As perhaps the largest entertainment company in the world, Disney has given us many memorably clever, stylish, nigh-unstoppable and entertaining bad guys over the years...
All goes according to the Xanatos Gambit.
Disney Animated Canon[]
- Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Shows up to a infant's birth that she wasn't invited to and curses the infant on a whim, and then manages to stay ahead of the game with the only setbacks coming from her own stupid lackeys. Yet she still manages to nearly accomplish her evil goal and, had the three fairies good magic not been strong enough, would have won. Her speech to Prince Philip detailing her revenge on him and the princess (i.e. hold him prisoner for a hundred years then let him rescue his true love as a decrepit old man) is magnificently bastardly indeed.
- Professor Ratigan, Arch Enemy to Basil of Baker Street and Big Bad of The Great Mouse Detective is an odd example who is both certainly this and a Smug Snake. His magnificence comes from his brilliant intellect and flamboyantly theatrical Giggling Villain personality, not to mention his voice acting by the legendary Vincent Price, as he hatches a secret conspiracy to kidnap the mouse queen from Buckingham Palace and replace her with an android duplicate made and controlled by a kidnapped inventor who would grant full royal authority to Ratigan so that he may control all of mouse society in England, and is never ashamed to play dirty when it suits his needs ("I love it when I'm nasty!"). He also has got one hell of a fun Villain Song, and frequently showcases how ruthless he can be towards underlings who upset him, which keeps his gang on their toes as they all work to do their jobs right lest they suffer their boss' wrath. Towards the end of the film, though, his ego and increased anger over seeing his plans getting messed up put him in Smug Snake territory, culminating in a Villainous Breakdown where he endangers the life of a child and savagely fights Basil in a duel to the death atop Big Ben. When all is said and done, the movie leaves little room for doubt about Ratigan being "the world's greatest criminal mind."
- Aladdin and it's direct-to-video sequels:
- Grand Vizier Jafar is one of Disney's most famed examples. While he was more of a Smug Snake (and a literal one) in the first movie, he was cunning, charismatic and efficient enough to near success even then. His schemes to take over the throne for himself first involve retrieving the lamp with the Genie in it that can grant wishes, and then to convince the Sultan to let him marry Princess Jasmine so he can inherit it by marriage. While Aladdin derails both plans, Jafar realizes he has the lamp and steals it, using it to make himself the most powerful sorcerer in the world. While tricked into his own defeat by Aladdin, having not considered that becoming a Genie meant his newfound power comes with imprisonment in a lamp of his own, he learned of his mistakes and graduated to a full fledged Magnificent Bastard in the direct-to-video sequel, The Return of Jafar. The first thing he did when he was freed by Abis Mal was to play on Mal's greed for gold, fear for his life and his hatred for Aladdin in order to make him at first waste two wishes at nothing and then convince him to help him with promises of large riches and revenge on Aladdin. Once he had Abis Mal around his finger, he decided to force his former ally Iago to work for him again and use the trust Aladdin had developed for Iago into fooling him and the Sultan away from Agrabah into a trap, while himself took care of Genie and Abu. When the trap proved successful, he made it look like Aladdin had killed Sultan simply by placing it, slashed, in Aladdin's room, which would ended with him executed for the murder on the Sultan, seemingly ordered by a deceived, distraught Jasmine. (It was actually Jafar himself in disguise who gave the order while shapeshifted as Jasmine. And he comes back in that same disguise just to reveal his true self briefly and rub it in Aladdin's face right as he's about to be executed.If he had turned more attention on Iago's conflicting behavior, then maybe he would've won.
- Aladdin and the King of Thieves: Cassim is the benevolent and cunning King of the Forty Thieves and Aladdin's thought-to-be long-lost father. Having taken to theft a long time ago to try to provide better for his wife and young son, Cassim set his sights on finding the mystical Hand of Midas in the elusive Vanishing Isle through the magical Oracle. Using a raid on Aladdin and Jasmine’s wedding to divert attention, Cassim nearly succeeds in stealing the Oracle and then later arranges a fight between Aladdin and his vicious associate Sa'Luk to prevent Aladdin from being killed for finding the men's hideout. He then successfully steals the Oracle on a third attempt and rescues Aladdin again from Razoul before later being helped by Aladdin to achieve the Hand of Midas and then tricking Sa'Luk into turning himself into gold with it. Cassim then abandons the Hand and is then able to see his son's wedding from a distance before he and Iago the parrot then escape for good.
- Scar, from The Lion King definitely counts. Until he became The Caligula, that is. During the movie's first half, he was arguably one of the most successful (if not THE most successful) Disney villain. He succeeded in his plans just halfway through the movie and had the benefits of those successes until the very end. He kills the Big Good (his own brother) and convinces Simba that it was his fault, and then sends the Hyenas to kill him when he runs. Even during the climax in the second half, when Simba does unexpectedly come back years later, Scar actually manages to turn the situation around and manipulates Simba into admitting he killed Mufasa. Not a single one of the heroes knew he'd been the villain for so long until mere moments in this climax. Also managed to be a Complete Monster on top of all this.
- Hades, Greek god of the Underworld from Hercules combines the skillful situational maneuvering of a used cars' salesman with the underhanded people skills of a sleazy Hollywood agent, right down to the speech patterns and mannerisms, while also delivering premeditated, long-term scheming (his master plan was years in the making and we see him planning out his moves in advance at a large chessboard) and supervillainy that comes dangerously close to success (particularly with how he hones in on Hercules' feelings of love towards Meg, who was working for Hades from the start, and exploits it as Herc's "weakness" in order to take away his strength and break his heroic spirit so that he wouldn't be able to fight back against the Titans once Hades unleashed them and set them upon Mount Olympus). Like Daniel Plainview, his hot temper (quite literally hot in this case) is his only big drawback. Otherwise he's very efficient on top of being ridiculously entertaining due to James Woods' voice acting.
- In Lilo & Stitch, Cobra Bubbles is a stern, unflappable agent of a mysterious organization that deals in extraterrestrial affairs, and masks his true colors beneath a public guise of social work. Spending the first film concerned for young Lilo's safety and astutely picking out all the ways she's being neglected, Cobra eventually works to keep her family together by using aliens' love for rules to keep Stitch free from capture and reunited with Lilo. Having once convinced an entire invading alien force to spare Earth via lying that insects were an endangered species, Cobra also sets a solid trap for the diabolical Hamsterviel in the sequel, almost destroying the villain even at the cost of endangering Stitch's fellow experiments. Cobra's ruthlessness and ingenuity continues into the television series, where he utilizes the experiments as espionage tools and even schemes to keep the public unaware of an approaching apocalypse so as to preserve peace while he spirits away key people to safety. Always cool and rarely caught off-guard, Cobra stood out in the zany cast as a deadly serious protector of Earth
- Treasure Planet:
- Long John Silver is as magnificent a bastard here as he is in literature and other adaptations, and particularly fearsome in this version considering he's a Cyborg. Tracking down the map to Treasure Planet on the planet Montressor, Silver burns down an inn seeking the map, and later manipulates himself and his pirate crew to join the RLS Legacy on its own expedition to find Treasure Planet. Casting himself as a lowly grub cook to avoid suspicion all while growing close to the young man in possession of the map, Jim Hawkins, Silver eventually orchestrates a mutiny, taking over the Legacy and holding its crew hostage to force Jim to help Silver decipher the map. Successfully finding Flint's treasure, Silver ends up sacrificing the unending troves of gold and jewels to save Jim's life, having grown to genuinely care for him as a surrogate son, and slips away at the end of the film with no punishment for his crimes, utterly content and happy with the fact that his quest for riches instead lead him into a friendship with Jim—even giving Jim the final parting gift of Silver's treasured pet Morph.
- Captain Nathaniel Flint was the most accomplished and most feared space pirate in the history of the Etherium. In life, Flint made away with enough ill-gotten loot to fill the core of an entire planet, and in death, Flint's trove became the eye of every treasure hunter in the cosmos. Not even the shrewd and cunning Silver and his band of pirates are ultimately able to make off with his treasure, as Flint was so thorough in rigging Treasure Planet with death traps to ensure the treasure stayed his even post-mortem, that only a few doubloons survive. Even as a decaying skeleton, Flint is the only one ever able to truly appreciate his hard-earned treasure, a testament to the pirate whose greed was so vast that he made his name a literal legend.
- Dr. Facilier, the suave, scheming, quick-thinking, manipulative, and "very charismatic" Voodoo man from The Princess and the Frog, known also as the Shadow Man. Every time it looks like his plans could be stopped dead in their tracks, Facilier always finds a way to keep them going so that things fall in his favor. Smooth and skillful at manipulating other characters like Naveen, Tiana, and Lawrence, possessing a keen sense of business and showmanship, and also one of the few Disney Villains to give a permanent death to a good guy character, Facilier stands as one of Disney's most delightfully diabolical antagonists.
- Prince Hans from Frozen. He managed to improvise his way through a scheme to claim the throne of Arendelle for himself, all while posing as a noble, caring Prince Charming type character. Had Anna not survived his attempt to leave her freezing to death, Hans would have successfully done away with both princesses and become Arendelle's king. Plus, he gave us the "If only there was someone out there who loved you" meme.
Pixar[]
- Toy Story films:
- Toy Story 2: The Evil Emperor Zurg is the Arch Enemy of Buzz Lightyear. When Buzz is called to Zurg's planet to deal with him, Zurg first sets a trap of thousands of robots. When Buzz escapes that he nearly kills him with a spike trap, a levitating bridge, and even fools him with a fake power source. Finally facing Buzz head on, he kills him in battle, and then laughs maniacally. The film then cuts to the "real world", where Rex complains about how hard the Zurg boss fight in the game is. The toy version of Zurg seen later in the film is not nearly as competent or dangerous, but he still manages to get the upper hand on the Buzz from Al's Toy Barn and even get him to surrender with a Luke, I Am Your Father declaration, which ends up making the second Buzz decide he wants to bond with his newfound "dad", and he and Zurg are last seen playing a father-son game of catch together.
- Toy Story 4: Gabby Gabby is a 50s-era doll who has languished on the shelves of Second Chance Antiques for years waiting for a child's love. When Gabby Gabby meets Woody and learns he has a functioning voicebox, Gabby Gabby covets it for herself and quickly realizes the folly in attempting to brute-force it out of him. Two thirds of the way into the film, Gabby Gabby uses the knowledge she's gained by befriending her "captive," Forky, and subjects Woody to a brutal but heart-wrenchingly sincere speech that convinces Woody to stop opposing her and give up his own voicebox so Gabby Gabby can have a chance at happiness. Unlike Stinky Pete and Lotso, Gabby Gabby always remains calm, honest and grateful toward the heroes, even offering Woody his voicebox back when her initial chance at happiness earns her rejection, while remaining the one antagonist in the series to have effectively hit Woody at his core.
