Sandbox / DCEU: Doctor Sivana

DC Extended Universe Character Index
Antagonists
Superman's Rogues Gallery (General Zod, Lex Luthor) | Gotham Underworld | Task Force X - Targets | Wonder Woman's Rogues Gallery (Ares) | Apokolips (Steppenwolf) | Shazam's Rogues Gallery (Dr. Sivana) | Other Supervillains (Ocean Master) | Minor Villains and Criminals

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Doctor Thaddeus Sivana

"You will beg for mercy, as I feast on your heart!"

Species: Empowered human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Sivana Industries, The Seven Deadly Sins (as their champion)

Portrayed By: Mark Strong, Ethan Pugiotto (young)

Voiced By: Alfredo Gabriel Basurto (Latin-American Spanish), Takehito Koyasu (Japanese, adult), Sara Matsumoto (Japanese, young), Éric Herson-Macarel (European French), Patrick Chouinard (Canadian French), Hércules Franco (Brazilian Portuguese)

Appearances: SHAZAM!

"You know what it's like for a child to be told you'll never be good enough? No you don't. What you said to me all those years ago made me realize who I really was. And you know something? I am not pure of heart."

Thaddeus Sivana is son of the head of Sivana Industries. After being spirited away to the Rock of Eternity, he has spent his life researching everything he could about the Wizard Shazam, whose test he failed when he was a young boy. Decades later, Dr Sivana found his way back to the Rock of Eternity and willingly became a vessel to the Seven Deadly Sins when he touched the Eye of Sin, becoming their champion and the first major enemy of Billy Batson.

