Villain Ball / Video Games

• Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Von Bolt is really bad for these, though to be fair he's probably all kinds of senile...
  • His plan to get rid of Hawke and Lash was a clear-cut case of this. Granted the former wasn't much of a loss and was getting suspicious, but the latter's was gleefully in it For the Evulz and more than happy to serve Black Hole, one of the best COs in the game, and was responsible for designing almost all of their technology. In fact, had the Bolt Guard not gone out of their way to treat Hawke and Lash as garbage and didn't try to get rid of them, they'd have never defected to the Allies: without Hawke and Lash's crucial intel on the location of Black Hole's crystal installations the Allies wouldn't have found them in time and the Bolt Guard would have won the war.
  • As is his entire scheme. So he builds a device that drains the energy from the land that he intends to use to become immortal, and because Omega Land is 70% water he puts it on the bottom of the ocean where the withering of the land won't be noticed until it's too late. If he'd stopped there he'd have succeeded and there'd be no issue. Instead, to distract the Allies from the desertification they won't even know is happening he builds a second device in a massive desert as a decoy. And then he invades the land because... evil or something. In other words he has a pretty amazing plan... and then just keeps heaping on as much things as possible that undermine his plan, like starting a war, incentivizing the allies to chase him, betraying Hawke and Lash, and in general doing everything in his power to ensure his original plan failed. It's especially hilarious as, when he takes command for the final mission, he has the gall to claim he "dislikes battles" as if nearly all of his actions thus far have been starting dozens of meaningless battles that held his actual plan back!
• In Assassin's Creed III, Warren Vidic, the Big Bad of the modern era, kidnapped Desmond's father. He then demands that Desmond trade the Apple of Eden for his father's life... while seemingly forgetting that said Apple grants its user Mind Control powers. In other words, he just personally invited his Arch-Enemy, who is understandably quite pissed off, to his headquarters, and even told him to bring a nigh-omnipotent weapon with him to rescue his father. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
• Blood: Tchernobog, a God of Evil, has learned that Caleb, his most skilled warrior, grows more powerful the more people he kills, and concludes from this that Caleb might one day grow exceptionally strong if he kills enough people, and therefore he should try to kill him and absorb his power. To that end, he does everything in his power to put Caleb on the path to a Roaring Rampage of Revenge: kicking him out of the cult, slaughtering his friends along with his lover, and killing him for good measure (he gets better), so that Caleb will return to life and cut a swathe through the Cabal, gaining unfathomable power in the process. Somehow, it doesn't occur to him that Caleb might have gotten strong enough to kill him along the way, nor that Caleb, as far as the viewer can tell, started out as completely loyal to Tchernobog and is absent any kind of moral compass.
• In Castlevania 64, Dracula spends most of the game disguised as a kid named Malus. This is not known to the player or the game's characters, though there is this bizarre moment where you come across Malus and suddenly appears evil, but your character ignores that the next time they see him, depending on the ending. In the bad ending, Dracula will actually have a clever plan for a change and not reveal himself, though both endings give some hint that Malus is really him; his eyes turn red, and in Carrie's he gets her to promise to marry him and mutters that now they have a binding contract. Either way, he had a good plan going: Stay disguised and kill the hero when he least suspects it in one, or in the other apparently using some curse to force her to one day marry you. In the good ending, however, he throws that out the window and just reveals himself and reveals in his supposed invincibility, leading to his temporary defeat.
• Death end re;Quest:
  • Nearly the entire plot of the first game stems from Aphesis being so unapologetically evil that they wouldn't give a second thought to gunning down the best friend of the AI that they were building. Were they able to control themselves just this once, their plans for world conquest might have continued unimpeded. Instead, Iris is pissed beyond belief, which leads to Aphesis's attempt to kill her that results in the destruction of her body but more glitches and more Ludens that lock Aphesis out of cancelled MMO "World's Odyssey". The Ludens then create a copy of said best friend, Shina Ninomiya, which leads to a mysterious e-mail being sent to Arata Mizunashi which sets the game into motion.
  • Ripuka, who is completely Ax-Crazy unlike the other Ludens, interrupts a battle with the heroes in the final chapter to scream at the God of Death for pretending to be a neutral party. Arata, who thought that "he" was the supposed God of Death, realizes that this confirms his suspicions that his world is just like World's Odyssey and then turns to you, the player for help, which gives the party the strength to finally fight on Ripuka's level. Unless she actually does agree with the other Ludens and this is some gambit to help the heroes, Ripuka's actions are pointless and directly lead to her downfall.
