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"Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes... chaos. I'm an agent of chaos." |
One of the nine alignments from the best-known Character Alignment system. If Chaotic Neutral is the truly free spirit, Chaotic Evil is the truly free evil spirit. Whereas the Chaotic Neutral character is concerned mainly with his own freedom but doesn't seek to hurt others, the same cannot be said for a Chaotic Evil character. They will do whatever they want whenever they want to do it, which, seeing as they are evil, usually entails lots and lots of death and destruction. These characters are usually the most aggressive of the Evil alignments, more often than not being possessed of an impulsively violent nature and a total disregard for people, laws, or even the world around them. In short, Chaotic Evil represents the destruction of not only life and goodness, but also the order upon which they depend.
Chaotic Evil characters come in several deliciously evil flavors:
- Type 1 places more emphasis on Chaotic than Evil, believing that their own freedom is the most important thing. They're far from being a noble person (they're still Evil after all), but they value the ability to commit acts of evil over actually committing them. As a result, this type of character can actually side with the forces of Good in the fight for freedom. Don't turn your back though, because this also means that two seconds from now their idea of freedom may change and they'll become your worst enemy. Given a lot of patience, a crapload of love, a sprinkling of luck, and a great big stick, a Type 1 may gradually reform into Chaotic Neutral or even Chaotic Good, but don't hold your breath.
- Type 2 is the exact opposite. They are so Evil that they would rather side with the bad guys just because they're the ones in charge. They place more value in unleashing fiery death and mayhem over the ability to do it at any time, so they take orders grudgingly but take them nonetheless. This type of Chaotic Evil makes for a particularly unpleasant brand of Mook, given that they don't care about collateral damage (in fact they deliberately seek it) or killing any fellow Mooks unfortunate enough to get in their way (which makes it even more fun for them). If the Big Bad handles his great big stick skillfully enough, a Type 2 may become Neutral Evil or even Lawful Evil simply out of habit. If, on the other hand, they are the Big Bad, expect them to go out of their way to violate any sense of honour, traditon, loyalty, or responsibility normally associated with the leadership position, such as betraying their own Mooks purely For the Evulz.
- Type 3 is very much feral in nature. They typically have an above average degree of intelligence, but luckily for everyone else they tend to be more about freedom than evil. They believe that you're either a predator or prey for another predator, so to them the only thing that matters is having the strength to take what you want. God help anyone who comes across a Type 3 and are viewed as prey, since to them weakness is unforgivable. Similar to Type 2, a clever enough Big Bad will be able to manipulate this character to their own benefit, providing they completely dominate the Chaotic Evil character in both power and intelligence. Their guard must be kept up constantly though, as the moment the Type 3 sees an opportunity to take down the Big Bad they will take it.
- Type 4 is a fair balance between Types 1 and 2. They love doing evil as much as they love their freedom, and they have just enough self-control to construct a plan that involves doing both at once. They are traditionally batshit insane with a complete Lack of Empathy (think The Joker). This type is arguably the most dangerous of them all, as they don't care who they destroy or how they destroy them; the fact that they can be destroyed is enough. As a result, this character is usually the one that opposing sides in a conflict will work together to defeat, as a Type 4 is undoubtedly a much worse foe than the one(s) they currently have. This type is often where you'll find the resident Omnicidal Maniac, and if they also happen to be The Chessmaster then you're screwed.
- Type 5 is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who saw (or a Knight Templar who sees) himself as Chaotic Good (Just Like Robin Hood) but slowly passed over to the evil alignment, often without being consciously aware of it. You know what they say about slippery slopes...
Chaotic Evil is probably the hardest alignment to depict sensibly. Far too many people assume that Chaotic Evil means a babbling lunatic incapable of walking through a village without inducing wanton, meaningless slaughter and destruction. Chaotic Evil does not mean the most evil or stupid, in it For the Evulz (which can be a motivation to any villain of any Evil alignment), nor even psychotic. A character does not fall under Chaotic Evil solely because they're really evil, stupid, or crazy.
The least dangerous (well, the bottom-rung at least) character of this alignment is the unwilling Mook—they hate their master, they hate taking orders, and they enjoy their job but not the fact that it is a job; they'd have a lot more fun causing all that terror and discord for free, and they only behave mainly out of the fear of punishment. The most dangerous character of this alignment, on the other hand, is undoubtedly The Chessmaster, with his cruel calculation and intelligence and the will to use it in the most horrible ways.
Not to be confused with Exclusively Evil, which is about an entire race falling under any of the Evil Character Alignments.
If you have a difficulty deciding which alignment an Evil-aligned character belongs to, the main difference between Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil is not their devotion to their evil wishes, but what methods they believe are best to realizing it:
- Even though there are some situations where they can't always use this method, Lawful Evil characters believe the best way is to have a specific, strict code of conduct, whether self-imposed or codified as a law. Their first impulse when making a moral decision is to refer back to this code; those with externally-imposed systems (codes of laws, hierarchies, etc.) will try to work within the system when those systems go wrong. Depending on whether they are more Lawful or more Evil, they will either refuse to break the code even though it would hurt their evil objectives, or else break it only very reluctantly, and only when it would hurt their evil objectives if they kept their code.
- Neutral Evil characters are indifferent to Order Versus Chaos, and their only interest is in realizing their evil wishes. They will use whatever means will help in realizing their evil wishes, whether that means tearing down a code of laws, following a code of laws, creating a new code of laws, causing the breakdown of justice, or just avoiding society altogether. Their only goal is to realize their evil wishes, full stop.
- Most Chaotic Evil characters don't constantly break the law, but they don't place much value in laws (or, for weaker-CC Es, do not see the value in laws that do not function solely to their depraved objectives or increase their own personal freedom). They believe that their own evil impulses are their best guides, and that tying themselves to any given code of conduct would be limiting themselves. They often react violently to anyone who tries to instill any form of order over them, believing these people to be restricting their freedom. Chaotic Evil characters often focus very strongly on their own individual rights and freedoms, and will strongly resist any form of oppression over themselves.
Archetypes that are particularly prone to being Chaotic Evil include:
- Most Ax Crazy characters because murder is against the law, and most Ax Crazy characters only follow their whims when they realize their acts of wanton violence.
- The Barnum
- Most evil Blood Knights.
- Bomb-Throwing Anarchists
- The Caligula
- Con Man
- Eldritch Abomination
- Evil Counterpart to a Lawful Good or Chaotic Good character
- The Heartless
- The Hedonist (When they aren't Chaotic Neutral)
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath (Chaotic Evil Played for Laughs)
- In theory, many criminals
- Monster Clown
- Nietzsche Wannabe
- Omnicidal Maniac (with exceptions)
- The "id" character in a evil Freudian Trio
- Psycho for Hire (When they aren't Neutral Evil, Types 2-4)
- Psychopathic Manchild
- The red oni in an evil Red Oni, Blue Oni duo
- Less sympathetic versions of The Remnant
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized
- The more savage variety of The Social Darwinist
- The Sociopath
- Usually the main (or a major) character's Super-Powered Evil Side
- Terrorists Without a Cause
- Villainous cases of The Unfettered
- Villainous Harlequin
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds
Take note that even if they do enjoy slaughtering people, if characters choose to work for somebody else (especially if they are controlling) they are rarely this alignment: a Chaotic Evil character works with people or uses people, and only works for somebody when forced to. A Psycho for Hire is rarely Chaotic, contrary to popular belief, although do note that not all Chaotic Evil characters are brave, authority-defying villains, and some may even work for others if they can be persuaded to do so. Characters such as the Complete Monster or Big Bad will vary between Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil; The Dragon is almost never Chaotic Evil, except when they are manipulating the Big Bad for their own purposes or are given no choice in the matter. Occasionally you might find a Chaotic Evil working for a more Lawful (or even good!) character out of personal loyalty because they were childhood friends or partners when they first started out, these relationships are never healthy for either partner however. Normally the Chaotic Evil character will be such a Poisonous Friend that they'll end up on the wrong side of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness, which can be a nice Kick the Dog even if it was perfectly justified.
Expect most characters in a Fantasy setting who want to destroy the world to be this alignment (there may even be some Nietzsche Wannabe mixed in), with a small minority being Neutral Evil for whatever reason. The majority of demons eager to open the gates of hell are Chaotic Evil. The Religion of Evil is more likely to be Chaotic Evil than Neutral Evil, though its counterpart the Corrupt Church is typically Lawful Evil. Chaotic Evil characters can actually rule over people (since they only care about their own freedom), but it typically takes the form of "Do whatever the heck I say NOW!".
Not to be confused with Chaos Is Evil.
No real life examples, please; first, this is a trope about how characters are depicted in media. Real people are far more complex than fictional characters, and cannot be pigeonholed this way. (For that matter, many if not most fictional characters cannot be pigeonholed this way, either; see below for the standards on whether to use this trope at all.) Second, calling real-life people "evil" is an extremely bad idea.
When dealing with the examples of specific characters, remember that assigning an alignment to a character who doesn't come with one is subjective (and, at All The Tropes, discouraged). If you have a problem with a character being listed here, it probably belongs on the discussion page. There will be no Real Life examples under any circumstances; it just invites an Edit War.
On works pages: Character Alignment is only to be used in works where it is canonical, and only for characters who have alignments in-story. There is to be no arguing over canonical alignments, and no Real Life examples, ever.
Anime and Manga[]
- Johan Liebert from Monster, a criminal mastermind who is set upon meticulously breaking and killing every person he comes in contact with, or turning them into murderers themselves, just because he can. It's not even clear that he enjoys it; many times he just does it.
- Michio Yuki from MW also kills people just For the Evulz.
- Pretty much what you become when under the influence of Hinimizawa Syndrome in When They Cry. Especially Shion.
- Akakabuto from Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin is an example of a monster with limited intelligence, who enjoys the act of killing just for the sake of killing. He will kill anyone and anything that crosses his path, for the sole reason of crossing his path; if you didn't want to be brutally slaughtered, you should have stayed away from his territory.
- In "Magical Project S" we have Pixy Misa; she is always given specific orders to defeat Sammy, yet she always ends doing whatever she wants instead (while still being evil and dangerous to Sammy and her friends). For instance, she usually ends up doing things for her own enjoyment like eating a cake while torturing Sammy For the Evulz or trapping kids in a manga. This is no surprise as Pixy Misa actually is Misao ID, as opposed to her alter ego that is Lawful Good Misao Amano; the difference is very apparent
- Digimon Adventure has Puppetmon, an Ax Crazy, impulsive and immature Living Toy; easily the character most blatantly of this alignment in the digimon anime. The three other Dark Masters (Metalseadramon, Machinedramon and Piedmon) also qualify.
- Their true leader and creator, Apocalymon also fits this alignment.
- Venommyotismon and Malomyotismon fit this as well.
- Their true leader and creator, Apocalymon also fits this alignment.
- Ranma ½ has Happosai, a criminal whose acts of evil seem to have no motivation other than the lulz gained from it. Generally, his deeds are petty—groping women, voyeurism, stealing women's underwear, petty theft, ducking bills, making others (particularly his students) take the blame for his crimes, and general trickery. When he decides to get serious about something, however, he can be amongst the worst individuals in the series. Some of his more notable deeds have included (and this is by no means a definitive list): crippling Ranma for interfering with his underwear raids and alerting Ranma's enemies to this state so that they will beat him up for him, and is totally unconcerned with the very real possibility that they might kill him; trying to blow up a baby that he believes will grow up to become an even more successful Panty Thief than himself (admittedly because of a hypnosis-induced dream) rather than change the Embarrassing First Name he gave it; and regularly making his students into fall guys for his crimes, and chaining them up hand and foot, then eating food in front of them and mocking them all the while.