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A-F

• Abled in the Adaptation: From his childhood and up to the movie's setting, Sivana wore eyeglasses like his comics counterpart. After gaining the power of the Eye of Sin, which lodges itself into his right eye, he doffs them and doesn't seem to need them anymore. Until he is depowered by Shazam and goes back to wearing his glasses.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Understandable, considering that the original version is basically a Gollum-like figure. There's an attempt to make Mark Strong uglier by giving him a scar and a supernatural eye, but since Strong is still quite a handsome fellow, it's to little avail.
  • Also applies to the New 52 version of Dr. Sivana, whose usage of the Eye of Sin had the side effect of gradually mummifying him. This take on Sivana never suffers any of that. In fact, his original eye even grows back once he's depowered.
• Adaptational Badass: Doctor Sivana in the comics is a non-combatant Mad Scientist who never fights, which means he's a definite Villainous Underdog against someone like Captain Marvel/Shazam. Doctor Sivana here however, catches a punch by the Kid Hero with no effort, which should tell you a lot about how powerful this version is. Aside from Super-Strength, he has a form of Telekinesis, has mastered the power of Flight, and can toss lightning bolts. However, he's Depowered when the Sins are resealed.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Dr. Sivana in the comics is seldom shown to be anything more than an amoral scientist. Here his motives for turning bad are given sizable attention, making it clear that if he wasn't mistreated throughout his entire childhood then he could have become a much more stable adult.
• Adaptational Wimp: While he's much more action-oriented than he was in the comics, most of Sivana's menace comes from being a vessel for the Seven Sins. In the comics Dr. Sivana could infamously walk through prison walls just by reciting an elaborate equation, while this take on Sivana would have rotted in his cell if it wasn't for Mister Mind coming to his aid.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: When he made his debut in the comics, Dr. Sivana was simply a Starter Villain that became a recurring foe. Here, Sivana's turn to villainy involves fatally wounding the Wizard Shazam and unleashing the Seven Sins, compelling the Wizard to settle on the very next candidate no matter who they may be, which just so happened to be Billy Batson.
• Adapted Out: If Dr. Sivana has any children in this universe like he does in the comics, he doesn't seem to be very involved in their lives.
• Ambition Is Evil: Dr. Sivana is contrasted against Billy Batson with his lofty goals. He wants absolute power while Billy was made champion against his will. Once Sivana finds out that a champion was chosen after he'd acquired the Eye of Sin, he tries to gain the power of Shazam as well so he can be uncontested.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: The adult Thaddeus is always seen clad in an immaculate business suit, topped off with a...
• Badass Longcoat: He wears a black leather longcoat with a fur collar once he grows fully into his villainous role.
• Bald of Evil: Both due to the comics and due to the actor's trademark baldness.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: He's introduced as a bullied child. By the third act, he's now the one bullying kids.
• Berserk Button: Because of how poorly his father and brother treated him, he hates hearing anything about families. As he was leaving his father's company through the elevator, the elevator plays a video about how Sivana Industries cares about families which results in Sivana punching the screen. Later on, he takes sadistic pleasure in taunting/threatening Billy's foster siblings.
• Big Bad: Sivana is the cause of the villainy and conflict in SHAZAM!, with the Seven Deadly Sins serving as his minions. Although they are crucially responsible for corrupting him into villainy, they obey his orders.
• Black Sheep: Sivana's The Unfavorite in his family and blamed for his father's disability. An alterate scene where he murders his family at their Christmas party shows Sivana deliberately invoking this trope, as he shows up wearing his black coat with its woolen collar while the rest of his family wear white.
• Breaking Speech:
  • He keeps it brief and simple, but he tells the Wizard that he isn't pure of heart and while that qualifies him to be the champion of the Seven Deadly Sins, the Wizard will never find anyone who can be his champion.
  • He gives a few of these to Billy, in an attempt to shake him or demean him.
• Brought Down to Normal: Once Billy gets the upper hand in their climactic battle, he pulls the Eye of Sin out of Sivana's socket, rendering him powerless.
• Bullet Catch: Being empowered by the Seven Deadly Sins enhances his reflexes. When Mary tries to shoot Sivana in his Eye of Sin, Sivana manages to catch the bullet.
• The Bully: As soon as Sivana is empowered by the Seven Deadly Sins, he proceeds to abuse them by slaying his family members and pursuing his rival, even seeking to harm his loved ones.
• Bullying the Disabled: Sivana intimidates Freddy Freeman by yanking him by the scruff of his neck.
• Butt-Monkey: The end credits to Shazam! shows animated sequences of Dr. Sivana getting repeatedly thwarted and humiliated by Billy and his siblings. One particular moment is when Billy swaps his Eye of Sin with the compass keychain he got from his mother.
• Cain and Abel: Sivana's hatred for his brother (his father's clear favorite) has culminated with murder.
• Child Hater: If his interactions with Billy and his foster siblings are any indication, he is generally resentful towards children, likely because they remind him of his troubled childhood.
• The Chosen Wannabe: As a child, Sivana was deemed not worthy by Shazam and subsequently spent much of his adult life trying to return to the Rock of Eternity. He later becomes envious of Billy for being chosen by the Wizard.
• Cold Ham: Dr. Sivana has no trouble maintaining a straight face, but his lust for power and obsession with the paranormal cause him to spout some fairly cheesy lines. His inaudible taunting of Billy in the film's climax being the most noteworthy example.
