Obviously Evil

I dunno guys, he looks pretty legit to me.

Scott Lang: Who are these guys?
Tony Stark: They're S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, actually HYDRA, but we didn't know that yet.
Scott Lang: Seriously, you didn't? I mean, they look like bad guys!

— About Agent Sitwell and the STRIKE team, Avengers: Endgame

A lot of fiction out there has a tendency to employ incredibly black and white perspectives to the characters and their actions. Due to the belief that its target demographic (usually children) can't understand subtler shades of evil, many works of fiction create a stark contrast between the heroes and villains. When this happens, the creators will bring in their Obviously Evil® Design Team. (Of course, another reason obvious villains are used in some fiction is simply because everyone loves a badass villain.)

If a work of fiction indulges in Obviously Evil®, every villain will be a Card-Carrying Villain, usually Colour-Coded for Your Convenience in shades of black and red. There won't be any Well-Intentioned Extremists, Knights Templar or pretty much anyone that doesn't accept and accentuate their evilness. If you see anybody that might seem to be a shade of grey on the side of the villains, it will usually basically be a hero with a slight bit of behavior modification to work with the villains (and an inevitable Heel–Face Turn coming up during Sweeps). If the villainous group is a governing body, it will always be an Evil Empire with a 0% Approval Rating. There aren't any Punch Clock minions that just accepted the job because it's work, but instead Always Chaotic Evil Faceless Goons that act like miniature versions of the main villain and provide no guilt whatsoever when they get killed by the truckload. The Dragon will either be fully loyal to their master and their evilness, or be The Starscream and never have any ulterior motive beyond a lust for more power. There will never be any Worthy Opponents or Tragic Villains or any kind of antagonist presented sympathetically as this doesn't accentuate the author's need to make the bad guys ALL bad.

The goals of the villains and their organization are always incredibly eeeeeevil, with one of five purposes: world domination, world destruction, corruption, genocide, or antagonizing the heroes. Nobody on the side of evil will ever Pet the Dog (except maybe the none-too-subtle Heel–Face Turn candidate). Even their imagery is blatantly made as a contrast to the heroes, with lots of skulls, Spikes of Villainy, and other assorted things. Imagine a villain whose entire body is made of Red Right Hands, stitched together with thread made from the skin of dead puppies and you're beginning to get the idea.

Fiction that relies on this is almost always Anvilicious to a fault, being the most extreme example of Black-and-White Morality. If the writers don't like X, they can just have someone Obviously Evil® doing X.

Note that it's possible to have Obviously Evil® figures in a normally more subtle setting; frequently, the justification is that the character is so far gone into their Card-Carrying Villainy (or some brutal variation of Blue-and-Orange Morality) that they don't care what other people think of them, or that the character is intentionally playing up a menacing persona in order to intimidate others into compliance. A character also doesn't have to gloat about how eeeeeevil they are to give off an Obviously Evil aura; all they need to do is look or, more importantly, act sinisterly enough that others are quick to suspect that they have no good intentions.

This trope actually has two aspects:

The first is Obviously Evil Behavior, where the villains act in extremely vicious and unnecessarily cruel fashion to heighten their evilness. May overlap with Villain Ball and Stupid Evil. Extremely common in fan fiction were authors use this as a shortcut to establish the "Bad Guy" of the fic and often happens to the author's least favorite character. Prone to Rape as Drama. See Kick the Dog.

The second is Obviously Evil Appearance where the villain merely appears evil. Unlike behavior, the appearance tropes are just stereotypes that have been drilled into our head over the years and as such make for prime subversion fodder when they appear on heroes and anti-heroes. (After all, who would expect Skeletor's skull-faced mug up there to appear on a good guy?) Even when they appear on certain types of villains they can still be used for the subversion aspect as people who have grown up on "Spikey-armor = Irredeemable" can still get thrown for a loop when it appears on a character presented sympathetically. If the villain of the series is a Knight Templar and/or Villain with Good Publicity then having a hero with an “obviously evil” appearance can create an interesting commentary on the nature of good and evil as the "Evil" looking hero battles the "Heroic" looking villain. See Dark Is Not Evil.

