Sandbox / Monster: Tales Series

Saleh: I wonder where our little culprit went? There's no use trying to escape, so come on out~!
Mao: [emotionless] Who...am I...
Saleh: So our culprit has amnesia, does he. I almost feel sorry for the poor little runt. Perhaps it would be kinder of me to go ahead and send him to the other side.
[Saleh attacks the child]
Eugene Gallardo: Wait, Saleh!
Saleh: [grinning] Huh? I'm afraid that it's too late for that, Commander...

—Tales of Rebirth

The Tales Series makes a point of having most villains be ultimately well-intentioned and/or sympathetic, but there are a select few who defy the trend by being pure evil.

All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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Video Games

Mothership Titles

• Tales of Destiny: Kronos (known as Miktran in Japan), the millennia-old King of the Aetherians, is a racist who uses his people's well-being as an excuse to commit genocide against the populace of the Earth, known as the Er'thers. When the Er'thers tried to kill him, he killed one of them and overwrote their Swordian's personality in order to remain alive. Once he's unearthed a thousand years later, he possesses Hugo Gilchrist, making him kill his wife and abuse his son for 16 years and nearly causing several world wars to erupt as a means to gain the Eye of Atamoni. Though he uses the well-being of the Aetherians as an excuse to laser the Earth both before and after his "death" and to kill hundreds of people, he has no true care for his people, as shown by him ignoring the descendants of the Aetherians living in the wasteland of Calvalese. A cruel and petty man, he takes amusement from the suffering about others and will stop at nothing to revive his kingdom.
• Tales of Destiny 2: Barbatos Goetia, a former member of the Er'ther Army, sold out his people to the Aetherians during the Aeth'er Wars so that he could be on the winning side. Due to the scale of the atrocities he committed, Barbatos's name was removed from history altogether. Following his resurrection by Elraine, Barbatos acts as her personal assassin, going after the heroes who saved the world from the resurrection of the Aethersphere and the superweapon Belcrant. In order to kill two of these heroes, Stahn and Rutee, Babartos uses a little boy as a hostage and threatens to kill him unless they drop their weapons. After they do so, Barbatos kills Stahn and cripples Rutee. Barbatos then tries to kill High Priestess Philia Felice and King Garr Kelvin of Phandaria, the latter of which he attempts to kill after crashing an airship into the royal castle as a distraction. When he returns with Elraine to the past, Barbatos encounters Dymlos, the old enemy who had killed him, and, in revenge, kidnaps a girl who's in love with Dymlos to use her as a hostage to force the weakened Dymlos to duel him. Utterly self-centered, Barbatos's ultimate goal and obsession is to force history to recognize him as a hero, even as he commits every evil deed imaginable and has no comprehension of what true heroism is.
• Tales of Symphonia has these two mad scientists:
  • Kvar the Fury Tempest is infamous for being the cruelest of the Desian Grand Cardinals. Heartless and sadistic, Kvar runs a Human Ranch where his prisoners are turned into Exospheres in a process that leaves the party horrified. Discovering that some of his prisoners escaped from the ranch to the village of Luin, Kvar attacks Luin, destroying the village, killing many and capturing the survivors for his experiments. When Lloyd encounters Kvar, the Cardinal brags about how he removed the Exosphere from Lloyd's mother, causing her to turn into a monster and attack both her child and her lover, Kratos, which resulted in Kratos killing her to save their son. The depth of Kvar's depravity is such that even his own men are appalled by him.
  • Iron Will Rodyle is another Desian Grand Cardinal. Taking over Kvar's experiments following his death, Rodyle manages his own Human Ranches and is working to create a superweapon, the Mana Cannon, in order to destroy the Tower of Salvation, overthrow his boss, and become the ruler of two worlds. When the party frees the Ranch's prisoners, Rodyle manages to trap the prisoners again and floods the room they're in, forcing the party to watch. Following his defeat, Rodyle activates the self-destruct sequence of his Human Ranch to make sure the heroes and everyone else in the Ranch dies with him.
• Tales of Rebirth has the Big Bad and two of her Co-Dragons:
  • Zilva Madigan is the genocidal leader of the Four Stars and the one pulling the strings behind the Kingdom of Callegea to ensure that the Gajuma reign supreme and the Huma are all eradicated. To achieve this, Zilva possessed the body of Dr. Barrs, the most revered doctor in the kingdom, then used it to poison and kill Ladras Lindblum, the King of Karegia. Following this, Zilva used Dr. Barrs's body to attack his good friend, Eugene, forcing Eugene to kill Barrs in self-defense, leading to Eugene's exile for "murder." Afterwards, Zilva began manipulating the naïve daughter of King Ladras, the new queen, Agarte. Zilva convinced Agarte to kidnap beautiful Huma girls for Agarte to switch bodies with, kickstarting the events of the game, and later convinced Agarte to revive Geyorkias, the King of Sacred Beasts. This was all done so that Zilva could take over Callegea and use Geyorkias's power to cleanse the world of Huma.
  • Tohma, one of Zilva's Four Stars, stands out even in comparison to his boss as a vile being, especially for his treatment of two characters, Hilda and her friend Millitsa. Tohma was intrigued in the combat potential of Halves, and so lures out and abducts Hilda from her loving parents and kills her father in one punch when he tries to get her back, laughing at how weak he was. He proceeds to raise Hilda as a Tyke-Bomb, making her and Millitsa—whom Tohma has brainwashed—grow up in an environment where they would be neglected and ignored for being Halves and lies to them about being able to gift them with "pure" bodies if they do as he says. He then trains them to torture and kill while they are still children, abducting people for them to "practice" on. When Hilda breaks off her horns in an attempt to pass as human, Tohma sends her on a suicide mission he fully expects her to fail and reveals he lied to her when she does, making her powers go out of control which could easily kill her.
