Biblical Bad Guy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The bad guys from The Bible are well known and as such don't require introduction, and everyone knows they are evil. The really handy thing is that many of them are regularly theorized to be cursed with immortality as part of their punishment for being bad guys, providing a decent reason for a Biblical Bad Guy to show up in any time period.

Note: Satan, Evil God, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse have their own tropes. See also the Name of Cain.

Some frequently used Biblical Bad Guys:

Cain -- The First Murderer

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

  • A recent[when?] DC comics revelation is that the immortal caveman Vandal Savage is Cain, the "inventor of crime".
    • Maybe. A group called the Order of the Stone did some sort of magic ritual with the Spear of Destiny, causing Cain to be reborn in Savage. Whether he actually was Cain, or just being possessed or something, is up in the air.
    • Cain is also theoretically present in the DC verse due to his presence in The Sandman, where he and Abel became part of Dream's realm. It's implied, however, that he and his brother aren't the biblical Cain and Abel, but are instead symbols of the first sentient being to ever willingly kill another member of its species. They were then inducted into the Dreaming as the archetypes of the original murderer and victim, so while we see them as Cain and Abel, other species would see someone else. One character describes their existence as the "ghost of a memory of someone who, one suspects, never existed in the first place", as a result this is feasibly compatible with the above fact about Vandal Savage.
  • Invoked in the civilian name of Marvel's Juggernaut -- Cain Marko -- and his (former) relationship with his half-brother, Professor Charles Xavier of the X-Men.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • Grendel is sometimes portrayed as Cain in later adaptations. What we have of the original was rewritten to include Christian elements, so this isn't particularly surprising (though the wording it uses would imply a descendant of Cain.)

Tabletop Games

  • In Vampire: The Masquerade, the first vampire is named "Caine" and is the Cain from the Bible. In Demon: The Fallen (in the same universe), it's noted that Caine invented murder and the killing of sentients.
    • Though in the vampire mythology Caine was The Messiah who righted wrongs and punished the wicked.
    • Cain is also alluded to in the Video Game Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. Apparently, he spends his eternal afterlife working as a cab driver in Downtown LA. Playing as a Malkavian, you realize this when you eventually meet him. You would Go Mad from the Revelation, but, y'know, you already are.
    • According to the in-universe Vampire scripture The Book of Nod, Caine spent a good amount of time with Adam's first wife Lilith, who taught him all about the Disciplines. It's not quite clear what she is, but she definitely had some sort of supernatural power and probably wasn't a Vampire herself, at least not in the same way that Caine was.

Video Games

  • Cain is the name of a character that appears in Galerians, and turns out to be not only a Galerian, but a clone of the protaganist who was sent by the mother computer Dorothy to destroy him, and prevent the activation of the virus program that will destroy her.
  • Naoya in Devil Survivor is a reincarnation of Cain, punished by God to be reborn every time the old body dies, and has the memory of every life time he has lived ever since his first life. Over his long life he has become obsessed with revenge and seeks to achieve that by having Abel, the player character, rebel against God. Granted, this is Mega Ten, so YHWH kinda deserves it.
    • On a lesser note, Jezebel.
    • Acctually, YHWH's evilness is subverted here. He's mellowed out a lot since the 90's. What that says about Naoya, though...
    • However it is implied in Overclocked that YHWH manipulated Cain into killing Abel. He also hasn't mellowed out at all in the other games either.
  • It is hinted at that the Nod commander Kane in Command & Conquer is... Cain. Evidence for indicates that he is shown to be the same age during the 1940s, he survives an Ion Cannon blast that he embraces and when assumed to be be the Biblical Cain by followers does not deny it.
    • In the rather poorly recieved final chapter known as Tiberian Twilight, it is revealed that Cain is actually an Alien stranded on Earth for the past thousands of years. For some...reason. I have absolutely no idea where they were going with this, but he phoned home at the ending anyway.
  • In Assassin's Creed II it's revealed in the optional glyphs that Cain killed Abel over a Piece of Eden and was the founder of the Templar Order.

Web Original

Judas -- Iconic Betrayer

Comic Books

Film

  • The Librarian has Judas as the first vampire.
  • In Dracula 2000 Dracula is Judas who is also the Wandering Jew, a legend of a man forced to Walk the Earth very clearly based on the story of Cain.
    • Interestingly, the way to kill him is to re-create the conditions of the incomplete hanging that caused him to be trapped between life and death.

Literature

  • Not a direct example, but The Knights of the Blackened Denarius in The Dresden Files get their powers from 30 silver coins, each with a fallen angel inside. The coins are heavily implied to be the 30 coins that Judas was paid to betray Jesus.
    • Nicodemus, leader of the Knights, also wears the noose Judas hung himself with as a necktie; it offers him protection from anything. Except, as Harry finds out when he tugs on the end of it, itself.

Theatre

Video Games

  • In one of the Ultima games you can recruit an ally named Saduj. Guess how loyal he is.....

Haman -- First Attempted Genocide

Western Animation

Book of Revelation -- The End of the World

Film

  • "The Girl" who accompanies Dean Corso throughout the events of 1999's The Ninth Gate is all but revealed to be the Whore of Babylon at the end of the film.

Video Games

Other Figures

Web Original

  • Hazbin Hotel:
    • Adam (as in, the first man) is leader of the Exorcists, a Knight Templar in charge of slaughtering Hell's residents during the annual purge. Utterly without mercy, it is hinted that he has a personal vendetta.
    • Lucifer (Charlie's father) seems to at least be partially based on his depiction in the Book of Isaiah, being a Fallen Angel (confirmed by Word of God) with six radiant wings.

Western Animation

  • Delilah (along with Samson) appears in a Pinky and the Brain segment of Animaniacs where Brain is also trying to discover the secret of Samson's great strength.