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Card-Carrying Villain: Difference between revisions
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A subversion is for these folks to ''not'' actually be cruel, greedy, or unnecessarily violent, but [[Punch Clock Villain|just doing their jobs]]. A [[Noble Demon]] is a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] who talks the talk, but has a tendency to hold back or even help from time to time.
[[Tropes Are Not Good|If not done right (and it is very, very easily done wrong)]], that is to say, if the card is [[Narm|too serious or obvious]], the result can be cheesy, annoying, and [[Anvilicious]]. (Of all the evil people in [[Real Life]], how many have ever ''self-identified'' as evil? [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]], [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]], and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]]--all of them believed with messianic zeal that they were doing good.) Though, in comedy situations/shows, this fate is usually averted, as it's a humorous thing (and thus right in place). It can also be used with a darker twist - showing a person so beyond redemption, so beyond what we call usual morality, that he is literally impossible to argue and reason with.
In the final stage, you have a villain who insists on justifying their actions because "it's what villains are ''supposed to do''"; see [[Contractual Genre Blindness]].
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* Ladd Russo from ''[[Baccano]]!'' is a [[Large Ham|hammy ]][[Psycho for Hire]] who freely admits that all he loves is killing, killing, and more killing. When his uncle tells him "Homicidal lunatics think you're a nutcase!" He informs him that his "[[Insult Backfire|attempts at flattery are so ham handed]]."
* Lelouch from ''[[Code Geass]]'' {{spoiler|''pretends'' to be a heartless supervillain in order to unite the world through common hatred of him, then allows himself to be killed so everyone can move on and work together towards peace.}} Yeah, Lulu [[Gambit Roulette|can be a little weird.]]
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' has the freaking incarnation of the third sphere, Ali Al-Saachez. Gundam series generally (pretend to) have multidimensional villains with some understandable motivations. Or, at least, villains that are good at self-justification and excuses. Ali is probably the only villain in the entire franchise to readily admit that he loves war for war's sake, that he commits his (numerous) crimes [[For the Evulz]], and that this makes him the worst sort of person in the world. He has absolutely no problem with it.
* Xellos from ''[[Slayers]]'' is this whenever he isn't siding with the protagonists. Being a powerful demon in the service of powers that want to destroy the world and feeding off from negative human emotions does that to a person. He makes an effort to avoid killing the good guys because they're such fun, though.
* Dio from ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'' is an insanely over the top version, with most of volume one devoted to his doing everything he can to crush the hero's soul while pontificating on how he's doing it all purely for evil's sake. Around the time he arranges for [[Kick the Dog|JoJo's dog to be thrown into a garbage incinerator]], he crosses the line from regular villainy into cartoonish supervillainy.
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* ''Queen of the Universe'': [http://www.eyebeam.com/Queen1991/index.php?num=278 Dober-Man].
* Herr Starr of ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' starts out as a [[Knight Templar]], but, in the end, admits, however unrepentantly, that he's become a "monster" obsessed with hatred and revenge.
* The very first appearance of [[Captain America (comics)]]'s archenemy, the Red Skull, had him exit stage left saying "I'll be back - with ''more murder!''"
* [[The Joker]] once identified himself to Black Canary as "genuine, card-carrying, lock-me-up-throw-away-the-key lunatic!" It sparked a letter column debate (remember those?) about whether or not insane people could recognize themselves as being, well, insane.
* Dirk Anger, Director of H.A.T.E in ''[[Nextwave]]''.
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{{quote|'''UN Representitive:''' Mr. Evil-
'''Dr. Evil:''' DOCTOR Evil. I didn't spend six years in evil medical school to be called 'mister' thank you very much. }}
* The main villain of ''[[Time Bandits]]'' is the embodiment of evil and referred to simply as "Evil". It's interesting to note what the screenwriters consider evil. He's obsessed with efficiency, technology, and work. At one point, he [[Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad|laments feeling "good",]] and his minions sympathize.
* The Chief Blue Meanie in the movie ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' insists that his minion Max never say "yes". Because "we Meanies [[Won't Take Yes for An Answer|only take 'no' for an answer]]", and gets extremely angry at the sound of the word "yes", even when being answered in the affirmative. Sometimes, his own aggression gets the better of him and he needs to be revived with "nasty medicine", which makes him even more eccentric than he already is. He encourages his army of Meanies to be as unpleasant as possible, but [[Heel Face Turn|later]] admits that his cousin is "the bluebird of happiness".