  • Saleh, Tohma's partner in the Four Stars, is a Boomerang Bigot who willingly goes along with Zilva's plans to eradicate all Huma, despite being one himself. Obsessed with "The power of the heart," he aims to destroy this power by causing misery and despair wherever he goes, be it by hurting civilians for no reason or by deliberately heightening tensions between Huma and Gajuma—said tensions powering an Eldritch Abomination. No one is safe from his malice, including children or the comic relief villains, whom he brainwashes into attacking the heroes until they either kill them or die trying.
• Tales of Legendia: Vaclav Bolud, the third prince of the militaristic Crusand Empire, is defined by his ruthless ambitions. Properly ineligible for succeeding the throne due to his lineage, Vaclav leads an independent military unit in the hopes of eventually discovering a means to violently overthrow the Crusand monarchy. Vaclav, discovering the continental Legacy at sea, deciphers the secrets behind the ship's Nerifes Cannon and kick-starts a global search for the fabled Merines to activate its dormant powers. When Vaclav's child protege Senel Coolidge finds the Merines and abandons him out of love for the Ferines people, Vaclav years later discovers Senel's location and launches a genocidal campaign against the Ferines. Although Vaclav fails to capture Senel and the Merines, he succeeds in killing or capturing most of the Ferines. Seeking an alternative to the runaway Merines, Vaclav began horrific human experiments to produce an artificial Merines, indiscriminately murdering hundreds. Though Vaclav is ultimately defeated, he uses the last of his strength to indiscriminately fire the Nerifes Cannon upon the mainland, laughingly proclaiming the world shall be destroyed if he cannot have it.
• Tales of Vesperia has these two evil aristocrats of the Empire:
  • Alexander Cumore, a captain of the Imperial Knights, is from a noble family and considers peasants to be completely beneath him. When he is placed in charge of the town of Heliord, he tricks peasants into volunteering for brutal labor with the promise of making them nobles. Cumore has no authority to ennoble people and he knows it. The labor these peasants undergo is so brutal that many of them die of exhaustion. Later, Cumore is sent to govern an oasis town to find a monster that lives in the desert. While in this position, he forces the peasants in the town to go into the desert to find the monster, knowing that this will likely kill them.
  • Ragou is the corrupt magistrate of Nor Harbor. Nor Harbor has been experiencing storms, making it hard for the people there to make a living off of the port commerce. To make things worse, Ragou harshly taxes his people. If someone cannot afford his taxes, Ragou sends his mercenaries to take their loved ones—including children—as collateral. He keeps these loved ones in a basement full of monsters. When the heroes confront him over this, he explains that he finds people getting eaten by monsters to be entertaining. Ragou offers only one hope to his people: If they kill a vicious monster and bring back its horn as proof, they will never have to pay taxes again. Of course, this monster would make short work of most people who try to fight it. The heroes eventually discover that the storms around Nor Harbor are created by a special Blastia in Ragou's mansion, showing that he orchestrated the suffering of his people for his own amusement.
• Tales of Hearts: Geocron Striegov is first introduced as just a typical Special Ops general under Silver. Shortly into his first appearance, however, he shows glee at torturing people, especially at whipping Kohaku Hearts. Then, when Creed Graphite resurfaced, he suddenly goes turncoat and then join forces with Creed, not caring about the latter's destructive ambition. During the next encounter, Geocron reveals that he is obsessed with collecting the Spiria Cores of living beings, taking great pleasure in seeing the suffering of those who lost their cores, one of them being Silver's daughter Lapis, and the reason why he became an Anti-Villain in the first place. In the end, he willfully Xerom-ized for nothing but power, caring about nothing but his own collection and desires.
• Tales of Arise has these two Renan Lords:
  • Almeidrea Kaineris is the Lord of Mahag Saar. Coming to power through various underhanded means, Almeidrea would wipe out the surviving Dahnan mages, with only Rinwell surviving. Almeidrea would also develop the Fruit of Helgan, which would be used to harvest excess Astral energy from Dahnans; said harvesting results in those consuming the Fruit of Helgan dissolving into a pool of liquid mass. Almeidrea would supply the Fruit of Helgan to Kelzalik's faction of Renan supremacists when they move against Lord Dolhalim's benevolent rule over Elde Menacia; one of the victims of the Fruit of Helgan in Elde Menacia was Kisara's brother Migal. Seemingly driven out of Niez by the Dark Wings, Almeidrea would feign surrender, only to then wipe out most of the Dark Wings by poisoning their food and drink with the Fruit of Helgan. Following her defeat at the hands of Alphen's party, Almeidrea's last act is to spit on the mercy offered by Rinwell, and call on Lord Vholran to assist her in finishing off the party.
  • Lord Vholran Igniseri was a Dahnan slave experimented on by the Helganquil to become Sovereign. Developing a nihilistic hatred of all life after his time as a slave, Vholran would ascend to the top of the Renan hierarchy after killing the lord of Ganath Haros. Vholran would hide his existence as a Sovereign from the rest of the world in order to take pleasure in the suffering caused by the Crown Contest, and also takes pleasure in seeing Shionne's suffering after kidnapping her following the battle with Almeidrea. When the party arrives in Pelegion to save Shionne, they find the entire population brainwashed and compelled to sacrifice themselves in Vholran's name. After his first defeat, Vholran would willingly allow the Helganquil to use him to conduct the Spirit Channeling ceremony in a bid to seize the Renas Alma for himself, despite the destruction it would cause on Dahna. Surviving the battle between the party and the Helganquil, Vholran would reemerge following the defeat of the Great Spirit to take the Renas Alma for himself, vowing to use it to erect a fortress of death over both worlds. After his defeat by Alphen, Vholran rejects Alphen's offer of forgiveness, opting instead to blow himself up with the Renas Alma to spite Alphen by denying him the chance to use the Renas Alma to save Shionne.

