Bitch in Sheep's Clothing vs. Faux Affably Evil

So what's the difference between these two tropes? Both seem to be very similar in which a villain puts on a facade of good and kindness. What sets them apart from each other?

Faux affably evil characters are evil from the get go and they act in a niceish seeming manner. Like petyr baelish from game of thrones. Bitch in sheep's clothing are characters who seem nice at first, but then they turn out to be an asshole.

So the difference is whether the reader/viewer knows they're evil at first?

Not really.

A Faux Affably Evil character is a character who is evil and behaves nicely as a way to show their evilness. Think "evil, but with style and cultured". You know the characters, those big bads of games and movies who treat the hero as an old friend precisely because they are enemies and because they know that after all the pleasantries the hero will die (well, as far as they know).

A Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is someone who is a jerk but put on a different façade. They don't actually have to behave all that nicely or anything, it's just about keeping you unaware of how horrible an arsehole they are until they decide that it's time to hurt you. If anything, I find this trope more accurate for describing many high-school girls than for describing villains (though yes, it can be used for the latter too).

Faux Affably Evil is a hired killer who doesn't smile in real life and isn't really a people person, but after isolating his latest target from any help, gives them time for one last smoke and spends the last 15 minutes of the target's life engaging them in a civil conversation, not because they are nice but because they have a work policy of "be polite". Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is someone who pretends to be polite to get close to you to get to your secrets only to use their knowledge of that to make you miserable just because they can.

edited 6th Dec '15 3:37:29 PM by Kazeto

I believe Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is a character pretending to be nice only to reveal his inner darker side. His niceness is a cover, and when he reveals himself, he drops it completely. It's just a distraction.

Faux Affably Evil is a guy who talks politely but doesn't act such. He'll complement you on your choice of clothing as he swings an axe at your general direction. His niceness and his evil are interwined, and he doesn't tend to hide behind his niceness to hide his darkness, they both work seamlessly and more of often than not, he can't fool anyone.

So the Sheep Bitch actively uses niceness to mask & help carry out evil, while for the Faux Affable Evil the niceness just happens to be there in addition to evil?

I'd pretty much agree with this, yeah.

OP: did you actually read the trope pages for those two before asking this? Because I think they do a pretty good job of making the distinction very clear.