Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness

An antagonist can be classed on three orthogonal parameters:

• How much danger they, or their plans, pose.
• How effective they are.
• How much the audience is supposed to hate them.

This is a method of quantifying that third one.

Note that the below list is a very rough scale; any given character may fall higher or lower on this list depending on context, regardless of what tropes describe him. Many character types are very broad, so the positions below should represent an approximate average; some individual characters are subversions who turn out to be something significantly different from the stereotype of their type of villain.

See also Nominal Hero, for the bottom end of the Protagonist version of this list. See Likable Villain for a classification of reasons why not all villains are vile ones.

---

Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness

The sliding scale is roughly as follows:

Most Sympathetic (the antagonist becomes virtually indistinguishable from the good guys)

• Hero Antagonists: These fight for good goals with good intentions (usually), but are still antagonists.
  • Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist
  • Inspector Javert
  • Internal Affairs
  • Innocent Beta Bitch
  • My Country, Right or Wrong
  • Lovable Alpha Bitch/Lovable Jock
  • Smug Super (hero version only) the least sympathetic you can get while still qualifying as a non-ironic good guy.

Dividing line between nominal heroes and villains

• Anti Villains: Their actions are usually evil or at least morally questionable, but they're either fighting for an admirable goal, really ineffectual as villains, don't want to be evil, have a lot of redeeming values, or some specific reason outside their control for being evil. A Type IV here would have the most affection associated with themselves, and can be mistaken as a Hero Antagonist, if they were not previously one already.
  • Friendly Enemy
  • Moral Pragmatist
  • Necessarily Evil
  • Not Evil, Just Misunderstood
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist
  • Noble Demon
  • Noble Top Enforcer
  • The Hero with an F in Good needs to stay around here or above to remain plausible as a good guy.
  • The Rival
  • Designated Villain is the type of anti-villain that comes about due to writing a "villain" who is supposed to be evil but does not do much to show it and in extreme cases may even be the least evil if there is also a major Designated Hero involved. Further Character Development can make them more heinous, of course.
  • Villains who believe Utopia Justifies the Means tend to fit here, since the world they are trying to create is usually good, but their means of achieving it are questionable or even downright evil.
  • Characters undergoing a Face–Monster Turn, being unable to control their actions.
  • Characters for whom Being Evil Sucks.
  • Trapped in Villainy: This is what happens when someone really does not want to hurt anyone or take part in any crimes but is forced to because his life and the lives of his loved ones are threatened. Some of the worst villains enforce such a situation.
  • Those Forced into Evil
  • Driven to Villainy
  • Tragic Villain
  • Harmless Villain: Even though they try to be vile, they just fail to turn the audience against them because of their ineffectualness. Even when they are genuinely evil in terms of personality, they are more likely to just be dismissed instead.
    • Minion with an F in Evil
  • Worthy Opponent
  • Sympathetic Murderer
  • Characters who are Slowly Slipping Into Evil fit around here thanks to their compunctions and moral conflict.
  • The Dark Magical Girl is usually here.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
  • Obliviously Evil^note Most of the time this will be a sympathetic factor for a villain. However, there are a couple of specific cases in which this trope can make the villain more vile rather than less, such as Shou Tucker and Disney's version of Judge Claude Frollo.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil
  • Love Makes You Evil
    • Yandere (the villainous variety)
  • Serial-Killer Killer. They would be as low as the regular Serial Killer, if not for their specific choice of prey.
  • Then Let Me Be Evil
  • Reluctant Psycho
  • Punch-Clock Villain usually goes about here, but can move up or down depending on how far they will go for their paycheck and/or the nature of their boss. A Punch-Clock Villain who knowingly and cheerfully serves a truly evil master might well be seen as being utterly amoral, even if they personally never Kick the Dog.
    • Hitman with a Heart
  • Affably Evil
  • Parents as People examples can have parents who would be villainous for their behavior in another story, however here we are not supposed to see their behavior as outright villainous. In these kinds of stories we have been given backstory or humanization to realize why the parents are not necessarily emotionally or physically available. By the end of the narrative, there is often either a resolution or realization by the characters as to how their behavior affects others.