• The Comically Serious: Dr. Sivana is completely humorless, but can be subjected to this when fighting Billy at the toy store as Billy throws toys at him advancing to no avail, first interrogating Freddy who hysterically thinks he will read his mind and finally trying to spout Evil Gloating in the final battle despite being far away and Billy unable to hear him from a distance.
• Composite Character:
  • With his dark clothing, super strength, flight and electrical powers; Dr. Sivana takes inspiration from Black Adam.
  • With Sivana being empowered by the Seven Deadly Sins, he also draws influence from the New 52 version of SABBAC, who is the result of all the sins possessing a human.
  • His darker wardrobe and less cartoony appearance are similar to the Dr. Sivana seen in Justice League: Gods and Monsters.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To both the villains of the previous DCEU film Aquaman (2018):
  • To Orm. Orm was a super powered being with years of combat experience who leads a vast army while Sivana is an ordinary human with no fighting ability who operates alone (except for the Seven Deadly Sins) and is wholly reliant on his powers. Orm had lofty goals about saving his kingdom from the surface world's actions while Sivana cares only about his own power. Despite all their conflict, it's shown that Orm does still care about Arthur, doesn't want to kill him and accepts his ultimate defeat with no issue while Sivana detests his brother Sid, making him his first victim, and is driven mad by his defeat, trying desperately to get his powers back before meeting up with Mister Mind.
  • To Black Manta. Manta was a young black man while Sivana is a white man in his fifties. Manta had years of combat training and experience while Sivana has no fighting abilities outside of his powers. Manta operated covertly and outside the law while Sivana is a known member of a very wealthy and respected family. Manta worked with others, both his own men and Atlantean soldiers, while Sivana only has the Seven Deadly Sins. Perhaps the biggest one is that Manta and his father had a genuinely close and mutually loving relationship and Manta's motivation is avenging him while Sivana's father was horribly abusive and the first thing Sivana does with his powers is murder him and his brother.
• Corrupted Character Copy: Dr. Sivana could easily be compared to Harry Potter, if Harry never had any friends or proper guidance. As a child he had black hair and thick glasses, matching the boy wizard's exact physical description. He comes from an abusive family and he's suddenly approached by a wizard who offers to give him the chance to wield great magical powers. The scar he gets on his eye when he gains the power of the Seven Sins even resembles a lightning bolt. The deviation begins with Sivana being consumed by vengeance and a desperate need to feel powerful, while Harry Potter is usually shown to be humble and rarely uses his magic in a vengeful way outside of some harmless pranks.
• Cursed with Awesome: The Wizard warns Sivana that the Sins are using him to spread damnation across the world. After Sivana's venegeance is sated they spur him into further acts of villainy, showing that they want a lifelong commitment from him. Sivana doesn't mind any of this.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His childhood at the hands of a terrible father and brother. The latter of whom bullied him simply for taking interest in a Magic 8-Ball.
• Darker and Edgier: The Doctor Sivana from the comics is one of the more cartoonish villains in the DCEU, pretty much like Jesse Eisenberg's take on Lex Luthor but with even more outlandish schemes. Mark Strong's take on the character is a full-blown Knight of Cerebus, managing to make such conventionally funny moments like getting punched in the groin or stepping on a floor piano seem devoid of comedy.
• Dark Is Evil: Sivana wears lots of dark clothing once he bonds with the Seven Sins, such as his dark blue suit, leather coat and sunglasses. Also, as a child, his hair was black and his favorite possession was a magic 8-ball.
• Deal with the Devil: After a lifetime of being treated like crap, with the knowledge that he could have supernatural powers if he wanted them, Sivana willingly becomes a vessel for the Seven Sins and goes on a rampage. The Wizard warns him that eventually the Sins will override his will and force him to suffer through the destruction of civilization, but Sivana either wasn't listening or just hates humanity enough to consider this a good bargain.
• Decoy Protagonist: The first few minutes of the movie showcase him in the spotlight, making it seem like he'll be the central focus, only to show that it was just the origin story of his descent into darkness.
• Demon Head: When Billy starts agitating Envy while it's still in Sivana's body, the demon briefly erupts from Sivana's own face, giving him this look.
• Demonic Possession: Somewhat. Sivana is in control of his own actions when the Seven Deadly Sins inhabit his body and he uses them to settle personal scores. However, as he was warned, the Sins are not necessarily interested in Sivana himself but merely need a conduit to infest the real world. They ultimately don't care about his well-being and would just as soon let him die so long as they can escape, which is what happens when Billy tempts the last demon to act on its own agenda in the climax, leaving Sivana just a regular mortal. In other words, they possess his body but not his mind.
• De-power: Like Billy, his powers aren't inherited or earned, instead being granted by the Seven Deadly Sins. When they're sealed away again at the end, Sivana is left completely powerless.
• Destination Defenestration: Dr. Sivana kills his brother by tossing him out the top floor window of the Sivana Industries skyscraper. One of the Sins tosses the corpse of another executive the same way.
• Disability-Negating Superpower: Dr. Sivana has worn glasses his whole life, but when he gains the Eye of Sin he stops wearing them, now possessing eyesight keen enough to catch a bullet in mid-air. Upon being defeated Sivana is seen wearing glasses again.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He savagely murders his father and brother simply because they mistreated him and blew him off when he was younger. He also had no issue having the other board members killed, even though they haven't done anything wrong to him.
