Not all examples are this literal.
The Heart Symbol is a well-known symbol of love, peace, and life. You would think that they would always mean something good, right? But sometimes, they are used in association with villains for the sake of irony.
How the hearts are used may vary. Usually, all a villain needs is a costume decorated with heart shapes, or a heart-themed name. But in some cases, the villain is literally a heart-shaped creature.
Sometimes, the baddies who have this might have Love Freak and Heart Beat-Down as their schtick, but in a more twisted way. Another possibility is that it embodies Love Makes You Evil. There's also the version of where the heart symbol is rotated upside-down, showing that the heart symbol represents the exact opposite of its usual right side-up meaning. A more justified version is when the heart is cracked/slashed down the middle, which usually symbolizes a broken heart and tragedy.
Not to be confused with actual human hearts. That would be Evil Is Visceral. Compare Foul Flower, another normally innocent symbol used for evil.
A sub-trope of Light Is Not Good, and Heart Symbol. Related to Fallen Cupid. Because there are likely real people or organizations associated with hearts, No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The Daichis - Earth Defense Family: The anime episode The day Love destroyed the Earth centers around a large Heart that appeared on the top of the Tokyo Tower. While on the surface it may seem like a harmless affectionate heart, it generates a heart plant on their head when looking at the heart and fully forms upon the heart's pink ray. If a person shows affection towards someone with a heart plant on their head then they will have their energy drained. This affected everyone from around the globe not just in Japan. However, the titular family was not affected by the rays (though it did not confirm weather the heart rays can affect Dai since he was sleeping at the time) only until they went inside of the heart where the effects were amplified without the need of a heart ray, which only left Nozomi whom doesn't understand what love is to be unaffected. It was when she got closer to the central nervous system of the heart. Nozomi proclaims that this heart does not represent love at all.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- In his return for Part 3, DIO wears Heart Symbols on his head band and kneepads note however DIO is the main antagonistic force for both Part 1 and 3. Even his Stand The World has them on its body, namely it's chin and also as knee pads.
- A few of his most trusted henchmennote consisting of Pet Shop, D'Arby Younger and Vanilla Ice also have heart symbols on their outfits.
- Naruto: In a variant, Gaara has the kanji for "love" etched on his head with his sand powers, yet he's an Ax-Crazy kid. It actually stems from him being betrayed by his feelings of love as it contributes to his Dark and Troubled Past.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion: Demon Homura's cleavage resembles a broken heart in shape, which likely represents her newly Yandere self towards Madoka.
Comic Books
- The She-Hulk villain Captain Rectitude is a right-wing extremist who has a giant purple heart for a logo.
Films — Animation
- Cats Don't Dance: Hearts are associated with Darla Dimple, who puts on a ridiculously sweet facade for her adoring fans, but turns out to be spoiled, jealous, and vindictive in private. In the second part of her Villain Song, which is a Disney Acid Sequence, hearts are seen everywhere, from the tips of the pointy fence that appears in one part, to the waterfall she imagines the heroes falling down.
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks: Sonata Dusk, part of the villainous trio The Dazzlings, has a heart symbol barred by a musical note as a "cutie mark".
Literature
- The Queen of Hearts from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a bad-tempered despot who often orders to execute her subjects. Adaptations of the book often turn her into the main antagonist.
Live-Action TV
- In Kamen Rider Blade's Playing Card Motifs, Kamen Rider Chalice is the Rider that represents the suit of Hearts. He's not a bad guy, per se, but he's an Anti-Anti-Christ and gigantic threat to everyone regardless.
- One episode of The Librarians 2014 has Prospero summon up a gang of Fictionals, including the Queen of Hearts, who wears a skimpy costume with a heart motif.
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Queen Mio, a reincarnation of sorts of Queen Beryl, wears an outfit that prominently features hearts. It is also an example of Impossibly Tacky Clothes.
- In Arrow, Cupid's arrowheads are shaped like hearts, fitting her theme as a Yandere villain.