- The Incredibles films:
- First film:
- Mirage is the mysterious and charming Dragon to Syndrome. Mirage lures former "Supers" on Syndrome's behalf by shadowing them and contacting them via video, then arranging each one to fight the Omnidroid, killing all except for Mr. Incredible. Each time a Super succeeds though, the Omnidroid is modified to become stronger and stronger, with Syndrome intending to send it after a city so he can "save" it. After Mirage saves Syndrome at one point only for him to callously be willing to let her get killed when she's in danger (and also being horrified at what Syndrome tried to do to Bob's family, children included), she completely turns against him by helping Mr. Incredible escape, telling him his family is alive, and then helping the Parr family commandeer a rocket to go after the Omnidroid.
- The Omnidroid v.10 is Syndrome's greatest creation and proves to be more dangerous than even its creator imagined. Designed to be the perfect weapon and more powerful than its predecessors, the Omnidroid is tasked with helping Syndrome fake his heroism by attacking a city. Growing intelligent enough to no longer take orders, the Omnidroid analyzes the situation and betrays Syndrome, separating him from his remote and knocking him out. When the Incredibles and Frozone arrive, the Omnidroid proves unstoppable, using its adaptive thinking and arsenal of weapons to repel them. Though the Incredibles realize they can use Syndrome's lost remote to defeat it, the Omnidroid picks up on their plan and repeatedly thwarts their attempts to use the remote against it, only beaten at the last second by the entire team's combined wits and powers.
- Incredibles 2: Screenslaver, aka Evelyn Deavor, is the secondary CEO of DevTech and Winston Deavor's sister. Believing that humanity has become too reliant on superheroes following her parents' deaths, Evelyn pretended to support Winston's plan to make Supers legal again, while secretly scheming to make sure that they instead remain illegal forever. Kidnapping a pizza delivery boy, she brainwashed him to turn him into her alter-ego Screenslaver, before having him commit several crimes, while Evelyn "helps" Helen "Elastigirl" Parr foil "his" plans and capture and framing him. When Elastigirl deduces that the pizza delivery boy was brainwashed, Evelyn brainwashes her as well before brainwashing Bob "Mr. Incredible" Parr, Frozone and the Supers Winston found. Her objective is to take advantage of Winston's summit on the Everjust boat with over 100 world leaders by crashing the boat into the city and framing the Supers for it, making them illegal forever. Upon seeing her plan unravel, Evelyn decides to fly away to safety with her brother while destroying the way to the engine room to make sure the boat crashes. When Elastigirl manages to reach her, Evelyn nearly kills her through quick thinking and efficient use of her environment.
- First film:
- Monsters, Inc.: Henry J. Waternoose is a shrewd and pragmatic arachnid-like monster businessman, the founder of Monsters Incorporated and it's current CEO when the story opens. Bemoaning how scaring children in the human world, which provides the screams his company uses as energy supply for all monsters in Monstropolis, has become less easy and efficient these days, which he fears could lead to a power shortage crisis in Monstropolis and the end of his company, Waternoose secretly constructs a scream extractor machine that can force screams out of any child no matter how fearless. Playing on Randall Boggs' desire to elevate his own status, Waternoose hired him to abduct the child called Boo and test run the machine on her, all while keeping up appearances that the company still "scares because we care" and maintaining his Reasonable Authority Figure persona to avoid suspicion. Even when his hand is forced and he has to turn against James P. Sullivan, to whom he'd been a father figure, Waternoose expresses deep regret that it had to come to this and that he truly valued Sulley as both a scarer and as a friend, even defending his honor when Randall disparages him as a failure. When Sulley returns to save Boo and send her back home, however, Waternoose shows that he will put his conviction to do what he believes is best for monsterkind and the dedication he has to the company he put so much effort into building and maintaining above even his friendship with Sulley, who he attempts to "silence" to keep him from standing in his way. Despite this, Sulley takes the loss of him as a friend with sadness.
- Ratatouille: Anton Ego is a cutthroat food critic notorious for his scathing reviews and cold exterior that made him the most acclaimed and revered food connoisseur in all of Paris. When he gave a negative review of Chef Gusteau's bistro where he firmly rejected the idealistic chef's belief that "anyone can cook", the bistro lost its five star status an Gusteau passed away soon after. In his career-killing review, Ego even compared Gusteau to the Chef Boyardee, reduced to merely a face on prepared foods after his death. When Ego hears that Gusteau's was making a comeback in popularity thanks to it's new chef Linguni (who's actually being directed by Remy the Rat to cook as well as he does), he personally offers the most amount of time to a challenge to the restaurant in which they must deliver "their best shot" to impress him. At the climax, Remy serves Ego a moviesish of ratatouille that actually reminds Ego of his mother's cooking from his childhood. After hearing Linguini explain the situation with Remy and viewing the rat perfectly recreate the dish, he thanks them for the meal and quietly leaves a changed man from the experience, giving a glowing review to Gusteau's and praising Remy in particular without divulging his identity. While Ego loses his job and his credibility when Gusteau's is closed down due to the rats presence, he doesn't care one bit as he now leads an equally successful and much happier life as an investor and regular patron of a new small bistro, La Ratatouille, run by human and rat chefs who still respect him greatly.
- Coco: Ernesto de la Cruz was the partner of musical genius Hector Rivera until Hector decided he'd rather return home and be there for his family than become a successful star musician. Believing he needed to "seize his moment", Ernesto poisoned Hector and proceeded to take his guitar and the songs he wrote, starting his own musical career where he passed the songs off as his own. He fooled everyone so successfully that Hector's own family didn't even realize he knew Hector, got himself into an incredibly cushy position as a celebrity top dog in the real world and the afterlife following his death in a tragic accident during one of his grandiose live performances, and owns a spectacular castle and really stylish white mariachi garb. Living the afterlife of the party for half a century, no one had even the slightest clue about Ernesto's murder of Hector until Miguel Rivera ended up in the afterlife with the mistaken belief that Ernesto rather than Hector was his great grandfather, and one of Ernesto's old movies just randomly happened to be playing when Miguel pointed out that the scene being shown was exactly like Hector's final moments, meaning Ernesto deliberately payed homage to how he killed his own best friend as an in-joke that only he would get. Attemping to do away with Miguel so that the boy wouldn't tarnish Ernesto's reputation by revealing the truth once back in the land of the living and even confiscating Hector's photograph to ensure that Hector remained forgotten by all, Ernesto came dangerously close to ensuring that the worlds of the living and the dead would never know of the sins he'd committed.
Live Action Films[]
- Treasure Island (1950 film): Long John Silver shows why he was the only man the ruthless Captain Flint ever feared. Getting himself hired by young Jim Hawkins, Silver converts the crew to his side and launches a mutiny, personally disposing of the only members who refused to join him. Silver proceeds to manipulate others and twist events to his advantage to obtain the treasure he craves, while genuinely bonding with young Jim and becoming a mentor and father figure to the boy. When things go wrong and the crew betrays him, Silver promptly switches sides to the heroes and comes out on top, escaping their custody with a fortune to return to his wife a wealthy and free man. So charismatic and complex is Silver that even the heroes who have been under threat from him can almost hope that Silver will indeed escape justice.
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954 film): Captain Nemo is the son of an Indian Raj whose family was slaughtered for his rebellion against the British. Nemo has since abandoned civilization to create his own by his brilliance and force of will, resulting in the Nautilus-an ingenious submersible that Nemo travels the world with, striking fear into the hearts of the British by destroying their ships. Nemo is polite even to his prisoners, taking everything they need from the sea and their own victims, while maintaining a air of civility and geniality, showcasing his unmistakable charisma and drive.
- Davy Crockett (1954): Red Stick is a ruthless but cunning American Indian leader who opposes western expansion. Unifying multiple tribes, his force proves a match for General Jackson's forces despite inferior weapons by using the frontier's environments to their advantage. When Davy Crockett leads the army to his main camp, Red Stick defeats Davy Crockett in single combat, then orders a strategic retreat, saving many of his men by expertly ordering them to duck at just the right moment to avoid a volley of gunfire. Though many of his followers are killed and several other chiefs accept the US's offer of peace, Red Stick continues the war, evading Major Norton's forces for months by leading them into a swamp where the Indians can easily hide, but Norton's forces catch swamp fever and are unable to fight. Only Davy Crockett and George Russel are able to find Red Stick's encampment, but Russel gets captured. Red Stick nearly burns Russel at the stake, before Crockett challenges him to a duel as per Indian law. In the tomahawk duel, Red Stick gets the upper hand numerous times though skill and guile before eventually losing. Davy Crockett spares him, though, and convinces Red Stick of his own honor and to accept a peace for the good of his tribe.
- Dick Tracy: Breathless Mahoney is the main singer at the Club Ritz who secretly becomes the faceless gangster "The Blank". Seeking to get out from under Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice, Breathless secretly makes plans to undermine his business and takeover while also stringing along Dick Tracy whom she is in love with. She discreetly learns about Big Boy's plans and as Blank, saves Tracy from a trap Big Boy set from him. Wanting to tarnish Tracy's name so he'll join her acquisition of the city and choose her over his girlfriend Tess Trueheart, Breathless kills the corrupt DA Fletcher and sets Tracy up for it. She then kidnaps Tess, pins it on Big Boy and then tries to bargain Tracy into killing Big Boy and then joining her.
- In The Rocketeer, Neville Sinclair masquerades as a Hollywood star while secretly harboring a scheme to steal a rocket pack to help the Nazi government Take Over the World. Hiring a squad of gangsters to assist him, Sinclair also pursues charming Jenny Blake, girlfriend of Cliff Secord aka the Rocketeer and moves quickly to follow leads, allowing Sinclair to capture Jenny and force Cliff into meeting him to trade the rocket for her. When his American cohorts turn on him for his exposed affiliations, Sinclair uses a battalion of German soldiers and nearly escape via zeppelin, only stopped by Cliff's quick thinking.