  • Death end;re Quest 2 has Julietta put all of the pieces in place for their evil plan to take the demon god Marbas' power for herself and use it to destroy the world. The final phase of the plan is to sacrifice someone from Marbas' blood lineage, with protagonist Mai Toyama's sister Sanae being kidnapped for that purpose, and take the god's power in their place. Neither the Fallen Ending nor the True Ending have the Big Bad take the completely logical step of killing both Toyama sisters, which results in Marbas possessing Mai and granting her the power to effortlessly murder the members of Julietta's cult. This goes double for the Fallen Ending, where Julietta takes the time to rub the death of Mai's closest friends in her face but doesn't finish Mai off.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution: Wake-Up Call Boss Barrett tells you the exact address of his co-conspirators (right down to the specific apartment) for no reason before he attempts to kill the both of you. This was, in fact, Jensen's only lead to Shanghai to continue the plot, otherwise the villains' plan would have gone off without a hitch.
• Devil May Cry 4: Sanctus kidnaps Kyrie on Agnus's recommendation, but the reasons why are unclear at best (the closest implied answer is that it's for leverage over Nero and Credo... which he already has, and indeed using Kyrie explicitly turns them against the Order). He eventually ends up using her as a part of The Savior's core, but he notes explicitly that this is a Plan B, with Plan A being Dante.
• Dragon Quest III: Inverted. Upon discovering that there was a legendary sword tailor-made for beings like him, Zoma poured on the suffering of the populace of the "dark world" for three years to bide and grow in strength, until he was mighty enough to destroy the thing with his bare hands. This, incidentally, happened well before the Hero appeared.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code: Despite being recorded in incriminating aggelia, Nestor never tried to destroy the aggelia, leading to the party learning more about the Kosmokraters' conspiracy.
• In Eternal Sonata, your party is forced to surrender party member Polka to Card-Carrying Villain Count Waltz. Waltz successfully convinces Polka that if she surrenders peacefully then no harm will come to the party or her, and he will call off his army. Polka (in turn) successfully convinces the rest of the party to allow her to go with Waltz and sacrifice her freedom for the greater good. Waltz's plan would have worked perfectly... if he hadn't decided to punctuate his victory by slapping Polka in clear view of everyone, proving he was a lying prick and prompting Polka (and the rest of the party) to attack.
• Fate/stay night example: Gilgamesh. If you just stopped playing around with the heroes and just Babylowned them to death then you wouldn't keep dying. This happens in both the Fate and the Unlimited Blade Works routes: in Fate, he gives Shirou the time he needed to project Avalon by using a charge attack when he can bladespam anyone to death in an instant. In UBW, he insists on dueling Shirou one-on-one sans armor while in Shirou's Reality Marble rather than just equipping his Nigh-Invulnerable armor or using Ea right off the bat. This results in a very literal disarmament and being shoved into a space-time rift. Then again, if he didn't have the constant Pride Villain Ball he would be completely unstoppable.
  • Not completely. He could still potentially be taken out by a particularly well-executed ambush. Like the one Sakura pulls in Heaven's Feel. Though you could argue that not immediately going out and unleashing his full power at the very beginning of the war is already holding the Villain Ball, since he could probably easily win in an hour or less if he were smart enough to try that.
    • He probably could have even beaten that situation if he had gotten lucky with what weapons appeared from the Babyl-spam. If he managed to shoot out Rule Breaker or Zero Lancer's anti-regeneration spear, then Sakura would have been dead. Or he could have just kept shooting until one of his weapons overwhelmed her regen. But no, he stops, poses and gets eaten.
  • It's grown to such a point that fans are starting to joke that one of Gilgamesh's Noble Phantasms in the Gate Of Babylon is either a Villain Ball or an Idiot Ball. That, or he has a hidden Passive Phantasm.
• Final Fantasy VII: Heidegger and Scarlett fall into this near the end, when Professor Hojo purposely overloads the Sister Ray, which would result in Midgar City's destruction. Instead of letting the heroes defeat Hojo, the two instead confront them with a giant robot, which ends with the two getting killed once the robot blew up.