** The Chief subverts his "No only" order moments later when he summons the Flying Glove:
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*** They love (in the sense of "really like a lot") money, and they hate love (in the sense of "experiencing literal love for a person or pet").
* The 'cult' (see [[The Other Wiki]]) film ''Evil Roy Slade'' features this in <s>Slade</s> spades. He even yells at one of his henchmen who stays loyally at his side when the law offers a reward for him. Before that operation, he goes over the basics for his gang: 'Sneaking, Lying, Arrogance, Dirtiness and Evil. Put them all together and they spell "Slade!" '
* A somewhat...[[Narm|jarring]] variant in the first [[Spider-Man]] film where the Green Goblin makes Aunt May finish the Lord's Prayer.
{{quote|'''Aunt May:''' "Deliver us..."
'''Green Goblin:''' *Dramatic entrance* [[Evil Is Hammy|"FINISH IT!!"]] <br />
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'''Zorg:''' *Smirking* I know. }}
* Bowler Hat Guy from ''[[Meet the Robinsons]]'' aspires to be one of these. He's [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|not very good]] [[Hilarity Ensues|at it]].
* In [[Kung Pow]], [[Fluffy the Terrible|Betty]] is the loyal enforcer of the [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness|Evil Council]]. And there's also the fact that he is formally known as Master Pain.
{{quote|'''Mayor''': Master, what exactly is the Evil Council's plan?
'''Betty''': [[Department of Redundancy Department|It is evil. It is so evil. It is a bad, bad plan that will hurt...many people...who are good. I think is great, because it is so bad.]] }}
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* Lieutenant Colonel Korn from ''[[Catch-22]]'' takes positive delight in describing how odious and reprehensible his plans are.
{{quote|'''Colonel Korn''' ''(to Yossarian)'': I really do [[Worthy Opponent|admire you a bit]]. You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.}}
* House Bolton in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. Their house arms features a flayed man due to their history of flaying their prisoners alive. They wear pink and red capes because ages ago they used to ''wear the skins'' before submitting to House Stark. Their castle is called the Dreadfort. Lord Roose Bolton and his heir Ramsay commit numerous atrocities and eventually {{spoiler|betray their liege lords in a massacre that shocks the continent}}.
* Set in ''[[The Kane Chronicles]]''.
{{quote|'''Set:''' You figure that out all by yourself? The god of evil is evil?}}
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** And before Eddie, there was [[Ric Flair|Ric "The Dirtiest Player in The Game" Flair]]. There was really no difference between [[Face Heel Revolving Door|his heel and face personas]]: he'd low-blow and cheap shot heel and face alike and tell you beforehand he would.
* [[Kane (wrestling)|Kane]] makes no effort to hide the fact that he's evil. It's in his intro video.
* Kaientai (TAKA Michinoku and SHO Funaki). One guy would make an amusing speech that always ended with "[[Punctuated!
* [[The Undertaker]], when giving his [[Motive Rant]] upon one of his heel turns, said, "And I know that some of you are wondering how it is that I can join forces with such an evil, despicable, maniacal individual [as [[Paul Bearer]]]...well, if that isn't reason enough all by itself then I don't guess I can explain it to you folks any better!" He would go around calling himself The Lord of Darkness and saying things like, "Embrace the purity of evil."
* William Regal actually has the word "Villain" written on his tights.
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== Sports ==
* Thoroughly embraced by Floyd Mayweather Jr., who actively and gleefully seizes the black hat in the build-up to any of his big fights. Initially, the boxing ur-example would have been Muhammad Ali, but he eventually became the most beloved figure in boxing, even today.
* During the 80s, the Miami Hurricanes reveled in being the college football team America cheered against.
== Tabletop Games ==
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** Also a subversion in that any given Infernal's [[Evil Plan|dastardly evil scheme]] could be [[Completely Missing the Point|"make creation into a utopia"]] and their [[Poke the Poodle|Acts of Villainy]] [[Good Feels Good|don't even have to be evil]]. All that matters is that they ''[[Dangerously Genre Savvy|act]]'' like a [[Card-Carrying Villain]].