- The Muppets:
- Nicky Holiday, masquerading as an irresponsible, parasitic playboy by day, is actually a sneaky, devious master thief. Nicky makes off with the jewels of his own sister Lady Holiday, pinning the deed on Miss Piggy to walk off scot-free. Later, he stages an elaborate, near-successful robbery to steal the Baseball Diamond, an effort only thwarted by the Muppets catching onto his schemes. Despite being a total Card-Carrying Villain, Nicky sincerely falls for Miss Piggy, takes his defeat with grace and ends the film with an apology to her.
- Long John Silver, played in Muppet Treasure Island by Tim Curry, is a charming, bombastic pirate much like his literary counterpart. After manipulating the mutiny against their captain by bringing in pirates to infiltrate the vessel, Silver plans to obtain the treasure of Captain Flint and also sway young Jim Hawkins to his side. Even when pressed against the wall by his crew's mutiny, Silver selflessly defends Jim, saying he was never lying about caring for the boy, and when held hostage by his captors, he manipulates his way back to control by threatening them with eternal damnation. As ruthless and charismatic as they come, Silver is the utter pinnacle of what a professional pirate should be.
- Muppets Most Wanted: Constantine, "the World's Most Dangerous Frog", fights and escapes from the Siberian Gulag he held a lot of power and authority in while setting other prisoners free and then setting explosives off too. Teamed with his underling Dominic Badguy/The Lemur, Constantine arranges to have Kermit sent to the prison in his place while pretending to be him with the Muppets. To divert attention and suspicion, Constantine not only allows the others free reign in their performances on their world tour, but also woos Miss Piggy and uses the performances as a means of distracting while he and Dominic commit a few robberies or thefts (leaving evidence to implicate the Muppets too). Constantine also plans to blow Piggy up at their wedding as a means of facilitating his own escape and manages to outsmart Dominic’s attempt to get the better of him while then trying to take Piggy as a hostage to get away in a helicopter.
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Captain Jack Sparrow, one of the nine pirate lords and the most famed pirate of the Caribbean, lured Captain Armando Salazar to his doom at the start of his pirating career with little but his wits. Later escaping the clutches of the wicked Cutler Beckett and the mutiny of his treacherous crew, Jack dreams of recovering the Black Pearl and uses William Turner to do so. Performing a series of elaborate double and triple crosses to manipulate the navy and cursed pirates against one another, Jack ends up on the side of good to defeat Barbossa. When Beckett emerges and the feared Davy Jones is after him, Jack bargains for time from Jones to steal his disembodied heart. Returning from death, Jack makes Elizabeth Swann the king of the pirates' Brethren Court while setting her and Will up to escape Beckett and allow Jack to take Jones' place- a dream he abandons to save the mortally wounded Will Turner. Later forced to assist Blackbeard in a quest for the fountain of youth, Jack tricks the feared pirate into sacrificing his life for his daughter Angelica and later provides a way for his old rival and sometimes-friend Barbossa to give his life to save Barbossa's daughter Carina. Rarely at a loss for words or plots, Jack routinely comes up with plans on the fly, so talented that some wonder if he has things planned out or makes them up as he goes along, and even his enemies can't help but admire his wit, style, roguish charm, audacity and ambitious gambits.
- His former Bastard Understudy Hector Barbossa instituted a mutiny to take over the Black Pearl and despite being cursed as an immortal skeleton with certain human senses gone, he was still able to keep up with Jack in the bastard department. Seeking William "Will" Turner to break said curse, Barbossa incites an invasion of Port Royal and abducts Elizabeth Swann thinking she's the descendant he needs and uses a lot of double-talk to arrange circumstances to his liking at each turn. Barbossa then uses Elizabeth as leverage to get Will in his possession, distracting the British Navy with an attack and nearly succeeds in sacrificing Will in order to restore his humanity, only to be killed when the curse is broken. Resurrected not long after, Barbossa seeks to bring Jack back from Davy Jones's locker while also fighting Lord Cutler Beckett and the East India Trading Company and releasing the Goddess Calypso "from [her] human bonds" to get her assistance. Eventually taking down Blackbeard for his ship and power and then seeking to protect his capitalization on all things piracy, Barbossa willing chooses to finally give it all up for the sake of the survival of his own daughter Carina, his true "Treasure".
- Tia Dalma, who is secretly Calypso, Goddess of the Sea bound in human form by the Brethren Court, eventually took up being a sea witch. Developing feelings for Davy Jones, Captain of the Flying Dutchman, she charged him with transporting the dead to the afterlife, but ended up neglecting their one night together simply because it was "in [her] nature", leading Jones to abandon his duties and cursing himself and his crew. When Jack is targeted by Jones for his debt, she advises Jack in how to fend Jones off and how to potentially control Jones with his disembodied heart. After Jack is trapped in the Locker and the East India Trading Company begin their genocide of pirates, Tia sees this as an opportunity to finally be unbound from human form by uniting the Brethren Court once more, needing Jack the final Pirate Lord. Resurrecting Barbossa to serve as a guide, they succeed in bringing Jack back to the living world, while also reminding Barbossa she can take his new life away if he ever thinks of betraying her. Intending to turn on the pirates and seducing Jones once more, she learns of Jones' betrayal, having taught the Brethren Court how to bind her, enraging her so much that shortly after she's released, she summons a giant maelstrom on both the Black Pearl and Flying Dutchman, only relenting once Jones finally meets his demise.
- Elizabeth Swann, daughter of Governor Weatherby Swann, helped saved William "Will" Turner from drowning, hiding his pirate connection from her father's men. When the Black Pearl attacks Port Royal, Elizabeth uses her knowledge of the "Pirate Code" to get an audience with Barbossa, tricking him into thinking she is the Turner child he is looking for. When she is marooned on an island with Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth uses its hidden rum bottles to build a signal fire to alert the Navy as to where they are and later aids Jack's escape attempt by pretending to faint. When imprisoned by Lord Cutler Beckett, Elizabeth uses her father's failed rescue attempt in order to take Beckett himself hostage, forcing him to sign the pardon papers for Will and using a fake ghost to scare an entire ship into taking her where she needs to go. Later Elizabeth uses Jack's feelings for her to trap him on the ship as the Kraken attacks. Being made captain of the Empress and voted the Pirate King, Elizabeth leads the fight against the East India Trading Company and the Flying Dutchman, before settling down to raise her and Will's son, reuniting with her husband years later.
- On Stranger Tides: The Spaniard is the leader of the Spanish Armada seeking the destruction of the Fountain of Youth as they believes God's power to give and take life doesn't belong in man's hands. Refusing to engage enemies on a whim and keeping his mind on his mission, the Spaniard successfully steals the chalices needed for the ritual as a means of delaying those on the quest to get there. Upon arrival at the Fountain, the Spaniard shoots a British Naval officer for nearly declaring the land for the British, while wanting to remember the man for his bravery, nd has the chalices taken from Angelica after asking nicely so as to then stomp on them. After the Spaniard succeeds in having the Fountain blown up, killing the rest of Blackbeard's men in the process, he then orders his men to follow him as he gracefully departs.
- Dead Men Tell No Tales: Shansa is an imprisoned sea witch who cursed Barbossa's enemies so he could achieve higher success with no opposition when he saved her from the gallows. Learning everything she can through unpleasant rituals, such as eventually draining a man of his blood as he kept coming back for help, Shansa advises Barbossa about Salazar threatening him and only being stopped through the Triton of Poseidon, providing him with Jack's compass that she mysteriously possesses and advising Barbossa to retire peacefully if he wants to extend his life, but then allowing him the choice as to whether or not he'll reject the tedium of that in exchange for eventually dying sooner as a pirate. When Shansa is then threatened by British Lt. John Scarfield, she tells him he's put him on the path that will get him in the race for the Triton, knowing he'll eventually be destroyed by Salazar as she had expected him to be.
- National Treasure:
- First film: "Ian Howe" was once Ben Gates' benefactor before the two split due to different approaches to acquiring the Declaration of Independence for the purpose of finding clues. Intending to steal the Declaration, Ian and his gang infiltrates the National Archives and nearly gets their hands on it. Realizing that a riddle with Silence Dogood pointed to Ben Franklin's letters, Ian observes a boy taking notes for Ben's friend Riley, bribing the boy for his notes and tracing them to the Liberty Bell. Posting his men outside Independence Hall, Ian pursues Ben and his friends across Philadelphia before acquiring the Declaration again. When Ben is arrested by the FBI, Ian arranges for Ben's escape in exchange for the last clue, kidnapping Ben's father and his friends as leverage before leaving them all to die when everything appears to lead to a dead end. When sent on a Snipe Hunt for a fake clue which is used by the FBI to arrest him, Ian merely chuckles in amused disbelief at his fate.
- Book of Secrets: Mitch Wilkinson is a man seeking to bring glory to his family. Attending an exhibition about Ben Gates' ancestor Thomas, Mitch accuses Thomas of being in league with John Wilkes Booth to help the Confederacy find Cibola, the City of Gold, using a page presumably from Thomas' diary. Knowing that Ben would not rest until he found Cibola and cleared Thomas' name, Mitch attacks Ben's father Patrick, cloning his phone to keep tabs on Ben before pursuing Ben to London and back, acquiring clues along the way. Learning that Ben's mother is a professor who can translate the clues, Mitch kidnaps her and brings her to Mount Rushmore, forcing Ben and his allies to team up with him to locate Cibola. Evading a series of traps to reach Cibola, Mitch admits he faked the evidence and reveals his motive before sacrificing himself to allow Ben and his friends to escape when Cibola is flooded.
- Inspector Gadget 2: Dr. Claw is a hammy, mysterious supervillain who schemes to rob Riverton's Federal Reserve with style and flourish. Escaping prison following his capture at the hands of Inspector Gadget, Claw has reinvented himself to be a cool, threatening presence, devising a plan to create his "time displacement laser" and freeze all of Riverton in time. Claw disguises himself and his gang as a band to stealthily steal a priceless ruby and hacks Inspector Gadget's robotics to throw a science convention into chaos while he steals a protoid laser, gathering all the parts needed for his superweapon. Successfully freezing Riverton and its citizens, Claw robs the Federal Reserve before taking Gadget's niece Penny as a hostage, using threats to her life and weapons built into his escape vehicle to fight off Gadget. Even when Gadget has him dead-to-rights, Claw uses a backup emergency rocket to flee justice, promising that he'll be back to defeat Gadget next time.