• Nergal in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade has ridiculous dark magic prowess, the ability to teleport anywhere seemingly at will, and for large chunks of the story, he has everything he needs to complete his evil plan. At several points, he had the heroes dead to rights, and at nearly any stage, he could have simply warped over to the good guys, killed them all, and taken what he needed, but he instead splurges most of his resources on generating armies of mooks that he doesn't actually really need, and when he does confront the good guys, he rarely does much more than posture maliciously. His experiments have apparently taken a mental toll on him, but it's never implied that he's meant to be stupid.
• While the child killer in the Five Nights at Freddy's series manages to get away with his crimes, come the third game, he clutches the ball hard when he returns to the long-dead pizzeria and dismantles the animatronics for no clear reason. This frees his victims, and he hides in the Spring Bonnie suit he originally used. The very deadly springlock suit that can kill a person if the springlocks get even a tiny bit wet. In a room with a leaky ceiling. And since he was an employee of the company at the time, he should know how dangerous the suit is. Suffice to say, it doesn't end well for him.
• God of War: Ares had Kratos where he wanted him: loyal to him and a powerful soldier capable of massive devastation. All Ares had to do was nothing, and Kratos would have gladly destroyed Olympus for him, but then Ares tricked Kratos into killing his wife and daughter. Ares ends up dead not long after. Downplayed a bit that Ares does eventually succeed, with Kratos destroying Olympus and killing Zeus, but it was more due to the paranoia of Zeus.
• God of War: Chains of Olympus: Persephone had just gotten Kratos to cast aside his blades and renounce his powers as the Ghost of Sparta so that he can be with his daughter in the Elysian Fields. All she needs to do in order to win is leave him alone for a few hours so that her plan can be completed while he's playing with Calliope. Instead, she makes a point of telling him that she's the villain of the game (something he didn't have the slightest inkling of until she explained her plan), and that thanks to his actions the world will soon be destroyed, and that the Elysian Plains and all the spirits living there will be destroyed with it. This motivates Kratos to reclaim his powers and save the world.
• The Empress in A Hat in Time, who otherwise is an intelligent and cunning individual, suddenly clutches the Villain Ball like it's her beloved kitten and refuses to let go during Rush Hour. Firstly, she leaves the door to her massive treasure room wide open, which allows Hat Kid to wander in and help herself to the time pieces. Then when she catches Hat Kid red-handed stealing from her, rather than use the One-Hit KO attack she retaliates with if you smack her in an earlier chapter, she puts a one million dollar bounty on your head and lets her underlings take care of you. Then, when you're more than able to evade her underlings, rather than just charge in and claw you to ribbons she uses a rocket launcher from a distance which you're able to use to blast open your escape routes. Then, even though you dupe her into this numerous times, she never realizes she should put down the rocket launcher and just charge in and claw you to ribbons since you'd have nowhere to go. By the time she finally realizes she should just come after you in person it works without a hitch and she gets you trapped in an elevator alone with her, but by then it's too late as the cops show up and she's forced to leave you unharmed to save face.
• In Hyrule Warriors, Big Bad Ganondorf Obtains the complete Triforce after defeating the Hyrulean Forces. Instead of eliminating his enemies in one fell swoop, he disappears from the battlefield leaving his generals Zant & Ghirahim to lead his army and decides to use its power to summon more monsters to serve him. However the Hyrulean Forces manage to defeat Zant and Ghirahim in Gerudo Desert after summoning their allies from across time. They then return to Hyrule Castle which Ganondorf had transformed into Ganon's Tower and defeat Ganondorf who uses the Triforce to transform into Ganon, only to be defeated by the combined might of the Hyrulean Forces and their allies.
• In Kid Icarus: Uprising, Hades, the Big Bad of the game, puts Mimicuties in Pit's path when they are temporarily teamed up. It actually is much better than most examples because it's entirely in character for him.
• From The King of Fighters XIII: Sure Saiki, one of your strongest minions who has nothing but loyalty for you offers to fight in your stead, which would really help if you needed to duck into the door to the past in a hurry... and your response is to kill him for no reason other than that he spoke up to you. Yeah, that's REALLY going to help. Especially when you follow it via taking over the body of your own descendant despite knowing clearly that he is NOT to be trusted.
• The Gurlukovich Mercenaries from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty decide to defend several key points of the tanker ship they've seized with infrared sensors tied into Semtex explosives. Say that out loud. They are defending key points of the tanker they themselves are on and need to keep afloat because they've yet to take the cargo they're after with a security system that will sink the ship along with its cargo, all their own men, and their bosses if tripped.
