Made of Evil

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"Do be careful! Don't lose any of that stuff. That's concentrated evil. One drop of that could turn you all into hermit crabs."
—Supreme Being, Time Bandits
Atomic Weight: 134108

The bad guys aren't just bad, they are Bad! The concentrated, physical manifestation of it to be precise.

Somehow, the villain's physical body is made up of a tangible form of Evil. If you cut them, they will "bleed" Evil, and severed limbs or cuts to the torso won't reveal skin, muscle, bone and organs but a uniform dark material. These villains are, unsurprisingly, not human; or at least, not anymore. They may be an Anthropomorphic Personification of Evil, a God of Evil that is made up of their portfolio rather than be an organic/'divine' being in control of it, a Pure Energy Being made of The Dark Side, or the Ultimate Evil. Normal humans can become Made Of Evil if they spend years being really evil and get dosed with Phlebotinum. An everyday good person may have the darkness in their heart forcibly ejected to make The Heartless, or an Enemy Without. Commonly, they are Emotion Eaters who feed on negative emotions, perhaps even being a God of Evil who runs off of / is the source of these negative emotions.

When we say "Evil", we don't just mean "Made of immorality", but just about any not-nice emotion, concept, and Elemental Powers, such as: Darkness, Death, Decay, Hate, Sin, and Unholiness. This makes them very similar to physical ghosts; they form a kind of "negative energy" Ectoplasm (of evil) that is nonetheless completely tangible and is completely, indivisibly evil to its smallest fermion (of evil). Unlike physical ghosts, this "evil" tends to remain tangible until (and sometimes after) the Made Of Evil being is killed. Understandably, because Good Hurts Evil, expect them to be highly vulnerable to Depleted Phlebotinum Shells, scream "It Burns!" and suffer Glamour Failure in the face of holy relics, and at times have a Weaksauce Weakness to The Power of Love and The Power of Friendship... unless they are so evil they create a Cross-Melting Aura, of course.

When killed, they usually "decompose" into a black, oily substance (of evil) or thick black smoke (of evil) before fading away. If they were a Walking Wasteland (of evil), expect there to be No Ontological Inertia as flowers spring and the world lights up at their death. That said, killing them is often easier said than done, since they're the Evil equivalent of Jello, they don't have any vital organs (of evil) to hit, and can sometimes even regenerate From a Single Cell (of evil). Characters are strongly advised that even the ashes of Evil are not a toy, because touching, eating, drinking, or wearing anything made from pure evil will not end well. May be an example of As Long as There Is Evil.

The Good Counterpart is Made of Good.

Examples of Made of Evil include:

Anime and Manga

  • Berserk: The Idea of Evil is the reason the Berserk universe is such a crappy place to live: as long as people believe something is responsible for the evil, it exists.
    • Some humans in certain circumstances can choose to become Apostles, superhuman monsters whose bodies are transformed to demonic in exchange for Human Sacrifice of those most dear to them.
  • Depending on interpretation, the Minotaur in Tekkon Kinkreet embodies Black's inner darkness.
  • The mazoku in Slayers are beings of pure chaos that, as in the trope, feed on negative emotion, power black magic, and want to see the world returned to the Sea of Chaos. Fantasy RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons are an admitted influence on the setting, so it's possible they draw inspiration from that game's demons, etc.
  • In Bakugan, Mag Mel's armor is revealed to be this. Code Eve created it from the evil of former Big Bad Emperor Barodius and sealed him inside of it.
  • Janemba from Dragon Ball is made out of all the evil that was sucked out of the residents of Hell in order to purify their souls.
  • In Inuyasha: The Shikon Jewel is a balance between this and Made of Good -- hundreds of demon souls and one priestess soul are sealed within it.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!
    • In the dub, "Ghost Kaiba" claims to be the embodiment of Kaiba's dark side, which Yami had previously purged from him. In the original version, this isn't the case, although exactly what he was is debatable.
    • Dark Marik, the Big Bad of the Battle City arc, is the embodiment of the hatred, jealousy, and resentment Marik felt towards Pharaoh, held inside for years until given physical form.

Comic Books

  • The Guardians of the Universe (masters of the Green Lantern Corps) expelled all the evil from themselves in a similar manner to the race that created Armus in the Star Trek example below. Eventually, it took over the body of the guy who trained three different Golden Age heroes.