**** Mind you, an Infernal could make such a deal solely [[Rule of Cool|for the sake of getting all the nifty powers]], with no intent to serve the Reclamation (and, in fact, with [[Faustian Rebellion|potential plans for a double-cross]]). Nothing forces the Infernals to truly be evil. The cards are ''supposed'' to be stacked against them, but the Ebon Dragon's [[Idiot Plot|so awful at planning]] that it backfires on every level...
** And then there's the whole reason they're like that -- the Ebon Dragon had an active hand in their creation. Each of the Primordials represents a principle of Creation, and the Ebon Dragon once represented betrayal. Every thing he does is based around screwing someone over, even if it screws him as well.
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* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|The Legend of Zelda]]'', Ganondorf has referred to himself as the Great King of Evil.
* Every single evil-affilated racer in the ''[[F-Zero]]'' series. '''''EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.''''' Special mention goes to [[Evil Is Hammy|Black Shadow]].
** Bonus points: his voice actor in the [[Anime of the Game|anime adaptation]] is [[Norio Wakamoto]].
* Luca Blight from ''[[Suikoden II]]'', even after [[Annoying Arrows|being showered with arrows]], [[Climax Boss|battling three squads of the opposing army's most powerful soldiers simultaneously]], being showered with ''[[No One Could Survive That|even more]]'' arrows, and [[Duel Boss|losing a duel to the death with the main character]], still has the strength to roar triumphantly in his [[Final Speech]] that even though it took hundreds to kill him, he [[Omnicidal Maniac|slaughtered humans by the thousands]], and that he is probably [[Complete Monster|the single most evil man who has ever lived]] (which is probably true), before finally dying.
* [[Complete Monster|Yuuki Terumi]] of ''[[Blaz Blue]]'' [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|pretended to be good]] at the beginning of ''Calamity Trigger'', but by ''Continuum Shift'', abandons the facade entirely, nicely encapsulated by this little speech he gives to Hakumen:
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* The Genma of the ''[[Onimusha]]'' series revel in being referred to as "evil", most notably in the second game (evident by the final boss being the Golden Evil Statue, and also by the content of some in-game documents).
* Gnarl of ''[[Overlord]]'', in a [[Large Ham|most over-the-top manner]]. He takes such great delight in evil for the sake of evil.
* [[Up to Eleven|ALL]] of the antagonists in [[Hero's Realm]] fit the bill, but special mention goes to Balthalas, who sports a fantastic [[Evil Laugh]] to boot.
* Bio-Haz, in the obscure Game Boy RPG ''Great Greed'', is a textbook [[Evil Overlord]] trying to conquer Greene Kingdom, and he's generating as much pollution as possible because it makes him and his army stronger. {{spoiler|It's not until the end of the game that you learn he has another motive besides his [[Title Drop|great greed]]; he wants to save the ''human'' world from pollution by using Greene Kingdom as its garbage dump.}}
* Ridley, and most of the Space Pirates for that matter, in ''[[Metroid]]'' seems to have no other motivation for trying to (ostensibly) take over the galaxy, other than that it's an evil thing to do. They commit horrors and atrocities just for the pure fun of it (although some games suggest most of the Pirates are just a mindless drone race following the orders of dominant intelligent figures like Ridley). Sometimes, a motivation will be supplied from the villain of the week, but usually, they're there, they're bad, kill'em all and reap your rewards.
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* The Ilwrath of [[Star Control]] II go on at length about how evil they are, as a matter of [[Religion of Evil|religion]]. They certainly do enjoy torture, genocide, murder, etc. However, you can induce a [[Logic Bomb]] by pointing out that, although they are certainly evil by external measures, by following the tenents and customs of their society, they are, in fact, good.
* The super-villain Rictus in ''[[Anachronox]]'':
** I shall kill you...with '''death'''!
* Irenicus from ''[[Baldur's Gate|Baldurs Gate]] 2'' may count. It isn't that he revels in being a villain, he simply does not care enough to bother denying the charge.
** "No, you merit no villain's exposition."
* The Soviets in ''[[Command
* E-123 Omega from ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'', despite being a friend of [[Anti-Hero|Anti Heroes]] Shadow and Rouge.