Music
- HIM: Their logo is a fusion of a heart and an inverted pentagram, informally called a "heartagram". The band characterizes their style as "love metal". One of the first songs they ever recorded was a cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game", and prior to this the band used yet another symbol - a heart with 666 in the middle. Frontman Ville Valo, who designed the heartagram, later recalled this early symbol was "a bit boring". He later designed another one by crossing a heart with a unicursal hexagram,
a shape made famous by occultist Aleister Crowley. He had it tattooed on himself for reference, but doesn't seem to have done anything else with it.
- The cover of Green Day's American Idiot is a hand holding a heart-shaped grenade.
Pro Wrestling
- In Lucha Libre, most post-1990 examples are in reference to Love Machine, an Evil Foreigner who wore a heart symbols on his mask before he was revealed to be Art Barr or to the Affably Evil extremo ATM, whose mask also has heart-symbol-shaped eye holes.
- Jimmy Jacobs, "the zombie princess from the dark side of a broken heart", often has heart symbols in his merchandise or entrance gear.
- IWA Mid-South regular Danny Demanto has heart symbols cracking in half on his tights.
- Ohio Valley Wrestling has Brandon Espinosa, a homophobic man who dresses in bright pink hearts to lure gays within arms reach.
- Sassy Stephie of the Midwest Militia and SNS Express has two "s"s on her chest that form a heart symbol, when she isn't wearing her Spikes of Villainy.
- Jayme Jameson's "Keep Calm And Suplex On" shirt has a heart symbol by her "signature".
- "The Precious One" Gilbert Cruz had a heart on his tights while he ran with evil manager The Wizard in WWC.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000: The Kabal of the Black Heart is the most infamous of all Dark Eldar, led by Asdrubael Vect, a Time Abyss master of plotting and torture.
Video Games
- In Final Fantasy XIV, Scathach is one of the most powerful voidsent in the setting, recently freed from her imprisonment aboard the Void Ark. She's just as ravenous for aether as other voidsent and sets out to establish her own kingdom in our world to regain her power and conquer. She creates an entire castle for herself decorated with many hearts, some floating around her arena covered in stained glass. Her Girlish Pigtails also frame her face like a heart.
- Kirby:
- Kirby Super Star:
- Once he gains power from NOVA, Marx gains hearts on many parts of his body, especially his glistening wings. Did we mention that he's a psychotic, deceptively cute monster who manipulated Kirby into helping him gain said power?
- The core of NOVA is represented by a floating pink Heart Symbol. Kirby must destroy it to stop NOVA from granting Marx's wish for world domination.
- Queen Sectonia from Kirby: Triple Deluxe has, along with a heart emblem on her chest, tiny hearts adorning her sinister Requisite Royal Regalia. Fitting, considering how cruel and vain she is.
- Kirby: Planet Robobot:
- Unlike the final bosses of many other Kirby games, who are scary Eldritch Abominations, Star Dream is a massive supercomputer with a big heart icon painted on it. It also aims to destroy all organic life as it deems them inefficient and against order.
- As Star Dream returns, this time in a form much more like NOVA, so does its heart, which you fight at the end of the True Arena. This time, the heart moves around and attacks you instead of just staying in the middle. And oddly, it shares a few attacks with Marx, another example of this trope...
- Kirby Star Allies:
- The Jambastion mages and their leader Hyness have an emblem of a heart with demonic wings and a sinister eye on their outfits. It also features on the architecture of their bases, though not quite to the point of Sigil Spam.
- And then there is Void Termina. Aside from the sigil of Hyness' cult appearing on its armor, its mask/face is heart-shaped, and after growing wings, it also has a tail made of hearts. A heart pattern also runs across part of the shell that houses its soul, i.e his actual heart (which, ironically, is round-shaped).
- Kirby Super Star:
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The titular mask is a sentient Artifact of Doom with plans to destroy the world. And it's shaped like a heart.
- The Love Shockers from Jet Set Radio are one of the numerous villainous gamgs. Their graffiti and symbol are heart symbol-based.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- Emblem Heartless are identified by a black-and-red heart with a thorny X across the center, with an arrow pointing straight down.
- Riku's Dark Mode outfit has this emblem on his chest, except minus the X - it's just solid black with a red outline. Even after he completes his Heel–Face Turn, this symbol is the keychain for his own Keyblade.
- Nobodies also have a similar symbol, except it's inverted and colored pure silver, with two notches cut out of the base of the heart.