- Psychopathic Manchild Mao of Code Geass.
- Orochimaru is Naruto's best example of Chaotic Evil. His primary goal is to become "the perfect being", and he gleefully defies social conventions (like, say, not killing babies) in pursuit of it, even clearly enjoying how horrified everyone else is when he is caught doing it. He really nails his mast to this trope, however, in his early appearances when he tries to destroy Konoha and start a war....because he thought peace was boring.
- Gaara was Chaotic Evil prior to his Heel Face Turn, killing everyone who provoked him in the slightest way and seeing his existence as revolving around the act of killing other people. Now he is either Neutral Good or Lawful Good.
- Also Hidan who's a member of a Religion of Evil dedicated to total slaughter. He massacred the ninja of his village for being pacifists, and even broke off of the Religion of Evil after getting the forbidden jutsu that enables him to be immortal as long as he kills people.
- He was still with it; he just didn't associate with the members. He still performed the rituals his religion demanded, even though he agreed with his Neutral Evil partner Kakuzu that they were overlong and annoying, and he disliked Kakuzu killing people just for money on principle. He joined that Religion of Evil less for the immortality and more, seemingly, because it gave him a purpose and an excuse to go on killing sprees, making him a more philosophical Type 2.
- Deidara also falls squarely into this alignment, given that before he was recruited, he was selling his bombs to terrorist groups For the Evulz, and even as a member of Akatuski tends towards extremely impulsive behavior and gives his reason for fighting as "just because". Even his decision to kill himself rather than lose to Sasuke is presented in a chaotic light, given that rather than the more lawful simple suicide he turns himself into a nuke to try and take Sasuke with him, laughing maniacally at the idea of becoming one of the explosions he loves so much.
- Sasuke after his fight with Danzo become this.
- Yazan Gable of Zeta Gundam.
- Ali Al-Saachez from Gundam 00 is a highly skilled mercenary and terrorist who admits that he lives solely for war and conflict, and while he occasionally finds ways to using intelligence, he feels much more at home on the battlefield, where he gets to kill without restraint.
- Gundam 00 also has Nena Trinity when she's at her worse. Most of the times she's Chaotic Neutral but other times she can be exceptionally evil. Well showcased when she blows up a wedding because she was angry they were having fun. She tried to take a dip to Neutral Evil in the second season to fool Ribbons and kill the innovators when they least expect it (raising doubts to her Neutral Evil alignment). That plan got shot to hell when she dies.
- Allelujah Haptism's Super-Powered Evil Side Hallelujah really enjoys fighting violently and brutalizing his opponents. Even after the two had a Split Personality Merge.
- Gundam 00 also has Nena Trinity when she's at her worse. Most of the times she's Chaotic Neutral but other times she can be exceptionally evil. Well showcased when she blows up a wedding because she was angry they were having fun. She tried to take a dip to Neutral Evil in the second season to fool Ribbons and kill the innovators when they least expect it (raising doubts to her Neutral Evil alignment). That plan got shot to hell when she dies.
- Rau Le Creuset from Gundam SEED, whose goal was nothing less than the extinction of mankind, is a perfect example of intelligent, high-functioning Chaotic Evil. Calculating and ruthless, he was able to perfectly mask his ever-advancing insanity, gaining Lawful Evil Patrick Zala and Neutral Evil Murata Azrael's trust to manipulate them, successfully playing both ZAFT and the Earth Forces against each other, escalating the war to the point where WMDs were viable options. He almost got what he wanted, too...
- Lord Djibril of Gundam SEED Destiny is interesting in that he's originally a Neutral Evil Fantastic Racist, not too terribly dissimilar from his predecessor, Azrael. As the series progresses however, setbacks and his own stupidity push him further and further towards Chaotic Evil, as he lashes out with every weapon he's got, regardless of the impact it will have on the overall strategy of the war. Convinced that his own survival is everything, he throws away his side's chance of winning the war, taking thousands of people with him in the process.
- Turn a Gundam's Big Bad Gym Ghingnham is a psychotic Blood Knight who wants to plauge the world into eternal war in order to cull humanity and leave only those strong enough to survive, whom he considers "true" humans.
- Naraku in Inuyasha.
- The Evil Twin Zeno and The Stoic Dufort from Zatch Bell.
- Hao Asakura from Shaman King. The Manga version is the Well-Intentioned Extremist version of Chaotic Evil, while the Anime incarnation is an Ax Crazy Psychopath.
- All the villains from the Sailor Moon series, mostly because they are led by incarnations of Chaos itself whose seek to ruin everything in the universe.
- Cell and Majin Buu from Dragon Ball.
- While many of the villains of Dragon Ball may qualify, special mention goes to Piccolo Daimao and the final form of Majin Buu, called Kid Buu. Piccolo desires to take over the world, but states his sole law would be to abolish laws to throw the world into mindless destruction. Kid Buu, on the other hand, gleefully destroys everything in his path, to the point where he's more of a force of nature than a character. The first thing he does after regressing to Kid form is blow up Earth because it happens to be there.
- Same could be said with Broly, who wants nothing more than to destroy everything out of sadism and insanity.
- While many of the villains of Dragon Ball may qualify, special mention goes to Piccolo Daimao and the final form of Majin Buu, called Kid Buu. Piccolo desires to take over the world, but states his sole law would be to abolish laws to throw the world into mindless destruction. Kid Buu, on the other hand, gleefully destroys everything in his path, to the point where he's more of a force of nature than a character. The first thing he does after regressing to Kid form is blow up Earth because it happens to be there.
- Shinobu Sensui from Yu Yu Hakusho. Then again, considering that he has seven split personalities, this isn't exactly easy to pinpoint. Though Kazuya, the Ax Crazy one with an Arm Cannon and a Hair-Trigger Temper, is Chaotic Evil through and through.
- Big Bad Creed Diskenth from Black Cat.
- Many feel that Jail Scaglietti's actions in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha show a man who seeks to cause chaos and destruction, who just wants to watch the world burn, which places him as a more Chaotic Evil character.
- Toredia Graze of StrikerS Sound Stage X plans on using the Mariage to attack several capital cities to teach people pain like the kind he felt while fighting on Orussia (similar to Pain from Naruto, but unlike him, he doesn't have any plan for a new political order). After his death, Runessa carries on this plan and takes on this alignment.
- It's a BIG subject of debate if Precia Testarossa fits here or in Neutral Evil.
- Most villains in the Pretty Cure series. They just want to destroy everything and everyone. Just to give an example from the Splash Star series:
Shitataare:"I heard you two gave life back to the Source of the Sky. Good for me. It will be fun to destroy it again." |
- The Millennium Earl, Road Kamelot, Tyki Mikk and the rest of the Noah Family from D.Gray-man.
- The Millennium organization from Hellsing. Their only real goals are to wage endless destructive war and to kill Alucard. Rather unusual for Nazis, who usually tend towards Lawful Evil.
- Makoto Shishio from Rurouni Kenshin spends about 50% of the time here, the other 50% as Lawful Evil. He despises the peace and order of the Meiji Era and longs to reignite the violence of the revolution. He then plans to conquer Japan and turn it into hell on earth where only the strongest survive—his creed is "The flesh of the weak is the food of the strong."
- Gauron from Full Metal Panic!. He does whatever he damn well pleases... and whatever he damn well pleases is always evil. Sure, he has many goals - but most of them are completely insane. He wants to kill (and rape the dead body of) the beautiful Assassin Saint he met once upon a time... but he also wants to die a sensational death together with aforementioned Assassin Saint. So yes, his goals completely conflict and make no sense. But one thing you have to give to the guy: he's definitely very "free-spirited."
- Gates, the villain of Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid is so thoroughly random in how he goes about causing civil wars and kidnapping diplomats that he becomes utterly hilarious.
- Vincent Volaju & Tongpu of Cowboy Bebop.
- Hansel and Gretel of Black Lagoon, whose personal philosophy is basically a distillation of "kill or be killed" and "us or them", with 'them' being everyone else on the planet. Their murder-and-mayhem-filled visit to Roanapur, a city populated entirely by Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and the (very) occasional Chaotic Neutral, is an excellent example of why it isn't only Good aligned characters that will work to stop Chaotic Evil, as almost everyone scrambles to prevent them from causing any more damage.
- Revy (who is usually Neutral Evil) is this at her very worst. And when Roberta goes off the deep end in El Baile De La Muerte, she becomes this.
- Nnoitra Gilga from Bleach, who has little regard for anything but his violent impulses, and frequently disobeys orders. Most Hollows act this way, and Shrieker, being a serial killer, was also like this when he was alive. Szyael Aporro Granz also leans toward this in his acting independently For Science!.
- Yammy, of course, is the poster boy of this.
- Kenpachi Zaraki was this originally. He didn't care about anyone. He just wanted to fight and kill. Later he becomes more of a Chaotic Neutral character.
- Yammy, of course, is the poster boy of this.
- Dilandau from Vision of Escaflowne.
- Million Knives and Legato Bluesummers from Trigun.
- Ark of Muhyo and Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation has no ideology besides unlocking the secrets of forbidden magical law and gaining eternal life. Most of its members run the gamut from evil but still sane, like Enchu, who wants Muhyo to suffer, and the enigmatic and dangerous Teeki, to almost Ax Crazy Complete Monsters like Tomas and Mick. The ghosts tend to vary in alignment, depending on who they were in life, but most of the ones that went insane are of this alignment.
- Toshiya and Mon (collectively Toshi-Mon) from The World Is Mine. Interestingly, they seem to be switching: Mon, a Wild Child of pure Id, has become reluctant to murder people (he's okay with rape) since an encounter with "Hakumadon" while Toshiya, formerly Mon's bitch (complete with girl disguise) has grown a spine and become a very dangerous Manipulative Bastard.
- Hakumadon itself would qualify, but it's just a literally berserk weapon.
- Phantom Daughter from Zettai Karen Children can't even follow her own decision to be Chaotic Evil, but knows she wants to be free of her "father" Black Phantom and play with Kaoru forever. It appears that she's an alternate personality who's kept in check by a Lawful Evil side, both of whom reside in a relatively normal school girl they refer to as the "Doll", which is par for course for Manipulative Bastard Black Phantom.
- Punie, the main character of Dai Mahou Touge is an example of a Chaotic Evil Magical Girl. Her incantation, Lyrical Tokarev, Kill Them All should be an indicator of things to come.
- Izaya Orihara of Durarara!! is a manipulative, arrogant, and all around crazy bastard whose general motivation in the series is to cause Ragnarok so that he'll have a place to go when he dies. That said, the way he executes his plans (despite his aforementioned craziness, almost everything that happens in the series happens of his own accord) soundly puts him in the calculating, intelligent category of Chaotic Evil.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Big Bad Darcia from Wolf's Rain.
- Most of the pirate crews in One Piece follow this alignment with a twist of Neutral Evil; their captains tend to control them through fear, and there's little they won't do to get money. Although not a pirate, Eneru is also of this alignment, as he kills on a whim, and ultimately plans on leaving anyone—even his own followers—behind to be destroyed along with the island if they don't prove worthy to go to the Endless Vearth with him.
- For example, the Blackbeard Pirates are a good contrast to the Straw Hat Pirates' Chaotic Good, especially Shiliew of the Rain and the titular Captain, Marshall D. Teach after he threw off any Neutral Evil tendacies by Marineford. Of course, he always could have been Chaotic, but was low-key about it until it was his time to shine.
