Evil Brit: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Any character with a [[British Accents|British accent]], particularly an upper class English one (which tends to be the [[Small Reference Pools|only type you hear]] in American media) is likely to turn out to be a villain.

Given the way in which American fans often respond to British accents, fandoms sometimes turn this sort of character into [[Draco in Leather Pants]].

 

 

Doesn't really apply in British works, of course. In those, this role is often [[Acceptable Targets|given to the French, Germans or (rarely, especially nowadays) Americans]].

 

See also [[I Am Very British]].

{{examples}}

 

* Dio Brando from ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]''.

** Subverted. In part 1, it's set in Britain, so everyone is British, even the protagonist and supporting cast.

** Guess that's why he has the voice of [[Tim Curry]] in [[The Abridged Series]].

* The world of ''[[Code Geass]]'' is dominated by Britannia, an [[The Empire|imperialistic superpower]] that goes around conquering nation after nation with little or no internal dissent, thus making it entirely possible that most Brits are either evil, racist or just uncaring. [[Alternate History|Maybe that's what happens]] when you have a Britain that somehow repelled Rome and centuries later lost the Napoleonic wars, moving its central government to the American colonies. Furthermore, nearly all the minor Britannian nobles in the show have outdated hairstyles dating back 100 years, except for the Emperor himself whose fashion is even older just to make sure we know he's [[Fashion Victim Villain|even more evil]].

** A Britannia that has defeated Rome (and become them) would be quite different to one that threw Rome out and reverted to a clan / local King system.

*** Of course, at the same time, it wouldn't ''be'' Britannia without major Roman influence.

** Though it seems that the Britannian nobility is a tad more cosmopolitan than their real-world counterpart was—Baroness Viletta Nu for example has very dusky skin.

** [[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Florence]] on the other hand plays this straight.

*** And, from the same series, resident evil [[Large Ham]] Marik Ishtar plays it straight by sounding more British than Florence.

* The ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' English dub went out of its way to show us what a bastard Ash's Charmander's original owner was by giving him a god awful [[Dick Van Dyke]]-esque cockney accent.

* L in ''[[Death Note]]'' is stated by [[Word of God]] to have some evil in him, and is British as a character.

 

* The Egyptians in ''[[The Prince of Egypt]]'' have British accents (and are played by some very fine English actors), while the Hebrews are "Americans." Moses also has an American accent despite having grown up in the Egyptian royal family.

* Many [[Disney Animated Canon]] villains have vaguely British accents; some manage to have them while being [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Arabian]] or [[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|French]]. Or [[The Lion King|carnivorous]] [[The Jungle Book (Disney film)|cats]].

* In ''[[Cars 2]]'', the mastermind behind the lemons' plot is {{spoiler|Sir Miles Axlerod, who's voiced by [[Eddie Izzard]] no less.}}

* John Hurt as The Horned King in Disney's film adaptation of ''[[The Black Cauldron]]''

* Victor Maitland from ''[[Beverly Hills Cop]]''.

* Evil Kryptonian General Zod and his [[Femme Fatale]] hench-woman Ursa were portrayed by Brits Terrance Stamp and Sarah Douglas in ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]] II''.

* [[Tim Roth]] plays Emil Blonsky (in the comics, a Russian) in ''[[The Incredible Hulk]]''. Loosely [[Hand Wave|hand waved]] as saying the character was brought up in England.

* Another example from the [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]]: [[Tom Hiddleston]] as Loki in ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]''.

* Charles Dance has played an Evil Brit in at least two movies: ''[[The Golden Child]]'' (devil worshipper) and ''[[Last Action Hero]]'' (assassin).

* The "hooligan" sounding tough guy variety of Evil Brit is exemplified by Vinnie Jones in the American film ''The Condemned''. This is as opposed to his roles in ''[[Snatch]]'' and ''[[Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels]]'', where most of the cast have some form of UK accent.

* Tavington from ''[[The Patriot]]'' (who, in the person of [[Jason Isaacs]], supplies the page picture), a travesty of the [[Real Life]] [[wikipedia:Banastre Tarleton|Banastre Tarleton]]. Sure, it's a movie about the American Revolution, but did they really have to make him so utterly cruel and despicable?

* Basically, this is the driving force between [[Alan Rickman]] and [[Jason Isaacs]]' careers.

** And [[Jeremy Irons]]'.

*** Actually Hans and his brother Simon from ''[[Die Hard]]'' were German, but you certainly wouldn't guess that from their accents.

