Obviously Evil/Playing With
Basic Trope: A villain or another evil character you can instantly tell is evil.
- Straight: Nick has no sense of subtlety, acting in a way from which anyone with half a brain could deduce he's evil.
- Exaggerated: Nicolai 'the Deathlove' Lucifer Scorpius sports a black armor with a Satanic insignia, numerous spikes, and an Ominous Opera Cape. He also has snakishly slit-pupilled, bloodred eyes that glow when he's really infuriated, speaks with a monotonic bass, and is prone to displays of dramatic flair with an occasional menacing laugh.
- Downplayed: Nick only acts Obviously Evil when he's trying to intimidate people. Otherwise, he seems like a perfectly normal guy at first.
- Nick looks like normal person yet his behavior... sticks out.
- Justified: Nick has never been a very subtle person and everyone else would see through him anyway, so why try to fool them now?
- The villain is from a culture where things we see as usually indicating something bad are seen in a positive light.
- Evil Is Cool, so Nick is intentionally unsubtle.
- The villain is trying to be feared. Being Obviously Evil helps with that.
- Inverted: Nick looks like Satan. He's also the good guy
- The villain looks benevolent, even beautiful. He's anything but.
- Subverted: A person with a sinister appearance turns out to be a good guy or neutral.
- Double Subverted: Turns out, they were lying all along.
- Alternatively, they actually turn evil soon after that.
- Parodied: Nicolai 'the Deathlove' Lucifer Scorpius sports a black armor with a Satanic insignia, numerous spikes and an Ominous Opera Cape. He also has snakishly slit-pupilled, bloodred eyes that glow when he's really infuriated, speaks with a monotonic bass and is prone to displays of dramatic flair with an occasional menacing laughter. No one notices.
- Deconstructed: Evil old Nicolai is actually from a race of people who all look Obviously Evil, or whose morals and values are so utterly alien to normal people that they seem evil by comparison. As a result, everybody assumes that they're Exclusively Evil, leading to much Fantastic Racism as Nicolai and his people try to prove that they're not villainous even though they look it.
- Reconstructed: After putting up with years of crap from their tormentors, Nicolai and his people decide that everyone else is a bastard and start destroying everything in sight; thereby becoming the villains that they were made out to be.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: They Look Just Like Everyone Else
- Enforced: Viewers are Morons—the writers want to make sure everyone knows that Nick is eeeeevil
- The writers want their villain to look forboding and badass.
- Lampshaded: "I knew you were evil, Nick!" "Yes, you and everyone else with the capacity to function in normal society."
- Invoked: The Hero is confident in being able to track down a villain, because he is so blatantly nefarious-looking that surely someone would have spotted him.
- Exploited: Alice manipulates the naive goth Nick into doing questionable acts for her gain. This way, even when things go wrong, she's cleared.
- Defied: A villain tones down his appearance, style, and wardrobe in order to avoid needless suspicions.
- Discussed: "Well, given that his name was 'Nicolai 'the Deathlove' Lucifer Scorpius', he sported black armor with Satanic insignia, yada yada yada, I felt trusting him would be a bad call."
- Conversed: "Why does this show seem to be in love with villains that make Skeletor look like a perfectly respectable patent lawyer by comparison?" "My guess? The writers were aiming for Darker and Edgier and overshot."
Back to Obviously Evil. With a name like that, surely you know it's EVIL.