- Sky High: Gwen Grayson is Sky High's student body president, recognizable by her height, beauty, and fondness for all things hot pink, but she proves to be far more than just a pretty face. A scientific genius who can control technology with her mind who was born Sue Tenney, her power was deemed useless when she went to Sky High and she was stuck in the sidekick class, looked down upon by other heroes as a result. Swearing to break the system that broke her, Sue became the masked supervillain Royal Pain and invented a weapon called the Pacifier, but her schemes were cut short when she was hit by her own weapon during a fight with her arch foe, the Commander, reverting to a baby who was raised by her loyal minion Stitches to continue the plan when she came of age. As a teenager, she renamed herself Gwen Grayson and enrolled in Sky High, manipulating the Commander's son, Will Stronghold, by pretending to take romantic interest in him so that he can let her into his house so that she may steal back the Pacifier. At the homecoming dance, Gwen makes her grand entrance dressed as Royal Pain and reveals the gun's function is to turn anyone its laser strikes into a newborn baby, intending to indoctrinate these super-babies into an army of villains loyal to her. When Will fights her to stop her plan but still can't bring himself to finish her due to his feelings for her, Gwen takes the opportunity to almost destroy Sky High by dropping it out of the sky.
- G-Force: Speckles is the technologically gifted support specialist for G-Force, using his position to hide his villainous intentions. Having lost his family at a young age to humans, Speckles swore vengeance on humanity as a whole, and decides to twist Leonard Saber's technology to his desires by disguising himself as "Mr. Yanshu" and infecting all Saber technology with his coding virus. Faking his death to fool G-Force, Speckles initiates "Project Clusterstorm" to turn all Saber technology against humans, coming close to succeeding in his goals to drive humankind underground for vengeance before realizing the error of his ways and helping to save the world out of care for his team.
- Now You See It: Max is an Evil Sorcerer masquerading as a stage magician. Prior to the start of the film Max gave his mentor a magical ring which he used to steal his powers and kill him. Taking over his mansion, years later Max sets up a reality show for gifted young magicians as a ploy to lure out another wizard. Taking an interest in protagonist Danny Sinclair, Max convinces the public that Danny's magic isn't real while tutoring him in private, giving him a ring to "control" his powers with the intent of killing him, playing the same trick he used on his former mentor and almost succeeding.
- Maleficent: This more sympathetic take on Maleficent still retains the charisma and charm of her original counterpart. Charged with protecting the Moors, Maleficent declares herself their "Dark Queen" when her childhood friend Stefan betrays her and becomes the King of the humans. Cursing Stefan's daughter Aurora to fall into a death-like sleep, Maleficent seals off the Moors and easily dispatches of any of Stefan's soldiers who attempt to intrude, all the while growing fond of Aurora from afar after Stefan begs her to lift the curse, with Maleficent eventually breaking it out of her own love for Aurora. Defeating Stefan, Maleficent goes on to quash any who attack her or her loved ones, defeating and humiliating a wicked Queen before giving Aurora and her fiancee a lavish wedding while going on to rule the Dark Fey unopposed.
- Into the Woods: The Wicked Witch of the Woodlands catches the Baker's father stealing her greens years before the Baker himself is born and demands to him that as payment for doing so that she let him take his newborn daughter Rapunzel to raise as her own. While treating Rapunzel well, the Witch is so overprotective to the point that she locks her in a tower and temporarily blinds Rapunzel's prince on one of the occasions he comes to see her. Years after taking Rapunzel, needing to break the curse her own mother set on her, the Witch goes to the Baker and his wife revealing she placed an infertility spell on them and that they will only be able to reverse it if they retrieve the necessary items to help her reverse her own, while noticing when the white cow they get is disguised with flower rather than being the right color. This ultimately is successful for all parties and things are well, until the Witch insists that Jack be sacrificed to the Giant's wife when she wants vengeance for her husband's death. When the heroes refuse, the Witch sings "The Last Midnight", which is basically the Witch giving one big What the Hell, Hero? and "The Reason You Suck" Speech to all the main characters in song form, using her regained powers to create a powerful windstorm and eventually sinking into the ground to Hell, leaving behind a large pool of black tar, all in one of the most visually-stunning numbers in the entire film. The best part? She's absolutely right.
- Mulan (2020): Xian Lang is a witch who, exiled from her home due to her great power, seeks to form a new society where people like her will be viewed as equal. Allying herself with Rouran warlord Bori Khan during his invasion of China, Xian Lang uses both her powers and battle prowess to help topple China's military garrisons, while also using her shape-shifting abilities to infiltrate the Imperial City and manipulate The Emperor into gathering troops to battle the invaders. Meeting Mulan in battle, Xian Lang sees through her disguise and reveals that the attacks were merely a diversion to draw troops away from the Imperial City. Infiltrating the palace in the guise of the Chancellor, Xian Lang tricks the Emperor into leaving the safety of the palace and falling into Bori Khan's trap. Later, upon seeing how Mulan has been accepted by the army despite her gender and realizing that there is a place for people like her, Xian Lang aids Mulan in defeating Bori Khan, sacrificing her life in the process.
- In the Descendants film franchise, Uma is the daughter of Ursula the seas with, and Mal's most personal rival. Back when they were best friends, Mal turned Uma into the Isle's laughing stock, and eventually abandoned and forgot about her. This made Uma grow bitter towards Mal and vow to defeat her by any means, as well as developing a reasonable philosophy about how the Disney Heroes were no better than actual villains for leaving the villains' children on the Isle of the Lost for no reason other than their parents being evil. Forming her own pirate crew and quickly rising to the top as a fearsome threat, she constantly takes advantage of her surroundings to take down anybody in her way. She later joins Mal's team to defeat Audrey, in exchange for the Villain Kids being released. She and Mal begin to make amends and she powers up Mal's ember so she could take Audrey down. Once Auradon realizes that morality didn't depend on where they grew up in, Uma's pleas are finally heard, as the barrier gets lifted and Villain Kids are finally allowed to go to Auradon.
- Cruella (2021): Cruella de Vil in this film is reimagined as a capable con artist and thief with excellent fashion sense. Born to the cold-hearted Baroness von Hellman, who wanted her dead, Cruella was at first raised as "Estella", the daughter of maid Catherine Miller, whose murder she witnessed as a child. Growing up orphaned, Estella had ended up pulling schemes with the Badun brothers Horace and Jasper, creating the costumes for each job as they go. Wanting to get into the fashion world, Estella gets hired and works closely under the Baroness, while also trying to steal back her family heirloom from her cruel employer. Becoming Cruella, she also undermines the Baroness' own business while increasing her own and when Cruella learns of her true heritage, she then fakes her own murder as Estella at the Baroness's hands in order to set her up and make it so Cruella gets everything that was always meant to be hers.
Comic Books[]
- Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: The Phantom Blot, at his best, is an Affably Evil Gentleman Thief or full-on Diabolical Mastermind who hatches truly convoluted schemes that have Mickey Mouse (often portrayed as little short of a Great Detective himself in such stories) running around clueless for a long time before he even begins to figure them out; and has a dark, threateningly cool presence. In the original Newspaper Strips version, the Blot introduces himself by easily kidnapping Mickey Mouse and planting him in a complex Death Trap when he is assigned to bring the Blot to justice. Matching Mickey in their game of wits, the Blot constantly has him on the ropes, nearly managing to escape scot-free were it not for Mickey's persistence and good fortune. In the end, the Blot admits that the reason why he couldn't bring himself to simply off Mickey when he had the chance was because of his too-tender heart.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Arpin Lusene is Scrooge McDuck's most intelligent and competent foe. A charming French millionaire playboy who lives a double life as a Gentleman Thief, Lusene vows to steal Scrooge's entire fortune in front of the whole world before going into retirement. After accidentally coming into the possession of the dangerous Omnisolve, Lusene gets the brilliant idea to coat a stolen suit of armor with the substance, turning himself into an unstoppable Juggernaut of a Black Knight who nearly destroys all of Scrooge's riches to fake having stolen it. After Lusene's defeat, he returns and uses subterfuge to regain his suit of armor, then makes his previous plan fool-proof. Scrooge scuppers his original plan to empty the Money Bin by threatening a media blackout, so Lusene settles for destroying Scrooge's other trophies housed in the Duckburg museum, and nearly dissolves poor Donald after accidentally being trapped with him by Scrooge. Even despite being ultimately bested by Scrooge, Lusene always accepts his defeat gracefully, both regarding the other as a Worthy Opponent.
- The Incredibles: Slow Burn was once an ordinary watchmaker and part-time inventor who desires above all a "quiet life", but society's fast-paced lifestyle took this from him. Wanting to both acquire money to buy a private island where he could live in peaceful solitude and revenge, Slow Burn began staging multiple heists by turning society's chaotic nature against itself. He develops both an army of robots and a raygun that allows him to supercharge any technology, making them go berserk. With his raygun, Slow Burn stages multiple accidents to distract The Incredibles while he pulls off his heists unnoticed. Although finally confronted by The Incredibles, Slow Burn's Crazy Preparedness allows him to both figuratively and literally outmanoeuvre the heroes, even managing to remove Dash's powers by reversing his raygun's effects. On one occasion, Slow Burn pretends to be Caught Monologuing to stall time for a bomb in his hideout to go off while he makes a clean getaway. Despite finally being arrested, Slow Burn becomes content with the orderly lifestyle of prison and becomes a model prisoner, even mailing a grateful letter to The Incredibles.
TV Series[]
- Gargoyles:
- Pictured above: The ever infamous David Xanatos is a charming, suave man who always thinks ten steps ahead. Having revived the Gargoyles in modern day, Xanatos befriends them while manipulating them into stealing technology for him while pretending to be an innocent party. After being defeated and sent to prison, Xanatos sets up further plans to make himself look like a model citizen while securing an early parole for his lover Fox, while constantly tricking the Gargoyles into handling problems for him. Even his own wedding shows Xanatos's endless capacity for maintaining an advantage: warping himself and all the wedding guests into the past, Xanatos ends the adventure by having a rare coin set aside to be sent to himself a thousand years in the future when it will be worth a fortune, allowing him to kick start his own career and become a member of the Illuminati's guild. Of course, since Xanatos was such a smooth talker, he would make you believe he was your friend all while positioning the knife in your back. He might adequately be described as Lex Luthor (Evil Corporate Mastermind) mixed with Doctor Doom (genius inventor and likes mixing magic with science), only handsomer, possibly richer, and with none of the flaws that cause their plans to collapse, namely ego inflation issues and revenge obsessions. He even tends to take his defeats in stride, regarding them as a learning experience. Rarely at a loss for a contingency and never losing his smile, Xanatos is rarely ever one-upped, and often proves his boast that nothing is beyond his capacity to control.