- The Hellhound, Guts's personal Heartless, Enemy Within and Super-Powered Evil Side from Berserk, is very much this. It's basically every negative emotion that Guts has had since the Eclipse made sentient, and worked in concert with him during the Retribution arc, where he was completely focused on his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Griffith and the Godhand.
- Several of the worse Apostles Guts faces are this as well, such as the Depraved Hedonist Wyald.
- The Devil Choujin (Buffaloman, Sunshine, Ashuraman, Akuma Shogun), who sold their souls to demons, are strongly this. However, the first three examples made a Heel Face Turn later on by Kinnikuman.
- Jagi from Hokuto no Ken.
- Death Note: Kyosuke Higuchi, seeing that he uses the death note for personal gain and even enjoys what he does.
- Bryan Hawk from Hajime no Ippo shows how a boxer can be Chaotic Evil. No really.
- Ryuuhei Sawamura too. A complete bastard who has no problems with cheating, doesn't obey anyone and anything, he boxes solely to torture his opponents and probably isn't above killing people, either. He's even called 'evil' multiple times. Which is odd, considering that never occured with Bryan Hawk, who somehow manages to be even worse than Sawamura.
- But unlike Bryan Hawk, Sawamura does have a sort-of Heel Face Turn and settles on Chaotic Neutral. Too bad it's because of a huge accident he was involved in.
- Ryuuhei Sawamura too. A complete bastard who has no problems with cheating, doesn't obey anyone and anything, he boxes solely to torture his opponents and probably isn't above killing people, either. He's even called 'evil' multiple times. Which is odd, considering that never occured with Bryan Hawk, who somehow manages to be even worse than Sawamura.
- Takasugi Shinsuke from Gintama belongs here. While he leads the terrorist group Kihetai, all he wants is the complete destruction of Japan. In the chapter that introduces him, Takasugi even tells his former compatriot Katsura that he will destroy everything until there is nothing else to destroy.
- Ladd Russo and probably his whole gang in Baccano!. He's a barely restrained psychopath and his only standard is that he loves killing people who don't expect to die, but will spare people who are ok with the thought of being killed by him. During the series, he and his gang plan to kill everyone on a train just for the fun of it, and none of them show any real effort at planning other than that.
- Yuno the Villain Protagonist, Yandere and Ax Crazy of Mirai Nikki.
- Tsukuyomi is probably the only villain of Mahou Sensei Negima who qualifies for this.
"There is no reason in this world. I seek naught but blood and carnage." |
- Accelerator of A Certain Magical Index is a Ax Crazy who took part on the Level 6 project where he brutally killed over 10,000 Misaka clones. He gets better.
- Barry The Chopper from Fullmetal Alchemist. The manga version of him is played for laughs and borders on Stupid Evil at times. The first anime version, however, is downright creepy, played straight as a brutal serial killer.
- Big Bad Father in the manga becomes Chaotic Evil after absorbing God.
- Magnificent Bastard Yami Bakura and especially Complete Monster Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh! are willing to kill or torture anyone with their Dark Games, even if it isn't necessary for their goals.
- Yubel from Yu-Gi-Oh! GX also qualifies.
- Elfen Lied is a mess to describe, but Lucy best fits here (and her buried third personality definitely qualifies); her Nyu personality is True Neutral (or simply too childish to have an alignment), and as Kaede she's Chaotic Neutral. Bandou also begins at Chaotic Evil, but Character Development moves him in the direction of Chaotic Neutral.
- From Fairy Tail Zero is just wants to destroy anything with a form and Zancrow "What you retreated, BURN.
- Diva of Blood Plus.
- Blood Knight Anti-Hero Kurodou Akabane of GetBackers.
- All of the episodic villains and, especially, the series Big Bad, Kyogoku Tei of Requiem from the Darkness.
- The prologue of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has been retconned to depict a Bad End where Simon became addicted to his own power, becoming Chaotic Evil, and sought to maximize it all costs, causing a massive war that triggered the Spiral Nemesis, destroying the universe. In the canon timeline he is Chaotic Good.
- Attila from Dreamland is just that: he has no ulterior motives or ideology, all he wants is to instil terror in the heart of people and, on occasions, contemplate "the poetry of ashes" (i.e. burn entire cities for his own pleasure). And that guy is a Juggernaut who could very well destroy a good part of Dreamland on a whim if he felt like it. But if he did he would have nothing left to destroy and that wouldn't be fun.
- Kano, the ultimate Big Bad of "Texhnolyze". He's intelligent, eloquent and charismatic. But he's also a deranged solipsist, who views the entire world to be inside his mind.
Comic Books[]
- Evil Ernie, created by writer Brian Pulido and artist Steven Hughes.
- The Joker. Depends on the writer of course, but The Joker is almost quintessentially Chaotic Evil, literally insane and indiscriminately destructive. He puts the emphasis on Chaotic - he may not be as likely to jump off a bridge as cross it, but he's almost as likely to blow it up. The only indication we get that he has any restraint at all is in the storyline where he has terminal cancer, and we find out what he's like when he has even less to lose.
- Sometimes the Joker is literally too chaotic to be evil. One story has him driving a truck through the wall of a television stage to hijack a quiz show, as soon as a woman gets a question wrong he grabs her and pulls her towards his button flower, she screams for mercy, but instead of acid, he sprays her with giner ale. He goes on like this for the rest of the strip, punishing incorrect answers with normal, run of the mill pranks, and generally acting like his Silver Age counterpart. All the while the station manager refuses to cut the transmission, as a live Joker rampage would boost their ratings sky high, he gets increasingly frustrated waiting for the Joker to stop playing around and get to the carnage, but he doesn't. Eventually Batman arrives to stop him and Joker surrenders peacefully, not having harmed a single person for the entire strip, but before he leaves, he reveals he was filming the station's control room the entire time, and starts playing the footage, then he looks at the camera and says "Who's the real bad guy America? Me, the psychotic killer, or the corporate fatcats who were going to let me do it?". The last panel is the producer holding his head in his hands while the Joker laughs insanely.
- Spider-Man's foe Carnage, a sadistic serial killer who sees violence, bloodshed, and mayhem as the ultimate freedom.
- The Green Goblin could serve as an interesting example. Norman Osborn himself is Neutral Evil, working within and without the system as the situation demands in a ruthless quest for money and power, as well as petty vengeance on Spidey. But Osborn is also mentally unstable and genuinely insane, and sometimes (and originally) his Goblin identity was a case of Split Personality. His Goblin side also originally wanted the same things—maybe even for Osborn—but is clearly much more homicidal and reckless. In recent issues Osborn has given up his Goblin identity to be a straighter Villain with Good Publicity under the name of the Iron Patriot (and towards Lawful Evil), but he is unable to properly control his homicidal tendencies to the point where it seriously threatens his plans, which is being exploited by his evil rivals.
- The Red Skull, Captain America (comics)'s arch-nemesis, is another example of intelligent Chaotic Evil. While he originally started as Lawful Evil, he eventually moved to Chaotic Evil. Not content to seize control of a country from within, he and his close friends in HYDRA actively seek to cause mayhem and destruction, undermining the governments of the world in both subtle and openly vicious ways. He's so nasty, in fact, that even most of the other Big Bads of the Marvel Universe dislike him.
- Most often, Apocalypse, one of the X-Men's more dangerous foes, is this, although he does not seem to be bound by anything approaching the morality of mortals. His envisioned victory involves endless direct Social Darwinist competition between the strongest creatures on Earth, with himself as the projected ultimate victor. It's telling that in many future dystopias, his only servants are beings who have been forcibly transmuted into his slaves or robots.
- The Comedian, Edward Blake, from Watchmen lives to do whatever he feels like—whether it's rape, killing the mother of his unborn child in revenge, killing children, burning the Vietcong alive, or whatever else happens to enter his mind. Blake is a Magnificent Bastard that serves only himself (even when he is employed by the US military, he only uses this as a means to continue getting pleasure out of hurting others). He sees the world and all its darker sides as a joke so cruel that his own attitude is only a natural reaction to it. Apparently, though, he showed a better side in his later relationship with Sally Jupiter.
- Prometheus, Grant Morrison's penultimate 'Anti-Batman', definitely fits into this trope. He's got Batman's eye for discerning weakness but none of his restraint - in his first appearance, he very nearly murdered the entire JLA.
- It Got Worse . In a recent comic storyline, he caused the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people just to prove he could best the heroes of the world (because said heroes had gotten rather serious after Final Crisis and Batman's apparent death). He did all this while strapped to a chair in League headquarters, calmly mocking the League as their every attempt to out-think him failed, until they finally were forced to release him to get the codes to shut down his machines (a destroyed city, maimed hero, lost loved one and a hundred thousand dead at least later). Anti-Batman indeed. Unfortunately for Prometheus, this made things beyond personal for Green Arrow, who proceeds to Pay Evil Unto Evil.
- Ultron, archenemy of The Avengers.
- Willy Pete from Empowered is a sociopathic fire-elemental with a more-or-less human mind that lives to indulge human appetites such as food and sex in the least socially acceptable manner possible.
- Seems to be the alignment of choice for most of Norman Osborn's "Dark Avengers". Bullseye, Venom, and Daken would all qualify, as would the usually LE Norman himself when his Green Goblin persona shows itself.
- The Red Lantern Corps. The three "evil" corps actually fit the evil alignments quite neatly, with Orange as Neutral Evil and the Yellows as Lawful Evil.
- Mr. Dark and Max, The Pied Piper, from Fables. Mr. Dark is the embodiment of fear of the unknown, and enjoys spreading death and misery to this end. Max is a psychopath who thinks the world owes him whatever he wants, and flies into murderous rages when his demands aren't instantly met. He also has a penchant for luring entire cities of children to their deaths.
- After a lifetime of being Lawful Evil in his devotion to Death, Thanos snaps at the end of The Thanos Imperative after he is made immortal. Realizing that his goal of being with Death is forever out of his reach, Thanos just wants to lash out at everything and everyone in creation.
- Amatsu-Mikaboshi, the Chaos King and the newest Big Bad of the Marvel Universe.
- President Gary 'The Smiler' Callahan from Transmetropolitan. The entire reason he became president is so that he could fuck everyone over. He says so himself!
- Violator.
- The Yellow Bastard said it himself: "I get to do whatever I want!" That was his main motivation. It definitely doesn't help things that he's protected from any punishment he might otherwise receive for his horrible acts by his corrupt U.S. Senator father.
Fan Works[]
- Voldemort of My Immortal was most likely supposed to be this. In the actual story, he doesn't really do anything besides hijack MCR concerts and yell at Ebony for not killing Vampire/Harry, making him more of a Chaotic Neutral person.
- The dezban high chieftain Takavor Derishama in the Mass Effect fanfic The Council Era is wild, law-disregarding, and Type 3 Chaotic Evil. This is kind of a given within his race, though. The best example of his nature is when he ignores the attempts of a salarian soldier to get his attention, and when the salarian fires a round into his shoulder, he throws his spear through the salarian, and has his clan slaughter and eat the salarian's squad. This does not bode well for him.
- Pretty much every villain in Calvin and Hobbes: The Series that's not the Stupid Evil Brainstorm family or one of their Punch Clock Villain robots is this:
- Electro and Holographic Retro are Type 1s.
- Jark is something of a Type 2.
- Thunderstorm and Shadow are definitely Type 4s.
Film[]
- Darth Maul, of Star Wars Episode 1, seems to exist as a vessel of pure fury, hate, and bloodlust... and occasional sadistic glee when he hurts or kills someone.
- While we're on the Star Wars track, most Sith are this way. Their affinity for stabbing each other in the back over the smallest of slights, or indeed, just because they can, makes you wonder why anyone expects to live long enough to reach tyrant level when they join them.
