they are so evil to begin with.
He wants to test out if he can successfully piss off the entire planet in a quest of a literal 0% Approval Rating.
He's learned that names like Hitler and Genghis Khan will be remembered for all of history while those of nicer people are often left by the wayside (after all, there is No Such Thing As Bad Publicity). If he causes enough damage, then time-travelers might come back in time to kill him and then he could steal their time machine. He's also incredibly insane.
Emperor Evulz is pulling off a Zero Approval Gambit: he makes it seem like he's an irredeemable monster, so heroes and villains alike will unite, leading to a better world.
Even though ruthless, he's a not really a total monster: it's just a facade.
Double Subverted: Emperor Evulz fakes being a Monster...but starts Becoming the Mask, feeling that Evil Feels Good and decides to abandon the benevolent purposes and just decides to do everything For the Evulz.
Turns out, those secret motivations were lies to screw with the heroes.
He actually started out with more altruistic or sympathetic motivations, but he dived off the deep end at some point and no longer even remembers and/or cares about his original intentions.
Then, cognitive dissonance kicks in and he decides not to give his enemies any satisfaction by reforming.
Because of his already weak moral fiber and lack of self-awareness, he loses himself to love of power and decides to cause a massive-scale bloodshed like nothing before. After all, who else would ever have such power in his hands and an opportunity for such a huge impact? Only a superior human being would be able to achieve it. Everyone unworthy would then perish dramatically in his deliverance.
Parodied: See Exaggerated, then add some Genre Savvy as he debates to himself what will make him more of a monster. ("What would be more evil: Nuking Peoria or Torturing Grand-Aunt Annabelle's beloved pet Goldfish?"). And does so in song.
The karma-measuring devices break down, with only OVER sign displayed on the screen, while measuring Emperor Evulz' evilness.
Emperor Evulz is a Harmless Villain who does nothing worse than Poke the Poodle, but everyone, including himself, see him as a monster.
Deconstructed: Emperor Evulz is so horribly, undisputably evil that everybody puts aside their rivalries and teams up against him to bring him down with all the might available, forcing him to stand alone and outnumbered against the full might of those who intend to bring him down once and for all.
The show puts into question of who is to decide that someone can or cannot be redeemed. As in, it questions if it is or is not possible that a Complete Monster cannot realize the errors of his ways and learn to atone. It also questions the heroes and asks if they're really in the position to pass such judgment and be the Judge, Jury, and Executioner.
Emperor Evulz wasn't always a Complete Monster and as he gradually approached this point, his mind broke more and more out of fear of what he will turn into.
While Emperor Evulz is a Complete Monster, the reason why and his motivations for being so evil, as well as his actions, to a certain degree, are actually quite understandable. Thus making Evulz all the more disturbing; because you can relate to him.
The Emperor is so evil that there is no one on earth he can relate to. This leaves him isolated, alone, and descending into further madness, as he seeks somebody—anybody—who is as morally degenerate as himself, so that he can finally make some connections.
Reconstructed: All of the characters in the main plot put aside their differences to fight Emperor Evulz simply because of how evil he is, even if they were fighting each other in armed conflict before. This could even include his own empire. However, Emperor Evulz is an unthinkably powerfulEldritch Abomination who can Mind Rape and massacre an army of fifty thousand men with the flick of his wrist.
Emperor Evulz may know what his actions can lead to and might even know that he can atone if he wants to. He simply chooses not to and doesn't want to. He willingly chose to become what he is because being evil has made his life better and more enjoyable. He knows he's horrible, loves it, embraces it, and has the skills/powers/means/etc. to keep going. If the world turns against him, so be it; more fun for him. If he dies, so be it; he knew he enjoyed every second of his life causing as much suffering and destruction as he could. Worse if he's immortal or able to reincarnate. That's why the heroes are able to pass judgment (accepting the cost of possibly having to rethink their values), because Emperor Evulz isn't changing his mind no matter what.