- Uncannily enough, his SECOND LINE in the show is "Magnificent!"
- Notably, during the first story arc, Xanatos is "defeated" and sent to the slammer. Unfortunately, this means he has nothing to do all day EXCEPT formulate new plans within plans.
- Xanatos's creation, Thailog, is one as well, solidified when he betrays and then outwits his maker in his very first appearance, leading a fearful Xanatos to speculate that Thailog may be even smarter than he is. With his plan going off nearly perfectly, Thailog fakes his death and begins to build up a power base in the world. Seducing Demona, Thailog arranges for her to win the heart of Macbeth in her human guise, while planning to have them kill one another so he can take over both their operations. Thailog later arranges for the near elimination of the Manhattan Clan after he's cloned them, while also planning ahead for Demona's betrayal as well. Going by the comic continuation, Thailog seems to have inherited his father's fondness for schemes that profit him no matter the outcome. Combining Xanatos's charm and brilliant mind with Goliath's power and Dr. Sevarius' theatrical flair for the dramatic, Thailog shows why he is one of the single most dangerous villains to ever menace Goliath and his clan.
- Fox, born Janine Renard, is David Xanatos' wife and partner in crime. A savvy, cunning mercenary, Fox aids her husband's schemes out of their genuine love and admiration for each other. Introduced as the leader of the Pack, Fox quickly proves herself to be head and shoulders above her teammates, manipulating them on Xanatos' behalf before leaving the group during a jailbreak to ensure her own early parole. Equally capable while operating on her own initiative, Fox orchestrates a near-successful scheme to usurp her noble father's company, despite the fact that he would have simply given it to her if she asked, preferring fun over her father's sense of honor, maintaining a positive relationship with him despite this. When Oberon attempts to abduct her newborn son, Fox proves willing to fight tooth and nail to defend him, even summoning a burst of magical power that temporarily stuns the Lord of Avalon. Pairing her skills with a mischievous cunning and genuine affection for her family, Fox proves herself as every bit her husband's equal.
- Xanatos' proposal to her amounted to "We get along, we'll have good kids, and we're the only ones as smart as each other."
- Heck, even Xanatos' assistant, Owen Burnett, puts himself in this trope's territory, his true identity being Puck and all. When enslaved by Demona as himself, he constantly misinterprets her commands such as turning humans into gargoyles and vice versa to get around her attempts to murder them, leaving Demona to turn human during the daylight as a form of ironic punishment. Later creating a huge vision of a Bad Future to trick Goliath into handing over the Phoenix Gate, Puck even stands firm against King Oberon to protect the Xanatos family before becoming a talented tutor to baby Alexander Xanatos, even if he has to manipulate events to create chaos for teaching opportunities.
- Macbeth mac Findlaech is an immortal Scottish king magically linked to Demona. Losing his kingdom and his family to his former ally's treachery, Macbeth sets out to avenge himself upon her, as well as to use the terms of their immortality—that neither can die unless one kills the other, in which case, both die—to end his own painful life as well. Considered one of the greatest warriors alive by the modern day, Macbeth combines tactical acumen, combat skill, and advanced technology to stand his ground against far stronger opponents. Honorable yet ruthless, Macbeth proves that he wouldn't attack his enemies while they were helpless, but can easily outfight them in battle. Initially willing to take the gargoyles hostage or allow them to die if it means he can kill Demona, Macbeth gradually rediscovers his will to live, becoming the clan's ally. Later seeking a new purpose, Macbeth tries to usurp King Arthur as the Once and Future King, only to show humility when Arthur bests him, declining an offer to serve Arthur, but promising his aid when needed. One of the show's most sympathetic, yet capable villains, Macbeth is one of the Manhattan Clan's finest foes, never losing his sense of honor or admirable edge.
- Pictured above: The ever infamous David Xanatos is a charming, suave man who always thinks ten steps ahead. Having revived the Gargoyles in modern day, Xanatos befriends them while manipulating them into stealing technology for him while pretending to be an innocent party. After being defeated and sent to prison, Xanatos sets up further plans to make himself look like a model citizen while securing an early parole for his lover Fox, while constantly tricking the Gargoyles into handling problems for him. Even his own wedding shows Xanatos's endless capacity for maintaining an advantage: warping himself and all the wedding guests into the past, Xanatos ends the adventure by having a rare coin set aside to be sent to himself a thousand years in the future when it will be worth a fortune, allowing him to kick start his own career and become a member of the Illuminati's guild. Of course, since Xanatos was such a smooth talker, he would make you believe he was your friend all while positioning the knife in your back. He might adequately be described as Lex Luthor (Evil Corporate Mastermind) mixed with Doctor Doom (genius inventor and likes mixing magic with science), only handsomer, possibly richer, and with none of the flaws that cause their plans to collapse, namely ego inflation issues and revenge obsessions. He even tends to take his defeats in stride, regarding them as a learning experience. Rarely at a loss for a contingency and never losing his smile, Xanatos is rarely ever one-upped, and often proves his boast that nothing is beyond his capacity to control.
- Nerissa from W.I.T.C.H. is hands down the best manipulator in the series. Her schemes have spanned over ten years to complete her goal of universal conquest to unite all words, Nerissa takes on multiple false identities to help defeat Meridian's evil dictator by posing as a castle servant to pass information to the rebels. Conceived a child who she never raised to lead that same army. Manipulated minor villains to distract the heroes under the guise of wanting to assist them while she worked behind the scenes. After the rebellion won, she maintained her disguise as a loyal servant of the queen, only to steal her powers for herself. Posed as a trusted ally to the main characters, and ultimately fooled God! Kidnapped the main character's boyfriend to transform him into a hate fueled demon to psychologically screw with Will, and commits murder right in front of the 14-15 year old Guardians! Enslaves her former friends by finding their emotional weakness, including one who was a ghost! Nerissa is one helluva planner!
- Nerissa only really lost because she became obsessed with power and started making stupid mistakes in pursuit of more of it, in addition to Will becoming something of a Magnificent Bastard herself by releasing Phobos from prison with a binding magical promise to not keep Elyon's power for himself. It would have worked, too, except for Cedric guessing the plan and turning on Phobos just before he fully broke the promise.
- In Mickey's Mouseworks and House of Mouse, the Phantom Blot is a hammy supervillain who seeks to steal a credit card from Professor Ludwig Von Drake that'll get him access to every source of money in the world. Managing to steal it as Ludwig is conversing with the main trio, he traps them in an ink bowl when they pursue him, using the trap to escape on his blimp with the card. When Ludwig reveals that only he knows the PIN code to it, he quickly kidnaps him and uses him to gain access to the card, using it to rob everything he can while evading the police. Upon the trio managing to destroy the card later, he decides to flee and ejects them out of his blimp using a trap door, getting rid of Donald and Goofy while dealing with Mickey, keeping the mouse on his toes throughout the fight and only being beaten by his blimp suddenly crashing into a mountain.
- House of Mouse's Jafar shows he's just as magnificent as he is in the films. In "Donald's Lamp Trade", Jafar takes advantage of Donald's wounded pride and jealousy towards Mickey, offering to make him a bigger star in exchange for "the lamp", which turns out to mean a decorative lamp that Mickey keeps in his dressing room. Mickey ends up willingly giving the lamp to Jafar, giving him exactly what he wanted and rendering all the suffering Donald endured to get it pointless. In "House of Magic", it's Jafar who ends up saving the day when he restores the vanished House of Mouse with his own magic, set to him and Iago's own rendition of "Bippity Boppity Boo." And in the DTV "Mickey's House of Villains", Jafar secretly orchestrates a takeover of the House by convincing all the Disney villains to ally into a Legion of Doom at the Halloween Party. When the time comes for the takeover, Jafar kicks Mickey and Minnie out amid a grand Villain Song, "It's Our House Now." Now the club owner and master of ceremonies, Jafar manages to keep Mickey and Minnie out of the overtaken House of Mouse two times, and when Mickey manages to get in the third time around, Jafar keeps his cool and engages him in a direct Wizard Duel where he very nearly defeats Mickey.
- The Evil Manta from The Little Mermaid series surpasses even Ursula at being a formidable, manipulative, and very efficient nemesis...for his three appearances in the first season at least, prior to Villain Decay hitting him hard in his final appearance at the end of the show. Even then, though, his voice acting by Tim Curry does a lot to preserve some deliciously wicked dignity.
- Shere Khan from Disney's The Jungle Book already had the personality down, showcasing great intellect, sophistication, smooth communication skills, and the utmost confidence in his hunting prowess. But he really ascended to this trope in the Disney Afternoon TV series Tale Spin, which sees him as a Lex Luthor-esque Corrupt Corporate Executive who deals in the urban jungle of business and organized crime all while staying well ahead of the law and avoiding punishment whenever he can, being a tiger of wealth and taste, commanding respect wherever he goes, and even possessing his own honor code that has seen him allied with Baloo and the other good guys as much as he's been against them.
- DuckTales (1987 series):
- "Glittering" Goldie is Scrooge McDuck's first love, who proves herself to be more than a match for him in both wits and greed. Goldie's introduction featured her eyeballing a massive gold nugget Scrooge had found, strong-arming him into a rigged game of cards, and ultimately falling for him after he turns the tables on her. Decades after they have a falling out, Scrooge discovers that Goldie had been living on his old claim, defending it with her trusty shotgun and pet bear, and while things start tense, they reconcile after Goldie chooses to save Scrooge from a robbery. Goldie's finest outing shows her orchestrating a complex scheme to obtain Scrooge's land in the Ducky Mountains, knowing that it has a massive gold deposit underneath that Scrooge himself is unaware of. Happily tricking Scrooge into trading his land for hers, Goldie rubs her victory in his face before giving him an affectionate kiss and a complement, to which Scrooge can do nothing but smile.
- Filler Brushbill from the episode "Much Ado About Scrooge" is a charismatic and clever salesman whose persuasive ability knows no bounds, convincing even the penny-pinching Scrooge to purchase several hundred-thousand dollars worth of random knick-knacks. Discovering that world-famous playwright William Drakespeare had created an unreleased play, Filler follows Scrooge in his quest for profits, saving the lives of both Scrooge and his nephews before pulling his weight in finding the play. When Scrooge and the boys discover that the play is terrible and try to lock it back up, Filler swoops in and steals the script, fully intending to keep all the potential profits for himself. It's only when Louie appeals to his business-sense that Filler relents and returns the play, happily forming a bond with the young boy and scoring a potential business deal with Scrooge in the process.