Moderately Sympathetic (above this line and the majority of the audience will start to sympathize with the antagonist; below it and the majority will start to hate them)

• Wild Cards must remain above this point if he or she wants to remain plausible as a good guy (or at least a facsimile thereof) later on.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk
• Put Them All Out of My Misery usually settles about here.
• Villainy-Free Villain. Even when they're not really all that villainous, they tend to make up for it by being total pricks.
• If you're going to Bait the Dog, the reveal of the villain's actual alignment needs to be at this level or below to get the proper 'punch'.
• Ordinary Villainy: These do evil things for their own benefit (and their villainous allies/minions) or to advance an obviously evil goal. They'll readily Kick the Dog without any real compunction. They are likely to also cross the Moral Event Horizon but it is not certain.
• Any villain who is A Lighter Shade of Black compared to other villains will gain more audience sympathy than their opponents, but must be at least as low as this point to be believable as a shade of black on their own.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
• Goldfish Poop Gang
• Bumbling Henchmen Duo: Usually too incompetent and too silly to be completely despicable.
• The Villainous Harlequin rarely goes below this point.
• To qualify a villain for Vile Villain, Saccharine Show status, in order to induce the Mood Whiplash needed, they need to be at this evil or below.
• The Bully
  • Alpha Bitch
  • Big Jerk on Campus
  • Jerk Jock
• A Token Evil Teammate is usually here at worst, as they are typically still meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic.
• The Quincy Punk
• Dirty Coward
• The Fighting Narcissist
• Opposing Sports Team
• Knight Templar, one of the guys who think they’re doing the right thing, by ANY means necessary.
• Corrupt Politician
• Small-Town Tyrant
• Corrupt Corporate Executive
• Smug Snake
• Wicked Witch goes here if not subverted.
• Obviously Evil
• Evil Sorcerer
• Barbarian Tribe
• Classic Villain is here or lower.
• Pirates
• Dirty Communists
• Generic Doomsday Villain
• Anyone who ends up considered Beyond Redemption by other characters is here by definition. That doesn't mean that the narrative itself condemns them, even as it condemns their current actions; some such characters do in fact redeem themselves.

Least Sympathetic (the audience will completely side against the antagonist)