• The Dog Bites Back: The Wizard, his father and his older brother all took shots at Sivana's self-esteem when he was a child and paid for it with their lives.
• Dragon-in-Chief: The de facto main antagonist, but is the champion to the Seven Deadly Sins, who ultimately view him as a means to an end, but his scheming is their only hope of being unleashed into the world.
• Driven by Envy: Generally, he qualifies for this jealousy trope, being jealous that Billy Batson was chosen to be the Wizard's champion despite not taking the role seriously. The uprising of metahumans over the last few years probably didn't help him come to terms with his jealousy.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Sivana has been trying for years to replicate the symbols needed to access the Rock of Eternity. It's when he sees video from someone approached (and rejected) by the Wizard that Sivana realizes that the seven symbols need to be written on a door seven times. He does so and reaches the Rock.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Billy Batson. Both of them had troubles with families (Billy being separated by his mother, Sivana growing up with an abusive father and Big Brother Bully), have a "look for number one" mindset, and were considered candidates for Shazam's powers. However, Billy was considered worthy, while Sivana wasn't. Billy's main childhood possession was a compass while Sivana's was a magic 8-ball, showing two's reliance on objects for guidance. Throughout the film, Billy grows out of his selfish mindset and learns what makes a family, while Sivana hates even the concept of family and keeps his self-centered mindset.
  • His obsession with superpowers and feelings of insignificance also makes him this for Freddy Freeman, but while Freddy can shrug off most of his angst, Sivana is consumed by it.
• Evil Gloating: In pretty much his only comedic moment, Sivana tries tough-talking Billy, only he's about 20 metres away from his enemy and in mid-air, so Billy doesn't hear any of it. Even funnier is that none of what Sivana was saying was particularly interesting, he's just spouting Generic Doomsday Villain lines.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • He wants to be the most powerful being on earth, just for his own pleasure and satisfaction.
  • When entering the Vasquez's family house, he compliments the foster kids about it... then he changes his mind and says it's a shithole. Presumably because, it being a family home, it reminds him of his abusive family.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He's a supervillain with Mark Strong's commanding voice.
• Eye Scream: The Eye of Sin (the artifact that summons the Seven Deadly Sins) embedded itself in his right eye socket with enough force to send him flying across the room. In The Stinger, it is shown that he still has his regular eye, though the scar is still present.
• Evil Plan: Find his way back to the Rock of Eternity and use the power that the Seven Deadly Sins promised him as a child to get even with everyone who ever crossed him: His family, Wizard Shazam and, by association, Shazam himself.
• Evil Sorcerer: After getting the Eye of Sin, he gains the capacity to channel the Seven Deadly Sins' magic to great effect.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: At one point during their final showdown, Sivana goes on an extended Motive Rant mixed with Evil Gloating while he and Billy are hovering above the city. Unfortunately for him, they are so far apart that Billy can't make out what Sivana is saying, which turns a potentially dramatic scene into another hilarious one (assuming you found Sivana's cliched lines intimidating to begin with).
• Fatal Flaw: Envy. Resented his father and brother, especially since they were the ones who were running Sivana Industries, a company he wanted to run when he was older but they always disregarded him. Realising this also proves to be the key to defeating him. Since his own greatest sin was envy, that was the sin that he kept in his own body, to retain his own powers while summoning the others to battle the Marvel family. Knowing that allowed Billy to taunt Envy itself into attacking in person, departing Sivana's body and thus allowing the sins to be defeated.
• Faux Affably Evil: In spite of his sour disposition, Sivana can affect a nice facade when he wants, but it doesn't take much for him to drop the charade and reveal what a cruel, spiteful egomaniac he actually is.
  Sivana: (referring to the Vasquez household) Oh, how quaint. [Beat] Actually, I take that back. What a shithole.
  • In an alternate scene, Thaddeus cheerfully greets his brother and father at their family Christmas party with the steadfast intention to terrorize and murder them.
• Flying Brick: Sivana has the standard super-strength and flight powers necessary to tangle with super-powered beings. Unlike Billy Batson, Sivana mastered flight with relative ease.
• Foil: To Billy Batson. Dr. Sivana is powered by the Seven Deadly Sins, enemies of the Council of Seven Wizards; he comes from a rich, privileged family who held little else but disdain for him and eventually this becomes mutual. Billy receives his boons from the virtues of six gods and demigods, granted by the last surviving Wizard; he lost his parents and, despite running away from a succession of loving foster families, desperately longs to find his own.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Sivana has been wearing glasses since he was a child and has zero empathy for anyone.
• Freudian Excuse: He was belittled and talked down to constantly by his father and older brother even before Shazam deemed him not worthy and subsequently being blamed for the accident that crippled his father and left him estranged from his family. Pursuit of Shazam's powers was all he felt he had left.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Started off as a shy kid being picked on by his brother and father, but later becomes a Psychopathic Manchild who is not willing to stop at anything to achieve his goals.