• In the Mortal Kombat series, Shao Kahn will often leave himself open to attacks by taunting his opponent.
• Invoked in Mother 3, when King Porky Minch decides to drop the party into a passage leading to the final needle, noting that it would be boring if he didn't give them a chance to stop his plans. It makes sense when considering he still has the mind of a child despite his advanced age; he's acting exactly how a villain "should" act from his perspective.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge, if Oogie had not left Jack a Trail of Bread Crumbs to follow and skipped to cutting Halloween off from the Hinterlands and killing Santa he would have succeeded. Heck, if he didn't make his presence so well known to Jack he might have been able to lull him into a false sense of victory and captured him (he even already had a cell for him), making room for himself as the Seven Holidays King in the absence of all the other leaders.
• From Octopath Traveler, we have Albus, the Right Hand of the Crow. As one of the murderers of the father of Primrose Azelhart^note and had in fact betrayed Geoffrey Azelhart to a criminal organization for money and power, he would have had to fight Primrose to the death either way. Nevertheless, he decides it would be a great idea to insult her deceased father to her face after fabricating a story about how her father took no action in the name of his beliefs. This is pointlessly cruel and only serves to give Primrose more of an incentive to end Albus' life, making the latter officially Too Dumb to Live.
• Matt Engarde in the final case of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All would have been able to get away scot-free if he didn't betray the assassin he hires simply because he doesn't trust other people and believes that not even assassins are above blackmail. Said action allows Wright to trap him in a Morton's Fork situation.
• Pokémon:
  • Lampshaded by a Team Plasma grunt in Pokémon Black and White, in N's Castle. He states that the reason why other villain teams (Rocket and Galactic being mentioned in particular) failed was because they made themselves and their plans public. Plasma on the other hand had been secretly building and preparing for their ultimate plan while masquerading as PETA-esque Pokémon liberators.
  • Lysandre has his turn with the ball in Pokémon X and Y by announcing his plans to the protagonists for no particular reason. If he had just kept his mouth shut, he would have succeeded.
  • Both Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon feature one so blatant that Hau of all people is the one to call it out. Faba holds the key to go deeper into Aether Paradise, and tricks Hau and Gladion into going somewhere else to buy himself more time. When they go back, they find Faba has backed himself up with some grunts. Hau asks if he holds the key, which Faba confirms... and Hau then points out that if he had just hid somewhere instead of getting backup, that would have slowed them down a lot more.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, Darkrai could've easily ensured the success of his initial plan if he had taken more action against the hero, rather then deciding to lay low after his initial attack that ends up causing their transformation into a Pokémon.
  • In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, Kyurem has an even bigger case of this when he decides to show mercy to the hero for the sake of their partner, despite them being the only remaining obstacle to his plans and being in the position to finish them off. Assuming that a threat of further violence would dissuade the two from opposing him further when the entire world is going to be destroyed if they don't take any action obviously didn't work out in the end...
• Rave Heart: The Draconians, under Prince Eryn's orders, kidnap Prince Chad Zephyr for criticizing King Arcturo Rave's arrest. As Lady Marselva notes, this just ends up making the rest of the council that isn't part of Vorakia's's conspiracy more suspicious, forcing the conspirators to take drastic measures in killing and imprisoning other council members, which risks their Villain With Good Publicity Status. As a result, Princess Ellemine is able to recruit the surviving council members to her cause, which would be much harder otherwise.
• In the Reincarnation (2008) series of Flash games, damned souls are given a second shot at life if they manage to escape from Hell, and devils can't bring them back until they give proof that they deserve to go to hell a second time. They gladly go back to a life of crime or worse without even being tempted into it, pretty much earning them a quick trip back to Hell.
• Despite his alleged intelligence, Albert Wesker runs all the way for a touchdown with the Villain Ball in the original Resident Evil. He could have just shot Jill/Chris without a word, but he simply had to brag about his plan, about how he blackmailed Barry, and show off the Tyrant. Three strikes and he's out: shot by Barry and impaled by the Tyrant. Later on the games ended up retconning it that being killed was part of his plan all along, as it was needed to activate the experimental virus he was injected with. Because clearly that was the only way he could possibly die.