Compare Black-and-White Morality, Black-and-Gray Morality, Evil Versus Evil, Dark Is Evil, and Villainous Fashion Sense. Not to Be Confused with Devil in Plain Sight or Obliviously Evil, though the former can overlap. Contrast Dark Is Not Evil, Grey-and-Gray Morality, White-and-Grey Morality, Morality Kitchen Sink, and Face of a Thug. If the revelation that this guy turns out to be evil is treated as a shocking twist, that's Obvious Judas.

Tropes invoked in the establishment of this style

• 0% Approval Rating: There isn't a single person who likes the villainous leader.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Every member of the race is evil.
• Angry Guard Dog: A dog (or any other canine) guarding a Supervillain Lair, with exclusive Undying Loyalty to villains.
  • Beware of Vicious Dog: The dogs are often portrayed as evil and savage. Naturally a villain's favorite Right-Hand Attack Dog.
  • Mister Muffykins: Villains would also use a small yet savage dog as a canine equivalent to Right-Hand Cat.
  • Right-Hand Attack Dog: Villains love dogs, and they often have them as their action sidekick.
• Ax-Crazy: Nothing says "This guy is evil" quite like an unbridled tendency to inflict violence on others unprovoked.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: If a person mistreats and harms animals, they're automatically evil.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: It can't be any more obvious that the villain is a bad guy if their powers are dangerous and lethal ones.
• Bald of Evil: A person being bald means they're the bad guy.
• Barbaric Bully
• Bat Out of Hell: Bats tend to be associated with villains.
• A Beast in Name and Nature: If you're named "The Beast," chances are that you aren't exactly hero material.
• Big Red Devil: The Devil is often depicted as a giant red demon, so it's blatant that anyone with that appearance is evil.
• Black Cloak
• Black Knight
• Black Speech: An evil language.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Like if a character has red eyes, if they have black eyes then they're likely to be evil.
• Blatant Burglar: If someone goes about wearing a striped shirt and an eyemask, they're probably going to try and steal something.
• Blood Bath: Bathing in the blood of your victims is a surefire way to show that you're evil.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Villains who are so proud of their villainy that they wear their immoral nature as a badge of honor.
• Cats Are Mean: Feline characters are often portrayed as antagonistic.
  • Right-Hand Cat: Villains sure love cats.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience
  • Good Colors, Evil Colors: You'll know who's the villain based on their color scheme.
• Commissar Cap: A character that wears this kind of military cap like Real Life dictators will often be evil. Examples: Those Wacky Nazis, Dirty Communists, Banana Republic, etc.
• Complete Monster: An utterly evil villain with no positive qualities.
• Creepy Hairless Animal
• Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Evil doesn't always sound deep. If they have an unsettling high pitched voice, then they're evil.
• Creepy Monotone: Most characters who speak without inflection are villains.
• Creepy Souvenir: An evil person would see no problem in holding onto dismembered body parts as mementos of their grisly deeds.
• Dark Is Evil: Dark colors are usually associated with evil characters.
• Dastardly Whiplash: The classic "mustached villain clad in black" character archetype that was frequently used to represent the bad guy in 1920's serials.
• Devil Complex: If someone ever identifies themselves as Satan (or a similar figure), there's a 100% probability that they're most definitely a villain.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Blatantly evil to the audience, but only a few characters suspect them.
• Devilish Hair Horns: Mimics Horns of Villainy trope but with hair instead of actual horns.
• Doom Troops: An army of evil minions who wear uniforms deliberately designed to make them look frightening.
• Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: Clothing dictates who's the hero and who's the villain.
• Eldritch Abomination
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: A character is evil if they're unable to understand the reason behind the heroes' actions or assumes that the heroes' good deeds were actually done for evil reasons.
• Evil Chancellor: Good rulers will often have wicked advisors that cause problems for their kingdom.
• Evil Eyebrows
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Being unable to comprehend humor or having a tendency to make sick jokes at their victims' expenses proves that this person is evil.
• Evil Is Angular: You will know evil by their lack of rounded shapes.
• Evil Is Bigger
• Evil Is Burning Hot
  • Infernal Background
• Evil Is Deathly Cold
• Evil Is Hammy: The bad guy wouldn't be much of a villain if he didn't chew the scenery at every opportunity.
• Evil Is Not Well-Lit: Dwelling where there is a noticeable lack of lighting underscores the character's villainous nature.
• Evil Is Petty: Bad guys who are willing to do misdeeds over slights that serve no purpose other than to prove what petty douchebags they are.
• Evil Is Visceral: Much like Evil Makes You Ugly, evil is much more graphic-looking.