• An Insufferable Imbecile, as while a smart evil person might be viewed as a case of Evil Is Cool or at least Love to Hate, the Imbecile usually inspires nothing but contempt.
• A Fun-Hating Villain: as their explicit goal is to make people miserable, which usually creates a deep sense of loathing in most audiences.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Their bigotry is gratuitous and serves no purpose other than highlighting how evil they are, which usually creates a deep sense of loathing in most audiences.
  • The Klan
  • Those Wacky Nazis
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name
• An evil Hate Sink. A character designed to be massively hated by viewers.
  • Those are often beyond the Moral Event Horizon (thus placing them lower down). Some even reach the Complete Monster stage.
• Viler New Villain: A villain whose point is to be less sympathetic than the other villain/s.
• Characters who plain love being evil
• Bad Boss: Someone who treats their subordinates like dirt just because they can, won't get any bonus in either the sympathy or the morality meter especially if they stoop to saying:
  • You Have Failed Me: Intentions don't matter to them, you either give them what they want or are useless and therefore don't deserve to live.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Everyone is disposable and for them anyone living for anything beyond serving them is preposterous.
• Cruella to Animals
• The Artifact of Doom and the Evil Weapon go here, provided they have a will of their own, although the audience will hate them less than human villains because it's hard to transfer hatred onto an object even when they're full characters.
• Any villain who commits a serious form of Disproportionate Retribution, which often it does
• Faux Affably Evil: The whole point of the character is that their polite, pleasant and even refined demeanor is all but an act - it starkly contrasts with their atrocities when they're eventually revealed.
• Evil Colonialist, especially when combined with Politically Incorrect Villain above and both The Social Darwinist and Human Traffickers below.
• Evil Overlord - if played completely straight.
• Master Poisoner
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil:
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder
  • Les Collaborateurs
  • The Mole
  • Et Tu, Brute?, often beyond Moral Event Horizon
• Genocidal Villains.
  • Absolute Xenophobe
  • Evilutionary Biologist
  • The Social Darwinist
• Villains engaging in cannibalism.
  • Child Eater and Eats Babies. Very frequently these characters even reach the Complete Monster stage.
• Monster Clown typically goes about here.
• The Caligula
• Psychopathic Manchild
• Straw Nihilist (the villainous variety)
• The Sociopath
• The Hedonist (villainous version)
• Ax-Crazy, as their unhinged behavior and willingness to maim and even kill others very frequently puts them close to crossing the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Mad Bomber
  • Psycho Electro
  • Pyromaniac
• Sadist
• Hope Crusher
• Psycho for Hire, for the same reasons as Ax-Crazy
• Torture Technician
• Serial Killers, as their motive often doesn't go beyond "butchers people for fun". Even when it does, the Moral Event Horizon aspects of the act still keep them from being above that.
  • Spree Killers
  • Murderers who engage in Serial Killings, Specific Target also go here, as do those who enact a Trial Run Crime for a murder.
  • Killer Cops are considered even lower for betraying the trust that society places in them, unless they're Serial Killer Killers and thus a subset of that type.
• The Mad Doctor when portrayed seriously generally falls here due to their overwhelmingly sadistic nature.
  • Ditto for those who practice Organ Theft or any other form of Human Resources.
    • These character types tend to be united by Not the First Victim, which helps to solidify their evil.
• Greater-Scope Villain (such as God of Evil) needs to be at or below this point to be taken credibly as a source of all evil (unless they're in a Sugar Bowl or such where 'all evil' means that they want to cancel Christmas), though because of their tendency of being an Orcus on His Throne even the reality-destroying Eldritch Abomination might come across less vile than the ordinary Big Bad.
• More Despicable Minion: By definition, they are more vile and less sympathetic than their boss, and are often used to contrast a sympathetic Big Bad while providing a work with a Hate Sink.

Permanently Unsympathetic (character becomes completely irredeemable)

• Anyone who has crossed the Moral Event Horizon ends up here or below by definition.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist are almost always here, even if they aren't straight up Complete Monsters
• Villains that commit wanton and heinous evil acts simply For the Evulz. Most will qualify for Complete Monsters.
• By that same token, Stupid Evil villains tend to fall here, even if their villainy is mostly Played for Laughs.
• With few exceptions, any serious villain that believes Dystopia Justifies the Means, Despotism Justifies the Means, or To Create a Playground for Evil.
• Serial Rapists, who need a hell of a Freudian Excuse to be even remotely sympathetic.
• Human Traffickers, combining Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil with Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil makes it near impossible for them to be sympathetic. Even more if they are allied with an Evil Colonialist (who himself may be one).
• Anybody who not only Would Hurt a Child, but explicitly targets them. Serial child killers and serial child rapists are among the vilest of this category and if they have no redeeming qualities, will likely be a Complete Monster.
• Complete Monster — By definition, the least sympathetic character possible. The most despicable of the bunch, and their only goal is to perpetuate their own evil interests. Note that not all characters who cross the Moral Event Horizon are necessarily Complete Monsters; they must have no redeeming values; any of the tropes on the "dividing line" can make them more sympathetic even if they can't be redeemed, in a case of Sympathy for the Devil, showing that they still have some good qualities to symphatize with. The Complete Monster has no good qualities as a person. There is nothing to root for here, just an evil demon that needs to die now.