• "James Marcus" from Resident Evil 0 with regards to attacking Billy and Rebecca. His plan had nothing to do with them, they were unaware of his plan and were only looking for a means to escape, and he doesn't have the same excuse as the mindless monsters that attack anything without reason. Unfortunately he claims to be "very territorial" and repeatedly goes after them, and of course it ends quite badly for him.
• Osmund Saddler's evil plan in Resident Evil 4 would have stood a much better chance of succeeding if he hadn't decided to monologue about it in front of Leon Kennedy and inject him with the parasite while he was conscious. Then there's the fact that he keeps around a machine that can kill the parasite without harming the host, without any previous experience at using it or the need of a password or other lock-out mechanism. Saddler is often considered the smartest Resident Evil villain, which should tell you something.
  • Even dumber, Saddler's plan was to infect the president's daughter (Ashley) and send her back to the president without anyone knowing she was infected so she'd kill the president and, due to sheer luck, he managed to infect Leon as well. His plan had succeeded the second Leon freed her with the added bonus that the president would soon have an infected bodyguard as well as daughter. However instead of kicking back with a beer and watching them "escape" he confronts them, blabs his whole plan, and then DOES EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO PREVENT THEIR ESCAPE culminating in capturing and locking up Ashley on the island that houses the parasite-removal machine mentioned above. His only "justification" for this (using that term loosely by the way) is he intended to hold her for ransom to make some money, and needless to say he's more responsible for his plan falling to pieces than Leon's sheer bad-assery (consider also that if Saddler's plan succeeded, he would've had access to the entire U.S. Treasury).
• In Resident Evil 5, Wesker could have spent the extra five minutes it would have taken to kill Chris and Sheva but no, he instead sends the Brainwashed and Crazy Jill who is still managing to fight his control while he wanders off to do evil. It's not like they could break the brainwashing, she could blab all the details needed to foil his plan, and ultimately come to their rescue in the end. Except spoiler: that's totally what happens.
  • Wesker later finds himself in a situation in which he has the barrel of his gun pressed against Chris's forehead during a heated battle inside an airplane. What does he do? Finally kill the one man who's been an incredible pain in the ass for years, leaving him unopposed in his plan for world domination? Of course not. He chooses to gloat.
• Return of the Obra Dinn has Second Mate Edward Nichols. Sure, he kills an innocent guy for stopping the theft and has a Formosan guard take the fall and get wrongfully executed for it and kills another topman for trying to rescue the Formosan royalty and reclaiming their treasure. When returning to the Obra Dinn after a kidnapping plan that goes awry because of the mermaids, he disposes of the bodies of his fellow mutineers. He then leaves his dead captives on the lifeboats, along with the stolen treasure, in front of his assassin who doesn't understand English. Let's just say that things ended horribly for Nichols, because he deserved it.
• In Saints Row IV, Big Bad Zinyak destroys the Earth. The narrator proceeds to point out that, had he stayed his hand, pragmatism would have driven the Saints to choose to lie low... but his dastardly deed only made them determined to defeat him instead.
• Shadow Hearts Covenant has its first main villain, Grigori Rasputin, the leader of Sapeintes Gladio, turn out to be quite a firm holder of the ball. Despite having been photographed by Princess Anastasia issuing orders to his soldier Victor to be the one to kill Tsar Alexander, and out in the open in Petrograd, he only sends one monster after her which gets wasted by Yuri's party. While he loosens the grip a bit by making it look like the party and Anastasia were attempting to kill her brother Prince Alexei, he still uses his man Victor to be the one to carry the hit on the Tsar that Yuri saves him from. That's when Anastasia comes in and presents the evidence of Rasputin's treachery.
• Clockwerk in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was so hell-bent on "besting" the Coopers that he actually deliberately left Sly alive when he murdered Connor Cooper all those years ago. He could have easily killed Sly as well, and even knew Sly was there, but just taking out the Coopers wasn't good enough for him: he had to also show the world they were nothing without the titular Thievius Racoonus, let Sly grow up to be a thief without the book and come after him, and then take the final Cooper out, to show the world the only master thief was himself.
  Sly Cooper: I don't get it. You're so familiar with my family, you must have known my father had a son. If you hated the Coopers so much, why did you let me live when you stole the Thievius Raccoonus?
  Clockwerk: Because I wanted to show the world that without your precious book, the Cooper line was nothing.
