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"Since I couldn't become the hero and obtain the legendary Pokémon myself, I prepared someone for that purpose: N! He's nothing more than a freak without a human heart! Do you think you're going to get through to a warped person like that?!"

—Ghetsis in Pokémon Black and White, said about his son, N.
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Ghetsis Strikes

When all else fails, Ghetsis resorts to straight-up attempted murder!

Despite being kid-friendly, the Pokémon franchise has slid ever further into Darker and Edgier territory with each generation, both in the main series and in the spinoffs, as these abominations demonstrate. Note that we used the word "abomination" - calling these folks monsters would insult Pokémon everywhere.


Core Games[]

Spin-off Games[]

  • Pokémon Colosseum features the despicable triumvirate of Evice, Nascour, and Ein, the masterminds behind the Cipher syndicate's conspiracy. Evice, the literally monstrous old man posing as the kindly mayor of Phenac City, engineered everything for Cipher (though in the sequel we find out that the syndicate was founded by Greevil, he took mostly a backseat role while Evice was his more involved proxy). Nascour, the demonic looking second in command, kept the other Cipher members in line and oversaw all of their most heinous and underhanded operations, and when faced by Wes at the game's climax, he put him through a succession of battles where Wes' Pokemon weren't even allowed to be healed after each round, all in front of a crowded stadium in order to break his spirit. And worst of all, Mad Scientist Ein is behind the organization's worst crime of all, as he developed the process to create Shadow Pokémon: Pokémon artificially powered by a dark force that does something horrific that makes them not only lose their minds but shuts off their hearts and emotions as well, leaving nothing but unthinking Living Weapons in constant pain, and are so unpredictable that they may even turn on their own trainers. Ein sees Pokémon as nothing but tools to be abused and exploited, and he tirelessly works to improve the process so as to negate any possible way to purify the Shadow Pokémon so they can never be saved from their corrupted states, just to show that he can. He's basically the franchise's answer to Xehanort or Hojo. Cipher is the most abominable organization in the franchise's history, and these three sociopaths blend together into one monstrous leadership: Evice as the heart, Nascour as the muscle, and Ein as the brains.
  • Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, the sequel game to the above, gives us Ardos, one of the sons and Co-Dragons of Cipher's leader Greevil, who shows himself to be the most vicious and fanatical member within an already monstrous organization. Ardos is fully involved and supportive of Cipher's worst atrocities, involving the mass corruption of Pokémon into becoming unfeeling Shadow Pokémon — whereupon they'll be rendered unable to be purified and massed into an army through which Cipher will control the world. When Greevil is defeated, Ardos, in a last moment of desperation, attempts to cajole his father into killing the child protagonist by wiping out their base on Citadark Isle — taking all his subordinates in the building with it, to which Ardos merely scoffs "such things can be replaced". Even in the post-game, Ardos is as dedicated to the Cipher agenda as ever even when his father has surrendered himself and most of the other Admins have reformed, coldly informing the protagonist they are now Ardos's top target in a thinly-veiled death threat letter.
  • Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Darkrai in Explorers is a much more sinister beast than his core series counterpart. He makes Freddy Krueger look smalltime in terms of what he can do to victims in their nightmares, manipulates gods to his whims, orchestrates a Time Crash, makes the future a very miserable time, drops children in eternal nightmares for kicks, and nearly drives the player characters to suicide by tricking them into thinking their existence is threatening the space-time continuum due to Time Travel shenanigans, which is easily one of the darkest moments in the game. He even stoops so low as to torture an innocent child with violent nightmares to lure out the the player characters and make several attempts to assassinate them so he can try his plans again. Darkrai has no regrets for his crimes and wishes nothing more than to bring about the complete and utter destruction of the world, just so he can rule the tattered remains in everlasting darkness, and his motives are never explained, leaving us to assume that it was all For the Evulz. The guy is a vastly darker villain in any Pokémon work even by E or E-10 standards, and the punishment for his misdeeds seems far too lenient. Then again, his punishment is implied to be the loss of all his memories (a'la Regal), and this basically forces him to be good.
  • Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs gives us Purple Eyes. Before we even learn he exists, he's beaten Rand within an inch of his life and kidnapped both his wife and daughter. Later, he beats the daughter up, too! It gets worse, though; he eventually mugs the elderly Societea members (though, admittedly, they deserve it), hijacks the villain's plans, makes himself immortal, pumps up Mewtwo's power higher than it should ever be, and then commands Mewtwo to finish off Dr. Edward. And when Rand takes the shot for Edward, Purple Eyes is simply amused and continues to attack anyway, even taunting Rand's daughter about her father's endangerment. After the Player Character beats him, he points out that the Sky Fortress is now plummeting and will wipe out all of Oblivia. And then he laughs. He later one-ups himself in the last Extra Mission, in which an enraged Arceus is passing judgment on the human race, he arrives in person. His imprisonment and constant questioning has not redeemed him, but instead turned him into a Misanthrope Supreme who no longer wishes to rule over all humans, but instead Kill All Humans. He begins preaching to Arceus that it should go through with the destruction, but to allow himself to act as its Dragon due to their similar beliefs about humans, which only enrages Arceus more. After Arceus is calmed, it leaves back to its home world and drags Purple Eyes with it to pass judgment on him. Yes, even the god of the Pokémon world deems it unsafe for him to be in our plane. Hastings does say that Arceus will send him back eventually when (or if) he really has a change of heart. However, when you consider that Arceus acted on this but not when Cyrus was unmaking the universe right under it, it says something potent about Purple Eyes' capacity for evil.
  • Pokémon Masters EX: Debuting in the "Father Or Foe?" event, Ghetsis is ripped from the period of time where he had control over Kyurem onto the island of Pasio, where he enters an alliance with Team Rocket Boss Giovanni and feigns being remorseful for his past crimes to his son N in a ploy to steal his Reshiram from him. While a doublecross by Giovanni forces N and Ghetsis to join together in order to defeat Team Rocket, Ghetsis afterwards proudly expresses his unrepentant attitude and tells N in no uncertain terms that he's disowned him as his child. Calling Team Plasma together on the island during the Villain Arc and having them assault other trainers to assert dominance, Ghetsis captures both Reshiram and Zekrom planning to forcibly fuse them with Kyurem into a single Pokémon whose power he can turn against Pasio's populace, and he has N captured as part of this plan. When attempting to manipulate Hugh's resentment of Team Plasma to pit him against N fails, Ghetsis falls back on a contingency plan: he has the young trainer Tina abducted and threatens her safety so that her friend Paulo can comply with Team Plasma and trade Prince Lear's Hoopa in exchange for Tina, only to reveal he wants to have both Tina and Paulo as his captives to use as "bargaining chips" to their friends while also using Hoopa's power to subjugate all trainers and dominate all that he pleases. In the ensuing scuffle, Ghetsis has Kyurem brutally attack Paulo's Rockruff when it stands defiant against him, believing to have killed the small Pokémon and cruelly mocking Paulo about it, and ordering his grunts to manhandle Tina as leverage over Paulo in an act of desperation when Paulo's gained control over Hoopa's unbound form. Even when joining with other heroes and villains to fight against Giovanni when he enslaves Hoopa, Ghetsis makes it clear that his every action is self-serving and that he will never waver from his desire to enslave Pokémon and Take Over the World.