---

Tropes that can't be readily classified on the scale

These tropes are orthogonal to this Scale, have too variable a position to be located specifically, or are position changing without having a particular position to call its own.

Variable Position

• Abusive Parents can be literally anywhere on the scale except Hero Antagonist, depending on the frequency and severity of the abuse, such that the trope has spawned a sliding scale of its very own. A Type II example^note the highest on that list that is actually abusive, rather than flawed will rarely be worse than Love Makes You Evil, a Type III can go from there to Villainy-Free Villain with some overlap with the other two, and a Type IV can go all the way from Jerk with a Heart of Jerk down to Complete Monster.
• Abusive Precursors can be anywhere from Well-Intentioned Extremist or Obliviously Evil to Complete Monster, depending on what they did and why they did it.
• Always Chaotic Evil races can go all the way from midway into Anti-Villain (that is, Proud Warrior Race Guy) all the way past the Moral Event Horizon, depending on the creature (and author) in question. Since subversions or deconstructions are becoming more common.
• Due to Good Lawyers, Good Clients, even if the Amoral Attorney is perfectly law-abiding and ethical they often end up being an accidental proxy for their client's vileness if they get justice for anyone on the Ordinary Villain scale or below. Outside of that though it's rare for an Amoral Attorney to personally do the deeds that would even skirt the Moral Event Horizon—they tend to bend the law, not break it.
• Aristocrats Are Evil are far from harmless given their high social standing but their portrayals can range from Well-Intentioned Extremists to Complete Monsters depending on how sympathetic they are to the audience.
• While a Babysitter from Hell's rap sheet leads off with "Would Hurt a Child," they can range from Complete Monster all the way to the top of the Anti-Villain section.
• Bad Influencer can apply to someone who is a hypocrite or a Jerk with a Heart of Gold but really isn't that bad to a monster.
• If Betty or Veronica is the protagonist, the other will often be the antagonist. Can go anywhere from The Rival to Complete Monster, depending on how driven she is.
• Big Bad is one of those tropes that can fall almost anywhere on the scale. Very, very rarely are they actually Hero Antagonists though, so they usually vary from very sympathetic Anti Villains to utterly depraved Complete Monsters.
• Big Bad Wannabe can vary a lot due to the various reasons that they fail to live up to their desired status as the main villain. If they're just not heinous enough they are probably Harmless Villains, but if they're just not smart and/or effective enough as a threat they can also be Stupid Evil.
• A Bitch in Sheep's Clothing can be anywhere from a Jerkass to a Complete Monster, depending on how bad their "true colors" are.
• A Card-Carrying Villain is often, ironically enough, portrayed as either a Harmless Villain or Complete Monster. The more sympathetic they are, the more it comes across as an Informed Attribute, however.
• A Hanging Judge can be anything from a Well-Intentioned Extremist (if they think really harsh punishments are necessary to stop crime) to Complete Monster, depending on how harsh and/or petty they are.
• A Knight of Cerebus almost never strays above Noble Demon in order to provide the sufficient seriousness needed for their Mood Whiplash—curiously, the only exception to this are Sadist Shows that embrace their Black-and-Gray Morality which will often have a Hero Antagonist available as one to highlight just how crapsack things are.
