Basic Trope: A villain or another evil character you can instantly tell is evil.
- Straight: The Big Bad, Emperor Nick Evulz, has no sense of subtlety, acting and appearing in a way from which anyone with half a brain could deduce he's evil.
- Exaggerated:
- Emperor Nicolai 'the Deathlove' Lucifer Scorpius Evulz sports pitch black armor with Satanic insignia, numerous spikes resting upon pauldrons the size of an American football field, and an Ominous Opera Cape. He also has snakishly slit-pupilled, bloodred eyes that glow when he's really infuriated punctuating the eternal void of darkness that is his sclera, More Teeth than the Osmond Family, a Skull for a Head, and creepy white hair. He speaks with a monotonic bass, and is prone to displays of dramatic flair with an occasional menacing laugh. His Evil Lair is a hundred storey tall skyscraper built in Mordor atop an inactive volcano which he taps for geothermal energy, and all of his rank-and-file speak Black Speech. And then there is his One-Winged Angel form, which is a borderline Eldritch Abomination in appearance.
- Every single villain that shows up in the story is portrayed in such a way that people can immediately tell that they're evil, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense.
- Downplayed:
- Nick is not evil, but his pink polo, sweater over his shoulders, aviators, and sleek, coifed hair make it obvious that he is an arrogant jerk.
- Nick looks like a normal person yet his behaviour is always vaguely menacing.
- Nick seems and acts like almost saintly generous and kind-hearted, but it's rather paper thin, and anyone observant enough can tell that his good deeds are for show rather than altruism.
- Nick looks and acts normal most of the time. But the minute Detective Bob starts questioning him, he completely flies off the handle, making him look suspicious long before he is revealed as the murderer and arrested.
- Red Right Hand
- Justified:
- Nick has never been a very subtle person and everyone else would see through him anyway, so why try to fool them now?
- Evulz is from a culture where things we see as usually indicating something bad are seen in a positive light.
- Evil Is Cool, so Nick is intentionally unsubtle.
- Evulz is trying to be feared. Being Obviously Evil helps with that.
- Nick is a Card-Carrying Punch-Clock Villain, and is contractually obligated/has more fun being hammy.
- Nick’s evil looks are a curse for his evilness.
- Nick acquired his powers with a spell that makes him look evil as a price.
- Inverted:
- Nick looks like Satan. He's also the good guy.
- The villain looks benevolent, even beautiful. He's anything but.
- The villain has the appearance of an angel or a superhero or something else associated with goodness.
- The villain is adorable.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon.
- Beauty Is Bad.
- Nicholas Goodman is the Big Good and has no subtlety of being a good guy, acting and appearing in a way from which anyone with half a brain could deduce.
- Face of a Thug.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!
- Subverted: Evulz, with his sinister appearance, turns out to be a good guy or neutral. This differs from the inverted example in that it initially looked like Dark Is Evil was going to be played straight.
- Double Subverted:
- Turns out, they were lying all along.
- Nick actually turns evil soon after that.
- Parodied:
- See Exaggerated. No one notices.
- There's a law saying anyone who wears "evil" colors, spikes, or ominous opera capes or laughs "evilly" must be interrogated/arrested.
- IamBad McEvilguy looks like Dick Dastardly come to life, his jackets are all bloodstained and say "EVIL PERSON OF DOOM!!!" on them, and, when he's not laughing manically and killing people For the Evulz, his favorite pastime is to run around police stations yelling all of his evil plans out loud and boasting about how many innocents he's killed this week. The heroes are eventually tipped off by his black top hat.
- Zig Zagged:
- Nick looks obviously evil, but he's actually a Heel–Face Revolving Door.
- Nick has the appearance of a villain, but nobody knows which side he's actually on.
- Averted: They Look Just Like Everyone Else!
- Enforced:
- Viewers Are Morons—the writers want to make sure everyone knows that Nick Evulz is eeeeevil!
- The writers want their villain to look foreboding and badass.
- Lampshaded: "I knew you were evil, Nick!" "Yes, you and everyone else with the capacity to function in normal society."
- Invoked: The Hero is confident in being able to track down a villain, because he is so blatantly nefarious-looking that surely someone would have spotted him.
- Exploited: Alice manipulates the naive goth Nick into doing questionable acts for her gain. This way, even when things go wrong, she's cleared.
- Defied: A villain tones down his appearance, style, and wardrobe in order to avoid needless suspicions.
- Discussed: "Well, given that his name was 'Nicolai 'the Deathlove' Lucifer Scorpius Evulz', he sported black armor with Satanic insignia, yada yada yada, I felt trusting him would be a bad call."
- Conversed: "Why does this show seem to be in love with villains that make Skeletor look like a perfectly respectable patent lawyer by comparison?" "My guess? The writers were aiming for Darker and Edgier and overshot."
- Deconstructed: Evil old Nicolai is actually from a race of people who all look Obviously Evil, and/or whose morals and values are so utterly alien to normal people that they seem evil by comparison. As a result, everybody assumes that they're Always Chaotic Evil, leading to much Fantastic Racism as Nicolai and his people try to prove that they're not villainous even though they look it.
- The heroes misjudge Nicolai for his evil appearance and don't trust him leading them into many nasty problems that could've been avoided or prevented altogether if they had trusted him in first place.
- Obvious Judas
- Reconstructed: After putting up with years of crap from their tormentors, Nicolai and his people decide that everyone else is a bastard and start destroying everything in sight; thereby becoming the villains that they were made out to be.
Back to Obviously Evil. With a name like that, surely you know it's EVIL.