**** The topic of British villains in movies and Rickman in particular was discussed on Stephen Fry's panel show ''[[QI]]'', while on Top Gear, Scottish actor Brian Cox suggested to Jeremy Clarkson that Brits were cast as the baddies in Hollywood movies because Americans 'fundamentally mistrust intelligence'.

** Then again, ''everyone'' was either British, Russian or American in this film. Including the protagonist. Trevelian was the child of Lienz Cossacks, making him probably Brit-raised-Austrian.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'', although that was more incidental, since union rules for British films at the time required a minimum number of speaking parts for British actors, so a lot were cast as Imperial officers. Both he Imperials and Rebels were played by mostly British actors but all the Rebels' voices were later dubbed by American actors. A few sources claim that the upper-class English accent is the default accent on Coruscant.

* Jeremy Talbot from the British Consulate in the film ''[[Jumping Jack Flash]]''.

* ''[[Dreamcatcher]]'' has a particularly odd example- all of the characters start off with American accents, but as soon as one guy gets infected by [[The Virus]] and becomes the [[Big Bad]] he starts talking with an upper class British accent.

* There are two candidates for [[Big Bad]] in the movie ''[[Resident Evil]]: Degeneration''. Between the spineless, obnoxious asshole Senator Ron Davis and the polite, smooth-talking Brit Frederic Downing, which do ''you'' think ends up being the true villain responsible for the outbreak? The first guess doesn't count.

** And the holographic manifestation of [[Creepy Child|The Red Queen]] is a British little girl.

* ''[[Batman Begins]]'' has Ra'as Al Ghul played by Liam Neeson.

** And in ''[[The Dark Knight Rises]]'', Bane, Hispanic in the comics, is [[Race Lift|reimagined]] as a white evil brit for the film, played by [[Tom Hardy]].

* The 1970s ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' had German characters played by English-speakers: all the likeable characters sounded American while the cruel drill-sergeant and the blood-thirsty new recruit sounded British.

* Inverted in the John Goodman version of ''[[The Borrowers]]''. The whole cast was British except for the villain, who was played by an American (Goodman himself, obviously).

* Averted in all of the James Bond movies, despite their being produced by Americans and targeted in large part at American audiences. The heroes are always British members of Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the villains most often Continental Europeans, Asians, or even Americans.

** Except for Goldeneye, of course.

* In ''[[Anaconda]]s 2'', the British team member is the only one to turn [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] in the search for the rare and immensely valuable [[MacGuffin|blood orchid]], willfully sacrificing his colleagues to do so.

* [[Christopher Lee]], although he's a specialist villain actor anyway.

* Underworld saw Bill Nighy as an Evil Brit vampire.

 

* In [[Michael Moorcock]]'s ''[[Hawkmoon]]'' stories, the villains are the [[Evil Empire|Dark Empire]] of Granbretan: An [[Exclusively Evil]] nation of Evil Brits in a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|fantastic version of Europe]].

* In the [[Andrew Vachss]] Burke book ''Strega'', Burke is forced to speak civilly to a self-proclaimed pedophile with a "semi-Brit" accent. Said pedophile becomes an occasionally recurring character. {{spoiler|At least until ''Dead and Gone'', where he turns out to be behind the plot to kill Burke, was actually faking the pedophile thing, and gets killed offscreen.}}

* ''[[In Death]]'': A number of the murderers turn out to be British, as well as [[Complete Monster]]s. Then again, as the author [[Nora Roberts]] is American and of Irish descent, she will happily make use of this trope.

 

* In one episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' Moriarty from the [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories comes back in holographic form to menace the crew. However, he was played an American actor who miraculously effected a stunningly believable British accent. Justified in this case by the fact that, well, it's Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories—what else would he be ''but'' British?

* Adam Monroe and Daniel Linderman from ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''. Though Adam is actually played by an American.

* Lila from ''[[Dexter]]''.

* Dr. Zachary Smith on ''[[Lost in Space]]'' was never specifically said to be British, but he most definitely fits the "vaguely upper-class" stereotype with his pompous personality, refined way of speaking, and haughty manner.

** Lampshaded when James Callis put on a Yorkshire accent to demonstrate his poverty-stricken origins on Aerelon.

** Which is weird for two reasons: 1. His 'fake' Caprican accent sounds like none of the other (North American) Capricans. 2. His 'posh' accent sounds more like Estuary English i.e. it sometimes sounds 'posh' but sometimes sounds slightly 'Cockney'.