Films -- Animated

Loc-Nar: Look at me. I am the sum of all evils.

  • The first rule of the Loc-Nar is never touch it while it is glowing.

Films -- Live-Action

  • 'Mr. Shadow' in The Fifth Element is a moon composed of negative emotion.
  • Time Bandits by Terry Gilliam has Evil as the main antagonist. Once destroyed, a single piece/rock of him is overlooked in the cleanup, when Kevin's parents pick it up (after he warns them not to) they get vaporized.
  • In the 1980s Flash Gordon movie, the henchwoman General Kala's corpse visibly deflates and smokes as it turns into an oil spill.
  • Azrael in Dogma has his chest smashed in to reveal a chewy centre of seething black ichor. Of course, he is a demon, so it kinda makes sense...
  • The Neverending Story: The Nothing is made up of children's losing of imagination and unwillingness to believe in Fairy Tales (at least in the film version).
  • Halloween's Dr Loomis believes Michael Myers is this. It would explain his ability to come back from each increasingly over-the-top death.

"I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong ... I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil."

  • The River of Slime in Ghostbusters II was created by the negative emotions of New Yorkers; being drenched in it causes the heroes to fly into rage, until Ray realizes the slime is the cause and tells them to ditch their clothing. He then calls it, "pure, concentrated evil".
  • In Star Wars mythos, the Dark Side of the Force is a Background Magic Field composed of negative emotion, a source of evil that fuels the evil powers of the Sith.

Literature

  • In The History of Middle Earth, Tolkien explains that Morgoth is not only the God of Evil, but is responsible for diffusing his essence into all parts of the physical world, thereby giving an elemental evil spin to all particles of matter and creating the problem of, well, evil. By weakening himself and corrupting ordinary matter to serve his purposes, "all of Middle Earth itself is Morgoth's Ring". Fortunately, his own body is not Made of Evil he is merely trapped in it.
  • The titular mini-black-hole in Angelmass balances the 'angel' particles it emits by becoming demonic itself.
  • The Big Bads in The Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman were living avatars of evil who grew stronger in the presence of despair, rage and so forth. "I grow fat on your fear" isn't just a metaphor with them.
  • The Black Thing in A Wrinkle in Time is declared to be Evil, the Powers of Darkness.
  • In the Harry Potter franchise, Dementors are literally embodiments of Fear.

Live-Action TV

Andrew Wells: This whole thing... is being orchestrated by something called "The First." It's made up of all the evil in the whole world.

  • Giles adds to this by claiming the First is not just made of evil, it is the source of all other evil.
  • Star Trek:
    • Redjack, the villain in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Wolf in the Fold" is an embodiment of Fear.
    • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Armus, the eponymous skin in "Skin of Evil", is a being made up of an entire civilization's discarded negative thoughts and emotions. He also killed Tasha Yar.
  • Apparently just about every enemy the Power Rangers used to fight was this trope. When purified of evil at the end of the sixth season, most simply crumbled to dust.
    • Except Rita and Zed, who turned into a yuppie couple.
    • And Divatox.
    • However, Rita was indeed this in the special Power Rangers: Once and Always. Billy's experiments to reconstruct Zordon's essence instead gave Rita's dark side (purged from her in the aforementioned episode) a cohesive form, a seperate entity constructed of that purged evil without any of Rita's benevolent qualities.
    • This was also the case with Zedd when he appeared in Power Rangers Dino Fury; recreated out of the purged evil via Reaghoul's dark magic, there was no trace of decency in this version of Zedd; he was evil to the core.
  • Subverted in Charmed. For the first four seasons, the Big Bad behind just about every evil being the Charmed Ones went up against was called The Source Of All Evil. Four years of Villain Decay later, however, and it turns out that "Source Of All Evil" is really just a title, and anyone in charge of the demonic underworld gets to call themselves that.
    • It's a straighter example than you might think, given that the actual Source isn't the demon leader in question, but rather an amorphous force that gets inherited by whoever is currently in charge of the Underworld at the time, and gradually takes them over from the inside out.

