
Dragon Quest games are renowned not only for firmly standing on the "idealistic" side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, but also for having, in spite (or maybe because) of that, generally at least one utterly depraved, despicable villain per game, whether it's the Big Bad, The Dragon, or just another major player in the storyline's events.
Dragon Quest IV[]
- The fourth game gives us Aamon. Literally every single villainous act in the game, including Psaro's Start of Darkness, was orchestrated by him. He manipulates a group of humans to ruin Psaro's life and attack his girlfriend Rose, then manipulates Psaro into believing that Humans Are Bastards, setting him on his descent to evil. However, he was unsatisfied by how Psaro's relationship with Rose held his evil back and so arranges for her to be murdered, causing Psaro to be completely consumed by evil and turn into a mindless monster bent on destroying the world. The reason for all this? He wants the Secret of Evolution for himself so he can rule the world. What makes Aamon especially monstrous is that he could've easily taken Psaro's place as the Big Bad from the getgo, sparing Psaro and Rose their torment and allowing them to live in peace. Instead, he ruins an innocent man's life and drives him to omnicidal madness, all For the Evulz.
Dragon Quest V[]
- Bishop Ladja, despite only being The Dragon, is utterly evil. Literally every time he appears, he commits an even more horrific atrocity than his last. His introduction has him brutally beating the hero and Harry (who are six years old at the time) to within an inch of their lives, laughing sadistically all the while, then, when the hero's father, Pankraz, arrives to save the day, he threatens to murder the hero if Pankraz tries to fight back against his enforcers. After the enforcers are done beating him, Ladja coldly finishes off the dying Pankraz with a giant fireball, then carts the hero and Harry off to a brutal slave labor camp for over ten years while making your young panther end up having to struggle for survival. He then follows up by turning the hero and his wife into stone so that they can watch him and Grandmaster Nimzo conquer the world. He's also at least somewhat successful at being The Starscream, killing off one person ahead of him (King Korol) in the chain of command for the power. Finally, he makes sure to wait until the main character reunites with his mother (after over 18 years apart) to kill said mother, just for maximum emotional impact.
- Grandmaster Nimzo manages to rival Ladja in evil, giving the bishop free rein to do whatever he wants. He was formerly a human, but became a monster for the sake of power. He was the one that established the slave labor camp that Harry and the Hero were sent to, and had people kidnapped all around the world to build a temple to himself, (all of which were killed off when they had finished their work), and had instructed Bishop Ladja to murder the hero when he was a child. He also sent the Flying Fortress of Zenithia sinking into a lake. Additionally, he sent children to Updaten Tower to be fed on by his minions. When King Korol outlived his usefulness, he allows Bishop Ladja to slay him. Finally, when Ladja is defeated by the hero, he leaves the bishop to die even when he begs him to save his life.
Dragon Quest VI[]
- Mortamor, the Big Bad of Dragon Quest VI, most definitely counts and was arguably tied with Ladja in terms of pure evil before Orgodimer and Rhapthorne came along. See, unlike the other DQ villains, Mortamor doesn't simply want to destroy/conquer the world. No, he wants to completely and utterly destroy the very concept of hope. To this end, he effectively turns his own world, which he rules, into a giant concentration camp where his subjects are routinely abused, manipulated, tortured, and slaughtered like animals. Those few who manage to resist his soul-crushing ways are instead shipped off to a special prison where they are starved, tortured, and ultimately executed hundreds at a time. Perhaps his worst act is manipulating an entire town to kill each other over a treasure chest he planted in an elderly woman's house. It's arguable which is worse: the act itself or the fact that the townspeople had been so thoroughly oppressed and broken that a single chest was all it took to drive every single one of them into a murderous frenzy.
- Possibly the worst part is that Mortamor wasn't satisfied even after the slaughter. No, instead, he rewinds time to right before the massacre and starts the whole thing over again. The people of Greedmore, until the party's intervention, have been unknowingly trapped in an endless cycle of deceit, death, and rebirth for Goddess knows how long, all because Mortamor loves watching his subjects suffer.
- His dragon Blackmar is the ultimate sadistic prison warden. He runs Gallows Moor, the special prison described above , and his job description is literally to make the prisoners suffer in every way he can dream up.
Dragon Quest VII[]
- The Demon Lord Orgodemir from Dragon Quest VII definitely fits here. Upon gaining power, Orgodemir entered a war with the Almighty and sent monsters to wipe out all life on the various islands of the world, succeeding in sealing away all but one of them. One of these islands, Buccanham, entered into an alliance with the Sea Dragon pirates in order to fight Orgodemir; in retaliation, he personally froze the pirates and their ship alive. Upon losing to the Almighty's Thanatos Gambit, Orgodemir tricks the heroes into reviving his spirit, disguised as the Almighty. He then starts his conquest anew by sealing away the islands that pose a threat and flooding the entire world with monsters before being defeated for good. It's worth noting that he is the only villain in the entire franchise to be a direct parallel to Satan.
- Out of all of Orgodemir's minions that would do his bidding to satiate their personal desires, two stand out as particularly repulsive;
- Cardinal Sin tricks victims into letting them absorb their powers, and he then traps them in a town known as Pilgrim's Perdition that is essentially a prison. The only way out is to murder others so they can take their souls. Those that resort to murder to save themselves are then made to fight each other to the death in an arena. And he doesn't actually plan on letting them legitimately winning their freedom. Instead, he murders those who win in the Colosseum with a fireball.
- Togrus Maximus plagues the town of Buccanham with a curse that turns babies into monsters, which he then drafts into Orgodemir's army.