- Darkwing Duck:
- Taurus Bulba in the two-part series premiere managed to run an operation from behind bars and make his escape by turning his prison cell into a mobile aircraft, after which he stayed on step ahead of Darkwing Duck and almost succeeded in unlocking the full powers of the Ram Rod in order to reap unlimited wealth. Like with the Evil Manta, Tim Curry providing the voice really helps matters.
- Splatter Phoenix is a comically verbose, ostentatious Mad Artist and self-described "daringly innovative pseudo anti-neo post modern deconstructionist". Using her signature reality-warping paint in conjunction with her creative mind, Phoenix commits her crimes with a painter's flair, often coming up with imaginative ways to go about her schemes. Phoenix's best showing is in her debut episode, where stakes out the St. Canard Museum by hiding inside of the paintings, sneaking out to swipe the art so she can sell them for cash. When confronted by the heroes, Phoenix outmaneuvers them at every turn, nearly killing them by trapping them inside of Gosalyn's painting, and is only defeated because Honker got a paintbrush of his own to level the playing field.
- Aladdin the Series:
- Mozenrath, Aladdin's Evil Counterpart and Arch Enemy, was able to back up his smugness from the get-go. His very first plan involved using Genie as bait for a magic-devouring monster, in order to make Aladdin capture it for him, thus setting up a simple but yet effective Xanatos Gambit. While it didn't last for long, Mozenrath did indeed end up with the beast under his control. Aladdin and his friends did face many capable enemies during their adventures, but Mozenrath was the one who really made them sweat, always pulling something from his sleeve to put the odds back in his favor. If that wasn't enough, the lad was also blessed with a silver tongue that really got our heroes on the nerves. Really, he spends one episode just sitting on his throne, snarking and gloating to a locked up Aladdin, and it still didn't end in a complete loss for him. After all, there's a reason why he's the only villain to ever hear Aladdin say the words "You win".
- Chaos is the Anthropomorphic Personification of his namesake, a near-omnipotent trickster whose unpredictability is matched only by his love of fun and affability. Chaos is "tricked" by Mirage into visiting Agrabah, where he proceeds to begin screwing with reality for his own amusement, creating an evil Aladdin and an evil Genie to challenge the status quo when he's informed "Aladdin always wins." Motivated by nothing but his whims, Chaos is still a fiendishly good planner who set up Mirage from the beginning, and tricks her into falling into his evil Genie's clutches just to place her in so much danger she ends inadvertently saving the day. Not only the most powerful being seen in the series, Chaos is a cunning Trickster Mentor who commends Aladdin for what he's done with Agrabah and tells him to keep up the good work—lest he return to make things "interesting" again.
- The Mukhtar is a snake-like mercenary known and revered as the most skilled genie hunter in all the seven deserts. In his introductory episode, Mukhtar uses Iago and Abu to lead him to Genie and then masterfully fights and defeats Genie with a variety of skills, using both magical tools and pragmatic wit to outdo the powerful Reality Warper as well as his friends. Letting Genie go without issue when his employer calls the hunt off, Mukhtar later returns to take all of Genie's friends hostage in a ploy to lure Genie into Mozenrath's hands, which goes off without a hitch. Mukhtar's honor as mighty as his tracking abilities, the mercenary ends up backstabbing Mozenrath while saving Genie and his friends due to a feeling of closeness with Genie, parting ways with the heroes peacefully at the end of his story after regarding them all as friends.
- The plant elemental wizard Arbutus once made a bargain to spare the life of the Sultan in return for his "dearest treasure." Concealing that this was his daughter Jasmine, Arbutus returns to kidnap her, easily beating the heroes in the process with intent to hold Jasmine as a possession in his garden. Revealing his deep love for the plants he deems his children and his rage at humankind for mistreating them, Arbutus shows he is amenable to Jasmine's attempts to persuade him before the tragic misunderstanding causes him to be slain by Aladdin, with Jasmine and Aladdin mourning his fate once the latter uncovers the truth.
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command:
- Warp Darkmatter, also known as Agent Z, is Buzz Lightyear's Evil Counterpart, a suave, snarky mercenary who functions as the competent right-hand man to Evil Emperor Zurg. Having fooled Buzz and all of Star Command for years undercover as a Space Ranger, Warp uses his position to collect information before ultimately faking his own death and allying with Zurg "full-time." Becoming Agent Z, Warp successfully pulls off the theft of the Unimind, outwits and traps Buzz and his team at various times, and is such a successful freelance Bounty Hunter that he owns an entire moon paradise all to himself. Capable of honor and comraderie even in villainy, Warp allies with Buzz more than once to combat greater threats and showcases a willingness to put his own neck on the line to save his allies while outsmarting worse villains than himself. Darkly hilarious and far more capable than most other villains in the series, Warp is always proud to boast that he's only evil for "more profit and more fun."
- Romac is a freelance Bounty Hunter and Mira’s ex-boyfriend who never quits a job until it’s finished. Originally a Grounder who rescued the princess Mira from muggers, the two formed a strong relationship until Mira’s father forbid them from seeing each other. Now a bounty hunter, Romac takes a job from Zurg to retrieve his escaped scientist Brain Pod 57, while getting him to pay more than intended. After capturing 57 and forming an alliance with him, the two easily knock Buzz Lightyear out and bring him back to Zurg. With his job complete, Romac accepts a payment from 57 to rescue him and Buzz, double-crossing Zurg in order to join back with Mira. Romac chooses to sacrifice himself to distract Zurg, informing him that despite the circumstances, he still lost. Easily escaping Zurg’s clutches, Romac makes 57 his new partner, while promising Mira that he’ll never give up in his pursuit to be by her side again.
- Evil Buzz Lightyear is the calculating evil alternate counterpart of the main Buzz Lightyear from another universe. A deliciously evil space ruler, Evil Buzz would successfully conquer his universe, from taking over Star Command and imprisoning its members to destroying planets across the galaxy to ensure submission to his rule. Partnering up with the Zurg from the mainline dimension to conquer his universe, Evil Buzz kidnaps Buzz and makes it look like he died before imprisoning him and destroying Star Command by aiming for its weak spot. When captured by Mira, Booster, and XR under the impression that he's the mainline Buzz brainwashed by Zurg, Evil Buzz plays along before breaking free and capturing them in the jet and almost blasting them with Zurg's ray gun. Surviving the aftermath of the explosion of Zurg's ship, he would return later and, having partnered up with Gravitina, would set up a base near the sun. Disguising himself as Shiv Katal, Evil Buzz commits several successful robberies of various technological equipment to keep the base afloat and for his and Gravitina's grand scheme to use her gravitational powers to rain sunquakes across the galaxy to destroy Star Command, Capital Planet, and other planets. After breaking into Star Command's laboratory and stealing their compressor, Evil Buzz outwits and evades Team Lightyear and lures Buzz and Mira into the base, where he has them trapped by having Gravitina rid them of their guns and pull them down with her gravitational powers before explaining their plan and sending them down a hatch to be fried through the sun's surface. Though his plans get foiled and his base gets destroyed, Evil Buzz manages to survive his fall into the sun and flies away holding onto a weapon and smiling evilly, ending up a Karma Houdini.
- Fillmore!:
- "To Mar A Stall": Randall Julian (essentially a child Expy of Hannibal Lecter) was a renowned Art champion until he started placing lower than first in competitions and then decided to become the tagger "Flava Sava" as a result of his disillusionment. Tagging almost every bathroom in X Middle School except the one in the Teachers' Lounge, Julian is caught by Cornelius Fillmore and becomes known instead as "Randall the Vandal". Serving indefinite detention for the rest of middle school, Julian is not allowed writing materials because on one occasion he vandalized the room in an extreme manner. When offered a reduced sentence, Julian gives Fillmore and Ingrid Third info on a new tagger named "Stainless" and when they eventually find out who "Stainless" is, Julian leaves them their photo before he escapes and vandalizes the room yet again. He's only stopped from following through with his plan when he realizes he can't destroy his previous good legacy.
- "Test of the Tested": Elliot Funston is the performer of the mascot Lobstee the Lobster who uses the consume to steal the reviled SATTY-9 standardized tests after they’ve been completed. He does so to impress Enid Quintara who’s a very vocal protester of the test and has been secretly leaving her flowers often before that. To avoid suspicion, Elliot stages a scene that makes it look like he was mugged for the costume and plays up his goofy demeanor in order to divert attention too. When discovered, he impedes, tricks and outruns both Fillmore and Ingrid and nearly escapes in the process. Even after Elliot's caught and is facing huge karma for what he's done though, he's ultimately won Enid's admiration, with even Fillmore acknowledging that as a win for Elliot.
- "Play on Maestro, Play on": Arthur Stanley is an expert gamer who designs special Rube Goldberg-type devices in order to commit thefts and uses the first two to steal a black wig and then a supply of bubble gum from a stand, leaving clues as he goes for the thrill of it. Arthur then sets off a third set of things to shut down the lights at the Ultrabox expo and nearly succeeds in stealing the Ultrabox game console while using his stolen items as a disguise. Caught, but still wanting to game, Arthur breaks out of Detention and sets off another set of devices at the expo and successfully steals the Ultrabox while making it look like a copycat. Arthur is asked to consult on the case and misdirects Fillmore and Ingrid, eventually trapping them in a net with another device when they follow his clues once again. He then willingly surrenders when Fillmore convinces him he's too obsessed.
- "The Currency of Doubt':
- Natasha is a ballroom dancer whose partnership with Larry Wolfe ends after he drops her and hurts her leg, with Natasha retaining a psychosomatic limp. Natasha trains two other dancers, Toby and Tina, to win the trophy she and Larry won't compete for, only to view them as unbeatable rivals after she and Larry reconcile and her limp heals, causing them to try for the trophy after all. Natasha robs Toby and Tina and hides her reconciliation with Larry to make it appear that she has no possible motive and that Toby is the culprit, out to pay his gambling debts. She succeeds in breaking the dancers up and interferes with the ensuing investigation in an acrobatic way that would have further removed her from suspicion if not for Fillmore learning through other means that her limp was psychosomatic. After being exposed, she nearly escapes with the stolen loot as a Consolation Prize before her capture. A superb athlete and actress whose offscreen interactions are unimpeachable, Natasha only fails to remain undercover until after the contest due to a series of lucky discoveries on the detectives' part.