Tabletop Games

  • In Dungeons & Dragons 2nd and 3rd editions, demons and the like are made of evil, and angels are made of good. Similarly, slaadi are made of pure Chaotic Neutral and modrons of pure Lawful Neutral, a concept even more nebulous than being made of good or evil. Anyways, this means fallen angels and risen demons still count as their original alignments for spell effects and Detect Evil.
    • In 3rd edition, any being with a subtype of 'evil' consisted in part of evil. Most of them were fiends (IE, outsiders with the evil subtype), which covers demons and the like, but there were exceptions.
  • The Warp in Warhammer 40K is made of all the emotions in the galaxy good and bad, but there's more bad than good. The Chaos gods have "good" traits that have been warped and amplified so much that to human sensibilities they become evil. For instance, Nurgle is a Friend to All Living Things—heavy emphasis on the ALL; Papa Nurgle loves his cute little parasites and pathogens, yes he does!

Video Games

  • The Persona 2 version of Nyarlathotep is an Eldritch Abomination literally born of Humanity's collective evil, absorbing every evil ("evil" defined as "with the intent of causing any form of harm to anyone, even yourself") act, thought and desire. As Long as There Is Evil, he is an undefeatable mass of concentrated madness, woe, and discord, eternally hungering for more power.
    • In the second game, there is also a toxic liquid named Kegare - the ancient Japanese word for "sin" or "filth", extracted by the New World Order from their followers in their seminars. Supposedly the process "purifies" the attendees. It is literally concentrated evil.
  • The Soulless God Oumagatsu in Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army is a monstruous battleship/Evangelion hybrid designed to feed upon the rage, fear and hate of the entire Capital. Later on, a single soul full of hate would prove enough to power the machine.
  • The elementals in MARDEK RPG: Chapter 3 include a Dark version. Due to the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, these are actually the least powerful elementals you encounter. The bestiary says that they don't attack so much as leak energy when disrupted, and that if they sit around too long they may crystallize and become Onyxes.
  • In MOTHER, Giygas was an alien with psychic powers and a particularly sharp hatred of humanity. By the time EarthBound rolls around though, his hatred and power has grown to such a degree that it literally destroys his physical body and turns him into a floating, indistinct entity of pure evil.
  • Final Fantasy V gives us X-Death/Exdeath/Exodus/whatever they're calling him this week. He's what happens when one demon too many is sealed within a tree and said tree somehow transforms into an ambulatory would-be world conqueror.
  • Final Fantasy IV gives us another example: "I am Zeromus... I... AM... THE HATRED!"
  • In Okami, every villain disperses into a dark, malevolent cloud (with glowing evil eyes) once beaten, and flows back to the Final Boss. Which is pretty fitting, considering Yami is the source of all Evil/Darkness in the setting. Interestingly, one sub-boss, Red Helm, has it in his backstory as having spontaneously sprung from the spilled blood of Orochi, a bigger bad.
  • As is repeatedly stated in Kingdom Hearts, the Heartless are really just walking bags of malevolence without any true minds of their own.
    • Vanitas fits this even better than the Heartless. He's literally made from Darkness.
  • Dark Chips and Nebula Gray from Mega Man Battle Network are made entirely of negative emotions somehow encoded as data.
  • The Dark Star and Dark Bowser in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
  • The "Dark Presence" in "Alan Wake" qualifies for this; it's mysterious, almost unknowable, and has to attach itself to human shapes in order to be percieved at all.
  • Most of the Dark Gaia creatures in Sonic Unleashed seem to qualify. They're an ancient evil that seems to be the embodiment of negative emotion, causing sadness and anger everywhere, and when defeated, they dissolve into some kind of black-purple stuff and disappear. The exception are creatures possessed by Dark Gaia, such as The Dark Gaia Phoenix and Sonic himself, as they had a physical body to begin with.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • In Mists of Pandaria, the Sha fit this to a T. They are manifestations of negative emotion found in various places around the continent of Pandaria.
    • The Ashbringer (an incredibly powerful holy sword) was created from a crystal that was originally so evil that merely touching it turned a paladin's hand into a withered husk.
    • Likewise, Saronite is essentially this as it's the hardened blood of Yogg-Saron. Seeing as many structures built by the Scourge in Wrath of the Lich King are constructed from saronite, this means the Lich King builds entire fortresses - including Icecrown - out of Evil, literally.
  • It's not certain how much of Azazel from Tekken is tangible hatred and malice, but it's definitely the vast majority of its form, seeing how inciting worldwide strife and horror was Jin's desperate gambit to give Azazel enough of a physical form to become killable.
  • The monsters of Silent Hill are literally physical manifestations of different aspects of negative emotions (or events) created by the town itself, or Alessa, while she was still around.
  • Noob Saibot from Mortal Kombat is the leftovers of when the first Sub-Zero (from the original game and Mythologies) died and had his soul hurled into the Netherrealm, turning him into a wraith. His whole existence is entirely defined by hatred and scheming, as anything honorable that the original Sub-Zero might have had (which wasn't much to begin with) was purged.
  • M. Bison from Street Fighter himself isn't really Made of Evil but the power he uses (Psycho Power) is described as being pure negativity as energy. Negative thoughts, emotions, and general hatred manifests itself as this force.
  • The protagonist of Prototype is composed entirely of biomass infused with the Blacklight virus. It's the main reason he can take so much punishment: he has no bones to break or organs to rupture. Taken even further when it's revealed that he is the Blacklight virus.
  • Whenever "Sephiroth" from Final Fantasy VII shows up in the game before the Final Battle, it's actually a clone made of JENOVA cells, which is as close to being Made Of Evil as one can get in the setting. The actual Sephiroth is also made entirely of JENOVA cells when he appears near the end, since his original mostly (he was infused with JENOVA cells as a fetus) human body was destroyed when he fell into the Lifestream in the backstory.
  • In Ocarina of Time, the phantom boss of the Shadow Temple appears to be a dark energetic shadow, both when it first appears and when it's killed.