G-P

• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He acquires nasty scars around his eye after the Eye of Sin lodges itself into his eye.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Although Sivana gets his powers from the Seven Deadly Sins, he embodies Envy the most, being envious of Billy for being chosen by the Wizard and envious of his brother Sid for being their father's favorite. Appropriately, Envy is the only demon he never explicitly summons himself, only being coaxed out after Billy taunts said demon.
• Hate at First Sight: Dr. Sivana was rejected by the Wizard Shazam for not fitting his idea of a champion, so when he finds out that the Wizard bestowed his powers onto Billy Batson — who uses said powers to become a local celebrity with no plans to ever become a superhero — Sivana is more than a little bit pissed.
• Healing Factor: Sivana relies on this trope as he somehow lacks Shazam's Nigh-Invulnerability (a replica Batarang somehow leaves a mark on him, twice). As it turns out this is zigzagged, when empowered by the seven deadly sins he has Nigh-Invulnerability like Shazam and a healing factor but if they all leave his body at once he goes back to being a normal human until at least one returns. For this reason he usually keeps one — Envy — inside of himself to avoid being vulnerable.
• The Heavy: While the Sins are the greater threats, Sivana's rampage and quest for revenge receives more prominence.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Sivana starts wearing a leather trench coat once he becomes a super-villain, complete with a fur collar.
• Hotter and Sexier: In the comics he was a withered-up Mad Scientist. Here he is young enough to have a living father and is considerably handsome.
• Hypocrite: Sivana points out to his father that the latter is motivated by greed. Sivana himself is quite greedy by wanting to gain superpowers through unearned means, even after he's already acquired superpowers.
• If I Can't Have You…: Non-romantic variant in regards to Shazam's powers. After being rejected by the Wizard, Sivana allies himself with Shazam's enemies and mortally wounds the Wizard. When he finds out through the Sins that the Wizard survived long enough to empower someone else, Sivana tracks down this new champion so he can take the power for himself.
• Irony: Sivana's father told him he needs to stop begging for help. When he's almost killed in his fight with Billy, Sivana never once begs for help.
• It Must Be Mine!: He will take the Wizard's power for himself, no matter if he's worthy or not. Failing that, he'll take the Eye of Sin, which gives him power equal to Shazam... only to try and obtain Shazam's powers as well.
• It's All About Me: Sivana is concerned only with his own power and benefit and doesn't care who gets hurt or what happens as long as he gets what he feels entitled to.
• I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: Sivana's strategy to draw out Billy is to take his foster-siblings hostage or wreak havoc on innocent civilians.
• Lack of Empathy: Sivana doesn't bat an eye when his head researcher gets disintegrated in front of him, only caring that he finally found what he was searching for his entire life. He would follow up on this with a massacre of his father's board members, none of whom have done anything wrong to him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: He gets the one sin most identified with, envy, coaxed out of his body in mid-flight, which renders him powerless and falling to his death.
• Logical Weakness: He gets his powers from being possessed by the Seven Deadly Sins, and can release all seven of them into physical manifestations. However, as Mary quickly deduces, he's nothing but a regular human should he summon all seven at the same time. Billy exploits this by luring him far away from the other six before taunting the seventh one out of him.
• Mad Scientist: He's implied to be a brilliant and evil scientist, enough to make him sufficiently wealthy to fund large-scale research into all the people the Wizard Shazam summoned for the last several decades.
• Magic 8-Ball: Sivana loved playing with his Magic 8-Ball as a child and kept it with him into adulthood. The Seven Deadly Sins made it actually magical when they sent him the "Find us" message after he was rejected by the Wizard Shazam.
• Magical Eye: The Eye of Sin, a magical Glass Eye that serves as the source of his power, the conduit of the Sins.
• Magic Staff: He possesses Shazam's staff for most of the climax to force Billy to give him the power, only for Billy to steal it and instead use it to empower his foster siblings.
• Magic Versus Science: Averted. While in the comics his inventions give him the means to fight Shazam, whose abilities were given to him via magic, both characters are fully magical in this incarnation. Sivana himself notes that the weapons of man cannot stop those powered by magic, like Billy and himself.
• A Minor Kidroduction: He's introduced as a child, which gives his eventual turn to villainy some perspective.
• Misplaced Retribution: When Dr. Sivana is seeking his vengeance, he ends up killing many innocent bystanders who have never wronged him.
  • He unleashed the Seven Sins in a board meeting and didn't show any remorse when they murdered all the board members, who by all accounts were completely innocent. They just happened to be in the same room as his hated father and brother.
  • He rationalizes that Billy Batson's hiding amongst the crowds is why, claiming that if he does not come out of hiding and finally show himself for the battle, Sivana will punish the civilians for his cowardice.
