Aristocrats Are Evil / Video Games

• American McGee's Alice: The Duchess serves as a boss fight. She tries to eat Alice, no less. She makes a Heel–Face Turn in the sequel and becomes Alice's ally, but as stated in one source she becomes so annoying that Alice actually prefers the way she was before.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent has Baron Alexander, but the why of it might gain him sympathy points with the right people — as revealed in a handful of Notes, he's simply trying to get back home.
• Assassin's Creed: The Templar Order and its precursors tend to be comprised of royals, plutocrats, titans of industry, and other members of the social elite aside from a few exceptions.
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood features the Real Life evil Pazzi family, as well as Rodrigo Borgia. It also adds the rest of the Borgia family, as well as fictional Silvestro "The Noble" Sabbatini who engaged in human trafficking.
  • Every member of the Order of the Ancients in Assassin's Creed Origins is an influential citizen within their own societies be it government officials, generals, priests, wealthy merchants, and other well-respected individuals. The Roman leader of the Order, Flavius Metellus / The Lion just so happens to be from the Metelli family and he's the proconsul of Kyrenaika who is responsible for the murder of Bayek and Aya's son Khemu as well as using a Piece of Eden to make himself god. The Order was also founded by Smenkhkare (a Pharoah of Egypt's 20th dynasty) for the purposes of studying lost Isu technology located inside a temple but they would quickly evolve to include rich, upper-class elites across the known ancient world.
  • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey has the Cult of Kosmos, a secretive organization in Ancient Greece whose membership is largely comprised of politicians, generals, business owners, and religious leaders with spies, mercenaries, and crime bosses as hired help. Even the founder of the Cult is none other than Agamemnon, the legendary king of Mycenae while the group's leader the Ghost of Kosmos is Perakles' wife Aspasia of all people. Additionally, the Persian Order of the Ancients is also led by the historical Xerxes I.
  • The Auditores, the Medicis, the Grandprés and the Dorians are major subversions of this trope since they are aristocrats aligned with the Assassin Brotherhood instead of the Templar Order. King Aelfred the Great from Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is also another subversion as while he is the ruling monarch of Wessex and the Grand Maegester of the English Order of the Ancients he's actually an Type IV Anti-Villain that wants to protect Britain from Viking invaders. He even cooperates with Eivor to drive out the last vestiges of the Order from England after he returns from his exile.
• Baldur's Gate II: Duke Farthington Roenall. To be fair, his trafficking in slaves, smuggling gems, and hiring pirates don't make him any worse than most nobles in Amn, but orchestrating an assault on the De'Arnise Keep to kill Lord De'Arnise, then attempting to force De'Arnise's only daughter into a marriage with Roenall's son so the Roenalls can claim the De'Arnise wealth and lands does push it a little.
• The Baron : The eponymous character is an incarnation of the protagonist's incestuous desire for his daughter.
• Battalion Wars: Countess Ingrid, Kaiser Vlad's air commander, shows no mercy, delights in violence, and summons the Iron Legion.
• Boktai:
  • The first boss of the first game (and recurring opponent in the other two) is the Affably Evil Count of Ground-soaking Blood.
  • The what-if sequel, Lunar Knights, has two evil viscounts (most likely twins to boot), an Ax-Crazy human-hunting Margrave, an evil scientist baron, and an earl who became a Necessarily Evil duke. Interestingly enough, in the earl's case, his ascension to dukehood was the capper of his career as an earl, bagging vampire hunters and Guild gunslingers alike and instilling fear in said opposition from all that rep.
• Brawlhalla: Count Lucien Degas, who lived in splendor during the french revolution, but by night would be a highwayman. He used to have a gang until he turned them all in for the reward. According to his bio "He robs from the rich, the poor and specially the recently deceased".
• Celestial Hearts: The rich and powerful Gravehart family kidnaps people to drain their energy and the current Primrose patriarch helped them by selling the poor of Port Khalim, only to go into hiding in Zamaste to avoid repercussions.
• Clonk: In one of the standard melee scenarios, "the Castle", a team of players control a group of peasants in a village at the bottom of a mountain, while a single player controls the evil Baron Horx in a castle at the top.
• Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past: The Rochesters, a Big, Screwed-Up Family composed of some of the city's most affluent people and whose members serve as recurring antagonists throughout the game, being responsible for a lot of the problems the player and their squad faces thanks to their thirst for power and unethical methods employed to acquire it.
• Diablo II: The Countess. With her pools of blood, she's loosely based on the Real Life Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
• In Disco Elysium, the old kings of Revachol were decadent, inbred, and insane, and their antics eventually became too much for the country, which erupted into a Communist revolution. The legend on the horseback monument that can be found in the middle of Martinaise actually reads:
  "I am Filippe III, the Squanderer, the Greatest of the Filippian Kings of Revachol; Son of Filippe II, the Opulent; Father of Filippe IV, the Insane."