- That's the purpose of the Rule of Two: To limit the destruction and ensure the survival of the Sith as a philosophy.
- The original and default position of The Sith is Neutral Evil- they believe that Force sensitives should use the Dark Side and have a right to lord over other peoples, and selfishly pursue power. Individual Sith will have their own alignments depending on their goals and values- Vader and Tyrannus both wanted to impose order on a corrupt and chaotic galaxy (Lawful Evil), and Palpatine mostly just wanted power (Neutral Evil). The best examples of Chaotic Evil would be Malak, who was Drunk on the Dark Side; Sion, who mostly just wants to kill Jedi; and Nihilus, who was an Omnicidal Maniac Eldritch Abomination.
- Apart from the Sith, what's about General Grievous? He might have been a Proud Warrior once, but now he is just a bloodthirsty Slaughterer, who want's to commit Genocide on the Jedi and is ready to kill and betray everyone who is in his way. And he really has A LOT of joy while doing so.
- Pictured above: The Joker from The Dark Knight is the poster boy for this alignment.
- The Joker was written in a way that demonstrates what lengths you have to go to to get a seriously Chaotic Evil character; the several different writers of the movie all had their own ideas of the Joker's motivation, character and backstory, but they decided not to discuss them with each other, and instead produced a script where different parts of the script are written with different character interpretations in mind, so that the Joker's actions seem genuinely disordered and unpredictable. He also exhibits an idealistic devotion to chaos, which he spends the movie "promoting" to the world.
- Even though he sees himself as being Chaotic Good, most of John Kramer's victims would beg to differ.
- Arthur Burns from The Proposition. Although he does love his friends, he is a monstrous monstrous man an one outlaw that disregard the rules of civilization.
- Sigfried from the Get Smart movie is an unusually calm Chaotic Evil character, which is not too surprising, given that he is the leader of KAOS.
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has a Villain Protagonist who is a Chaotic Evil Serial Killer who manages to retain our sympathy mainly due to his revenge motivation and being pitted against the Lawful Evil Judge Turpin. Mrs. Lovett completes the trifecta as Neutral Evil, turning Sweeney's murders into a vehicle for profit for her restaurant in quite the ghoulish fashion.
- The Gremlins, bordering on both Chaotic Stupid and Stupid Evil.
- How can we forget our dear old droog Alex? Rape, murder, theft, a little classical music...
- In his cinematic debut, one minute he's an Affably Evil Wicked Cultured Magnificent Bastard Villain Protagonist, the next he's a Nightmare Fuel Ax Crazy Complete Monster. It's difficult to imagine a different alignment to hang on Dr. Hannibal Lecter. However, Bufflo Bill (Silence of the Lambs) and Francis Dolarhyde (Red Dragon) are most probably Chaotic Evil.
- Michael Myers, for that matter all the great slasher flick villains.
- The family of Leatherface certainly is, who bullies him around and manipulates him into killing people to satisfy their own sick and twisted goals. Leatherface himself is usually portrayed as somewhat sympathetic in contrast to his family, despite being the main killer of the movies.
- Don't forget Chucky!
- Even the normally True Neutral Pinhead ends up as this in Hellraiser III Hell On Earth due to a series of complicated circumstances.
- Freddy Krueger is a Type II example, as he depends on the dream demons for his powers to work. There is somewhat of an attempt to give him a revenge motive in the earlier movies(killing the children of the parents who killed him), but eventually that flimsy excuse is done away with and he's revealed simply being a sick bastard who likes killing people.
- The fictional version of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.
- Top Dollar, the Big Bad from the film of The Crow, gives a speech about evil and chaos that is practically a psalm about this alignment.
Greed is for amateurs. Chaos, disorder, anarchy... now that's fun! |
- Lord John Whorfin from Buckaroo Banzai. "He's a vicious psychopath, Tommy. Just as soon kill ya as go fishin'..."
- Tuco from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, despite his Pet the Dog moments and Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass/Butt Monkey status.
- Oogie-Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Tommy De Vito in Goodfellas.
- Destoroyah, from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, being revived and mutated by the Oxygen Destroyer, revels in destruction and death, especially when it tortures the King of the Monsters.
- Complete Monster Patrick Bateman of American Psycho.
- From Inception, Mal, Cobb's dead wife and the disturbing projection in his mind, might count as this, too.
- Yuri from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 move, [Film:Werewolf\]. He is hot-tempered, willing to assault anyone over the slightest provocation, and has only the vaguely defined goal of injecting people to see if he can turn them into werewolves and that will somehow give him fame and fortune, but it's clear that he has no plan to make that happen, and so is fascinated to watch his victims transform into werewolves for its own sake.
- Sadako/Samara from The Ring probably counts as well.
- Ax Crazy Villain Protagonist JD of "Heathers" is a surprisingly realistic example of Chaotic Evil.
- Vincent from Collateral represents the element of chaos into Max's carefully ordered world. Though he seems quite affable and likeable, he is a cold-blooded and sociopathic hitman with more than a bit of Nietzsche Wannabe in him.
- Andre Baptiste Sr., an Ax Crazy warlord and would-be Caligula who is Neutral Evil arms-dealing protagonist Yuri Orlov's number one customer in Lord of War. His son Andre Jr. is also pure, distilled Chaotic Evil - his favorite hobby is riding around in a convertible gunning down random people with a gold-plated AK-47.
- Ax Crazy Psycho for Hire Gaear Grimsrud from the Coen brothers' Fargo. Unlike his Neutral Evil partner in crime, who only kills people when they get in his way, he'll do it just because he feels like it.
- Zé Pequeno (Lil' Zé), the vicious gangster who is the primary antagonist in City of God, is another textbook example. He's absolutely ruthless in running his gang, takes whatever he wants and kills whoever gets in his way when he does so. At one point, he goes into a seedy hotel/whorehouse and, after robbing it, slaughters everyone there just for the hell of it. When he does this, he's all of twelve years old.
- Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man is a very pure example of Chaotic Evil; he just wants to see the world burn for fun.
- Villain Protagonist (s) Cecil B. Demented and all of the Sprocket Holes from Cecil B. Demented are this.
- A rare comedic example is The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.
- Clubber Lang is most certainly Chaotic Evil.
- Carl Denham, the greedy filmmaker in King Kong, is listed as Chaotic Evil in the official D&D supplement Complete Scoundrel.
- Peter Stegman and his Neo-Nazis gang from Class of 1984.
- Henry Evans from The Good Son, is a extremely sadistic cousin of Mark Evans.
Literature[]
- Claggart in Billy Budd. He's described as being "naturally depraved" and he wants to destroy the hero so badly (without a reason) that he provokes the boy into killing him, just to be sure he'll be hanged.
- Mr. Jonathan Teatime (pronounced Teh-ah-tim-ah) in the Discworld novel Hogfather. Other Guild Assassins take professional pride in inhuming the target with no collateral damage to bystanders, whenever possible; but to Teatime, killing is art for art's sake.
- Carcer of Night Watch is possibly the most "Chaotic" villain in all of the Discworld series.
- Pratchett also has the elves, who are both vicious and incredibly chaotic. Whether they are starfish aliens or chaotic evil- or both- is up for debate.
- Carcer of Night Watch is possibly the most "Chaotic" villain in all of the Discworld series.
- Alex, of A Clockwork Orange. Real horrorshow, my droogs.
- Fenrir Greyback in Harry Potter, whose sole objective in life is to turn as many children as possible into werewolves... Or kill them, whichever strikes his fancy.
- The In-Universe alignment of Fate/Zero's Caster (Gilles de Rais, aka Bluebeard). Just look at how he does things in the Holy Grail War.
- Morgoth from The Silmarillion: according to Word of God, his ultimate goal is simply to smash creation down into dust, into the primal darkness from which it came. By contrast, his lieutenant (and occasional Dragon) Sauron is Lawful Evil
- Ungoliant of the same tome, representing the Eldritch Abomination version of this trope. Also Carcaroth, Glaurung and Ulfast
- Acheron Hades of the Thursday Next series is this. Like the Joker, he's the type who depending on his whim of the moment, can vary between laughable, cartoonish villainy and brutal evil. For instance, although his plot to destroy great works of literature is more of the former, he's also depicted slaughtering an mentire room of police officers for the fun of it.
- The Complete Monster Designated Heroes of The Turner Diaries, bonus points since they seem to consider themselves as Chaotic Good or Well Intentioned Extremists at worst. They aren't.
- The four protagonists, as well as lots of briefly mentioned characters in the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and probably many characters from his other works.
- Rupert of Hentzau of The Prisoner of Zenda arguably falls into this alignment, and is a very calm and calculating version of it. Rupert is basically the swashbuckling hero (a classic example of Chaotic Good) turned evil, and so he goes about things like treachery, casual cruelty, and attempted rape with with great charm and joie de vivre.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Vargo Hoat and The Brave Companions, better known as the Bloody Mummers; the most vile, depraved, sickening mercenary troop in all the known lands. Yes, probably worse than Gregor Clegane's band of evil thugs even.
- Gregor Clegane is about as Chaotic Evil as they come. Whether it's killing children or massacring civilians during wartime or his decision to have an innkeeper's daughter gang raped by his men just because, you never know what Gregor's going to do, just that it will be as abhorrent as possible. His band of thugs is worse than the Mummers—while Vargo's band are all sorts of monsters and wierdos gathered from faraway lands, Gregor's bunch are just ordinary soldiers and thugs. They brutally defeat and torture Vargo's band in the later books.
- Westeros will occasionally offer up a Caligula King to make the people as miserable as possible and give the characters an excuse to start a civil war. Mad King Aerys and Joffrey Lannister are the two notable examples, both sadistic Ax Crazy psychopaths who infuriated their nobles into rebellion by having prominent members of major Houses executed for no good reason.
- Ramsay Bolton, son of Roose Bolton, is quite possibly the most evil character in the whole series, being the sort of man who flays people alive for fun, and enjoys the finer things in life, such as rape, murder, torture, and a whole mess of other atrocities, and becomes so repellently evil that his own father, he himself no stranger to atrocious behavior, expresses disgust at his methods (though this is more due to the negative publicity Ramsay brings to himself).
- Littlefinger is an odd case as he's never seen indulging in the kind of sadism that delights Ramsay, Joffrey or Gregor, but his MO is to upset the established order and take advantage of the ensuing chaos. He didn't just watch Westeros burn, he set it on fire!
- We haven't seen much of The Others thusfar in the story, but their reputation is a race of Exclusively Evil omnicidal maniacs who want to plunge all the world into eternal winter and darkness at the behest of their unseen God of Evil master and creator. So they might just fit this trope.
- Although he isn't this alignment in the adaptations of the work, the original Fantomas, was a poster-boy for the alignment. Fantomas had an inspiration from Gentleman Thief characters like Arsène Lupin, but his only interest was in spreading terror and his wacky schemes involved killing people in sadistic ways (i.e. spreading a plague).
- Lord Foul, the Big Bad of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. His ultimate goal is to break out of his Sealed Evil Can and be free, but that can just happens to be an entire planet. It is heavily implied that even if he had no chance of breaking out, he would still kill and/or torture everyone on the planet just for the Hell of it.
- Edward Hyde, from The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- Duchess Alicia from The Waters Rising by Shari S. Tepper who kills at whim, concieves unreasoning hatred for an entire nation and puts entire villages through humiliating games For the Lulz. She also lusts ofter her father, seduces her brother and kills her mother.
Live Action TV[]
- Heroes has quite a few: Sylar (when he isn't trying to make a Heel Face Turn) is a mix of Type 3 and Type 4 ("evolutionary imperative", anyone?), Elle Bishop is a Type 1, and Sylar's dad was a Type 3 in his day (and tries to become one again when he learns that Sylar has a power that grants him Immortality).