  Thaddeus Sivana: (floating above carnival-goers looking for Billy) CHAMPION! You don't deserve that name! Hiding behind innocent people, who will now die! Because deep down, you're still just a scared little boy.
• Missing Mom: His mother is never seen or mentioned. It's unknown what role, if any, she had in his life.
  • Some alternate scenes do feature Sivana's mother. She's depicted as being indifferent to the abuse he gets from the rest of his family.
• Mission Creep: Sivana's character arc officially comes to an end once he usurps the Wizard before killing his father and brother. From then on he lets the Seven Sins call the shots, which leads him to Billy Batson. Once Sivana loses the power of the Seven Sins, his ambition is to reclaim his power, only to be dragged into whatever schemes Mister Mind has in store.
• Money Is Not Power: Dr. Sivana's father tries to bribe him for his life, which after an entire childhood's worth of emotional abuse means nothing to the supervillain. Sivana then executes his father by letting him be mauled to death by Greed.
  "Do you think all your money was worth anything? This is real power!"
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Doctor Sivana. It's never established exactly what he's a doctor of, but he seems to be some sort of psychiatrist as he was involved in a study of mass hysteria as a cover for searching for Shazam's sanctuary.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: The Dr. Sivana in the comics wears a white doctor's gown due to being a stock-standard Mad Scientist. Movie-Sivana has a doctorate but is never specified to be a scientist of any kind and dresses in a far more intimidating fashion, with his sunglasses and leather coat being noteworthy deviations.
• Never My Fault: Sivana blames the Wizard Shazam for rejecting him and thus making him who he is. He conveniently forgets that he gave in to the Seven Deadly Sins and nearly freed them. No doubt a trait he picked up from his family when the car accident he got blamed for himself could have been prevented if his brother hadn't bullied him, or if his father had just made the latter stop instead of making Thaddeus stand up for himself and blaming the victim for his treatment.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The wizard could have spent an eternity trying to find someone to meet his impossible standards. By releasing the Seven Deadly Sins, Sivana made the wizard desperate enough to simply bestow the power on the next candidate.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Once Sivana gains the alliance of the Seven Sins, his first order of business is to confront his father and brother so he can give them their just desserts for treating a small helpless child like crap.
• Not Good with Rejection: The first thing Sivana does after acquiring the Eye of Sin is mortally wound Shazam for giving him the flick over 40 years ago.
• Oh, Crap!: He has one when he realizes Billy's taunts are getting to Envy, and a bigger one when Envy leaves him and he nearly falls to his death as a result.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The Sivana family and Thaddeus himself when he was younger are American, but Mark Strong's accent is definitely shaky.
• Otherworldly Visits Youngest First: Sivana is the youngest member of the Sivana family. As a child, he was transported to the Rock of Eternity, where he met the Wizard Shazam, and was declared unworthy of possessing the power. He is able, years later, to return to the Rock of Eternity, seize the power of the Seven Deadly Sins for himself, and then demonstrate to his father and older brother that his claims of supernatural events were quite real...to their detriment.
• Patricide: Sivana has his wheelchair-bound father mauled to death by Greed shortly after killing his older brother. In an alterate scene he kills his mother alongisde his father.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: His murder of his father and brother was definitely Disproportionate Retribution, but it's hard to feel too sorry for them considering their lifelong mistreatment of him.
• Perpetual Frowner: A lifetime of being pushed around has made Dr. Sivana very bitter. Not once does he smile despite getting what he wants relatively early in the film.
• Power Misidentification: Billy wrongly assumes that Sivana can shoot lasers from his eye, when in reality he was conjuring one of the Sins and they were flying towards their target.
• Psycho Electro: Sivana can throw lightning bolts and he's a supervillain.
• Psychopathic Manchild: All in all, everything he does stems from his childish obsession with obtaining the champion's powers after being rejected by the Wizard for something that was his own fault when he was younger. For decades, Thaddeus Sivana has been chasing a dream he had when he was a child, and when he finally finds it, he uses the power to brutally murder his brother and father who always looked down on him. After that, his goal turns out to be nothing but taking over the world in a childish attempt to prove that he is better than everyone always thought. This makes him a suitable foil Billy, who despite a number of missteps learns not to hold onto old grudges or lord his powers over people.
• Punch Catch: Sivana grabs Billy's fist when he tries to deliver a punch, much to the hero's surprise. Follwed immediately by a Neck Lift.
• Put on a Prison Bus: Once Billy strips him of his powers, Dr. Sivana is sent to prison, but Mister Mind tracks Sivana down and it's implied he'll break Sivana out. Since he doesn't appear in Fury of the Gods, Sivana also qualifies for Put on a Bus.