• Evil Laugh: Villains always have a signature laugh to highlight their evil, and will often do so just before or after they've done something very bad.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: A person who does wrong is marked by their misconduct by transforming into a hideous creature to show the world that they are now as monstrous on the outside as they are on the inside.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Beauty Equals Goodness after all, so the uglier, the eviler.
• Evil Slinks
• Evil Smells Bad: Just as how Beauty Equals Goodness, if you smell bad, you're bad.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Villains have deep and sinister-sounding voices.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Villains have raspy voices.
• Evil Wears Black: It is common for villains to wear black clothing.
• Excessive Evil Eyeshadow
• Fade Around the Eyes
• Fangs Are Evil: If a character has fangs, they're the bad guy.
• Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit
• Femme Fatalons: A Femme Fatale (or an effeminate male villain) will often have long nails.
• Finger-Tenting
• Flying Cutlery Spaceship
• For the Evulz: Doing evil for the sake of evil.
• Fur and Loathing: A character is deemed evil if they wear clothing made from skinned animals.
• Genuine Human Hide: It's very unlikely that a person is of commendable character if they make clothing from human skin.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: You'll know who's the hero and who's the villain by the shape of their eyes. The narrower, the eviler.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: You'll know who's the hero and who's the villain from their hairstyle.
• Good Prosthetic, Evil Prosthetic
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Whether or not a person is evil is determined by the severity of their deformity. If the scarring is especially horrendous, then they're definitely evil.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: In series where Everybody Smokes, the villain is usually the one with the big cigar or the excessively long cigarette holder.
• Good Taming, Evil Taming: Villains tend to have no compassion whatsoever for animals and beasts they try to tame, and will usually employ excessively cruel methods in order to do this.
• Good Wings, Evil Wings: Bird-like wings are usually associated with heroes whilst bat or reptilian-like wings are associated with villains.
• Got the Whole World in My Hand
• Hate Sink: The work goes out of its way to make the character an unlikeable asshole, so chances are very good that the character is also a villain most heinous.
• Hated by All: When no one at all likes this person, it could be because they're incredibly evil.
• Hellish Pupils: A villain having feline or reptilian vertical slit pupils is a tried and true method of emphasising their inhuman and monstrous nature.
• Hero Killer: You know the person's a villain when he's killed a hero.
• High Collar of Doom
• Horrible Judge of Character: This idiot sincerely believes that the one lurking in a dark alleyway while dressed in a black, hooded robe and brandishing a knife is trustworthy.
• Horns of Villainy: Having devil horns is a symbol of evil.
• Kick the Dog: Doing clearly evil acts to demonstrate their villainy.
• King Koopa Copy: You know someone's a villain, because they're based on Bowser from the Mario franchise.
• The Klan: Being affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, one of the most notorious white supremacist groups in existence, is a very clear sign that you're a despicable individual.
• Lack of Empathy: Heroes are defined as caring for others so not caring for others makes one evil, especially due to its overlap with The Sociopath (which is almost always evil)
• Looks Like Orlok: Any character who has pale skin, pointy ears and is bald is blatantly up to no good.
• Mad Bomber: There's no way this person would be a good egg if they're willing to use explosives to cause property damage and hurt or kill a lot of innocent people.
• Makeup Is Evil
• Malevolent Masked Men: You clearly can't trust people if they tend to do their dirty deeds while wearing masks.
  • Hockey Mask and Chainsaw: Is he wearing a hockey mask and using a chainsaw? He must be a Serial Killer! Run!
  • Sackhead Slasher: Creepy murderers are as likely to wear sacks over their heads as hockey masks.
• Malevolent Mutilation: A character shows how depraved they are by intentionally cutting up and deforming their own and/or other people's bodies.
• Mark of the Beast
• Moral Event Horizon: Doing an act so heinous that it erases any chance of redemption.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: You know this person is evil because their name sounds scary or threatening.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: It's clear as day that a person is evil if their agenda involves the genocide of races they deem inferior.
• Nightmare Face: Beauty Equals Goodness after all, so a villain has to have an appearance that can cause invokedNightmare Fuel.
• Obvious Villain, Secret Villain: One villain falls under this, and the other doesn't.
• Ominous Opera Cape: Very few things say "overtly evil" like wearing a long, flowing, dark-colored cape.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Villain wants to kill everyone.
• One-Winged Angel: Villains tend to have a more monstrous alternate form.
• Pædo Hunt: Pedophiles are always evil because sexual interest in children is inexcusable.
• Poison Is Evil: Poison is an element associated with evil.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Racism and bigotry are universally associated with villainy.