- Paulie is a shady character and collector of smoit tickets that come with candy bar wrappers and can be redeemed for prizes. He demonstrates a suspicious, knowledgable, and guardedly affable demeanor when interviewed over the theft of Toby's smoit stash. He gives the heroes useful information for their investigation while advising them not to trust anyone around smoits and secretly planning to follow them and steal the smoits himself once the heroes recover them. Paulie suceeds in getting his smoits, only to lose them to their original owner moments later. He shows disappointment over the loss of his fortune, but is largely accepting of this outcome. Alone among the show's villains, Paulie has a simple yet foolproof plan to escape the safety patrol after publicly revealing his criminal nature: his family is about to move across the country, so if he does get the smoits, he will depart from the safety patrol's jurisdiction before they can do anything to punish him or seek the return of the smoits.
- Kim Possible:
- Shego is the dangerously competent, hilariously snarky Dragon to Dr. Drakken. Having become a villain for sheer thrills, Shego serves alongside Drakken thanks to a genuine care for the man, putting up with and ensuring his ridiculous plans go off with far more success than he alone ever could manage. Dropping hints for her boss hidden in sarcasm, saving his life and plans on the regular, and always keeping pace in physical combat with Kim Possible herself, Shego rarely loses her sternly dark composure no matter what she faces. Able to train the airheaded Senior Jr. to be a master criminal, take advantage of an amnesiac Kim to amass an immense fortune of stolen cash, and even use time travel to take over the world for decades in a scheme of her own when she felt ambitious, Shego is consistently established as Kim's most lethal, competent foe, who only holds back due to a usual lack of interest and a set of notable morals. Shego ends the series saving Kim's life and the entire world by teaming up with her alongside Drakken to stop the Lorwardian fleet from conquering Earth, resulting in Shego being hailed as a hero and apparently turning over a new life to serve as an ally to the heroes of the planet.
- Señor Senior Sr. is a retired billionaire who wants to become a great supervillain to alleviate his boredom. Getting the idea from Ron after using up all of Europe’s electricity to power up his private island, Sr. tries numerous times to enact his world domination scheme in order to prove himself a proper villain, at one point even attempting to nuke Middleton to show how bad he can be. Having a genuine affection for his son Señor Senior Jr., Sr. does whatever he can to make him happy, such as effortlessly kidnapping the Oh Boyz boy band as blackmail just so Jr. can have a shot at living out his dream as an international pop sensation. With a friendly attitude and a brilliant mind, while also displaying some extreme sports skills for his age, Sr. shows himself to be one of Kim’s greatest opponents.
- Jack Hench is the smooth-talking, affable founder of HenchCo, a genius businessman who created the term "henchman" itself, and has dedicated himself to building a better community of villainy. Hosting a bevy of weaponry and supervillainy enhancers that he sells at massive prices to prospective bad guys, Hench has a great reputation among evil-doers for being a reasonable salesman, one who allows free testings of his products and runs raffles to give out free tanks. Even when a set of his weapons are stolen by Drakken, Hench simply puts Kim Possible onto the case to recover the weapons from Drakken, content with losing the profits so long as he establishes that HenchCo is not to be trifled with. With a sales pitch and a polite word for his even his enemies always up his sleeve, Hench never once faces any true repercussions for his criminal activity, always just shrugging off whatever losses his incurs and moving on to his next big project.
- "Sick Day" & "Odds Man In": Hank Perkins is an upbeat temp who works for villains in need of assistance. Assisting Duff Killigan in acquiring Ray-X from a sick Kim and Ron, Perkins easily captures Jim, Tim, and Rufus when they try and retrieve the Ray from him. Returning as a villain consultant, Perkins helps build trust among Drakken's henchmen in time for his plan to launch a new Ice Age, while getting him to go corporate in the process. Buying out a cupcake shop and rebranding it in order to disguise one of Drakken's atmosfreezers, the shop turns into a financial success, becoming a genuine food enterprise in the process, which gives more chances to place atmosfreezers worldwide to launch Drakken's plan.
- "Rufus in Show": Falsetto Jones is a master thief with a high-pitched voice and a love of dogs. Stealing jewelry knowing that his wealthy connections will prevent him from getting caught, Falsetto's base is so well-guarded that entering his dog show is the only way to bypass security. Upon Ron entering Rufus into Falsetto's dog show and winning, Falsetto, tricking Rufus into giving him his pawprint autograph, deduces that the two of them and Kim are trying to retrieve a stolen diamond from him. Placing Kim and Ron over a Death Trap, Falsetto, averting Bond Villain Stupidity, decides to watch them die, feeling that he deserves to witness this event for himself.
- Tron Uprising:
- General Tessler. Legitimately, his tactics should earn him a 0% Approval Rating, but his Faux Affably Evil persona and carefully cultivated bag of half-truths leave Beck as a Hero with Bad Publicity, and earned him the loyalty of Paige even after he slaughtered her friends from the medcenter.
- Cyrus is an unstable Program who, having spent his life serving under CLU's tyranny, has come to the conclusion that all Programs are living a useless existence governed by bits of code and algorithms, and would be better off dead, free from CLU and the very system they are governed by. Creating a massive EMP device with nothing but tech in his dimensional prison, Cyrus lures in and tries to use Beck to activate the EMP and destroy the Grid and its inhabitants, and though stopped, returns later with a new goal in mind: to prove to Beck and his former mentor Tron that his philosophy and methods are effective. Disguising himself as Beck's alter-ego the Renegade and framing him for murder, Cyrus charms his way into Beck's circle of best friends before capturing them and Tron both, and forcing Beck to choose who to save. As Beck saves Tron, sending Able to help his friends, Cyrus reveals that his friends were never meant to survive and that their bomb will go off earlier than he promised. Cyrus gets away with all of his crimes in the end, claiming the life of Able and the reputation of the Renegade upon his exit from the series.
- Phineas and Ferb:
- Dennis the Rabbit is a rogue agent out to take down Perry the Platypus and infiltrate OWCA. In his introductory episode, Dennis skillfully plays himself off as a harmless bunny so as to be taken into the Flynn household by Candace, where Dennis then scours the home looking for access points into OWCA. Fighting off Perry and turning his own tech against him, Dennis successfully hacks into OWCA and nears victory until his affinity for carrots thwarts him. Unfazed, Dennis returns later by teaming up with Dr. Doofenshmirtz and using a high-tech backpack to wage war on Perry and nearly destroy the platypus once and for all.
- "Phineas & Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo": Emperor Doofenshmirtz comes from a future where Heinz got a single leg up on OWCA, and through this, gained ultimate power. When Perry was wounded enough to be bedridden for a few months thanks to Candace tampering with time, Doofenshmirtz was able to outdo OWCA without Perry's interference, reducing the spy agency to rubble. Doofemshmirtz then took advantage of the chaos wrought by Moral Guardians to take over the Tri-State area in a total political upheaval, declaring himself Emperor and subjugating the population. Emperor Doofenshmirtz reigns unopposed and unstoppable, squashing any attempts by OWCA or others by rebellion through use of surveillance and forcing all to swear oaths of loyalty to him. Emperor Doofenshmirtz's success is so grand that he bombastically sings of how he's had a "charmed life" with all of the Tri-State area as his audience, proving himself a true contrast to the ineffective Doofenshmirtz in the original timeline.
- "Minor Monogram": Rodrigo is the new protege of Doofenshmirtz who schemes to surpass his mentor. Idly pointing out the various cliche flaws in Doofenshmirtz's plans and capture of Agent P, Rodrigo proves his superiority as a Mad Scientist by successfully entrapping Perry in a device even the OWCA agent cannot escape. Rodrigo then betrays and imprisons Doofenshmirtz himself, hijacking the man's scheme to hold the Tri-State Area hostage, planning to instead destroy Danville and take over the entire planet. Rodrigo's plan is so impressive that even Doofenshmirtz is left speechless at his bravado.
- In the "Where's Perry?" two-parter, Evil Carl is the Evil Counterpart of the normally friendly and moral Carl Karl created by one of Doofenshmirtz's inators, and proves himself to be one of the most intelligent and competent villains in the series. Carl is quickly able to capture Doof and Monogram and begins his plan to take over the tri-state area using the OWCA mainframe, a plan he nearly succeeds in. Carl lures Perry to the OWCA headquarters and traps him to get him out of the way. When Doof messes up and hits Perry with one of his inators, Carl is able to successfully figure out that it is the go-home inator with little to go off. When Carl finds out Perry isn't there, he calls Perry and manages to identify purely through a single flower that Perry is in uncharted regions of Africa. In order to lure Perry out, he has his robots destroy a bridge to put the boys and their friends in danger.
- "Sidetracked": Professor Bannister is a Greenlandic evil scientist and Agent Lyla Lolliberry's nemesis. Envious of Canada's national pride, he poses as a Canadian scientist and plots to destabilize Canada and annex it into Greenland by abducting the country's prized moose. Taking advantage of the L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. evil scheme exchange program to have Dr. Doofenshmirtz do the dirty work, he anticipates exactly how Doof's efforts would turn out and swoops in to steal the train car with the moose after completing Doofenshmirtz's scheme swiftly. After sending magnetic robots that he had hidden under his lab coat to fight Agent P and Lyla, he attempts to make his escape while still maintaining a conversational attitude only to be arrested due to the surprise arrival of Peter the Panda.
- In "Tales from the 2nd Dimension", Charlene Doofenshmirtz-2 serves as a cunning, snarky contrast to her more bumbling husband Heinz. Having faked her divorce from Heinz so as to avoid imprisonment if his dictatorship was ever toppled, Charlene nonetheless holds a love for her husband and concocts a brilliant plan to free him from prison when he's beaten. Kidnapping dozens of OWCA agents and turning them into cyborg puppets, Charlene uses them to stage attacks on the Resistance so as to expose herself and trick Resistance leader Candace into using Heinz to infiltrate Charlene's base. With Heinz brought right to her doorstep, Charlene springs a trap to capture the Resistance, fights off another group of them all by her lonesome with valour and skill, and ends up escaping with Heinz and their daughter in tow, ready to begin plotting world domination alongside her family again.