R-Y

• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sivana gives one to Billy when he holds his siblings captive at their home. After seeing how pathetic he was during their first clash, he finds it hard to believe that the Wizard gave Billy his powers and calls him a coward and not a hero.
• Red Right Hand: He is one-eyed and has a nasty scar underneath his magical eye. These are healed when he loses the Eye of Sin.
• Refused by the Call: As a child, Sivana was once summoned by the Wizard Shazam to wield his powers. However, Sivana was tempted by the Seven Deadly Sins and Shazam rejected him. He then spent decades tracking down and studying other people who were also summoned and rejected by Shazam, so he could learn how to reopen the gate to the Rock of Eternity.
• Room Full of Crazy: After his defeat, Sivana vainly tries to get back into Shazam's sanctum by repeatedly writing the symbols, only for Mister Mind to approach him instead.
• Scars Are Forever: Averted. The scar that appears over Sivana's eye goes away once he loses the power of the Seven Sins.
• Self-Made Orphan: Sivana orders Greed to murder his father. An alternate scene shows him killing his mother along with his father.
• Shabby Heroes, Well-Dressed Villains: Billy Batson wears cheap clothes befitting an orphan that relies on public servants to keep him clothed. Doctor Sivana on the other hand wears a fine suit with a leather longcoat.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Sivana wears a pretty nice suit and leather coat when he becomes a full-on supervillain.
• Shooting Superman: Played for Laughs when Billy tries fighting Sivana by chucking toys at him.
• Sibling Murder: Sivana murders his own brother after being empowered by the Seven Deadly Sins.
• Sinister Shades: He normally wears glasses, but after getting the Eye of Sin placed in his right eye he starts wearing sunglasses to hide it.
• The Sociopath: Sivana doesn't bat an eye over any of the people he has killed. He'll go as far as shoving Billy's head underwater when he's not in his superhero form, not bothered about the fact that he's trying to murder a kid.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Sivana hardly ever raises his voice when threatening others, making him all the more intimidating.
• Squishy Wizard: Dr. Sivana is completely powerless once all 7 Sins are conjured, which is why he keeps at least one handy during the climactic battle against the SHAZAM siblings.
• Starter Villain: Just like in the SHAZAM! comics, Dr. Sivana is the first supervillain Billy Batson has to defeat.
• Start of Darkness: Being rejected by Shazam and his family's car crashing moments later shortly before being blamed by his father and brother definitely kickstarts Sivana's descent into villainy.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Sivana is able to duplicate the Wizard Shazam's portal door spell by watching a video of it being used and then copying the symbol pattern.
• Super-Strength: Once Dr. Sivana is empowered by the Seven Deadly Sins, his strength is on par with Billy in his superhero form.
• Talk to the Fist: When Billy first meets Sivana, he warns the latter that it's a bad idea to pick a fight with a superhero. Sivana knocks him into the air mid-sentence.
• Terminator Impersonator: Dr. Sivana's a stoic man who wears leather with a pair of sunglasses that conceal a glowing eye. When he sets out to kill someone, nothing can convince him to back down.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: When Sivana finally makes his way back to the Rock of Eternity, he chews out the Wizard for writing him off based on a single impression. Sivana then defiantly takes the Eye of Sin and uses it to attack the Wizard. If he can't be good enough to be a hero, then he's fine being a villain.
• The Un-Favourite: Thaddeus was the unfavourite compared to his older brother Sid. Not only does Mr. Sivana looks down on Thad and practically calls him a wimp, he also tolerates and even approves of Sid's bullying to some degree. No wonder Thaddeus goes to kill his family first.
  • It's implied that Thaddeus was never considered for a position in his family's company, while his brother is on the board of directors.
  • An alternate take on his childhood shows Thad's whole family spending Christmas day belittling him. The follow-up to this reveals that he wasn't even invited to their Chistmas party in the present day.
• The Unfettered: Dr. Sivana may have lost the Eye of Sin in the end, but he at least got his back against all the people who wronged him as a kid. Despite this, Sivana's lust for power hasn't been slaked in the least, as The Stinger implies he'll team up with Mr Mind and cause further chaos.