• A Knight Templar can either be higher or lower on the scale, depending on how deluded or extreme they are. In particularly dark stories, a Moral Event Horizon is very likely, but in more idealistic works, they may be Anti Villains.
• Entities that are Made of Evil can be anything from ordinary villains to Complete Monsters. It all depends on whether they are free to make their own moral choices, or if the setting explicitly makes it clear that they're bound by their nature to do evil (a trait common to many Anthropomorphic Personifications and some Gods in regards to their fields of responsibility).
• Mad Scientists go from Anti-Villain to Complete Monster, otherwise they'd just be The Professor or the Eccentric Mentor.
• Given that the Magnificent Bastard is more about style, Magnificent Bastards can fall anywhere above the Moral Event Horizon on this scale, although, again, since he's all about style, the Bastard in question is likely higher on the scale than he would otherwise be. However, it's still possible for a Magnificent Bastard to be well over the horizon. Complete Monster Magnificent Bastard characters are very rare, but there are some of them out there.
• The Master Forger is usually more dedicated to their craft than to villainy, so tends to be higher on the scale unless they're also a hardened criminal.
• Mooks can fit anywhere along this scale, but rarely make it all the way to the bottom, since they don't usually represent a serious threat. Elite Mooks excepted, of course, as are mooks seen committing atrocities like mass murder and genocide with a smile.
• Narcissists can range anywhere from Jerkass woobies to a remorseless Complete Monsters.
• An Omnicidal Maniac can be as high as Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, all the way down to Complete Monsterdom.
• The Professional Killer can range anywhere from a sympathetic Punch-Clock Villain to an irredeemable Complete Monster.
• Depending on their level of intelligence and malice, a Psychopathic Manchild can range from Ambiguous Innocence to a Complete Monster.
• The Quirky Miniboss Squad can be anything from Harmless Villains to Complete Monsters.
• Satan is such an iconic character that the Prince of Darkness's portrayal varies so widely that he's even become the hero in some stories, while others depict him as the worst villain of all time, or anywhere in between.
• The Sociopathic Soldier varies significantly because of all the Internal Subtropes. The jingoistic asshole is usually an ordinary villain if they're not just products of their environment, the Psycho for Hire types are mostly Complete Monster candidates, the involuntary conscript is at the bottom of Anti Villainy, while the Shellshocked Veteran is more of a Tragic Villain.
• The Starscream can be pretty much anywhere south of Most Sympathetic, depending on what they do and their motives. If it's because they are disgusted by the Big Bad's actions, they can be as high as Anti-Villain, whereas if they just want to get more powerful, they can be as low as Complete Monster.
• The Straw Character can be anything from someone well-meaning but misguided, all the way to an out-and-out Complete Monster.
• A Token Evil Teammate, if they're the kind that cause trouble, hover around the middle of the scale. Too high up makes their evilness an Informed Attribute, too low can induce some serious issues as to why the heroes put up with such a bastard.
• While Villainous Ethics Decay certainly shows that the level of morality/ethics displayed by villains is going down, it can start from anywhere on the list as long as it winds up lower in the end.
• A Visionary Villain can be of any degree of vileness, but always has a provocative goal and plans to achieve them.