• Dishonored 2 introduces Duke Luca Abele of Serkonos, who forces his people to work themselves to death in the silver mines while he lives in opulence and is the money behind the Evil Sorceress who wants to take over the Empire. You visit his mansion during one mission, and you find a party so decadent that there have already been several casualties: servants tortured to death in party games, aristocrats slumped over in their chairs dead from alcohol poisoning, women lured into rooms and knifed in the back by their rivals... everyone is too busy partying to do something morbid like deal with the bodies, so they eat and drink and gamble just feet away from corpses.
  • In both games, pointing The Heart at a noble will often have it tell you about some horrible thing they've done in the name of status, wealth, or simply their own amusement. Sometimes it's subverted though, as sometimes the secret the heart whispers to you is that they're actually a much kinder person than they appear, but those are still massively outnumbered by the lines about any given noble murdering their own family members or tormenting their servants.
• Dragon Age:
  • Ferelden's history included the evil King Arland, whose reign was so despotic that even the politically neutral Grey Wardens took up arms against him. Subverted with King Behren (should you choose to support him for King in Orzammar). He's a corrupt, manipulative, and despotic ruler who was rejected by his own father, but he's also a champion of social justice who intends to introduce much-needed reforms to their ancient caste system and their self-destructive isolationist policies. Compare to his opponent, Lord Harrowmont, a kind and honorable man who rules through compromise, but who is also a staunch traditionalist who is unlikely to make much progress against the major social and economic problems the dwarfs face.
  • Dragon Age: Origins features the machinations of Arl (equivalent of an earl) Rendon Howe, who — among his other sterling achievements — arranges the brutal murder of his best friend/liege lord and his entire noble household, then lays claim to his lands.
  • Though not yet Arl himself, another upstanding citizen is Bann Vaughan, the son and heir to the Arl of Denerim, who kidnaps an elven bridal party with the intent of raping the women.
  • Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening has the Baroness, an Orlesian noblewoman who demanded tribute from her peasants in the form of their children. When they got fed up and torched her house, she cast a spell that dragged them all into death with her.
• Duke Nukem: The titular character is nominally the good guy, though you still probably wouldn't want to meet him.
• Dwarf Fortress: Nobles aren't really evil, but they are nearly useless, expensive, demanding, obnoxious, oppressive to other dwarfs, and generally hated (and often killed) by the players. In other words, they provide a good example of the origin of this trope.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Earl Jakben of Imbel initially seems like just a cowardly burglary victim, but poke around his manor a bit and you'll discover that he's really quite evil and a centuries-old vampire.
• Embric of Wulfhammer's Castle has several nobles, some good, some bad, some minor characters not worth talking about. The Duchess of Elstwhere is a perfectly nice and helpful aristocrat, despite her childhood, even willing to milk a cow as part of relieving the fears of the peasants. Her uncle, meanwhile, Bad King Greyghast the Terrible, well, managed to get himself called Bad King Greyghast the Terrible. And Duke Theremin is basically a bit of an entitled snot.
• Endless Legend: The Broken Lords storyline has Marquis Suluzzo who encourages his people to continue draining Dust from other living beings, and part of the storyline quest involves taking him out.
• Eternal Sonata: Count Waltz, despite being only sixteen years old and looking even younger, is a ruthless tyrant with aspirations of world domination. His domain of Forte is large enough that Waltz borders on Royal Brat despite his title, nevertheless Waltz is truly evil.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy IX: Queen Brahne Raza Alexandros XVI has no remorse for stealing other people's powers and using them to commit multiple genocides.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics:
    • The three Dukes of Ivalice, of which Dukes Gerrith Barrington of Riovanes and Bestrald Larg of Gallionne are downright evil, and the remaining Duke Druksmald Goltanna is only a notch or two above them. The war of succession between Duke Larg and Duke Goltanna for the throne of Ivalice is known as the War of the Lions, serves as the backdrop for much of the game, and creates enough bloodshed to precipitate the Big Bad's true plot.
    • Lord Dycedarg Beoulve is a real piece of work. He slowly fed poison to his father to kill him without suspicion and take hold of the Beoulve estate, orchestrated the kidnapping of Marquis Elmdore with Corpse Brigade commander Gustav to use as a bargaining chip, orders Gaffgarion to kill Ramza in cold blood, sets up a plot with Duke Larg to kill the Princess, murdered Larg to gain his power as regent, gave his soul to the Lucavi Adrammelech, and killed Zalbaag. He's far from successful in the end, but he's arguably the most monstrous character in the game.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade and its prequel Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, this goes all over the place. On one end of the spectrum, Marquess Darin of Laus and his son and successor Erik are both backstabbing sellouts who betray the Lycian League, and the unnamed Marquess of Araphen is a racist Jerkass who refuses to help Lyn due to her half-Sacean heritage. In the middle, Marquess Helman of Santaruz was willing to participate in the rebellion, but grew cold feet and dies helping Eliwood. Marquess Hausen of Caelin was a racist Jerkass who disowned his daughter after she eloped with a Sacean nomad, but he changed his mind after he learned he was a grandfather and sought to meet his daughter's family on better terms. On the other end of the spectrum, Marquess Elbert of Pherae and his son and successor Eliwood, and Marquess Uther of Ostia and his brother and successor Hector are all heroes through and through.