Web Comics

  • Black Mage from Eight Bit Theater fits this description. A conversation between him and the external physical manifestation of everything evil he has ever done went something like this:

Manifestation: Hey, here's a question. I feel a complete contempt for everything and the overriding need to burn the world. Is that normal?
Black Mage: Are you filled with regret that, eventually, there won't be more world to burn?
Manifestation: In the back, yeah.
Black Mage: That sounds like my atrocities all right. Perfectly normal.

Web Original

I am that power. I am Destruction. And I will destroy you.

Western Animation

Calculon: Anyway, only after bringing Project Satan to life did they discover they had made a horrible mistake. For you see, it was pure evil!

  • Pirates of Dark Water had the black, oily Dark Water as an Extreme Omnivore and oozing wasteland. It's so evil it had to be sealed with the Thirteen Treasure of Rule (each of which could individually frighten it away a bit). Later, it's revealed to be sentient.
  • In the Samurai Jack third season two parter The Birth of Evil, an immense black essense roamed across the cosmos. A pantheon of gods managed to near-incenerate the... thing, but a (relatively) tiny piece survives, plummets to Earth, killing anything that comes close. Aeons later, it crystallises into the series' main antagonist Aku, due to the efforts of Jack's father. Whoops.
  • Darkwing Duck's evil side in "NegaDuck" is both this and an Enemy Without, and presumably has both a sort of normal physical structure as well as being made of evil, because it's created when Darkwing is split into his "good and evil elemental particles" that they made up for that episode. NegaDuck in that episode is even more so.
  • Fern Gully has Hexxus, the semi-incorporeal manifestation of destruction and pollution, that has to be sealed in a tree to be contained.
  • In Family Guy, Peter Griffin once purchased a Catholic toilet training book titled You're a Naughty Child, and That's Concentrated Evil Coming Out the Back of You.
  • In Teen Titans the demon Trigon the Terrible is referred to as the "incarnation of evil" and "source of all darkness."
  • In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the Son is the Dark Side incarnate.
  • My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has second season antagonist Discord. He seems to be the embodiment of strife between ponies (duh), and he has quite the ability to engender it. Eventually proved untrue after he is redeemed by The Power of Friendship (naturally) but it is still clear that he is Made of Chaos.
  • Toxic Rick from Rick and Morty. A Poisonous Person who came about after the two protagonists visit an alien spa, where the treatment purges their toxins; all of Rick's toxins combine into an far eviler version of Rick, who wants to flood the Earth with toxins. Most disturbing part is, Toxic Rick is only mostly Made of Evil, as he is made of the traits that Rick considers negative; while this includes his egotism, dishonesty, and selfishness, it also includes his concern for family.
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