When it comes to the question of whether a person is redeemable or not, the story makes a point that it is not okay to kill the person in question because of the atrocities that person made. After all, that person is still a person if one were to believe that "all lives are sacred and equal", a limitation heroes have to or have decided to live with. However, if the complete monster in question is not a person, but an actual monster akin to a vampire, a werewolf, a robot, or even an eldritch abomination, then things are different. Killing this literal monster would be no worse than killing a livestock (albeit a very very ''bad'' livestock), squishing a fly, dismantling hardware, or, in the case of the exceptionally evil, curing a disease. Furthermore, the monster in question could not only be evil to the core, but right down to its molecular structure, composed of evil, otherworldly atoms. This would make the monster an essence of evil rather than a person or a living creature. Thus, it would compel the hero, whose goal is to fight and destroy evil, to destroy it by its very nature, and the actions would not mark him down on the morality scale or veer him away from the ideals for the sanctity of life he holds deeply — not one bit.
Evulz knew in the first place what he was getting into and knew about all the risks. He had many points where the potential costs were obvious and he could have turned back without losing anything of value. He kept going on anyway out of his own accord, dismissing/ignoring/belittling all warnings. He chose to ignore his conscience or was very adept at silencing it, which would beg the question whether he had a well-developed enough conscience/character/common sense/personality structure to begin with.
While the heroes can relate to Emperor Evulz, they make a point that it's not what makes them similar, but what makes them different. The heroes have morals and higher standards, while Emperor Evulz has none. Cue Shut Up, Hannibal!.
The fact that Emperor Evulz can intellectually understand things like compassion and empathy necessary for normally relating to others yet thinks he's better off without 'extra baggage like that' is the reason(or one of the reasons) he is a Complete Monster in the first place. The fact he's going insane from having no one to relate also has an unsettling side effect of making him even more dangerous than he already is.
Zig Zagged: He keeps getting flashes of intuition that not everything is right, but keeps dismissing them.
Even Evulz hates himself for what kind of a person he is, but the only remedy that allows him to forget it is hurting people, which he enjoys greatly.
Evulz is ruthless in doing anything to achieve what he wants, regardless of how it damages others. We then discover his secret, humanizing motivations - which shortly after turn out to be lies to screw with the heroes. Then it turns out not every one of them were - except that he no longer cares about his original motivations. At one point, he reflects on his life and starts regretting his deeds. Only our friend cognitive dissonance enters the picture and he goes back to killing, injuring, torturing, raping, and mind-raping anyone who stands up to him or he doesn't like, just as a way of saying 'Fuck you!' to good guys.
Enforced: "We've had villains on this show before, but we need to prove to the audience that Emperor Evulz is the worst of the lot."
"We need a suitable villain for our Anti-Hero to fight, and we need him to be even worse than the Anti-Hero. Let's make him the very worst of the worst."
Emperor Evulz is an Eldritch Abomination literally Made of Evil, whose every smallest movement is a new Moral Event Horizon that causes unspeakable atrocities to happen everywhere in the universe at once. He doesn't even try to hide his nature. Everyone welcomes him to parties and gush about him behind his back, even if he just (describe something unspeakably evil).
Played For Drama: As a villain as evil as he is, Emperor Evulz does the most horrific things imaginable so casually and cruelly that the heroes are faced with the dilemma of letting him live or killing him once and for all, causing much tension among the heroes while Evulz is out doing evil deeds.
Every second Emperor Evulz exists in is a Moral Event Horizon and obviously something has to be done about it, because he is a threat ultimately to everything and letting him live is unarguably senseless. The problems come in thinking over what everyone is ready to sacrifice or let go just to get rid of Evulz once and for all, taking into account how masterful Evulz is preying on any weakness. They have to come up with a very clever, well thought-out plan to get rid of Evulz as fast as just possible before Evulz' destructive being erodes everything carefully constructed over millenia.