• Unwitting Pawn: Played With. Both Billy and the Wizard Shazam tell him that the Seven Deadly Sins are just using him as a puppet. Sivana ignores them but doesn't have a rebuttal either — since the Sins might feasibly abandon him at any moment anyway, it's likely he's doing whatever they want so that they stay with him and he won't lose the powers granted to him. It's also shown the Sins have no real investment in him personally, and have tempted every potential Champion and he's simply the one to actually set them free. Sure enough, when Billy goads Envy enough, it leaps out and leaves Sivana powerless and almost falling to his death.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Sivana used to be a polite, sensitive boy before his rejection by Shazam and the car accident turned him into a villainous Mad Scientist. It's worth noting that, at some point, Shazam's magic deemed him worthy enough to be a contender as a champion, even though Shazam himself ultimately didn't deem him completely pure enough.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: While SHAZAM! is easily the most lighthearted entry in the DCEU, things take a turn whenever the demonically-enhanced Dr. Sivana is on-screen. The Punch Catch he performs on Billy signals that shit's about to get real following Billy's funny Does Not Know His Own Strength and How Do I Shot Web? antics, and Sivana utterly trashes him.
• Villain Has a Point: Sivana gets it right a number of times. Justified, since Billy is a kid, the Wizard is out of touch with the modern world and his family are awful.
  • When Sivana returns to the Rock of Eternity, he calls out the wizard Shazam for putting him through his test of character while he was a child. He points out that he was transported to a fantastic realm, offered a glimmer of hope to become a champion, only to be callously deemed unworthy and summarily tossed back when he failed, noting that all of this shattered the self-esteem of a young, impressionable child who was already dealing with emotional abuse.
    • Not only that, but Sivana's jibe at the wizard that there is no pure soul is also true. No mortal is perfect, but the best one can do is to keep trying and never give up.
  • And while he did take it overboard, Sivana was right to be angry with his father and brother of constantly insulting, degrading, and disrespecting him.
  • He was mostly saying this to demean him, but he had a right to call out Billy for being a coward since the latter put others' lives at risk just to escape from him, as well as generally acting nothing like the kind of champion the Wizard was expecting Sivana to be. Though at this point, Billy had conquered his fears of him.
  • When Billy and the foster kids hide among the attendees at the carnival, Sivana calls him out for endangering innocent peoples' lives. Do they really think the villain cares about collateral damage?
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: It takes Sivana less than an hour to figure out where Billy Batson lives after their first confrontation. Part of this is because he caught a TV showing Shazam and Freddy together and capturing Freddy easily..
• Villain Opening Scene: SHAZAM! begins with the defining point of his childhood before shifting focus to Billy Batson.
• Villainous Breakdown: It's understated, but getting abandoned by all the Sins, nearly getting himself killed, and later on locked up in a prison cell without his powers drives Sivana into a slightly unhinged state by the end of the film. When Mr Mind finds him, Sivana is yelling and hitting his cell wall in despair.
• What You Are in the Dark: The Wizard was apprehensive about choosing Sivana to be his champion due to falling for the temptations of the Seven Sins. When Sivana comes back decades later and acquires their power, he knowingly proves the Wizard right by using their power to terrorize anyone in sight.
• Willing Channeler: The Eye of Sin allows him to house the Seven Deadly Sins inside his body and he needs at least one of them in there to access any kind of power.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: It's implied that Dr. Sivana spent his entire childhood being told he wasn't good enough by his own family. After meeting a godlike wizard who only had the same thing to tell him, he dedicated his life to proving his nay-sayers wrong, becoming a supervillain as a result.
• Would Hurt a Child: Considering his nemesis, it's obvious he has no issue with bringing harm to Billy or any member of his foster family.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Played with. The brief glimpse of Sivana's childhood shows his cold and emotionally abusive family relationship and invokes some sympathy for him being snatched away, given a faint hope of being the champion and then tossed back so abruptly. However, he did genuinely fail the "temptation test" and was not treated any more harshly than the other people that were summoned by Shazam's spell and also failed.

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