* House Steiner in the ''[[Mechwarrior]]'' game franchise: on the couple of occasions you aren't fighting them, they're setting you up for a murderous betrayal. The original ''[[BattleTech]]'' universe portrays them as more morally ambiguous.
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* Helen, Mell, and, later, Dave in ''[[Narbonic]]''. Helen is, in fact, a Shirt Wearing Villain -- her habitual outfit includes an old T-shirt which reads ''"evil"'', with a heart dotting the ''i''.
* ''[[Bob and George]]'' actually has this [[Catch Phrase]]: "What? I'm evil. [[I Lied]]."
* Khrima from ''[[Adventurers!]]!'' is an archetypal example of this. Much like Dr. Evil, he got his degree from [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0208.html Evil University]. He goes to great lengths to get people to believe he's extremely evil and cruel, and [[Contractual Genre Blindness|adheres religiously to the clichés]] of Evil in [[RPG|RPGs]], with instances ranging from his exact following of the [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil]] to his personally preparing an [[Amazing Technicolor Battlefield]] for the final fight.
* In ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'', all of the monsters of the mountain identify themselves as evil, though only the Drow (and King Louie the Liche) act like it. The only real difference between the rest of the monsters and the "good" humans and elves are a tendency to eat other sentient beings and a casual approach to mortal violence.
* ''[[Concerned]]'' has Wallace Breen of ''[[Half-Life]]'' become something like this.
* Richard of ''[[Looking for Group]]'' would be a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] if he was not a [[Heroic Sociopath|protagonist.]]
* ''GU Comics'' [http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20050524 demonstrates.]
* Black Mage Evilwizardington in ''[[8-Bit Theater
** Hell, he even tried joining the bad guys after gleefully wasting all his fire spells on [[Goddamned Bats|BATS]] and leaving the Light Warriors to die inside a block of solid ice:
{{quote|'''Drizzl:''' What do you think you're doing?
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* Several [[Serial Killer|Serial Killers]] have seriously, honest to God played this trope straight:
** ''Aileen Wuornos:'' To me, this world is nothing but evil, and my own evil just happened to come out cause of the circumstances of what I was doing.
** ''Alberto De Salvo:'' It wasn't as dark and scary as it sounds. I had a lot of fun...killing somebody's a funny experience.
** ''Carl Panzram:'' In my lifetime I have broken every law that was ever made by both man and God. If either had made any more, I should very cheerfully have broken them also.
** ''David Berkowitz (Son of Sam):'' I am a monster. I am the Son of Sam. I love to hunt.
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** ''Ted Bundy:'' I'm the most cold-blooded sonofabitch you'll ever meet. Sometimes I feel like a vampire.
** ''Richard Kuklinski:'' (Smiles) Assassin....Sounds so exotic....(Sneers) I'm just a murderer.
** ''Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker):'' [[Humans Are Bastards|We are all evil, in some form or another, are we not?]]....Yes, I am evil. Not a hundred percent, but I am evil....The great epochs of our lives is when we gain the courage to rebaptise our evil qualities as being our best qualities.
* Stalin ''did'' play this trope at least once, though sarcastically:
{{quote|God is on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil's on my side, he's a good Communist.}}
* Adolf Eichmann went back and forth on this; sometimes he would claim that he was [[Just Following Orders]], and that he was unnerved at what he did because "My sensitive nature revolted at the sight of corpses and blood.". On the ''other'' hand, he ''also'' gave us these lines:
**
{{quote|I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction. (Eichmann countered the claim saying that he was referring only to "enemies of the Reich".)}}
**
{{quote|Adolf Hitler may have been wrong all down the line, but one thing is beyond dispute: the man was able to work his way up from lance corporal in the German Army to Führer of a people of almost 80 million. ... His success alone proved that I should subordinate myself to this man.}}
**
{{quote|If we would have killed 10.3 million Jews, then I would be satisfied and would say, good, we annihilated an enemy. ... I wasn't only issued orders, in this case I'd have been a moron, but I rather anticipated, I was an idealist. }}
**
{{quote|Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.}}
**
{{quote|To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing. }}
* Any human who believes [[Humans Are Bastards]]. (Unless they [[Holier Than Thou|carve out exceptions for themselves]], or [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|regard the bastardliness as something to be fought and not embraced]].)
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