• In Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, everything about Cyrille Le Paradox's Evil Plan to Time Travel for Fun and Profit is this. Sly even points out how stupid it was; Le Paradox already had a big power base and was a Villain with Good Publicity, but he decided to target Sly's ancestors specifically to satisfy his bloated ego, which not only triggered the Cooper Gang's interference in the first place, but also led Carmelita to discover his secret treasure smuggling ring. In short, Le Paradox lost everything he had because he couldn't resist showing off.
• In many Sonic the Hedgehog games, Dr. Eggman has (on numerous occasions) either unleashed or sought to unleash a creature of extreme power (three gods and one prototype of the ultimate lifeform for starters). For a while, his plans go great, and he usually is a step or two ahead of his nemesis, Sonic. However, just when his plans are at their highest, everything goes horribly wrong. The monster reaches its highest potential, and then Eggman realizes that he made a huge mistake and ends up having to work with Sonic to get rid of his own mess. The villain ball part comes when you realize something: Given his past experiences, why in the hell would he continue this pattern just to be embarrassed and defeated? Also, he constantly blabs about his schemes to the one guy who always defeats him, even going so far as to have a worldwide broadcast about his plan when Sonic and his gang didn't have an idea of it before then. The only thing you can't accuse Eggman of is not trying to kill Sonic with his godlike creatures, because that is just something he naturally fails at, but is in no control of whatsoever.
  • Until Sonic Colors, where he nails it, and actually does a very good job at controlling the creatures of the hour and using them for evil purposes - until Sonic comes along, obviously.
  • The games after Colors tend to zig-zag this. By Sonic Generations, he was able to harness a powerful entity called the Time Eater, though at the point he found it the Time Eater was just a mass of...stuff in space, and required TWO Eggmen to control it. He actually does a good job of controlling the Deadly Six in Sonic Lost World, only losing control over them because of Sonic's near-suicidal lack of impulse control. Nevertheless by manipulating Sonic and friends, he manages to stay one step ahead. He actually would have won...were it not for Zomnom's sandwich.
  • And in Sonic Boom, his counterpart goes right back into the old ways with style, losing control of Lyric in Rise of Lyric and generally falling out of the plot thereafter. He then loses control of what becomes the Big Bad of Fire and Ice, and there's also all the times he loses control of his machines in the show...pretty much the only robots who DON'T betray him are his weaker mook robots and Orbot and Cubot (who STILL often go behind his back at times).
• In Spider-Man (PS4), the way Doctor Octopus and Mr. Negative go about their plan for revenge against Norman Osborn is exceedingly villainous, but also much less effective than it'd be if they chose to be a little more subdued. It's flat out stated that the secret, illegal development of Devil's Breath would ruin Norman Osborn's entire life if it were exposed. Publicly leaking documents that link Osborn to the experiment (maybe also stealing the item itself to prove its existence to the world at large, without using it) would not only ruin his political career and likely shut down his entire corporation, but it'd explicitly get him tried as a war criminal. Instead, the villains choose to unleash Devil's Breath by themselves, creating criminal empires and chaos to help their plan along, hurting many more people in the process and making it so that Osborn can easily disavow any links with the experiment and making himself seem like the scapegoat for some terrorists with a cheap grudge.
• In Splinter Cell: Double Agent Version 1, you have three options when dealing with the cruise ship: let it blow up, simply jam the signal, or get Enrica Villablanca's disarm code and transmit it to the bomb. Using the disarm code prevents the blast and, as Enrica was the only one who knew it, Emile shoots her dead without so much as a question as he believes she's the only one who could have done it. Emile doesn't keep her alive for questioning to see if she was working alone and doesn't cast any blame on the man she was working with: the new guy in his group who Emile knows nothing about other than that he has the stealth and computer cracking abilities to have gotten his hands on the code if he wanted to. This is egregious even if you have perfect JBA trust and have never been caught doing anything suspicious, let alone if you've been caught doing suspicious things or have low trust with them, as Enrica's been a loyal lieutenant of his for years.