  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 feature the Baron class, an enemy exclusive Heavily Armored class that can use all physical weapons and most magic. Oddly, while most Baron-classed characters are corrupt nobles or royalty, few have the title of "Baron" in the story.
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, in one of the most cynical portrayals of nobility in the series, has the Senate of Begnion almost in its entirety. While the above-mentioned Vice-Minister Lekain is one of the more particularly monstrous ones, pretty much every one of them with very few exceptions (and one who is just stupid) are corrupt, racist, sleazy, and haughty to the core, overly obsessed with hierarchy and in RD invading the war-torn country of Daein, displacing its residents and placing them under oppressive rule, and causing Micaiah, one of The Heroes of RD, who now has a burning hatred of all of Begnion's allies (which of course includes their commander, AKA Ike), and her friend Sothe to form The Dawn Brigade, setting the entire story and yet another war in motion; so bad is their behavior that they're some of the few people Ike truly despises, and made him grow somewhat wary of nobility (especially because they tend to treat him like dirt due to being a very low-class foreign mercenary), and for all their insistence on everyone giving Empress Sanaki the utmost respect in PoR, they expel her from her duties when she refuses to listen to them anymore in the sequel.
  • Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn presents Vice-Minister Lekain, Duke of Gaddos who is a monster. Some of Lekain's crimes include causing a massacre, regicide, false imprisonment, rebellion, slave dealing, and extortion of two foreign nations through threats of massacring their peoples via arcane magic.
• Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within has Barons Friedrich von Glower and Garr von Zell; the latter is a murderous madman, and the former made him a murderous madman and plans to do the same to Gabriel.
• Genshin Impact: The nation of Mondstadt, City of Wind and Freedom, is a proud anarchy. Part of this is because in the past, they were ruled by a succession of nobles who grew more and more corrupt every generation. By modern times, the last heirs of House Lawrence, the previous rulers, are widely hated throughout the city—not helped by the fact that almost every Lawrence that still remains is an entitled asshole openly demanding every "peasant" bow and worship them. Since the only power they still have is to complain, everyone ignores them, but one of them tries to sell the city to a foreign power for literally no reason than because he's annoyed that the common folk don't have to obey his every whim.
• Jak and Daxter:
  • Jak II: Renegade: Baron Praxis. Although not actually a baron, as he is the tyrant ruler of a City-State after he overthrew his predecessor and tried to kill said predecessor's son. He establishes himself by having kidnapped and tortured Jak by injecting him with dark eco for several years in a Super-Soldier experiment, all by the end of the game's prologue.
  • Jak 3: Count Veger — evil, Holier Than Thou, and a prime example of how The Fundamentalist operates when everything goes to hell.
• Killer Instinct: Count von Sabrewulf is no more evil than most... well, until he transforms into a werewolf. Given his uncontrollable condition though, he would arguably be considered more desperate and crazy for a cure than downright malevolent, as his reluctance to use all his strength ends up demonstrating to himself once the second game rolls around.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Duke Albarea is introduced by levying excessive taxes on his subjects, and making life difficult for them until they agree to pay up. In the following chapter, he arrests the son of one of his political rivals on trumped-up charges (which his own son was an eyewitness to the fact that Machias couldn't have done it, which is why the Duke put Jusis under house arrest to prevent him from testifying) for purposes of blackmail. Duke Cayenne is introduced by launching a coup, backed by Albarea and two Marquises. The complete listing of adult nobles in the first two games of the series outside the royal family who are not jackasses is: Viscount Arseid, Baron and Baroness Schwarzer, and Lord Rufus Albarea (Duke Helmut's elder son), the last of whom turns out to have become disillusioned with the nobility and sided with Chancellor Osborne thanks to his father's treatment of his half-commoner little brother.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ganondorf is known as "King of Thieves" or "the Great King of Evil" in some installments, and serves as the franchise's main antagonist and villain.
• Magical Tetris Challenge: Pete is known to change jobs and outfits depending on the story. In this game, he's referred to as Sir Pete. He wears a tuxedo and top hat, and he lives in a mansion. Still doesn't stop him from being the main villain, though.