*** Since ''[[Caprica]]'' started, things have gotten a bit murkier, since Clarice Willow speaks with Polly Walker's native English accent (not terribly different from Callis', although Walker is from Cheshire). At first, this lent credibility to the theory that the planet Caprica has lots of different accents—and then, we discover that Clarice was born on Sagittaron—and none of the Sagittarons on ''BSG'' spoke with British accents either. (For the record, Clarice is portrayed ''quite'' sympathetically, and doesn't really fit into the Evil Brit trope).

** According the commentary on 'Razor' everyone got to use their real accent for the most part; to imply variety in the Colonies. The only reason Bamber didn't use his British accent was to make him sound like Commander Adama to imply their familial relationship, which they needed all the help they could get on, considering the actors were different ethnicities (Olmos being an emphatically-brown Mexican and Bamber being as white as they come; Olmos wore blue contact lenses to return the favor, covering his brown eyes).

* ''[[Dollhouse]]'' gives us Adelle DeWitt, who isn't technically a villain, but is at best morally suspect.

** Jamie Bamber's character in 2.01 "Vows".

* Lord Darken Rahl in ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'' has a British accent. Craig Parker is a Kiwi who lived in England for a while.

* In the British miniseries ''[[Jekyll]]'' the trope is inverted by having the boss-level baddies represented by Americans (albeit using British actors with poor accents).

* Julian Sark from ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' (played by an American).

** And Lauren Reed (played by an Australian).

* Crichton seemingly draws inspiration from this trope in ''[[Farscape]]'' when he has to imitate a Peacekeeper, while the series adopts it wholeheartedly with the character of Scorpius.

** Presumably the reason Crichton uses that (atrociously bad) British accent is because most of the Peacekeepers use British accents, though most are played by Australians (as is pretty much everyone not John Crichton.)

* Major Zod on ''[[Smallville]]'' has a heavy British accent. It actually makes him difficult to understand on occasion.

* A few of the Downbelow gang leaders in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' have thick British accents, and stood out as particularly nasty customers.

* Klaus on [[The Vampire Diaries]] even though he's supposed to be Scandanavian.

 

 

** That could actually work as a real trope, there are many movies, video games, and TV shows that have the [[Putting on the Reich]] villains be played by British actors.

 

** Even Regal became the lackey or [[The Dragon]] for one of the most glorious monarchs to reign in the squared circle: King Bookah ([[Booker T]])! He comes complete with [[Rich Bitch|a Queen]], [[Oireland|a fighting Irishman]], [[The Mean Brit]], and a nice parodic [[British Accents|fake accent]]. Of course, Booker's not British...

* Dave Taylor, who has as much in-ring talent as Regal but a bare fraction of the charisma, plays the same gimmick.

* For that matter, Scotsman Drew McIntyre, especially in the first half of 2010. He's never really been a good guy, but around that time, he threw temper tantrums over all his losses, would whine to the boss to get the losses revoked, would throw his weight around because he was apparently "The Chosen One", and went "officially" undefeated for six months.

 

* ''[[The Goon Show]]'' featured the ''entente cordiale'' of Evil Brit Hercules Grytpype-Thynne (whose voice was based on George Sanders) and Evil Frenchman Count Jim Moriarty as villains in most episodes. Other characters also could fit the pattern, especially Major Dennis Bloodnok, but sometimes even Wallace Greenslade, the announcer.

 

* Colin Quinn's ''Long Story Short'' has the description and the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of England which fits this trope to a tee.

{{quote|"The British Empire at is peak controls one quarter of the world's population and landmass. This by the way is a small goddamn country. So how did they do it? It wasn't military might, it was ''contempt''."}}

 

* In the RTS ''RUSE'', Nazi General von Richter talks with a British accent, although his aide-de-camp talks in English with a German accent. It is subverted though, as Colonel Campbell is actually British (with an appropriate dialect), and on the goodie's side.

* Archibald Grims from [[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]] is a particularly [[Ax Crazy]] [[Wicked Cultured]] version of this. One of his ancestors in a side manga was pretty much this as well.

*** Possibly [[Justified Trope|justified]] as Liquid mentions having trained with the SAS. It's possible he picked up the accent during that time.

** And of course, ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' reveals that {{spoiler|the leader of the Patriots}} was {{spoiler|Major Zero, who started them, ironically, because of his admiration of an American patriot}}. Whether he starts out as a villain is ambiguous, but from the {{spoiler|'70s}} onward he fits.