Permutation factors

Sympathy Effect

• Adaptational Villainy, and especially Ron the Death Eater, if particularly forced or excessive will reduce the vileness for people familiar with the source work, who tend to see it as character demonization. Ditto with Historical Villain Upgrade. Can overlap with the strawman effect listed below.
• Alas, Poor Villain will yank a character upwards on the scale although it's unlikely to occur with more vile characters.
• Any antagonist with Arson, Murder, and Admiration in his resume is probably on the Sillier side of the Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness, and thus probably pulled upward on the scale. Of course, Beware the Silly Ones can apply in this case.
• Black And Black Morality (aka Evil Versus Evil) reduces the overall vileness of the worst villains because everyone in the story is disgustingly evil, but the audience may just be too apathetic at the bleakness of the setting instead.
  • Shows with Black-and-Gray Morality tend to reduce the vileness of Hero Antagonists or Anti Villains; it's just hard to get worked up over a villain's plan to carve his face into the side of a mountain when the hero has to regularly resort to machine-gunning robbers in broad daylight.
  • Likewise, shows with White-and-Grey Morality rarely have more than one or two instances (usually the Big Bad) where the antagonists stray below Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• A villain will usually be portrayed more sympathetically in an Enemy Mine situation, especially in instances where they have to resolve their differences to fight a greater threat and perhaps even prompt a Heel–Face Turn.
• Even Evil Has Standards can pull upwards on the scale, though anyone below the Moral Event Horizon will (usually) come across as a Hypocrite for attempting this. They usually slide halfway back down again if it's revealed as Pragmatic Villainy instead, depending on the situation and motivations.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones also pulls characters upwards. They can still cross the Moral Event Horizon, but if they display genuine love for someone, they are excluded from being a Complete Monster by definition, who don't have any redeeming qualities at all.
• Evil Is Sexy villains have the tendency to draw attention away from their crimes because the audience becomes fixated on their beauty rather than their evil. Even Complete Monsters will sometimes get the Draco in Leather Pants treatment because of this.
• The more Evil Virtues a villain has, the more the audience admires them in spite of their depravity. However, these virtues can actually lead to a more dangerous or depraved villain whereas one lacking can appear merely unpleasant or too self-centered to accomplish anything.
• Family-Values Villain is something of a combination between the Even Evil Has Standards and Even Evil Has Loved Ones, with the same effect as those two. (Although being a hypocrite can pull them right back down again.)
• A good Freudian Excuse may pull a villain upward on the scale, but Complete Monsterdom, by definition, means that no Freudian Excuse can absolve them.
• A Laughably Evil villain can gain sympathy for at least humouring the audience, despite being close to the "bad" end of the scale.
• Must Make Amends, Villainous BSoD, and My God, What Have I Done? can pull a villain upwards on the scale, though obviously more evil villains tend to be more immune to these effects.
• Offstage Villainy can make even the most wantonly destructive villains more sympathetic than a villain who commits overall fewer but more visible atrocities. The audience will be compelled to hate them more simply due to the rules of perception.
• Beware of using strawmen for blackening your villains; if the audience finds out, they'll often get pushed upwards further than you like, especially if they make an especially good point or their belief system isn't even that bad.
• Villain Decay, if especially humiliating or prolonged, will slowly cause a villain to float up to Harmless Villain if left unchecked.

Hatred Effect

• Do enough Evil Gloating, and the audience will hate you even more than they otherwise would have for your sheer haughtiness. Although it should be noted that a stylish enough Evil Gloat pulls towards Magnificent Bastarddom (which may well be up from where you are), and it is only unnecessary cruelty, or repetition of Gloating that pulls downwards.
• Making a villain an Evil Is Petty bastard who holds trivial grudges is an easy way to make them more vile regardless of their other actions.
• Evil Makes You Ugly/Evil Makes You Monstrous Due to perceptions of Beauty Equals Goodness, villains whose appearance starts to resemble their inner evil by becoming more ugly or more monstrous (or are ugly to begin with, such as a Fat Bastard) will have the audience root against them more than if they were (still) beautiful. A villain who looks like a Bishōnen is more likely to gain the sympathy of at least some audience members even if it's pure Misaimed Fandom, while a decrepit, inhuman-looking villain has much less of a chance of this happening. However, it can sometimes be subverted if the villain is sufficiently disturbed by what is happening to them provided the villain isn't too far down the scale to begin with, or if the villain's ugliness was what led to their Then Let Me Be Evil moment.
• Having the villain tell the hero I Lied, or any of its subtropes (Did You Actually Believe...?, You Said You Would Let Them Go, etc.) will almost invariably push them down to the level of Hate Sink if they weren't there already, due to their betrayal of the hero's trust.
• Any instances of Karma Houdini below the center line run a huge risk of accidentally transforming a 'normal' villain into someone even more despised.
• A Villain with Good Publicity will tend to be lower than they normally would be because of their tendency to get away with their crimes.
• Have the villains demonstrate they have no compunction about their victims and certainly Would Hurt a Child and Would Hit a Girl, and they go down several notches.