• Manafinder: The aristocrats of Manahill are corrupt and often use their influence to get people they don't like exiled. Priscila the barkeeper was exiled because the noblewomen spread false rumors about her while Qu was exiled for making a joke that the aristocrats didn't like, showing that one doesn't even have to commit an actual crime to be exiled under Manahill's class system.
• MediEvil 2: Subverted with Lord Palethorn. He's a working-class cockney who tried to buy his way into high society.
• Moonrise: the vampire Lady Cassandra Mallory epitomizes the aristocracy of old, and serves as the first outright antagonistic character. She can even kill the player character.
• 99 Spirits, being set towards the end of the Heian Period, is lousy with corrupt, inept, and selfish nobles. The only one who actually gets a TITLE to his name, though, is the Shogun — who turns out to be a fairly OK dude who means well even if things don't always work out as planned.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker zigzags it. The Player Character starts out as a commoner and earns the title of Baron(ess) after kicking some bandit ass. Nothing's stopping the player from fully embracing this trope, but most tend to stick with a good or at least neutral alignment. The NPC nobles, with very few exceptions, are a bunch of backstabbing jerks.
• Primal: Count Raum. Every other wraith aristocrat was evil, but he's the only one with a given title.
• Resident Evil Village: The Four Lords are the elite (quite literally) minions working for Mother Miranda, and pretty much all of them are demented in their own way and have a long history of tormenting the villagers and/or experimenting on them.
• RuneScape: Count Victor Draynor Drakan is a vampyre preying on the nearby village of Draynor. He's actually the weakest vampyre in the game, due to being on the wrong side of a divine barrier designed to keep Vampyres and Weres away from human-dominated lands.
• Sid Meier's Pirates! has the infamous Marquis de Montalban, who imprisons your entire family.
• Sly Cooper:
  • The Contessa in Sly 2: Band of Thieves. She got her title and privileges by marrying a German aristocrat and poisoning him a few weeks after the wedding. She proceeds to use them to create a prison in the Czech Republic, with the intent of hypnotizing criminals into obtaining their loot, and intends to do so with Sly and Murray to find the (then unknown to them) Cooper Vault. She's also in league with the Klaww Gang, who intends to create a Hate Plague in France in order to fuel Clockwerk's immortality.
  • The Black Barron in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. He's an immoral crook who hosts illegal dogfight competitions in the Netherlands, a huge Sore Loser who's willing to cheat to secure the trophy, and is very abusive to his own men. Subverted, as he's actually Penelope in a costume, and she has no titles of her own... and double-subverted, as Penelope happens to be a manipulative and sociopathic Jerkass.
• Soul Series: Countess Isabella Valentine, better known as Ivy. She may not be evil by choice, but still a Knight Templar and a Dark Action Girl.
• Super Paper Mario: Count Bleck seeks nothing less than the total destruction of The Multiverse.
• Marquis de Singe in Tales of Monkey Island is a crazy French doctor who was kicked out of the court for his insane experiments. He wants to become immortal, even if it kills everyone else.
• Terraria: Duke Fishorn is half fish, half pigron, all mean. So mean, many consider him to be the hardest boss in the game!
• Trails of Cold Steel: Individual aristocrats have a strong tendency to be arrogant jerks, and the "Four Great Houses" started a civil war in an attempt to maintain their power and privileges. On the other hand, they aren't the ones trying to start "The Great Twilight."
• Vagrant Story: Downplayed with Duke Bardorba. Probably an evil cultist, but he doesn't live for very long. It's implied that he and his son, Sydney, orchestrated the destruction of Lea Monde to permanently drive the power of the Dark from the world, and thus keep it from the Cardinal's power-hungry hands — even if it meant Sydney's death and the sacrifice of everyone in the Cult of Müllenkamp.
• In Valkyria Chronicles, the aristocracy of Gallia is comprised of nothing but evil assholes, including its mostly noble officers and the prime minister. The only exception is Princess Cordelia. The protagonists of Valkyria Chronicles II do include a few heroic aristocrats, but the antagonists are Gallian rebels led by racist reactionary nobles.
• Vampyr (2018): The Ascalon Club is an aristocratic vampire council whose chairman Lord Redgrave also doubles as Earl of Bristol. Subverted with William Marshal who also was an ancient vampire that held the title of Earl, but is more of a Hero with Bad Publicity. And then there is the Red Queen, the game's true Big Bad.
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: The Bloody Baron. While not necessarily an evil man, he is callous and indifferent to the plight of the peasantry and allows his cadre of thugs to bully, harass, and outright rape and torture peasants living in his demesne.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Trade Prince Maldy in the goblin starting zone is shaping up to be quite the scumbag.
  • The game features a boss named Baron Rivendare, who appears in the dungeons Stratholme and Naxxramas. Before he was raised into a Death Knight, he was a wealthy landowner who fell under the sway of the lich Kel'Thuzad and helped him structure the Cult of the Damned.

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