Escort Titles

• Tales of the Tempest: The unnamed Spot possessing Inquisitor Rommy captures Leimorneans to use them for magical experiments and to harvest their souls. Psychotic and cruel, the demonic spirit kills for fun and frames its crimes on its own innocent prisoners. Controlling Caius Qualls's father, the Spot forces him to fight his own son before it grows bored and kills him in front of Caius. Killing the heroine's parents for no reason other than to entertain itself, the Spot also enjoys twisting the heroes' trust of each other to watch the emotional turmoil. Twisted and sadistic, the Spot killed, tortured and brainwashed for its own sick enjoyment.
• Tales of Crestoria:
  • Count Senegal of Northmine, the Arc Villain of Chapter 4, has a fiery hatred for the people of Southvein. Manipulating Luke fon Fabre into starting an avalanche that wipes out half of Southvein's population under the guise of a peace offering, Senegal arrives and has his army wipe out the remaining survivors—which include innocent children. Disguising it all as an act of justified retaliation, Senegal attempts to have the heroes and Luke killed for attempting to expose him.
  • Malcolm Sloat is a scientist who seeks to create a system where humans can change their appearance by swapping souls with each other. Testing this hypothesis on humans and monsters, Sloat has transgressors kidnapped, their souls forced into the body of monsters and vice versa, uncaring if the subjects are killed by his scientists. With children not being safe from his experiments, Sloat was also responsible for using Emil Castagnier as a test subject, injecting him with enough monster souls to create the toxic split personality Ratatosk, which he views as a personal achievement. With dozens upon dozens of body bags filling his lair, when he's encountered by the protagonists, Sloat can only brag about his intelligence before attempting to kill them with his prototype monster.

Other Media

• Tales of Zestiria: The X anime: Lord Bartlow of the Ladylake City Council pushes for war with the neighboring nation, Rolance, and tries to assassinate his princess, Alisha, when she advocates for peaceful resolution. With Alisha later sent away, Bartlow has his troops stationed to launch a full-scale assault on Rolance. Branding Alisha and her allies traitors when they stop his plot and killing many of her allies, Bartlow later crucifies her mentor in the hopes of luring out Alisha and her companions. When Alisha instead goes to the palace to warn her father of Bartlow's treachery, Bartlow arrives and mortally wounds the king while trying to kill her, then nonchalantly decides to pin the crime on Alisha.

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