• In StarCraft, Arcturus Mengsk decides to not send Kerrigan the requested dropship when the Zerg overrun Tarsonis for apparently no reason at all. She's been his most important lieutenant who had never shown any sign of not being completely loyal to him, and there seems to be no reason at all why saving her would have been impossible. The result of this is that Kerrigan gets captured alive and turned into a general and eventually supreme commander of the Zerg and Raynor deserting him, both becoming his most dangerous enemies. Up until that point, there has been no indication that he would have wanted to get rid of her or that she even contemplated turning against him. All it does is create two powerful armies that want to kill him. Justified by the sequel and the novel I, Mengsk. It was revenge: Kerrigan was the Ghost that assassinated Mengsk's family (and for added insult, stuck his head on a pike), so the moment She Outlived Her Usefulness as a soldier, he left her for dead. Not helping matters was that she couldn't remember because Ghosts are frequently mind-wiped. Revenge Before Reason bites him in the ass, as Mengsk unhinges himself over the years after getting his ass handed to him by Kerrigan, and wages an unnecessary, unwinnable war against her because he is incapable of imagining that she and Raynor might want to be left alone.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Bowser, archfoe of Mario, just can't stop kidnapping Princess Peach even when doing so is actually a hindrance to his plan. This is most blatant in Super Mario Galaxy, where Bowser's plan is to steal all the power stars in space, then use them to power a huge machine at the center of the universe that will give him control of every galaxy there is. When the game opens, he seems to be pretty far into his plans, and Mario has no idea they're even happening. The only reason Mario finds out is because Bowser decides to kidnap Peach right in front of Mario, setting the plumber on his trail with just enough time to stop his schemes. Bowser also does this in Super Mario Bros. 3 where his plan is actually pretty clever: have his kids turn the seven kings of the Mushroom Worlds into animals, forcing Mario and Luigi to travel far and wide to help them. While they're distracted, Bowser kidnaps Peach. This one worked like a charm — until Bowser sends Mario a taunting letter telling him exactly where to find the Princess.
  • In Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - main villain Antasma kidnaps Peach and plans to steal her power. But then instead he teams up with Bowser. Unlike most examples, Antasma's plan is to get out of the Dream World and find the Dream Stone, and he needs power to do this, irrespective of source. When Bowser suggests kidnapping Peach, Antasma simply says that they can come back for her later. Bowser agrees, marking this the second time ever Bowser hasn't attempted to kidnap the Princess as part of the main plot. The other time was in Bowser's Inside Story, where his attempt at kidnapping Peach isn't even mentioned in the game until right at the end.
• Tomb Raider I:
  • Natla hires Lara to find a piece of the ancient Scion hidden in in the Tomb of Qualopec, and then sends Larson to kill her and take it from her. Why she didn't just wait for Lara to bring it back as per their agreement is anyone's guess, since she could have just as easily sent goons to try and kill Lara if Lara decided to hedge on their agreement. This backfires spectacularly as not only does Lara take out Larson but also decides she's going to go after the other two Scion pieces just for the thrill of it, leading her to foil Natla's entire plan.
  • At two separate points in the game both Pierre and Larson actually beat Lara to a piece of the Scion. Do they take the damned thing and piece out? No, they stand their ground, gloat, and try and kill Lara purely out of spite, which ends about as well as you'd expect for them: the woman who's had no problem gunning down Atlantean monsters by the dozen surprisingly has no problem gunning down armed gunmen one on one. At least in Larson's defense he claims he "still has a pain in his brain" from the last time they met, implying he might be suffering brain damage from being shot and roundhouse kicked to the head, but you'd expect Pierre, a world class treasure hunter on Lara's level, to know better and not be so petty, especially since he had no beef whatsoever with Lara and especially since Lara spent the last three levels or so outgunning him every single time they tangled.
• The artifact Illidan stole in Warcraft although named "The Eye of Sargeras" was in fact a Villain Ball of titanic proportions. See for yourself: he wants to use the said ball to destroy the Frozen Throne - the seat of the Lich King and thus eliminate the Undead army that threatens the world. Unfortunately, the side effects of the ball's operation include severe earth tremors hence Illidan's brother Malfurion jumps to conclusion that Illidan is up to destroying the world and sets forth to stop him. Does Illidan bother to clarify the situation and explain his plan which would without doubt be backed by Malfurion? He does, but only AFTER Malfurion destroys the Eye. That is a prime example of what happens when a Villain Ball collides with a Hero Ball.
  • Not really. While Illidan can be blamed for not explaining what he was doing, the reason Malfurion was trying to stop him is because the Eye was tearing the world apart. Not much point in stopping the bad guy if you break the world in the process, huh?
  • On the other hand Illidan was doing it for Kil'Jaeden had he succeeded, we can quite imagine what he might have rewarded Illidan had he finished the deed.