*** Her accent comes from her being from Rhodesia, an ex-British colony. At least one parent of hers was probably British, or of British descent. Of vourse, she has very little memory of her parents and was raised by a globe-trotting American merc.

** The opening chapter of ''4'' sees you going up against a whole army of them - Praying Mantis. [[Not Even Bothering with the Accent|Not that you're likely to know they're at all British]].

* Harry Flynn in [[Uncharted]].

* [[Big Bad|Sofia Lamb]] from ''[[BioShock 2]]''.

* In ''[[Red Faction]]: Guerrilla'', {{spoiler|Samanya}} has an apparently inexplicable British accent ([[Fake Brit|well, I say 'British']]) on a planet populated mostly by Americans. That's your first clue as to the fact that she's {{spoiler|a Marauder and the leader's sister (the leader also speaks with a similar British accent), although the trope is eventually subverted as the Marauders are allies for the last few battles and the villains are all American}}.

* The very very ''very'' British game ''[[Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure]]'' has Weasleby as the Big Bad, a more typical example. [[Smug Snake|Condescending]], top-hat, very wealthy, [[Evil Laugh]]? He's got all that AND a flying robot machine [[Face Ship|in the shape of his top hat]]! Of course, Henry himself is the a great example of a [[Quintessential British Gentleman]].

* Subverted in ''[[Assassin's Creed]]''. Despite his name, one may expect Robert de Sable to be British, as he works directly under the king of England, but, both historically and in game, he is French.

** With ''[[Assassin's Creed III]]'' taking place during the American Revolution, Evil Brits will be in abundance; however, Templars and allies to Connor have been stated to be on both sides of the conflict, to avoid comparisons to a certain other [[The Patriot|one-sided depiction]] of the Revolution.

* The Helgahst from the ''[[Killzone]]'' series have mostly British accents and are basically just [[Space Jews|Nazis IN SPACE]]! Though its a little bit odd considering that the Helgahst home world of Helghan was colonized mostly by oppressed space settlers who were fleeing from the "oppressive ISA" and claim to be fighting for their freedom. Anybody notices any similarities between the Helghast and a certain other real world former colony?

** [[Zero Punctuation]] takes offense with ''Killzone 3'' because not only are the Helgahst Evil Brits, they ''speak with a Cockney accent'', which Croshaw gets annoyed with. It's easier to accept evil upper class Brits, but Cockneys? Unforgiven.

* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' has Zaeed. [[Bounty Hunter]] extraordinaire, very skilled warrior... And also not giving a shit about burning alive some civilians to get his stuff done and letting his {{spoiler|Blue Suns}} soldiers getting killed due to him being a piss-poor tactician and a [[Bad Boss]].

* {{spoiler|Wheatley, eventually,}} in ''[[Portal 2]]''.

* In ''[[The Orion Conspiracy]]'', at least one character speaks English with a British accent. {{spoiler|Captain Shannon}}, happens to be evil as well as speaking English with a posh British accent.

* Played up with the Penguin's appearance in ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]''. Not only does his British upbringing show, he also has the accent and the word usage to back it up.

* Nexus from ''[[Warzone 2100]]'' speaks with a British accent, despite the setting of the game and all of its other voice actors being American.

 

{{quote|Pardon me for being predictable, but I am now going to complain about how all the bad guys in Killzone are British - because someone should be pissed about this, [[The Mean Brit|and it might as well be me.]] I stood up for the Russians when I reviewed all those fantasy Cold War wank games, and I don't even know any Russians. I'm fine with that thing where the main villain is a posh British guy, because lets face it: Cooing at rainbows sounds evil if you do it in a posh British accent. It is only when you make all the evil soldiers cockney that you enter the prejudiced parade. Cockney doesn't sound evil, it sound honest and cheeky-chips lovable. You can't picture [[Dick Van Dyke]] hiding in the bushes in a park popping children's balloons with a blow-pipe. You might say that I make too much of a fuss, but someone in the dev-team at some point said to themself: "We have a race where every individual member is so morally bankrupt that the player feels perfectly justifiable splattering them painfully against the ceiling. Now, how do we bring that across with some sort of vocal short-hand?" And the most bitter pill to swallow is this: [[Putting on the Reich|They all look like Nazis.]] '''''We helped defeat the Nazi!'''''}}

* {{spoiler|Gemma}} from ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'' is revealed to be this in season 1.

* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'':Freelancer Wyoming is a Type 1 example.

* In ''[[Gantz Abridged]]'', the titular [[Robotic Psychopath]] is introduced with a British accent, but then immediately switches to a mechanical voice (think Steven Hawking).