• Practically Joker: You don’t have to be an expert on comic books to instinctively know that a guy who resembles Batman's archenemy is bad news.
• Psycho Electro: Characters with electrical powers tend to be mentally unstable and dangerous.
• Psycho for Hire: Person joins in to torture and kill.
• Psycho Knife Nut: If you encounter someone brandishing a knife when the situation doesn't call for one, chances are they're an Ax-Crazy murderer.
• Putting on the Reich: Person dresses up as a Nazi.
• Pyromaniac: A person with an unhealthy fixation on committing arson.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Red and black tend to be 'evil' colors, and bonus points if they're both put on.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: If a character has red eyes, there's a likely chance that they are evil.
• Red Right Hand: A physical trait that clearly points out that the person's a villain.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Reptiles are often associated with villains.
• Satanic Archetype: A villain is modeled after Satan, and considering that the devil embodies all that is evil, it's a given that this person is bad.
• Savage Wolves: Wild canines are often portrayed as savage antagonists.
  • The Big Bad Wolf: The wolves are often the villains in many stories, especially fairy tales.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: If a bespectacled character's eyes are obscured by light reflected in their glasses, chances are they have no soul.
• Scary Teeth: You can tell this character is evil because their teeth look creepy or disgusting.
• Secondary Color Nemesis: Secondary colors, like green and purple, are often associated with villains.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Villains tend to wear less clothing cuz Evil Is Sexy.
• Serial Killer: If the character goes around murdering people constantly, no one in their right mind would say they're a good person.
• Sickly Green Glow: Glowing green is a pretty effective indicator that a being is malevolent.
• Sinister Schnoz: You can tell a character is bad because they have a long and pointy nose.
• Sinister Scimitar
• Sinister Scythe
• Skeleton Motif: The motif of death is often used by villains.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: If you wear bones or skulls as clothing, then you're probably not a good person.
• Slasher Smile: Anyone who tends to have a creepy grin on their face can't be trusted.
• Smelly Skunk: Skunks are almost always associated with villains, due to Evil Smells Bad.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Snakes are almost always associated with villains, even by reptile standards.
• Snarky Villain, Earnest Hero: You can tell a character is the bad guy by how flippant and snarky they are in comparison to the good guy.
• Southern Gothic Satan: An American folklore representation of none other than Satan.
• Spikes of Villainy: You can tell a character is the bad guy because they wear armor covered in spikes.
• Straw Nihilist: A character takes the belief that life has no meaning to the extreme that therefore there's no point in doing good deeds and everyone's better off dead.
• Stupid Evil: Doing villainy well past the point that it loses any semblance of logic.
• Swamps Are Evil: Swamps are a popular location for villains' hideouts due to being inherently dark, sinister, dangerous and mysterious places.
• Tattooed Crook: People with tattoos tend to be sketchy and suspicious.
• Thin Chin of Sin: Heroes tend to have large chins, so a villain needs a thin chin in order to be instantly recognizable.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Considering the atrocities the Nazis were known to have committed, it's obvious that a person is evil if they are a Nazi.
• Tin Tyrant: Coating yourself in visually imposing armor is a surefire way to paint yourself as the villain.
• Two-Faced: It's clear that a character is evil because their face is completely asymmetrical.
• Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: Evil characters who have poor bodily hygiene.
• Vader Breath: Heavy breathing is a very effective way to make a character seem threatening and sinister.
• Villain by Default: The villain is a villain because of what they are, instead of what they do.
• Villain Song: Really want to make it obvious who the bad guy is? Then have them sing a song where they boast about the atrocities they've committed, gloat about their despicable nature or describe the bad things they intend to do.
• Villainous Cheekbones
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Nothing says "villain" than having hair on your forehead form a triangle
• Voice of the Legion: Sometimes evil sounds deep enough that it reverberates.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Be wary of young characters with white hair, especially if they originate from, or are inspired by, Eastern fiction^note White is commonly associated with peace and purity in Western culture, but death, mourning and bad luck in some Eastern cultures like Japan, China and South Korea.
• Wicked Witch: Considering that the Wicked Witch of the West bears many obvious villain traits, any character inspired by her can be expected to be evil.
• Xenomorph Xerox: If you're feeling evil, make sure everyone knows it by taking a page from the Xenomorphs from Alien: creepy alien killing machines that are a metaphor for rape.

• Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: You know this character is shifty and untrustworthy because they have yellow eyes.

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Other examples:

Comedy

• In The Unfinished Spelling Errors of Bolkien, Martin Pearson laments that Gandalf did not pick up on the fact that Saruman was a bad guy, despite living in a tower completely painted black, and even worse, played by Christopher Lee.

Comic Strips

• Exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness in Liō: everyone who's evil has bad teeth. It's almost a Red Right Hand, except there's nothing in-setting to explain why they would all have bad teeth and why "good" (sorta) characters all have nice teeth.

Fan Works

• In X-Men fanfic Mutatis Mutandis by Artemis' Liege, Chapter Ten opens with the Pro-Regs going about their daily routine: Reed Richards is experimenting on Goliath's corpse, condoned by all others, while he and Tony Stark discuss how much of a traitor Spider-Man is for not helping them imprison rebel heroes in the Negative Zone with the regular supervillains.
• Ace Combat: The Equestrian War gives us Red Cyclone, who, aside from having red eyes and body color, is also an A-class Smug Snake and seeks to obliterate the ponies.
• Titan from My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic is a hooded tyrant with red eyes. Also many Arc Villains, like the Dark King, a big black horned humanoid, Von Devilor, whose name alone says a lot really, and King Pinsar, a conqueror bug alien.
• Fall of Starfleet, Rebirth of Friendship might deconstruct Starfleet Magic, but it has its own example in Dark Conquest, who is a black alicorn, has a Meaningful Name and is a rapist.
• Yukari in Game of Touhou is basically a walking corpse and an immortal from Qarth but Reimu still trusts her (not that she has any other choice).
• In Foxstar's Reign, the protagonist is shocked when a guy named Cruelheart turns out to be abusive.
• Played for Laughs by Chapter 3 of Remnant's Bizarre Adventure Chibi. Enrico Pucci is obviously a bad guy, but because he keeps insisting that he is not evil, only Sun and Neptune realize it.
• Peace of Mind, Piece of Heart: When Catra states that, while she figured it out pretty quickly, no one in the Horde really thought of themselves as "villains or anything", Steven points out that they literally lived in a place called the Fright Zone.
• Please Stop Eating The Hell Butterflies: In the chapters set before the Soul Society Arc, Aizen really acts obviously evil and it makes you wonder why no one noticed. Then you read the rest of the madness that the good or morally neutral captains get up to and you realize why as Aizen's evil nonsense and everyone's insane nonsense is a bit hard to distinguish without hindsight.
• Star Wars vs. Warhammer 40K: One of the OC villains on the Imperium of Man's side is a Radical Inquisitor named Tahr Whyler. Said Inquisitor has pale skin, black eyes, shark-like teeth, no hair, clawed hands, and a serpent-like tongue. His favorite color seems to be black because he incorporates it in everything; he wears a black hooded cloak, wields a black rapier, wears digi-weapon rings that shoot black Death Rays, and can even summon black-colored flames while using the Warp. Oh, and he also speaks with an unnatural rasp and is constantly associated with the image of a Slasher Smile.