Multiple / Both

• Kick the Dog is a standard behavior for Ordinary Villainy and below, while those above it have an increasing chance to be seen with a Pet the Dog moment. Poke the Poodle too much however, and the villain starts sliding up towards Harmless Villain.
• Likewise, Pay Evil unto Evil will make an antagonist less hated by the audience, especially if the victim was particularily unlikable. However if their method is rather excessive or cruel then they will be knocked down a few notches.
• Just the simple passage of time can push a villain up the scale or screaming downwards.
• From Nobody to Nightmare has various effects on sympathy. If the antagonist has an outright tragic reason for evil or Used to Be a Sweet Kid then they will be propelled up the scale. If the antagonist was an outright asshole before their Start of Darkness, especially towards the protagonists then they will be more hated.
• A villain that is a General Failure, Pointy-Haired Boss, and/or a Stupid Boss makes weaksauce villains more vile and more blackhearted villains less so — malicious stupidity reduces your sympathy but also reduces your threat, pushing you towards the middle.
• Realism-Induced Horror has a tendency to either subdue or amplify an antagonist's vileness, depending on whether they're a victim of the horror or the one inflicting it, respectively.
• If an antagonist is also holding the title of The Scrappy, they can be pushed either upwards or downwards depending on what they're being hated for. Unfortunately even in the 'redeeming' case of this it won't reduce the audience's overall hatred towards them, just the perceived vileness component of that hatred.
• Anything related to sexuality (e.g., Depraved Bisexual, Heteronormative Crusader, or Psycho Lesbian) is going to go all over the place, as sexuality is one of the big Values Dissonance triggers, with one exception:
  • Villainous Incest: This can go either way depending on the form that the incest takes. Almost always used to provide that extra shudder factor to an already depraved villain, it virtually guarantees a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon if it's abusive and/or includes rape (e.g. the villain in Chinatown or Ragyo Kiryuin in Kill la Kill). If both parties are willing and of more or less equal age and power, it can occasionally cross into Even Evil Has Loved Ones (e.g. two primary characters in Game of Thrones).

Orthogonal to the scale

• The Villain Protagonist technically does not fall on this scale, as he is, by definition, a Protagonist, rather than an Antagonist. Nevertheless, he can likewise fall anywhere from the start of Anti-Villain all the way down to Complete Monster, or even be everywhere on the scale in the same story. The latter, however, is more rare. Placing a villain in the role of protagonist can make for an interesting story, but writers generally shy away from portraying them as entirely irredeemable evil bastards by introducing some redeeming traits or a Sympathetic P.O.V. to balance out their evil acts. This way the audience is comfortable enough to continue to follow them instead of constantly squirming in their seats from the protagonist's boundless heinousness.
• Similarly, a Designated Hero is almost always technically a protagonist rather than an antagonist, but can themself fall anywhere from Anti-Villain (usually of the Utopia Justifies the Means type) to Complete Monster — though the latter is so rare that no examples have been documented (the one previously documented example was later decided to have been insufficiently heinous).
• Most Eldritch Abominations cannot really be identified on this scale due to their Blue-and-Orange Morality, even though they are among the most scary entities used in fiction. Rarely genuinely malevolent, they are more often just indifferent towards humanity, and take no more of an interest in its destruction than one might think of stepping on an ant.
• Likewise the Non-Malicious Monster borders on being an antagonist, since however a normal animal has no understanding of its actions or their consequences it cannot be held neither morally accountable for them nor knowingly antagonistic.
• No Antagonist is completely outside the scale, as the Conflict is caused by either natural events, society, or one's own flaws rather than other characters. Depending on the source, audience reaction can vary from apathy^note What logic is there in being angry at a natural disaster, for example? to disgust at the cause of the protagonist's problems.
• The Asshole Victim (and its child trope, Who Murdered the Asshole) often, given that his place in the story is to become a corpse, usually doesn't directly qualify for the scale because the antagonistic role was towards someone else and not the protagonists. That being said, the Asshole Victim fills many of the functional requirements of an Antagonist, so many of the above tropes and permutation factors will apply to him.
• Ambiguously Evil characters can't really be placed until more is known about them, since it's deliberately kept vague how evil, if at all, they are. The most you can say is they are rarely complete monsters.

---