- The Reavers from Firefly. If given half a chance, they'll rape you to death, eat your flesh, and sew your skin into their clothing. And if you're very. very lucky, they'll do it in that order. What's especially ironic about them is that they were created by a group of Lawful Stupid scientists in a botched attempt to find a drug that would render mankind completely good, peaceful and law-abiding.
- The coldly stoic Marlo Stanfield of The Wire demonstrates how Chaotic Evil doesn't necessarily mean stark-raving mad evil. He is simply Chaotic because there isn't a single thing about human life that matters to him, and is driven less by a desire for profit and more by his desire to prove his name. There isn't a single thing he won't do, no line he won't cross, to achieve what he wants.
- The Shadows from Babylon 5 are perceived like this in the beginning - an ancient sinister race that emerges from the deepest bowels of cosmos to annihilate everything in its path with world-shattering firepower and insisdios treachery. Truth turns out a wee bit more complicated. Essentially, they ARE everything mentioned above, except that their ultimate goal is to kick-drive their enemies (whom they rather see as students) up the evolutionary and technological ladder. Thus they are perfectly happy when they eventually loose the battle and are driven away to return in a thousand years for another "lesson".
- Anubis of Stargate SG-1. The Goa'uld themselves are already as evil, if not worse than Hitler. Now imagine that Anubis was banished by the Goa'uld because he was too evil even for them. Ultimately, his goal was to erase all life in the galaxy.
- iCarly: Nevel. He hasn't killed anyone.. but well, it's a kid show. He has some super creepy scenes involving a wall of monitors featuring slow motion close-ups of Carly.
- Davros of Doctor Who, Mad Scientist creator of the Exclusively Evil Daleks. Anything that isn't Dalek is on his "to kill" list, including his own species, immune to any reason or attempts at negotiation, and completely batshit insane.
- An argument could be made that his creations, the Daleks are Lawful Evil members of a Chaotic Evil race. Consider that an individual Dalek obeys authority unquestioningly, submits to strict rules of behaviour and never ever thinks for itself, while the Dalek Emperor and its underlings, the Dalek Supremes, enforce those rules and orders and expect to never be questioned. But, the entire race when viewed as a whole has only one desire: destroy everything that is not Dalek. This is the textbook definition of an Exclusively Evil race.
- The resurrected Master. He's bascially undead, eating people, and alternatively wants to blast the Doctor with energy bolts and then ignoring him. His behavior is erratic, and he works with people and then betrays them.
- That, and the fact that he's batshit insane.
- Spike of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, before his Character Development. A lot of which was caused by Spike needing an outlet for his violent impulses after being rendered incapable of attacking humans.
- However, not even Spike before his Character Development is at Angelus' level of Chaotic Evil.
- Glory is basically the Goddess of Chaotic Evil. She's a vapid and shallow bully who just happens to be able to break buildings down with her fists and drink people's sanity through their skulls, and mostly just wants to have fun like just an immortal, insane hellgod can.
- Rounding out the trifecta of "true" villains in Oz, along with Vern Schillinger and Ryan O'Reilly, Scary Black Man Simon Adebisi definitely fits this alignment. He's even Affably Evil at times...right up to the Prison Rape.
- Takeshi Asakura/Kamen Rider Ouja from Kamen Rider Ryuki. There's nothing romantic or grey about his character: he's an insane serial killer with an uncontrollable compulsion for violence.
- Ax Crazy Lilah, Psychopathic Manchild Arthur "Trinity Killer" Mitchell and Complete Monster Jordan Chase of Dexter.
- According to The Colbert Report, bears.
- Papa Lazarou and the Pandemonium Circus: the open road, a life in showbusiness, no rules, no laws - like that one about not kidnapping people.
- Lucifer, the Big Bad of Supernatural's fifth season. His only goal is to eliminate all humankind and all demons, and he kills numerous people in his quest to bring about The End of the World as We Know It. He even says in "Hammer of the Gods": "Nobody gives us the right. We take it."
- Also, War, Famine and Pestilence, three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Death, on the other hand, was more True Neutral than Chaotic Evil. He had a job to do, and the whole 'End of Days' thing was getting in the way.
- Larry, the Psycho for Hire Evil Mentor on Burn Notice. No morals, no conscience, and no loyalty to anyone except Michael, and even then only because he remains absolutely convinced that they're really Not So Different. And possessed of both sufficient impulsiveness and deviousness to always keep you guessing whether he's pulling an Indy Ploy or just good at the old Xanatos Speed Chess.
- Joey Heric on The Practice. In his first few appearances, he repeatedly commits brutal murders just to see if he can get away with it. When it becomes obvious that he can, he starts framing innocent people for his murders to see if he can get away with that, too.
- Jim Moriarty of the series Sherlock is a giggling, mood-swinging Psychopathic Manchild who also just so happens to be one of the most cunning criminals in the world, for no other reason beyond that he is bored. So dedicated is he to tormenting Sherlock Holmes that at the end of series two, he even gleefully shoots himself in the head, just to prevent Sherlock from beating his game.
Music[]
- If you ever shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, you just might be Chaotic Evil.
- "BANG BANG Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head / CLANG CLANG Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that he was dead..."
- "I dunno what I want, but I know how to get it / I wanna DESTROY passers-by"
Professional Wrestling[]
- Kane is not motivated by any of the standard pro wrestling goals—he doesn't care at all about being a champion, being famous, making lots of money, the thrill of competition, Doing It for the Art, or anything along those lines. No, he's a wrestler for one reason and one reason only—to inflict pain. Lots of it, to whomever he can get his hands on. And he smiles and cackles maniacally the entire time he's doing it. Other than that, he's a singularly unmotivated individual. He'll also run in on random matches and beatdown other wrestlers regardless of their alignment. Because of this he's perpetually a tweener or switching alignments.
- Stone Cold Steve Austin pre-Wrestlemania XIII is a Type 3.
- Randy Orton in early 2009 was a Type 4. Orton did whatever he wanted when he wanted whether he was braining his own boss or kissing the unconscious wife of his nemesis, Triple H and blamed it all on a mental condition so he couldn't be fired. His ultimate goal was to be WWE Champion and destroy the McMahon family at the same time. And he got a lot of cheers for it.
- Fortune in TNA led by Ric Flair was Chaotic Evil during their feud with Dixie Carter and her supporters, operating on a Type I structure until their alliance with Immortal brought them into Lawful Evil.
- In Ring of Honor, Generation Next was Type 1 until Austin Aries kicked Alex Shelley out of the group.
- Kevin Steen after turning on El Generico is a Type 4. The man who convinced Steen to turn, Steve Corino, would be a Type 5.
- For much of 2011, we had R-Truth. He played into a Type 3: muttering to himself, acting wildly vicious in nature, as well as trolling various members of the audience; and by extension, roster. As of early 2012, he's much the same, only now he's Chaotic Good.
Religion & Mythology[]
- Satan is portrayed this way when he's not Chaotic Good. Sometimes alternately represented as Lawful Evil Lucifer, who always keeps his word once given, never goes back on a bet, etc., in Irish, Scottish and American (especially Southern) folktales, sometimes outwitted by a Trickster.
- In the Hebrew Kabbalah, there are demons known as the Golachab or "Burning Bodies" who set themselves on fire so as to cause more burning and destruction in their wake wherever they go. That's Chaotic Evil (and Stupid Evil) all over.
- In Egyptian mythology, despite the Hollywood interpretations of Anubis, one of several gods of death, he was not this, and was in fact Lawful Good, since his duties consisted of protecting the bodies of the dead. However, the god Set, the god of darkness, sandstorms, and chaos, most certainly qualifies here... except when he doesn't. Yeah, there's that business he pulled with Osiris and Horus, but he also regularly saved Ra from Apep. Apep himself is the only figure in Egyptian mythology that is truly Chaotic Evil, seeking nothing but the destruction of the god Ra, the embodiment of justice, righteousness and the physical representation of the sun. In short, an Omnicidal Maniac.
- The terrifying Navajo Skinwalker absolutely revels in inhuman depravity for its own sake.
Tabletop Games[]
- Dungeons & Dragons: The Trope Namer, Trope Codifier, and nearly Trope Maker (though definitely not Ur Example); makes explicit use of the term all the time, so it's easy to find examples.
- The Demons have literally defined Chaotic Evil since the game's beginnings. Their plane of origin, the Abyss, embodies Chaotic Evil as a concept, and it possesses infinite layers, each more horribly evil than the last—think of it as Hell, only messier.
- Among dragonkind, red, white and black dragons are Chaotic Evil, along with deep dragons, shadow dragons and yellow dragons.
- Even when they aren't Always Chaotic Evil, orcs in D&D are usually portrayed with a Chaotic Evil culture that rewards backstabbing, vicious shows of strength, and no compassion whatsoever to the weak or other races. This is also true for ogres, trolls, bugbears, several (but not all) giant subraces, and various other humanoids. Note that prior to 3rd Edition, orcs were actually listed as Lawful Evil and portrayed with a rigid social structure; this was later dropped to make them more barbaric, and the Lawful Evil alignment became a more distinctive trait of the hobgoblins.
- The drow are a race of subterranean elves that, due to the insane level of devotion they have their goddess Lolth, have developed a culture that revolves around subterfuge and treachery. Drow are always looking for ways to increase their own power, while watching their own backs for others looking to depose them. It has been mentioned in the source books that the drow should have gone extinct long ago, due to the constant power struggles, but it is purely through Lolth's will that they remain alive. They were changed to "usually Neutral Evil" in the 3rd edition, however, with Lolth remaining Chaotic Evil.
- In Pathfinder RPG, each of the Chaotic Evil humanoids is given their own different take on the alignment. Orcs are just stupid and barbaric, living lives of savagery because they can't imagine doing anything else. Ogres are a race of Psychopathic Manchildren who engage in all kinds of depravity to sate their lust and gluttony. Bugbears are perhaps the worst of all, committing mass murder not for the sake of killing, but instead to instill fear in the survivors—they are, in effect, a race of terrorists.
- Tharizdun is an Omnicidal Maniac Eldritch Abomination who was Neutral Evil until 4th edition, for some reason (see his entry in Neutral Evil for the explanation). Basically, in 4e, he created the Abyss, and as a result of his madness, his angels have turned into giant cyclopean monsters which roam through the Astral Sea eating things. If he ever breaks his chains, most of the universe is screwed.
The following might be the best explanation for why Tharizdun wasn't Chaotic Evil in earlier Editions: "CHAOTIC EVIL: The Chaotic Evil creature holds that individual freedom and choice is important, and that other individuals and their freedoms are unimportant if they cannot be held by the individuals through their own strength and merit. Thus, law and order rends to promote not individuals but groups, and groups suppress individual volition and success." - 1st. Editon DMG Basically Chaos as individualism and Evil as brutality and cruelty.
- Dagon, a sea demon that
acts as The Dragon to Demogorgonhelps Demogorgon for unknown reasons of his own, is pretty much the personification of calm, intelligent, and patient Chaotic Evil. Also, he is intentionally modeled after Lovecraft's Dagon. Only worse. Yes, that Lovecraft. - The Archons of 4e aren't too far behind him. They are disciplined, regimented, highly organized and otherwise you'd think they were personifications of Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil. However, they are living weapons whose sole reason to exist is to kill everything else that exists. They're not really sentient, as such, just pure, highly developed, militaristic instinct — they don't squabble over power because each instinctively knows how strong it is and how it relates to other Archons in that regard. They do act as mercenaries, but that's merely a way to acquire treasure (to lure would-be thieves to them so they can fight them) and an excuse to kill. They have no understanding of mercy, kindness, love, peace or anything that doesn't revolve around killing... and they have no capacity to learn to understand such concepts. To live is to kill. To kill is to live. There is nothing else to Archons. They are basically elemental Terminators.