* Maxwell Lombardi from V4 of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' is fast becoming one of these after killing {{spoiler|1=Augustus MacDougal, Harold Fisher}} and {{spoiler|Vera Osborne}}. And he's only doubled his body count since. [[Complete Monster|Without provocation.]]

 

* It isn't entirely clear why supposedly Cajun master-of-diguise Zartan had an English accent on the ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' cartoon series. It is clear that he was a villain.

* Parodied on ''[[Monkey Dust]]'' in their version of Anne Frank's Diary. Yes the young Irish girl is holding out for the American love interest Johnny to save her and her family of line-dancing drunks. Meanwhile in Berlin, England, English Hitler is planning to capture Anne Frank and marry her. Needless to say Johnny and the gang end up beating up Adolf for President Churchill.

** ''Monkey Dust'' did it again in their version of "The Crusades". A group of American Knights are shipped off to the holy land to rescue the Holy Grail from British-accented Saladin (or, as they call him: "Say-leddin! You English bastard!"). Along the way they use pretty much every trope from every Action film ever, and a great many humorous anachronisms. The film is dedicated to "all the Americans who died during the crusades".

* This trope explains the otherwise inexplicable fact that Stewie from ''[[Family Guy]]'' has a (supposed to be) British accent.

* Both Megatrons in ''[[Transformers Film Series|the live action movie]]'' and ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' have a vaguely British accent.

** In fact, every Megatron played by [[David Kaye]] (''[[Beast Wars]]'', ''[[Beast Machines]]'', ''Armada'', ''Energon'' and ''Cybertron'') all have an accent that oozes danger, brilliance and magnificent bastardy of an order barely concievable. Guess what nation of the planet Earth it is eerily familiar to...

** Also, in [[Transformers Generation 1|the original cartoon]] Shockwave had a David-Warner-inspired British accent. His ''Animated'' equivalent (who has the same VA) retains this and {{spoiler|his double-agent identity of Longarm has an American accent}}.

** In ''[[Batman: Under the Red Hood]]'', Ra's' cultured British accent is provided by Jason Isaacs.

* Superman's enemy Metallo was [[Race Lift]]ed into an Evil Brit for ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]''.

* A whole page of [[Trrrilling Rrrs|Evil Brrrrrrrrits]] and we haven't mentioned [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog|Long John Baldrrrrrrrry's take on Dr. Rrrrrrrrobotnik]]?

* Most British characters on ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' are good, but there is an alien villain named Mitch that has a British accent.

* The ''[[Kim Possible]]'' villain Monkey Fist is a British Lord...and one of the few villains who is genuinely nasty on a regular basis. And there is that Scottish mad golf guy.

* [[Master of Illusion|Mad Mod]] in ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' plays this to the hilt, though he's a mostly comical villain rather than a serious threat (and at one point it's remarked that even real British people probably can't stand him). Brother Blood, one of the major [[Big Bad]]s also speaks with an aristocratic, vaguely British accent, though considering his [[Large Ham|whole persona]] it may just be something he affects.

* [[Big Bad|Van Kleiss]] of ''[[Generator Rex]]''. Seriously, his voice creeps me out.

** Tony Jay's voice was ''[[Evil Sounds Deep|made]]'' for this trope. Disney's ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' and before that ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' showcases Jay's voice at its Evil Brit best.

* Wow. So far into Evil Brits and no mentioning of Snidely Whiplash from "[[Dudley Do-Right]]". How did we manage to do that?

** Or the other half of [[Dastardly Whiplash]], Dick Dastardly for that matter?

*** Wouldn't they be [[Canada, Eh?]] though?

* Peep the pickpocket in ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', though his accent is Cockney rather than anything distinguished.

* ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'' had evil Englishman Valmont.

* ''[[Jem]]'' has got Jetta, the pathologically lying saxophonist with criminal connections from Britain who joins the Misfits in the second season. She's regarded as the [[Token Evil Teammate]] of a band that was already considered the bad guy group of the show. She's the only Misfit who's tried to scam her bandmates, as seen in ''Britrock'', where she convinced her parents to help her convince Pizzazz she was British royalty by promising that they could bilk her out of millions. Of course, that episode helped provide something of a [[Freudian Excuse]] by showing that Jetta grew up in a lower class British home, and the fact that her parents were willing to go to such lengths to make money (and had already assumed the worst when Jetta contacted them), it's easier to understand what drives Jetta.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:National Stereotyping Tropes]]

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Accent Tropes]]