Pinballs

• In Popeye Saves the Earth, this is invoked by the names of Bluto's polluting companies — Earth Pavers, Never Green Logging, Blutonium Waste, and Spill Oil Co.

Podcasts

• Dice Funk: The headmaster of the Pickman Academy is so shady that the players wonder aloud if he will turn out to be the final boss somewhere down the road.
• The crew of Mission to Zyxx find Kor Balevor on a lava planet in a castle bound by chains of pure Space. He has spent his imprisonment teaching the lava crows to screech as a chorus. Everyone is immediately aware that Kor is not the good Zima they expected except Pleck (who's being mind controlled) and AJ (who is dumb as a rock).
• Sick Sad World: Charles Manson's actions during his trial (carving an X in his forehead he later turned into a swastika, attacking the judge and saying "I'm gonna kill you!") made it pretty clear he did it.

Theatre

• Starship:
  Bug: You're evil!
  Pincer: No duh!
• William Shakespeare wasn't immune to this trope. In Twelfth Night, the major villain is a lying, deceitful servant named Malvolio—that's Mal, as in "malicious" or "malpractice," from the Latin "mala" for evil—volio.
• This is an extremely common trope in nineteenth century melodrama, which birthed many of the examples on this list—that genre was among the first to introduce the mustache-twirling villain who loudly declares his plans to steal, lie, cheat, commit crimes, and generally be a total Jerkass.
• The titular character in Moliere's Tartuffe is clearly a con artist and form of Sinister Minister, preaching about sacrifice while indulging in all sorts of debauchery. In this case it's an Invoked Trope, as it's plain as day to everyone who meets Tartuffe except the family patriarch and that patriarch's mother, who are the only people who have any influence in the matter.