- 4th edition also changed Slaadi from Chaotic Neutral to this, on the justification that they are so Chaotic Stupid they are Omnicidal Maniacs—they want to tear apart the very rules that hold reality together, they revere Chaos that much.
- Dagon, a sea demon that
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 provide some of the most brutally straightforward, Obviously, Card Carryingly, Ax Crazily, and otherwise gleefully and horrendously evil examples of the alignment in all of fiction.
- The Orks of WH40K are perhaps a purer version of this trope. They live for slaughtering their enemies in a giant Waaaagh!
- Chaos. The name says it all.
- Tzeentch appears to be the most orderly (relatively speaking) of the Chaos Gods. Except that all of his plans are designed to be mutually contradictory and he makes sure that, ultimately, he can never achieve victory, due to the mutually inclusive goals that he would cease to exist if he ever won and his absolute addiction to scheming. He's probably more Chaotic Evil than any of them... with the possible exception of Khorne, who cares not from where the blood flows, only that it does, and whose followers wage ceaseless, pitiless war for its own sake throughout the cosmos. He has no churches or temples in his honour—the only place to honour and worship him is on the battlefield, and the battlefield must have no limits or end.
- Chaos Space Marine Legions vary from Lawful Evil to Chaotic Evil. Several of the more disciplined ones are almost Visionary Villains wanting to carry out the legacy of Horus, uniting humanity under Chaos. Some of the others... not so much. You need only look at the eloquent and sophistication philosophy expounded by Kharn The Betrayer, mentioned just up there ^. Although he's a pretty fun guy regardless. And, not surprisingly, the World Eaters are pretty much the purest examples of this alignment amongst the Chaos Space Marine chapters, which of course is the legion Khârn is part of.
- The Dark Eldar have partially moved away from this direction in fifth edition. They still have elements of this, but it is mostly restricted to the lower castes and criminals of their society. Indeed, in the retool the Kabals tend to fulfill the Lawful Evil side of the spectrum more, enforcing strict but cruel laws upon their people, as befitting of a race of absolute evil. As to this, there is a huge rivalry between the kabals and the lower castes of society, but they do tend to (begrudgingly) work together to commit raids, with many of the criminals and gangs working as cruel mercenaries for the Kabals alongside their actual soldiers.
- The Skaven of Warhammer Fantasy. Giant anthropomorphic ratmen of Chaos whose only raison d'etre is wanton destruction.
- In Magic: The Gathering, many pairings of Red, which is heavily associated with chaos, and Black, which is overwhelmingly associated with evil, gives us this trope. Every demon costs black, red, or both.
- At least partial exception, Innistrad vampires (associated with both red and black mana) generally avert this alignment for the most part, with Stromkirk vampires embracing a Noble Demon artistic approach (both black and red traits) in contrast to some of the other bloodlines that are a lot more bloodcrazed. As to this, it stands to show that red and black combos does not nessecarily mean Chaotic Evil.
- The combo isn't always Chaotic Evil; the boggarts from Lorwyn are Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Good, for instance. Still, it is an iconic villain combo in Magic: The Gathering; the very first canon villain, Mishra, was Black/Red.
- Every willing member of the Rapine Storm in Cthulhu Tech. As has been said before, the Lovecraftian horrors in that force are nowhere near as bad as the actual humans, and they seem to have no goals besides killing, maiming, raping and burning their way across the world.
- The Wyrm in the original Werewolf: The Apocalypse. It's goal, depending on one's interpretation is either to destroy the entire universe or trap it forever in an unending state of suffering.
- Subverted in that it is only trying to break free from imprisonment by the insane Weaver, and the horrors that serve it fitting more into the mold due to some of the stuff they do For the Evulz. In essence, the Wyrm is True Neutral, it's purpose being acting as the balancing deity between the order of the Weaver and chaos of the Wyld by bringing a blessed ending to their creations.
- The Ebon Dragon of Exalted (when he's not being Neutral Evil). Exalted uses a Virtue system to depict the internal integrity and morality of characters. Compassion denotes the character's ability to feel for others and empathy, Conviction for determination to ideals and visions, Temperance for self-control and discipline, and Valor for courage and bravery. The Ebon Dragon, a titan who created the world, has the lowest rating possible for a sentient being in all Virtues. He does not care for anything, possesses no ideals, refuses to control himself and can not stand up against danger. His only motivation is to cause suffering. This miserable thing has cosmic powers.
- His similarly supra-divine sister, Adorjan, is also Chaotic Evil, but of a completely different variety-she's actually a bizarre mix of Type 5 and Ax Crazy (she's bloody insane and acts like it, but she'll happily explain the reason she kills people is to free them of all attachments-which is why she kills what she loves and spares what she hates).
Theatre[]
- Shakespeare did it
- Aaron the Moor from Titus Andronicus.
- Also, Iago from Othello.
- Don John, in Much Ado About Nothing plots to destroy the love of Hero and Claudio for no reason at all.
Video Games[]
- Carter Blake from Heavy Rain. He starts off as Jerkass Lawful Neutral, but quickly descends to Lawful Evil to pretty much the worst excuse for a person (let alone Police Lieutenant) you could possibly think of and then some. He accuses anyone on a whim, takes pleasure in beating suspects, and kills innocent people (depending on what endings you get). And if that wasn't enough, he has a shitty attitude about everything. And if that wasn't enough, he's pretty much the only major character in the entire game who can't die.
- HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic cheerfully asks to kill every living thing he sees; he only has his master's metaphorical leash stopping him from becoming a literal non-stop killing machine.
- Calo Nord, a legendary bounty hunter, kills people for talking to him when he's not in the mood.
- Also, Darth Nihilus from the sequel is an Omnicidal Maniac who seeks to devour all life in the galaxy so that he can sate his hunger.
- Eventually, everyone who plays a GTA gets powerful and bored/pissed off enough that they become this. Ditto any other crime sandbox game.
- Black Whirlwind from Jade Empire, an Ax Crazy mercenary whose chaotic and impulsive actions (Sleeping with his employers wife, cutting in two a girl two rivals were fighting over) normally end in him having to kill everyone in self defence.
- Resident Evil's Albert Wesker. By Resident Evil 5, he basically hates everyone in the world and seeks to genocide the human race. Not to mention half the things he did beforehand, from taking a preteen outbreak survivor prisoner to injecting Jill with viruses and forcing her to aid him just so she can suffer.
- Tira, Cervantes, and Nightmare in Soul Calibur. Soul Edge has rendered them all insane killing machines with little regard for who's on the other side of the blade.
- Kratos of God of War is an Ax Crazy berserker whose primary motivation is the death of anyone who pisses him off, and many people who don't.
- ... And Revenge!
- Kefka of Final Fantasy VI, an Ax Crazy, Omnicidal Monster Clown and a Chaotic Evil hybrid of types 2 and 4. In the first part of the game he works for The Empire, but disobeys orders whenever he feels like it so he can, for example, gleefully slaughter an entire city and hear the people scream. In the second part he is a Physical God and rules over the world... Or rather, the scraps and ruins of it that are left.
- Luca Blight from Suikoden II.
- And his Spiritual Successor in Suikoden V, Childerich.
- A chaotic evil character alignment is possible in In Famous, just like in all sandbox games. Infamous is made distinct by the fact that the player has the option to choose their character alignment through their actions, and character alignment is actually a major element in the way that the game plays out. If you choose to be chaotic evil, then people will hate you, the city will descend deeper into crime and anarchy, and you will gain powers exclusive to evil characters.
- Albedo Piazolla from the Xenosaga series.
- SHODAN. Her absolute hatred for humanity knows no bounds. Always calling people "meat" and craving absolute destruction, she's the epitome of absolute vengeance.
- Mother from Wild ARMs 1. Unlike Ziekfried, who wanted to conquer and subjugate Filgaia, Mother craves only destruction and death, and even goes so far as to claim that once she destroys Filgaia, she intends to devour Ziek and the other Quarter Knights as well. Is it any wonder Ziekfried backstabs her and becomes the new Big Bad?
- Lord Blazer from Wild ARMs 2, who spends almost the entire game bragging to Ashley about how he nearly destroyed Filgaia and mocking him for his idealism. Judecca is a tough call between this and Neutral Evil.
- Kartikeya from Wild ARMs 5. Complete lunatic; who knows why the other members of the villainous five keep him around?
- Kerrigan from StarCraft once the Expansion Pack Brood War rolls around. She plays The Chessmaster to get into power, and once there does whatever she feels like while massacring her remaining competition. She leaves Zeratul alive after forcing him to kill his Matriarch in order to free her, so that his "every waking moment will be torture." She also Lampshades it by calling herself the "Queen Bitch of the universe."
- Hell is depicted this way in the Diablo mythos, whose denizens enjoy slaughtering and corrupting mortals and who hold chaos as a cosmic ideal to which all reality should bend. It should be noted, however, that besides the Three Prime Evils who rule Hell, most of the forces of Hell seem to in fact be stupid evil, and are perfectly willing to simply slaughter each other for all eternity.
- The Umgah from Star Control II are a race of practical jokers who seem to have little to no loyalty to anyone or anything, even attacking the player after he saves their entire race, just for kicks and giggles. The fact that the Umgah's pranks are implied to cause the death of thousands, if not millions of sentient beings puts them squarely in the "evil" category.
- As an example, they drop miles-wide meteors into the oceans of inhabited planets and consider it hilarious.
- The Kohr-Ah probably also qualify, as opposed to their Lawful Evil counterparts the Kzer-Zah. The Kzer-Zah believe that the key to their race's survival is to enslave everybody else, thus bringing order and hierarchy to the galaxy. The Kohr-Ah on the other hand believe that if there are no living sentient races, then they can never again be made slaves and kill.Anyone and everything that isn't them must die.
- Giygas from EarthBound literally embodies the trope, as does his subordinate Pokey/Porky.
- Until the sequel, in which Porky becomes a Lawful Evil Evil Overlord.
- The Edel Bernal, the Big Bad and True Final Boss of Super Robot Wars Z is a perfect example of this alignment. He lives only for the pleasure of death and destruction and cause the dimensional collapse which resulted in the countless conflicts of the game for fun.
- Melissa and Meria, the evil sides of the archangel Marietta, from Knights in The Nightmare fit the bill nicely. They cause massive bloodshed and chaos throughout the game for no reason other than For the Evulz. In fact, in Meria's route, if the player chooses, Meria can take her campaign of destruction all the way to the heaven.
- Bishop of Neverwinter Nights 2 is a canonically Chaotic Evil Human Ranger. While not being a total sociopath, he is a major jerk, and will happily slaughter his way through just about anyone to achieve his goals. He will also betray you during the siege on your fortress, claiming he is always on the winning side. It is possible to convince him later on not to attack you in the final battle of the game..
- From the same game, Qara is listed as Chaotic Neutral, but her attitude and actions (overtly smug and sadistic, wanting to kill everything she hates with fire, and getting offended if you suggest she use her fire powers for practical purposes rather than mass murder) cause her to seem more like this.
- The Postal Dude embodies this alignment.
- Tales of Vesperia's Zagi may very well be the embodiment of this alignment. Not only is he Ax Crazy to the nth degree, about 90% of his dialogue is either him giving an over the top Evil Laugh or a deranged non sequitur.