Pokémon Anime[]

Pokémon Films[]

  • Pokémon 4Ever: The Iron Mask Marauder of Team Rocket is a punk bruiser with no remorse and a sadistic streak a mile long. In his first scene, he tortures and perhaps even murders an elderly former Pokémon poacher after forcing information out of him. He brainwashes all his Pokémon with his Dark Balls, including forest legendary Celebi, which he electrocutes before capturing, and afterward uses the forest legend to go on a rampage in said forest as a show of power, not even caring which Pokémon he kills in the process. He later catches Suicune and attempts to drain the life out of it with his Celebi powered destruction machine. He has no qualms with physically harming and possibly even killing kids like Ash and young Sammy Oak, as shown when he crushes Ash's hands until he passes out and later tries to murder Ash and Sammy by blasting them with his Celebi Destruction machine, and he uses Jessie as a captive audience for the reveal of his plans--to eliminate Giovanni and take over Team Rocket to conquer the world himself. The Marauder is also notable as using the first instance of what would later be called Shadow Pokémon.
  • Pokémon Zoroark Master of Illusions: Grings Kodai is a Corrupt Corporate Executive of the Sinnoh Region who owns a network company in Crown City that controls the city's media. Kodai kidnapped a mother and child Pokémon from their homeland and blackmailed the mother into doing his bidding by threatening to kill the child all to cause the evacuation of a large city so that he can find an energy cluster left behind by time-traveling Pokémon Celebi and absorb it, renewing his ability to see the future, which he acquired twenty years prior at the cost of annihilating the city's plant life. He's willing to destroy the city's ecosystem a second time, and despite already being a wealthy and powerful businessman,he's doing it for more money. Kodai later forces Zoroark to allow him to obtain the Time Ripple by electrocuting her child right in front of her to the point that Zorua actually says he thinks he's going to die! Then, to make things worse, Kodai has his Pokémon try to kill Zoroark, since he's got Zorua in the palm of his hand and Zoroark is defenseless so long as he does, meaning he does this for no reason except he CAN, and he even goes so far as to say that he thoroughly enjoyed doing it! Later on, to gain information about the Time Ripple, Kodai captures and strangles Celebi to an almost fatal extent before Zorua saves the forest legend. And he manages to one up himself by trying to murder Zorua and Zoroark in cold blood when they trick him, despite the fact that he could've just went on ahead and ignored them to absorb the Time Ripple or flee, and he actually succeeded in killing Zoroark - though Celebi saved her, it doesn't change the fact that Kodai committed, thus far, the only successful cold-blooded murder of a Pokémon (all other times were accidental or just a side effect of what the villain was doing, but Kodai killed Zoroark intentionally, directly in front of the child she was in the middle of being reunited with!). With all that said, his Humiliation Conga and arrest (or his Karmic Death in the film's manga adaptation) is immensely satisfying to witness.
  • Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel: Chancellor Alva follows in Kodai's footsteps when it comes to cold-hearted depravity. The prime Cabinet Minster of the Azoth Kingdom, Alva is a cruel, ambitious, scheming man who seeks to usurp control of the kingdom through force. Emotionally exploiting the young prince Rali to the point of brainwashing the boy into being loyal to and dependent on him, and plotting sinister machinations beyond the view of Azoth's rulers, Alva experimented with Neo Arcane Science, a fusion of science and the mystic arts, to devise a technique known as the Mega Wave, which forcefully locks a Pokémon into its Mega Evolution but puts it under mental torture and Mind Rape in the process until it's under Avla's control - pure enslavement of the Pokémon's body and mind. Seeking to exploit the power of the clockwork Pokémon known as Magearna, Alva launches an attack on the Nebel Plateau and tortures Ash and Magearna's friends to force Magearna's compliance in his scheme. Once he has Magearna, Alva tears out its heart, effectively killing it, with the distraught, protesting Prince Rali being Forced to Watch. Alva then has his Mega Gengar put Rali to sleep, planning to dispose of him once he's taken over Azoth. He discards Magearna's body and utilizes it's heart to transform the walls around Azoth into a flying fortress at his command, using it to begin his attack, directly attempting to wipe out all opposition to him and potentially killing some humans and Pokémon populating the Plateau below. When Magearna's lingering spirit keeps his arsenal from firing off, he attempts to break Magearna's spirit by forcing it to obliterate its own home, while it's still aware of it's actions but powerless to stop them. Then when Ash, Volcanion, and the others try to derail his plans, he has them tortured with electric volts again and this time intends on dispatching of them all. Once his plan is ruined, Alva remains defiant and instead locks the fortress so that it's set for a collision into the Plateau itself to obliterate everything and everyone in it's path as an act of spite, while he attempts to escape on a jet pack. By the end, Alva cements himself as an ambitious megalomaniac willing to crush anything and anyone so long as he benefits in the end.
  • Pokémon: Secrets of the Jungle: Dr. Zed is a cruel, egomaniacal scientist seeking the healing power within the Sacred Tree of the Zarude, all to glorify his own ego. With no regard to any life, human or Pokémon, but his own, Dr. Zed was so mortified by his colleagues Chrom and Phossa Molybden telling him that his approach to pursuing the healing spring, which had a high risk to the Pokémon and wildlife around it, was wrongheaded and that he needed to be patient, that he attempted to murder the two by running them off the road, barely missing their infant son Al in the process. When he had a clear chance to rescue the parents from the burning car wreckage, Zed instead simply took the water sample he'd been after and abandoned them both to die in a fiery explosion. Al is left orpahned and alone in the jungle, cut off from human civilization for 10 years, thanks to this man's callousness. When he learns Al survived years later, Zed tracks him to the Sacred Tree, lays waste to the forest, and attempts to desolate the entire colony of Zarude so he can rip the healing power right from its source, and uses his Humongous Mecha to try to kill the jungle Pokémon and humans who are opposing him, even the members of his own research team who are horrified at his actions. When his plans fall apart, Zed shows that he would rather risk his own demise than be made to face up to the consequences of his deeds by the very boy he'd orphaned 10 years ago.