Visual Novels

• Josef Capek in Shikkoku no Sharnoth. However, he turns out to be more sympathetic than he appears. He's simply not entirely sane anymore and hasn't been sleeping for months. ...Somehow.
• From Fate/stay night, Zouken Matou. He looks like some sort of deformed little troll man and has jetblack eyes. Plus he manages to talk in a sinister fashion all the time - despite not having any audible clues - even before you realize that he is not the world's friendliest, cheeriest grandfather. The rest of the cast averts (Caster^note Medea) and subverts (Berserker^note Herakles, Rider^note Medusa. Yes, really) this, though. The novel also makes it blatantly obvious that Kirei Kotomine is up to no good. Word of God even confirms this trope was what they were going for when they made him.
• Ace Attorney has Manfred von Karma, a terrifying guy with a booming voice, who even Miles "Demon Prosecutor" Edgeworth considers ruthless. It's quickly made clear that he is not above forging evidence and using underhand tactics to get what he wants (like hiding incriminating evidence, and tasering Phoenix and Maya to steal the evidence they'd acquired), and values a flawless record over putting the truly guilty in prison. It probably doesn't come as a surprise to many when it's revealed that he was the one who killed Gregory Edgeworth, for proving he used false evidence and thus putting a mark on his perfect record. In the flashback case of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, a young Kay tells him that he's "scary," just from his appearance and demeanor, and she clearly has no idea who he is..
  • In what can probably be described as Early-Installment Weirdness, the villains in the first game all tended to be obviously not nice people. Frank Sawhit behaves very suspiciously and has a creepy-looking face, Redd White is a Corrupt Corporate Executive and dresses the part, Dee Vasquez wears dark clothing and smokes a pipe, Damon Gant always stares at a camera and has an Ominous Pipe Organ Theme. The two first ones are culprits in Reverse Whodunnit cases, meaning the game doesn't even bother to hide their guilt. The only exception is Yanni Yogi, who's only the first culprit in the final case, rather than the mastermind behind the plot (Manfred von Karma).
  • In Justice For All, the second case opens with a voice-over accusing a man named Dr. Turner Grey of a murder. When the players meet Grey, he's tense, irritable, and downright nasty; his name implies a moral gray area; he makes a big deal about how innocent he is; and other characters relate stories of an incident in which many patients died under his care. It's pretty obvious he's going to be bad news to someone. Except he's not. He's actually the victim of the murder, which was carried out by the cutesy-looking Ini Miney, and it's ultimately left up in the air how responsible he was for the malpractice incident- Ini accuses him of overworking his nurses to the point of sleep deprivation, but she isn't a reliable narrator. However, the true mastermind behind the murder, Morgan Fey, plays the trope straight by looking like and being a highly ambitious narcissist.
  • Also from Justice For All, the first case's culprit is Richard Wellington, an Upper-Class Twit and con artist with a really smug look on his face. And while we don't see him kill the victim, the case is still a Reverse Whodunnit since the opening cutscene shows him attacking Phoenix with a fire extinguisher.
  • In Trials and Tribulations, Phoenix and Maya meet Furio Tigre, who looks like Phoenix, except his skin is pure orange and he has scars over one eye and much spikier hair and a really bad attitude. It's no surprise that he's the murderer. In fact, he's also responsible for impersonating Phoenix and causing Maggey to get convicted of murder.
  • In Dual Destinies, there's Florent L'Belle from the second case. He looks like the Joker went to the opera, he sprays cologne in poor Apollo's face, and he makes no attempt to hide his disdain for everyone who's not him. Even if the game somehow glitched and didn't play the opening cutscene where he clearly drugs the victim, very few players would be surprised to find that he's the killer.
  • In Spirit of Justice, there's Ga'ran in her prosecutor outfit. Magenta and dark purple colors, a spider motif, giant shoulderpads, evil facepaint, and cleavage of doom. No wonder she doesn't wear this outfit in her daily life- people might think she was a Disney villain.
• In Virtue's Last Reward, Dio is so repugnant that The Reveal that he's actually a terrorist leader who has planted bombs all over the warehouse, and effectively the true Big Bad of the game, is... actually very surprising since it's so unsurprising.
• Korekiyo Shinguji, the Ultimate Anthropologist from Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, is a tall, rail-thin man who always dresses in olive-green military garb and covers the bottom half of his face with a mask. His demeanor is as unsettling as they come, too, seeming coldly detached from the Deadly Game going on around him and constantly talking about the "beauty of humanity". He even praises the culprit's ingenuity and cruelty in a few Class Trials. Is it any surprise that he turns out to be an insane Serial Killer with a near-triple-digit body count and a Norman Bates-esque obsession with his sister? He even lampshades it when Kaede comes to talk to him about his alibi for the first case (where he's legitimately innocent), saying that he has the look of someone who'd commit murder.
• Despite the fact that Hatoful Boyfriend displays everyone as birds (not counting the few second pseudo-human visual of their human appearance), it's easy to tell that Doctor Shuu is not a good guy. Not because everybody tells the player over and over that he is evil. But Shuu is a partridge bird, definitely a lot more on the chubby side than the rest of the cast. He even lampshades this if you choose to romance him. He talks about how he was very clearly both evil and insane, and yet you chose to try and fall in love with him anyway. Right before he kills you with a cleaver.
• In Heart of the Woods, the first person Madison and Tara meet in Eysenfeld besides Morgan, the one who invited them there, is Morgan's mother Evelyn. Not only do Morgan and Evelyn clearly not get along, but Evelyn has a cold, imposing demeanor and the horses become terrified upon seeing her. Her leitmotif, "Daggersmile," is appropriately ominous. Sure enough, Evelyn's not just unfriendly, but downright evil, and ends up trying to kill the protagonists(temporarily succeeding with Madison).

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