- To specify, he starts out as a Psycho for Hire, but gradually he becomes a Stalker with a Crush towards Yuri and indulges in Cybernetics Eat Your Soul just so he can have the satisfaction of defeating and killing him. It takes no less than five battles to finally defeat him.
- Majora, and anyone unlucky enough to wear its mask. Skullkid-sans-mask was just a lonely kid who wanted friends to play with. Majora-Skullkid twisted this desire into playing gruesome, often lethal "games" with the population of Termina. When you actually fight Majora itself, it acts more like a Psychopathic Manchild than anything else. This thing makes Ganondorf look friendly by comparison.
- Possibly Dark Star/Dark Bowser from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. There's a good reason it's Sealed Evil in a Can in the first place, that being that it's completely omnicidal without a cause (as in, wants to destroy the entire world and everything in it bar maybe itself). It also clones others via copying their DNA, which is... bad news when it gets eaten by Bowser.
- "Soon this kingdom will vanish along with all who dwell within. And you, too, will sleep eternally in the dark power's embrace!"
- Shiro Tagachi from Guild Wars. He's bent on destroying the entire continent of Cantha (hence the Jade Wind) and actively seeks revenge the entire time he's "dead".
- Charnel, the god of death, from Sacrifice.
- Mitsuo from Persona 4.
- Gary Smith from Bully. After the first chapter of the game, he schemes behind the scenes, then sets his master plan into action in the last chapter. He causes a riot, ties up the head, gets several kids expelled (sending several more through therapy), does enormous amounts of vandalism and destruction, lies to everyone, and calls your mother a whore. Why? Because he can!
- Zevran Arainai of Dragon Age is a rare example of a Chaotic Evil party member that's actually quite pleasant to be around, thanks to his wit and charm. He seems to mostly be a Type 1, given that freedom from the Antivan Crows is his primary concern, but he also shows little or no remorse for the lives he's taken up until that point. His original nature seemed to be leaning towards Chaotic Good, but his enforced service to the Crows over a lifetime has generally winnowed away any morality he had, especially a few seriously tragic events. He can be brought back to CG with a Romance, or at LEAST Chaotic Neutral with enough approval, though he's still an assassin by trade.
- Zevran shows up in one quest for the sequel, and is now firmly CN, as he's more or less started assassinating the other assassins rather then taking marks himself, mostly because they won't stop trying (and failing) to kill him. He appears to be insuring his freedom by more or less single-handedly dismantling the entire Antivan Crows organization bit by bit.
- Drakengard has Arioch, the insane female elf fighter, is probably Chaotic Evil herself; so was the child Manah and of course, the Grotesquieries.
- The Big Bads in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (the one in Shadows of Amn is Neutral Evil, with a Chaotic Evil Dragon) are both good examples of intelligent, patient Chaotic Evil, though both also show a bit of a fiery temper in the short term in spite of being Chessmasters.
- Korgan Bloodaxe is pretty much everything you could ask for from an Chaotic Evil Ax Crazy Psycho for Hire. And he's on your side.
- Shar-Teel in the original game, where her Blood Knight tendencies are driven to the extreme due to her unadulterated hatred of men.
- In the realm of henchmen, there is Xzar, the psychopathic Zhentish wizard with split personalities, as well as a damn Faux Affably Evil Heroic Sociopath. His buddy Montaron, the sociopathic halfling, is Neutral Evil, though he has shades of CE too.
- Gig from Soul Nomad and The World Eaters; brash, deceptive, impulsive, crude, attempts to solve all his long-term problems (mainly the one that there's people still alive on the same plane of existence as he) with simple short-term solutions (mainly killing everything in sight) and turned the protagonist's homeworld into a slowly dying dustbowl because he thinks wanton slaughter of mortals is fun. Oh yeah, and he's on your side, which turns the game into a rather interesting case of being the Kid with the Leash.
- Gig gets Character Development during the story and ends up more of a Chaotic Neutral The Imp. The good ending to the Demon Path also sees him overcome his Laser-Guided Amnesia and return to his Lawful Good former incarnation.
- Of course, let's not forget the one guy who's worse than that: You, in the Demon Path, who decides to just go kill everyone because he or she felt like it. Oh, and Gig in that storyline? Eventually, you absorb him instead of the other way around if you win the final battle. Fun stuff.
- The characters who join you in The Demon Path can end up this way, notably Thorndyke.
- The other World Eaters also fit into here save for Feinne, who is barely sentient. Thuris could also be considered Neutral Evil.
- Mannoroth the Destructor from Warcraft. He was pretty much nothing more than an engine of destruction who would be released on the enemies of the Burning Legion to slaughter all he could reach. Sure, he contributed to the ordered corruption of the orcs, but that was under the plans of Lawful Evil demons and warlocks.
- Deathwing the Destroyer. Even though he does do a lot of villainous planning, in the end he's a freaking lunatic whose entire soul is broken. He seems to abandon his own dragonflight around the point of Warcraft II so he can continue without them.
- Jeremy from Wild ARMs 4 arguably started out as Neutral Evil. However, when you face him for the last time, he's definitely descended into this alignment, mainly because becoming part-ARM made him completely Ax Crazy.
- Most Daedra of The Elder Scrolls. Sheogorath is the quintessential and charming example, extremely powerful and more likely to send flaming pets raining down on a village as provide useful advice. The only rule he follows is that he won't make things more sane ...except when his curse de-activates.
- Sheogorath is more like a pendulum that swings between Chaotic Evil, Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Good (He is the prince of madness after all). On one hand, he's a psychopath and Ax Crazy, on the other hand he helped the Chimer (who later became the dark elves) move from Summerset Isle and form their pre-tribunal culture. He's also very keen on punishing those that deserve it, or teaching lessons to people. And he invented music.
- Technically none of the Daedra qualify as their motives so far above your head you can't comprehend it. If they were any however, they would be Molag Bal, King of Rape; Boethia, who has aspects of anarchy and Darwinism; Mehrunes Dagon, who wants nothing more than to tear down creatio;, Vaermina, who rules over dreams and who's purpose is basically to torture everyone she can with the most horrifying nightmares possible; and Mephala—while her aspect is purposely veiled from mortal interpretation, all she/he ever does is cause destruction and sow chaos. She's also might be the patron of both assassin's guilds and destroys peace for the sake of it. The ironic thing here is that Boethia and Mephala, alongside Azura, are considered the good Daedra!
- Deathjester from Seiken Densetsu 3 qualifies. He brainwashes two best friends of the main characters into attacking them and helps the Dark Lich gain control of the Mana Sword just for giggles.
- Erol/Errol becomes this in Jak 3.
- Rockman franchise:
- Classic series: Burner Man fits due to his crazed fetish for arson, especially against nature. Though he probably would not have become this had he not been gaslit.
- Rockman X:
- VAVA is certainly this due to his fetish for violence. The Lawful Good X is understandably horrified by VAVA's sick games.
- The Irregular Virus is certainly this due to the fact that it forces Repliroids to become worse.
- Omega from the Mega Man Zero series fits here, being a bloodthirsty machine of destruction. His creator, Dr. Weil, is a tough call between this and Neutral Evil.
- Leon the Black Knight from Yggdra Union is a bloodthirsty, batshit insane warrior who thinks nothing of slaughtering anyone who crosses him. He's probably the most evil character along with the Lawful Evil Mardym.
- Morinth from Mass Effect 2. Has a genetic condition that kills the people she has sex with, and spends her time manipulating people into adoring her, then kills them with said condition when she's bored of them. Once, she used Samara's Knight Templar code to force Samara to kill an entire village of people she'd brainwashed into going after Samara.
- Renegade Shepard sometimes shows signs of this. Unless roleplayed otherwise the majority of his/her actions lean more towards Chaotic Neutral, but sometimes their are some renegade actions that have no real justification, such as urging a drug addled civilian to throw himself at a band of mercanries for shits and giggles, and manipulating Annoleis and Gianna into killing each other when he could have gotten what he wanted from them in am uch more straight forward way.
- BlazBlue's Yuuki Terumi (a.k.a. Hazama) has, as his apparant overall plot, the desire to create the Kusanagi, the sword of the godslayer. To do this, he's performed almost every single atrocity that occurs in the game towards any of the other characters. And we mean everything. He fucked up Ragna's life by cutting off his arm and kidnapping his sister, fucked up Jin's life by giving him the sword that messed with his mind, fucked up Noel's life by turning her into the Kusanagi (not that anything had gone well for her before), fucked up Arakune's life by turning him into the monster he is, etc. He is nearly impossible to control or predict (partly due to his destructive impulses and partly due to his plans upon plans upon plans upon plans upon plans) and absolutely hates to receive orders. And, thus far, his actions have mainly been For the Evulz. Needless to say, he's kind of a dick.
- Dracula, the titular Big Bad of Castlevania franchise!!! He turns to the psychotic mass murder of humans to avenge his beloved wife. Soma Cruz, normally Chaotic Good, could become this as well if he sees the same fate happening in front of his very eyes.
- Vanitas from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is supposed to be Master Xehanort's Dragon, but it's made quite clear that he is a Dragon with an Agenda who only works for Xehanort because it allows him to do as much evil as he pleases. Somewhat justified given that he is made of nothing but darkness.
- Psycho Mantis, Vamp, and Volgin qualify as this.
- Constantine, the villain from Thief: The Dark Project wanted nothing less than causing the world to return to chaos.
- NEXUS from Warzone 2100 is the Type 2 variety, who destroyed human civilization because Evil Feels Good.
- Marx from Kirby Super Star tricks Kirby into summoning NOVA under the pretense of wishing for the sun and moon to stop fighting. In reality, it's so that Marx can wish to control Pop Star, allowing him to "cause all the mischief [he] wants".
- General Shepherd from Modern Warfare 2 instigated a US-Russian war which could quite possibly lead to World War III, all in the name of reawakening America's military might, after it went very gun-shy when 30,000 Marines were nuked in the first game. He does have a slight justification; those 30,000 Marines were all commanded by him, causing him to cross the Despair Event Horizon when they got nuked.
- Vladimir Makarov is a more cut-and-dry example; he attacks a Russian airport to get Russia to attack the US (which Shepherd exploited) and is shown to have no loyalty to the Ultranationalists, despite being one himself.
- Jenna Angel from Digital Devil Saga is a Type 1, believing that the only way to create a free society in a world where sunlight is deadly to all but demons is to give everyone an equal chance by having them turn into demons and introducing utter chaos, though it is also due to her desire for revenge for the death of her lover due to people believing he was a danger despite trying to find a cure for the disease caused by the sunlight.
- J. D. Thorne from Tron 2.0 has the dubious distinction of being the only true Chaotic Evil character in the Tron universe. The movie villains are Lawful Evil, the other villains in the game are Neutral Evil. Once Thorne is in the system and merged with The Corruption, all he cares about is his status as a "Master User" and corrupting more and more Programs and systems with his disease. Ma3a also goes from Lawful Good to this alignment due to some bad code.
- From Mortal Kombat we have Shao Kahn. In the war between the realms of Order and Chaos the forces of Chaos want to put Kahn back on the throne of Outworld, because under his rule the only law was "obey Shao Kahn" and he didn't really give a crap about what anyone else was doing. He promoted infighting and competition amongst his minions in a "divide and rule" policy to the point where the Centaur and Shokan races went to war with one another to curry his favour (and thus gain more power). While is goal is to merge all the realms with Outworld and rule over everything, its an ambition based solely on ego and a lust for conquest and power, and as long as he holds absolute power he doesn't really care about how his people live their day to day lives, though it tends to be pretty miserable, desperate and violent thanks to how sadistic and brutish he is.