Pokémon Manga[]

  • Pokémon Adventures:
  • The Electric Tale of Pikachu: The Black Fog is a giant, malevolent Haunter that resides within Pokémon Tower. Once revered as a God, the Black Fog was angered when it stopped being worshipped, and so took to terrorizing both Lavender Town and Saffron City, devouring the souls of humans and Pokémon alike using Dream Eater. The Black Fog's victims include all of Sabrina's childhood Pokémon, and when Sabrina confronts it during one of its rampages in the present, the Black Fog captures her soul before returning to Pokémon Tower. After being weakened in battle by Ash, Brock, and Sabrina's Abra, the Black Fog spitefully commits suicide using Self-Destruct rather than yield and be captured like any other Pokémon. The explosion nearly kills Ash, who is narrowly saved by a recovered Sabrina.
  • Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure: Charon of Team Galactic was a money-obsessed Jerkass in Platnum. But his method of introducing himself in this manga is to order his agents to suicide bomb a crowded stadium, which would potentially set fire to the whole town. Of course it fails, but his intent is clear. He holds no regard for the lives of others and plans to control the world with money made from selling legendary Pokémon, as well as extort more money from the masses by threatening them with the powers of Giratina. He also does nasty experiments on Pokémon that put them under a painful form of Mind Control and essentially turns them into Shadow Pokémon that he can use as living weapons even at the expense of the Pokemon's own lives and well-being, Koya's Growlithe being among his victims. This means that whereas the games version of Charon has Team Rocket's mindset, DPA!Charon is every bit as evil and depraved as Cipher. Two of his organization's top officers leave to find the previous leader- Charon tries to kill them, even physically abusing one of them. Which becomes even worse when you find out that said previous leader is being held captive in Charon's base. And as a capper, that previous leader, who goes on to rally the remaining agents against Charon, had previously tried to destroy the UNIVERSE. Thinking only of himself the whole way through, Charon ends the series the sole character to reject The Power of Friendship as a concept and thus ends up as a thoroughly irredeemable individual.
  • Phantom Thief Pokémon 7: Team Galactic member Io, the manga's Big Bad, is a repellent piece of work. Depicted as a cold, ruthless woman who won't hesitate to eliminate anyone standing between her and what she wants, even her own subordinates, Io showed no loyalty to her organization's cause and sought to Take Over the World by exploiting the powers of the Pokémon Darkrai, whose powers she'd use to ravage the planet and cover it in darkness and then use it's Hypnosis technique to enslave the minds of every living human so that they'd all do her bidding. She's also the one who kidnapped the protagonists' young sister Lily five years ago and brainwashed her into serving Team Galactic. When Lily turns against Team Galactic, Io takes her frustration out of her Number Two by attacking him and calling him worthless before attempting to kill both Lily and her brother. If her treatment of others wasn't bad enough, she's also shown to treat Pokémon as little more than weapons that she can hurt and use to hurt, even forcibly enhancing them to make them serve her purposes better. Thanks to Laser-Guided Karma, she ends up getting Hoist by Her Own Petard when Darkrai breaks free of her control and puts her into a sleep coma with it's Dark Void.
  • In the movie Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life, Marcus's motivation for killing Arceus is due to a misguided belief that if Arceus leaves with the Jewel of Life, his hometown would be doomed to rot. In the manga adaptation, he's a completely self-absorbed asshole who wants to steal the jewel in order to become that era's god and wants Arceus dead so he won't interfere with his grand plans. And to that end, he uses his Bronzong to hypnotize Damos to lure Arceus into a trap then have all of his Electric-Type Pokemon electrocute it to death, all of whom he's got under his control via special armor. The initial plan failed and Acreus retaliates by obliterating everyone in the temple, Marcus included, but when the heroes of the present travels to this era to prevent the event from taking place, Marcus decides to manipulate them into helping him and improve on his trap. He would pour Silver Water onto Arceus while his Pokemon would carry out their usual commands. When the heroes learn of this, they tried to warn Marcus that his action will damage the space time continuum, only for him to say he doesn't care, glad even to see that happen as it made him feel like a god, and has his Pokemon and soldiers are set to kill them when they try to stop him. When they manage to foil his plan, he kills himself activating a mechanism when upon death the temple would collapse and kill everyone inside it, meaning his last act would cause the deaths of possibly hundreds (if not more), Pokemon and human alike.