- In Super Paper Mario, the Chaos Heart is an incredibly deadly Artifact of Doom looking like a heart made out of mercury which can destroy every single universe in existence.
- Do It For Me: The collectibles are big cartoony hearts. At first, they seem like representations of your love for your girlfriend, but they're actually representations of your girlfriend's manipulations.
- League of Legends: Where Yandere undead villain Viego's heart should be is replaced by a vague hollow triangle shape that pours out the Black Mist, symbolizing his broken heart. His possession victims also take on this trait.
- Densetsu no Stafy 4 has the main villain Degil, who uses a strong heart motif on everything from the decorations in her castle (actually Ami Kingdom's castle) to some of her attacks to the artifact she steals, the Mon Amour Stone. It likely symbolizes the fact that she's motivated by unrequited love.
- Guilty Gear -STRIVE- features Happy Chaos, a central antagonist who uses cartoon heart doodles as his primary symbol. Hearts appear not only on his own physical design, but on the masks of his servants and as his calling card when putting his hacking skills to use. However, he's not exactly a malicious villain, he's a chaotic force acting on Blue-and-Orange Morality, simply doing whatever extreme acts he deems necessary to make things interesting.
Web Animation
- Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: Admiral S. Swipe (abbreviated as A. S. Swipe), the Big Bad of "Seaside Stupidity", is a white and gold heart-shaped creature. He's also a ruthless submarine captain who kidnaps Mario and friends.
- Grim Reaper Flag-chan!: Heartbreak Flag-chan wears purple hair accessories in the shape of a broken heart and will go out of her way to foil Mobuo's romantic efforts to have him all to herself.
- Helluva Boss:
- Blitzo and Millie have one each, with Blitzo having a heart-shaped demon's skull on his forehead and Millie has a solid black heart on her right shoulder. Both of them are unrepentant demons from Hell. Likewise, Stolas and his daugher Octavia, due to their designs being based on Barn-Owls, also have white, heart-shaped facial discs. Stolas' complements his amorous personality, while Octavia's is downplayed due to her hat and hair obscuring the top of the heart shape most of the time.
- Fizzarolli, a jester demon whose animatronic likeness Blitzo worked with at Loo Loo Land, also has a heart-shaped marking on his forehead.
- Fitting for a lust-inciting succubus, Verosika Mayday has a number of heart imagery both on her person and the accessories she dons. To name just a few among the many seen on her, she has a heart-shaped beauty mark, the tip of her tail is shaped more like a heart rather than a stereotypical spearhead, and she has a pair of glasses with hearts on the lenses.
- Valentino in Hazbin Hotel is an Overlord of Hell who runs the sex industry. He wears heart-shaped sunglasses, often blows his red cigarette smoke into heart shapes, and even his text bubbles in the prequel comic are filled with hearts.
- Cinder Fall, the main villain of RWBY's early seasons, has a heart-shaped mark on her back. It first appears when she uses a Grimm parasite to steal Amber's powers.
Western Animation
- Ricardio the Heart Guy from Adventure Time is an actual red heart with a face, arms, and legs. He manipulates Princess Bubblegum with the intention of cutting out her heart.
- Beetlejuice: Heart symbols abound in Neither-Neither-Land, the Neitherworld's jail system: a Candyland-like environment where prisoners are "rehabilitated" into cute, sweet, playful creatures.
- Wander over Yonder: Lord Dominator wears a bleeding heart symbol on her shirt, which reflects her love for chaos and destruction.
- The Powerpuff Girls: In a spinoff book based on the original series, Princess Morbucks becomes a Fallen Cupid and shoots people with black heart-tipped arrows, making the afflicted hate each other.
- Subverted in Ruby Gloom, since the whole theme of the cartoon is about "The bright side of the dark side", the symbol of Ruby is a heart with crossbones.
- Steven Universe: The Movie: Spinel's gem was originally designed as a right side-up heart symbol, signifying the fact that she was made to be a sweet, loving, and goofy playmate to Pink Diamond. After Pink Diamond left for Earth and abandoned Spinel in their garden for 6,000 years, Spinel ended up going through so much emotional pressure that it caused her physical form to come undone, and when she reformed, she rotated her gem upside-down as part of her Madness Makeover before she went to destroy Earth and everyone on it as revenge.