- Havik from the Realm of Chaos is either this or Chaotic Neutral, in the sense that he promotes Chaos as an ideal throughout the realms and actively opposes the Realm of Order and its plans. In Armageddon both he and Hotaru, the Order champion, were on the side of Evil, though thats mostly because there wasn't a Order Versus Chaos thing going on.
- Quan Chi is absolutely this trope. In Alliance both he and Shao Kahn are mentioned as using the Mortal Komba tournament "to destroy all that is good", and in the earlier Mortal Kombat Gold he tells Baraka that his only goal is to obtain power...which apparently entails killing everyone everywhere so that he doesn't have to "hold coil" to them, ie. he thinks ultimate power, by definition, has to mean zero responsibility, and he'll Kill'Em All to ensure no one so much as tries to make him responsible for anything. And lets not get started on his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- In Deception Kabal performs a Face Heel Turn and reforms The Black Dragon as a Chaotic Evil organization out to cause global anarchy. Thanks to a Cosmic Retcon this became an Aborted Arc and last time we saw him he was still a hero, a dead hero.
- The Crusaders faction of the Resistance of Praetoria in City of Heroes fit this neatly. While the resistance as a whole is trying to overthrow the oppressive government - which will have dangers and consequences - the Crusaders' methods are monstrous, including blowing up hospitals to teach the populace that Emperor Cole can't protect them. Some Crusaders are Well Intentioned Extremists, but others just like destruction.
- Mr. Scratch, the Big Bad of Alan Wake's American Nightmare, fits this alignment quite nicely. For reference, take a gander at his monologue before he tortures a man to death:
Mr. Scratch: This poor slob's just collateral damage, really. I mean, I beat some information out of him earlier. But this part? (Pulls off the man's tie.) This is just for kicks. (Begins choking him.) |
- Assault Bomber from Bomberman Generation is easily Chaotic Evil. He is overly obsessed with death and destruction and will do anything to achieve this. He is malevolent and EXTREMELY psychotic to the point of having no self-control whatsoever. Hell, his title IS the Reaper of the Crush Bombers for a reason.
Web Comics[]
- Bangladesh Dupree from Girl Genius, a former pirate who works with Baron Wulfenbach because he gives her lots of opportunities to kill and torture people.
- Actually, she shows little problems in following orders. That would make her a textbook example of Neutral Evil
- Not to mention a ton of other Sparks, like most of Agatha Heterodyne's deceased ancestors, probably Agatha's mother...
- Pierre Buzarde', Psycho for Hire villain of Ruby's World . Kills his own Mooks on a whim, talks about torture like an art form, and believes that taking someone alive means he can still render them brain-damaged from asphyxiation.
- Order of the Stick:
- Belkar Bitterleaf. Word of God has his alignment written down pat. Once got in the middle of a barroom brawl between old friends (offscreen) — and stabbed fifteen people to death. He later gets visited in a dream by Shojo, who tells him that rather than trying to actively act outside of society's rules (which would make others kill him eventually), he should instead try to play by the rules and cheat whenever he can, making others believe he's playing by the rules. Belkar sums this up as faking Character Development.
- Xykon, the Big Bad from the same series also very much fits in here. Killing for the fact that it's the only thing that he can enjoy since undeath, he has since stopped caring about anything save for his own amusement, which usually results in horrible atrocities for others. He sees either standards or justification for evil actions as merely cowardice.
- According to the Order of the Stick wiki page, Sabine and Thog are also Chaotic Evil. Sabine qualifies on account of the kind of demon she is; Thog is a Psychopathic Manchild—he's innocent and not deliberately malicious, but thinks killing is fun and will kill without remorse.
- Black Mage from 8-Bit Theater. His most powerful spell is literally powered by love - in the same way that an automobile engine is powered by gasoline. It burns away a small part of the total amount of love in the universe each time he uses it, which he says manifests as a small increase in divorce rates. He typically presents as a type 4 but can move along the scale to either type 1 or type 2 depending on what kind of day he's been having. You know things are bad when he Hadokens a supply ship for orphans out of existence.
- Another example would be King Steve, The Caligula of Corneria who is all too happy to start wars on a whim and has babies killed to make shoes. Holding an election for his throne with the option of him or a sword to the head, he kills off 52% of his own people.
- Likewise, Richard from Looking for Group
- The Vorshes and Drip from Jack.
- Several supervillains in the Whateley Universe, including The Necromancer, and Don Sebastiano. Don Sebastiano has a couple helpless mindslaves... so he mistreats and violates them for fun.
- Pandora Chaos Raven from El Goonish Shive.
- Aram of Men in Hats. His hobbies consist of poisoning, immolating, bombing, insulting, and psychologically torturing his "friends." Also, television.
Aram: I'm bored. Jump around this scorpion on your face. |
- Jack Noir in Homestuck kills people to pass the time, having started his killing spree over being forced to wear a silly hat. He isn't exactly picky, having abandoned pretty much all pretense of allegiance in favour of more teleporting murder. About the only people spared his ire are the Draconian Dignitary, who acts as his Mission Control, and the ascended Peregrine Mendicant.
Web Original[]
- The dummy (and The Barbed Wheel) in Ruby Quest is probably this.
- Tez On Toast of Kate Modern. His earlier personas are slightly more open to debate, but from mid-season 2 onwards, he is a drug-crazed homicidal lunatic who switches motives in the blink of an eye, and takes great pleasure out of killing and torturing.
- Flippy from Happy Tree Friends. When he something that reminds him of war, he turns evil and kills everyone around him.
- Satan from The Salvation War is remarkably Ax Crazy even for his usual image. So is Yahwee
- A few of the Enemies from A-GENTS definitely fall into this alignment. Kilk is a Type 1 Chaotic Evil Combat Sadomasochist up to his ears in Evil Feels Good. Grin, on the other hand, is definitely a type 4 Psycho for Hire with a real fondness for tentacle rape. And then there's Alice... Well, let's just say most everyone is very, very happy that she's dead.
- Found is implied to be this by Az. It's safe to assume that he's a much better person now, seeing as his old self is spoken of so negatively.
Az: "But Found isn’t as bad as he used to be. Sure, he’s still a frickin’ crazy sometimes, but he’s not an outright psychopath. God have mercy on your soul if you somehow managed to make the old Found come back, even for a few seconds." |
Western Animation[]
- Girkek the Planet-Killer from Megas XLR.
Girkek: My only remorse is that I can't destroy your planets again! |
- Trigon of Teen Titans, a demon lord who literally destroyed the world just to watch it burn (he does rule over lesser demons, but this seems to amount to making them grovel and fight for his entertainment). His daughter, Raven, could also be said to be Chaotic Evil by nature, but she's Lawful Good by nurture, and struggles with herself continually over this.
- Also Brother Blood, who once created a giant tidal wave to destroy a city.
- Some of the more vicious or just wanton Characters fit Chaotic Evil:
- Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty
- Shan Yu from Mulan
- Madame Mim from The Sword in the Stone
- The Hyenas from The Lion King
- A rare example of a sympathetic Big Bad with this alignment would be Wakfu's Nox. Poor Nox. Poor insane, deluded, omnicidal Nox.
- Rampage in Beast Wars is an Ax Crazy murderer that killed an entire colony For the Evulz and will not willingly work with anyone, only siding with Megatron because the Decepticon captured half of his Spark and uses it to torture the insane monster into submission.
- Galvatron from Transformers. He is essentially Megatron's evil spiced with the added flavor of damaged sanity chips caused by a crash-landing and a prolonged plasma bath after the events of Transformers: The Movie. He's prone to shooting his own troops just for the heck of it and is as much a detriment to his own plans as the Autobots due to his psychosis. It reached the point where an episode had his loyal second-in-command sending him to a sentient Therapy Planet by force in hopes of curing him. Not only did it fail, but when the planet interfaced with him in an attempt to lobotomize him, he drove it insane with his madness before killing it and razing its entire civilization back to the stone age.
- The more brutish, heavy-handed Decepticons are this by nature alone. Examples such as Bruticus and Devastator, serve mostly as Dumb Muscle but their size makes them easily the bigger bots. This leaves the rest of the Decepticons, either Lawful or Neutral Evil.
- Galvatron from Transformers. He is essentially Megatron's evil spiced with the added flavor of damaged sanity chips caused by a crash-landing and a prolonged plasma bath after the events of Transformers: The Movie. He's prone to shooting his own troops just for the heck of it and is as much a detriment to his own plans as the Autobots due to his psychosis. It reached the point where an episode had his loyal second-in-command sending him to a sentient Therapy Planet by force in hopes of curing him. Not only did it fail, but when the planet interfaced with him in an attempt to lobotomize him, he drove it insane with his madness before killing it and razing its entire civilization back to the stone age.
- Vicky from The Fairly OddParents.
- Kevin 11 from the original Ben 10 series and again in the first season of "Ultimate Alien".
- Chris McLean, the host of the Total Drama series.
- Also, Scott from Total Drama: Revenge of the Island.
- In Futurama, the Villain Protagonist Bender is Chaotic and Evil. Even the Robot Devil agrees that there are no robots worse than him. He is the Chaotic form of Chaotic Evil, prefering personal freedom above all things, and is the team's Token Evil Teammate.
Fry: "You mean Bender is the evil Bender? I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked." |
- Zim from Invader Zim. He would be Lawful Evil if he didn't prove to be a Ax Crazy from time to time, and at one point horribly crippled Dib with a temporal replacement device and GIR's rubber pigs. Of course this is depending on the plot whether Zim is Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil - there's a thin line between stupid and incompetent lawful evil and genuine chaotic evil.
- The Weavils on Jimmy Two-Shoes. Whether it's one of them or a group, they generally just do whatever profits them at the moment while being jerkasses about it.
- Strawberry Shortcake:
- 2003 series: While no specimens existed during the first and third generations, Gladys from the episode Berry Brick Road from the 2003 series surely qualifies, using her magic to wreak havoc without any known reason other than to just be a wrxp.
- 2021 series: The toxic streamer from "Let's Go to the Movies" seems to qualify due to his willingness to flaunt the rules just so he can diss a movie. In the third Season, Crabapple Jam isn't this, but her twin kids are due to their unhinged fetish for hindering the protagonists' plans and unnerving them, though they still follow her orders.
- NegaDuck, the Ax Crazy alternate universe version of Darkwing Duck.
- Hexadecimal of ReBoot places more value on chaotic than evil. She once reversed her own Medusa Bug when it's end result was a boring motionless world. She shifts to Chaotic Neutral when Bob fixes her face.
- Arguably Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender in the final of the series became this.
- Jet and his stooges, before Character Development pushed them into Chaotic Neutral.
- Big Bad Demona from Gargoyles.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Nightmare Moon from Season 1 is an example of Chaotic Evil, as by bringing The Night That Never Ends she would simply kill everyone in Equestria, regardless of identity or relevance to her personal goals.
- Recurring villain Discord is practically the Anthropomorphic Personification of Chaotic Evil, combining chaotic randomness with acting For the Evulz. He's described as a spirit of chaos and disharmony, and enjoys using his near-omnipotent powers to psychologically break his opponents (even though he wouldn't even need to) and turning the land of Equestria into a bizarre realm of chaos. In later seasons he's Chaotic Neutral.
- The Witch's Ghost/Sarah Ravencroft from Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost wanted to destroy the world, and she is one of the only ones as an actual supernatural ghost who had the ability to do so. Her Neutral Evil descendant Ben Ravencroft wanted to summon her so they could take over the world together, but she wanted to destroy it instead.
- The Boondocks has Stinkmeaner, who hates and will start something with anyone and had to be sent back from Hell itself after his death at Granddad's hands.