• At the end of Wario Land 3, if Rudy just let Wario go with the treasure he collected as he promised after being freed, he would have had free rein to Take Over the World. Instead, Rudy tries to kill Wario because he no longer needs him, forcing Wario to kill him.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King. So hard. Any dumb thing that the evil guy can do just to prove his credentials, he does. Like telling the most important part of his army (who, by a strange coincidence, are one of about three parts of his army who have free will) that they were BAIT for a guy who was supposed to mow them down in seconds, but didn't even show up for said fight until they already lost. Did we mention he laughed at them, too? Oh, and he delivered the weapon that can beat him to said guy in this ploy. OH, and it turns out that after betraying and alienating his officer corps, he's having a tough time finding commanders. Whoops! And that's just one example.
    • There's also his tendency of finding his few surviving commanders in mortal danger and deciding that if they can't survive the battle then too bad. You'd think after losing every single known lieutenant he has he'd stop throwing their lives away.
    • Well, he is the Lich King. It's not like when they die he can't just bring them back anyway. But really, why waste the time? Kill the snots that are screwing with you and just be done with it already.
    • Subverted when it turns out this was an Evil Plan on his part — he actually wanted to find a group of heroes capable of standing up to him, at which point he could kill them and reanimate them as his Co-Dragons of a new, more powerful army (because, hey, they're undead. Just kill a few dozen people and you're on your way). He nearly won too, were it not for unforeseeable circumstance.
    • ...Which was a Villain Ball in itself. Besides the fact that the process of obtaining these few heroes he wanted so bad had involved the destruction of loads of infrastructure and loss of huge strategic gains, at the same time we learn Arthas was building us up to be his champions, we also learn that if the Lich King dies, the mindless Scourge will be left uncontrolled and wipe out all life on Azeroth in a Zombie Apocalypse... Which means the Scourge, as it was, was already powerful enough to defeat the Alliance and the Horde. Why Arthas felt he needed the heroes when he already possessed an unstoppable army is anyone's guess. To repeat: even a mindless horde would be more effective than the Scourge are under Arthas's leadership. All hail Arthas, The Millstone King! Sort of a plot point in his case, what little vestige of his humanity was left was subtly influencing Arthas into plotting his own demise. In the end, the only man who could stop Arthas was Arthas himself.
  • Deathwing was even worse in Cataclysm. In the Dragon Soul raid, after Thrall shoots him with the titular object, Deathwing flies back to the Maelstrom and tries to cause another Cataclysm. He apparently could have done this at any time, yet inexplicably waited until his enemies had killed all of his lieutenants, united the other Dragon Aspects, retrieved one of the few weapons powerful enough to kill him, and attacked him with it a couple times to try. At least Arthas had the somewhat flimsy excuse of wanting to make the player characters his champions, with Deathwing the writers didn't even try to justify it.
    • To be fair, he is pretty much batshit insane by that time.
  • Everything about Garrosh; his personality, his goals, his methods, his actions... It's all a result of and contributing to the biggest Villain Ball in World of Warcraft history, which will lead to his becoming the end boss of the Mists of Pandaria expansion. While killing the Horde warchief is obviously an endgame goal for the Alliance, everything he's doing in using the Horde as his personal war machine to dominate the world is turning more and more of the Horde against him as well. Hell, the expansion wasn't even released yet and some of the leaders were already conspiring against him, alongside the playerbase.
  • Nearly EVERY end raid boss that was based in some sort of lore apparently selected the ball crafting profession and specced "villain ball". Only a few bosses don't seem that out of place.
    • Edwin Van Cleef actually had a good enough plan that he got away with the major part of it and would have succeeded at the rest had the Player Characters not been handed the solution to the mystery on a silver platter, and only confronted the players when they pretty much trapped him in a cave with only one viable exit. So... yeah, basically just the one guy.
  • Sylvanas Windrunner always had a spotty record but she entered Legion decidedly carrying this ball. Reasoning that a war with the Alliance was inevitable, she decided to initiate it on her terms. Over the course of a month she slaughtered civilians, put Darnassus and its civilians to the torch, and turned the Undercity into an uninhabitable wasteland in a failed attempt to assassinate the Alliance leadership. All of this has only succeeded in further unifying the Alliance against the Horde while leaving many of her own allies disillusioned with her reign.

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