Dragon Quest VIII[]
- Rhapthorne from Dragon Quest VIII is a cruel being from the World of Darkness who had warred against the denizens of the World of Light before being sealed within the Godbird Sceptre. While most main villains in the series are Card-Carrying Villain and/or Giant Space Flea From Nowhere, Rhapthorne is present from the beginning to the end, actively causing all the calamities in the game. His most heinous acts include turning the residents of the castle Trodain into immobile plant people, killing a kind old woman in cold blood (after forcing her to come out by holding her son hostage), and ordering the murder of an unborn child of the Godbird Empryea. Eventually free from the sceptre, Rhapthorne has armies ravage the world, intending on unleashing a new reign of horror upon civilisation.
Dragon Quest IX[]
- King Godwyn from Dragon Quest IX is a ruthless warmonger who wants to conquer the world, murdering anyone who resists, including children. And at one point, when one village surrendered, Godwyn has them slaughtered anyway. Not only that, but he came to power in the first place by murdering his own father, and he's responsible for the Big Bad becoming evil in the first place. If there's anyone who proves that Humans Are Bastards, it's this guy, to the point that it's incredibly likely that Zenus ultimately decided to try and exterminate humanity based on the Gittish Empire's atrocities alone.
- Yore is a demonic being who had a contract with the Gittish Empire to help them raze the surface world. Approaching Stornway, Yore made a deal with the King that he would spare them if he sacrificed their neighboring allies Brigadoom to him. Yore then laid siege to Brigadoom, wiping out its inhabitants and leaving the kingdom in ruins, something he took great pleasure in. Freed by Princess Simona who asked him restore Brigadoom at the cost of Stornway, Yore denies her request and declares he'll raze Stornway before moving onto the rest of the surface world to wipe out mortal life.
- Barbarus is a sadistic dragon who aided the Gittish Empire with their acts of conquest before being slain by his brother Greygnarl. Resurrected, Barbarus heads to Upover to enact his revenge on Greygnarl for his past defeat. Not content with simply just defeating Greygnarl, Barbarus forces Greygnarl to watch as he attempts to destroy Upover and its inhabitants. Barbarus later attempts to destroy the Gortress to kill the rebelling prisoners, uncaring that there's still loyal soldiers there as well. When Corvus breaks free from The Oubliette, Barbarus abandons serving the empire and tries to aid Corvus with the obliteration of existence.
- Stellestria was a vain and haughty woman responsible for the corruption of the Gittish Empire into hardened conquerors. Building the Gortress, Stellestria would have anyone who disagreed with her brutalities sent there to be enslaved. Anyone not sent to the Gortress, Stellestria would have killed, culminating with her having a cliff full of the graves of her foes. Despite being deceased long before the story's start, Stellestria's evil still lingers on in the Protectorate.
Dragon Quest XI[]
- While Mordegon himself is the evil side of the Sage (indicating that he doesn't have an understanding of what is good), the Gloomnivore, a monster taking advantage of his reign has full moral agency. Enjoying feasting on despair, the Gloomnivore forces his victims to live out their worst memories so that it can keep them in a state of constant misery. One of these victims is the Hero's very own father, who lives out being murdered by King Carnelian. (He had been possessed by Mordegon, but he actually wasn't aware of that.) And yes, he plans to inflict the same fate on the hero.
- Despite being a mere minion, Dora-in-Grey proves herself to be one of the vilest characters in Dragon Quest. Making it all too clear that not everyone is who they appear to be, Dora poses as a young girl to trick people into looking into a mural with promises of fame and fortune, while pretending to have lost her parents to those who are not interested in wealth. Those who look at the mural find themselves trapped inside with no way out, with their souls reaped by Dora. A deceitful monster underneath her innocent exterior, Dora was a malevolent narcissist of the worst kind.
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai[]
- Zaboera is the power-hungry commander of the Mystic Legion who relies on trickery to get what he wants. Zaboera kidnaps Dai's adoptive grandfather Brass and brainwashes him to fight Dai. After putting the heroes to a deep sleep with a gas, Zaboera betrays Hadler after his first defeat. Zaboera used his son Zamza's information following his defeat to successfully transform Hadler into a hyperdemon. While Zaboera was left fighting the heroes, he kills his injured minions and combines their corpses to create the monstrous hyperzombie against the heroes. After being caught by Crocodine, Zaboera later decides to brainwash him using a toxin. A cowardly person who lets others do his dirty work, Zaboera was the most despicable villain in this series.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince[]
- Aamon is arguably even more monstrous than he was in Dragon Quest IV, allowing him to commit his canon deeds and then some. Waging war on the elves to get his hands on their crystals which would allow him to manipulate space and time, Aamon transformed them into stone golems to enslave them, resulting in Psaro having no good choice but to mercy kill them to save them from this fate. Wishing to overthrow Randolfo and take over his kingdom, he manipulates Psaro into turning against humanity while assisting him in this task, and pulls some strings to have Rose murdered in order to toss out the last of his inhibitions. In the bad ending, he succeeds in having Psaro turn himself into a monster whose only instinct is to destroy whatever it touches.
- Azabel takes Light Is Not Good to its extreme. A member of the normally benevolent Zenithians, Azabel decided that she was going to destroy the world rather than protect it like the other Zenithians had, simply because she wasn't satisfied with the world's current condition. After betraying the Zenith Dragon and stealing the Secrets of Evolution, she created three different monsters to accomplish this task, and had succeeded in devastating half the world before she was sealed away. She claims that her actions will create a world devoid of sin, yet in doing so is making the greatest sin of all. Even Ludo, who himself wished to destroy the world and recreate it, has no issue opposing and eventually slaying her out of altruism. Despite being an angel, Azabel proved herself to be one of the most evil villains to ever appear in a Dragon Quest spinoff.