- In the Star Wars special, Darth Ferb is created when the heroic Ferb is blasted by Darthenshmirtz's Sith-inator. Immediately upgrading and outfitting the Sith-inator to galactic-wide proportion, Darth Ferb offers Phineas a chance to join him in creating an entire army of Sith. When Phineas rejects his offer, Darth Ferb expertly tricks out his lightsabers on the fly to duel and overcome Phineas with all manner of trickery. Even when Candace and Perry intervene, Darth Ferb's mastery of the Force enables him to near-victory, and he is only barely beaten after cleverly destroying Phineas's lightsaber to leave the boy powerless.
- Sofia The First:
- The fairy named Miss Nettle initially appears to be the friendly apprentice of the three head fairies at Royal Prep who is teaching enchanted gardening, but in reality has an evil agenda, trapping them in a bubble when they catch her looking for the spellbook she seeks. When Sofia, James, and Desmond find the spellbook, Nettle follows them and offers to free the fairies in exchange for the spellbook but she is invoking Exact Words and will only free the fairies after she learns the spells. Nettle later returns now seeking to take Sofia's amulet, and disguises herself as Sascha the Sorceress to infiltrate the castle. Nettle instructs Rosey to cover the castle in vines to trap Sofia and steal her amulet, and she has also hexed Cedric's wand so that he cannot undo her spell. She then appears stealing the snowdrops from Freezenburg, as they were stolen from her first. When Sofia tries to stop Nettle, Nettle hexes her amulet, causing it to malfunction. Nettle eventually turns over a new leaf when she realizes how much Freezenburg appreciates her snowdrops.
- Grimtrix the Good, the headmaster of Hexley Hall, was once a good sorcerer before he became tired of being subject to the whims kings and queens, and turns to evil. Spying on Sofia and Cedric with his crystal ball, Grimtrix learns they were there to get info on the Amulet of Avalor and sends his pet weasel to steal it, nearly succeeding in taking it while stunning Cedric with the revelation of how Not So Different they are. In Grimtrix's next appearance, he gathers a band of evil sorcerers known as the Order of the Wand. Grimtrix proposes that they will take over their respective kingdoms using the Medusa Stones that Grimtrix has, which make any spell cast permanent, freezing one who tries to leave as a show of power. Grimtrix has also imprisoned all of the good sorcerers so that they can't interfere. Grimtrix's sorcerers successfully take over their kingdoms, but Grimtrix goes over to Enchancia to help Cedric when he fails, and nearly wins in his whole plan.
- Gravity Falls:
- Bill Cipher, a seemingly omnipotent being who has his grand apocalyptic plan completely mapped out from the start, has been putting the pieces into place for years, and doesn't allow any apparent defeat to be a setback, only a delaying of the inevitable. Bill is fond of making deals with people in which he gives them something they want or think they need, and in return, they can be used and likely screwed over by him later so that he can reap even better benefits. It's said he would use or possess anyone in order to get what he wants, shown clearly when while possessing the time traveler Blendin, he takes advantage of a distraught, emotional Mabel and tricks her into giving him a dimensional rift belonging to their uncle, and then smashes it, creating the tear between the two worlds, bringing about Weirdmageddon. He rarely appears, but his presence is often felt even so, and while undeniably diabolical and sadistic, he's also hilarious and great fun to watch and speculate about.
- Stanley "Stan" Pines, the Pines twins' money-grubbing "Grunkle", gradually proves over the series to be far more driven and intelligent than anyone could ever initially assume. The twin brother of the genius Stanford Pines, a long sibling rivalry between the two ended up with Stanley accidentally pushing Stanford through the latter's portal machine before they could reconcile. Desperate to save his brother, Stanley took Stanford's identity, turned his brother's isolated cabin into a tourist trap called "the Mystery Shack," and spends thirty years tracking down his brother's journals to reactivate the portal. A master of Obfuscating Stupidity, Stan pretends to be an oblivious conman to dissuade Dipper and Mabel, from investigating the dangerous supernatural phenomena of Gravity Falls, before giving up the act and taking out half a horde of zombies with his bare hands to protect them. Stan outwits almost everyone in the series, from his nefarious rival Gideon Gleeful to federal agents, and pulls off his ultimate gambit by tricking the near-omnipotent Bill Cipher himself with a Twin Switch that allows Stan to destroy Bill. At the end of the day, Stanley Pines is a man utterly devoted to his family, even if he has to ruthlessly manipulate his loved ones to save them.
- In the second season Wander Over Yonder episode "The Cartoon", the Lord Hater as portrayed in the titular cartoon is far more competent and lacks his real self's childishness. Finding the Staff of Power, Lord Hater is challenged by Emperor Awesome and his Fistfighters, whom he easily dispatches alongside his Watchdogs. When Wander shows up to stop him, Lord Hater is able to best him in battle after a lengthy clash. After Wander admits that all he wanted was to be his friend, Lord Hater seemingly has a sudden Heel–Face Turn and participates in a montage of friendly activities with him. Lord Hater then attacks Wander while his guard his down, revealing that he was only pretending to be his friend as a means to crush his spirits before destroying him; ending the cartoon with his nemesis completely at his mercy.
- In Star Vs The Forces Of Evil we have the evil, slick, cool-headed Patrick Bateman-esque lizard monster known as Toffee of Septarsis. A former general of a radical Septarsian monster army who lost his finger and much of his strength to a spell cast by Moon Butterfly, he gets Ludo Avarius to hire him simply by making him believe that he did hire him, and proceeds to advise a fairly competent Evil Plan that's clearly truly intended to test the capabilities of both Star and her wand. He then skillfully manipulates the events of "Mewnipendance Day" resulting in Ludo firing Buff Frog before manipulating Ludo's army into throwing Ludo out after a situation arranged as to make Ludo look especially bad, and becomes their leader instead, proceeding to take Marco Diaz hostage so he can ransom him for Star Butterfly's wand. At the end of Season 1, Toffee gets what he wants: Star's wand is destroyed, and is only partially reformed thanks to a heroic unicorn, and Toffee had his spirit transported to the Realm of Magic where he begins corrupting the magic and also using it to create a new wand for Ludo to find. As Ludo exploited the wand's corrupted magic all while Star was having trouble with her own wand, it created a "fritz" where all magic in Mewni began getting drained, corrupted, and absorbed into Toffee. Star's wand had also been tainted and it re-created his missing finger that he hoped to restore to his hand. Speaking to Ludo through his wand, Toffee had Ludo swipe Star's magic spell book along with it's genie, Sir Glossaryk of Terms, and told Ludo to read from the Eclipsa chapter to enact a dark spell that allowed him to overtake Ludo's mind and possess his body. With this, not only does Toffee transform the wand into a new arm and use its power to dominate Queen Moon and the Magical High Commission in battle, but he takes ownership of the spell book away from Ludo, fully counting on Ludo getting so enraged by his inability to use the book that he burns it, which is exactly what ends up happening. Afterwards he has Ludo ravage the kingdom of Mewni with his rat army and take over Butterfly Castle, luring Star to them so that the wand can be completely cleaved back together in his hand, but when Star instead comes empty-handed and casts the Whispering Spell to destroy Ludo's wand, sealing herself into the same space where Toffee is, Toffee improvises and, speaking through Ludo, coerces Queen Moon into giving him back his finger so that he can fully regenerate himself, but he doesn't return Star to life like he promised he would. With seemingly no more magic to be used against him and his revenge on Moon taken, as well as his finger and full strength restored, Toffee was content with knowing the "threat of magic" had been eliminated forever. Had Star not saved the last fragment of pure magic and then come back more powerful than ever to destroy Toffee for good, he would have won. To top it all of, Season 4 reveals that all along, Toffee was a case of being Wrong For The Right Reasons. He'd not only seen clearly the danger and injustice of the magic that Mewmans built their governing system around that was used to oppress monsters for ages, but he'd foreseen the end of magic that he'd hoped to be the one to bring about. Though obviously, he failed on this end and was unable to realize his vengeful desires to bring about the end of the Butterfly royal family and the subjugation of all Mewmans, Star ultimately ends up fulfilling his idea for the total destruction of the old magic in the universe connected to Mewni, even outright acknowledging that Toffee was right to recognize just how terribly magic in the hands of hateful, prejudiced Mewman authorities had screwed everything up.
- Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure:
- Lady Caine is a notorious pirate leader who is respected in Corona's criminal underworld. Seeking revenge for her father's arrest when she was a child, she infiltrated the palace by impersonating the Duchess of Quintonia and having her men get caught and thrown in the dungeon. She broke her men out and attacked Rapunzel's princess coronation to kidnap the king, queen, and visiting nobles, fighting Cassandra evenly when Rapunzel and her friends fought back. Arrested, she plotted her escape by conspiring with her horse Axel to have him infiltrate the kingdom's guard in order to smuggle her out with a delivery of gold, nearly getting away almost without notice. She later led other villains in a successful mutiny of a prison barge and planned to overtake a ferry to use as cover to reach the mainland, where she and her allies would plunder to their hearts' content.
- Stalyan is the daughter of the crime lord known as The Baron and Eugene's ex-girlfriend, as well as an accomplished thief in her own right. When her father blackmailed Eugene into agreeing to marry her, Stalyan tried to make Eugene question his relationship with Rapunzel and insisted that she and Eugene belonged together. She struck out on her own after her father's criminal empire's collapse, at one point scamming a thug in a game of darts to win his bejeweled dagger. Recruited by Rapunzel to help find the Eye of Pincosta to free Eugene who had been arrested for its theft, Stalyan discretely took it off of its owner's finger and then betrayed Rapunzel, intending to free Eugene herself and try to win him back. However, Rapunzel's insistence on seeing the good in her eventually won her over and she returned to help her fight a ferocious wrestler.
- DuckTales (2017 series):
- Scrooge's old flame and "ex-everything," Goldie O'Gilt, is a beautiful, conniving treasure hunter who rivals Scrooge himself in sheer wit and tenacity. Lacking Scrooge's scruples and possessed of a penchant for betrayal, Goldie has backstabbed Scrooge countless times to leave him in the wake of danger while she constantly walks off untouched. In her debut episode, Goldie plays both Scrooge and Flintheart in her pursuit of the Golden Lagoon, using Scrooge to locate the Lagoon for her before managing to fake her death with the Eye of Demogorgon and making off with the treasure herself, completely untouched in the end. Even through their constant quarreling and rivalry, Goldie and Scrooge retain a fierce, mutual respect for each other, with Goldie always knowing Scrooge will make it out alive out of whatever conundrum she leaves him in and Scrooge acknowledging her as his most Worthy Opponent.
- Season 2's Big Bad, General Lunaris, is set up as an Evil Counterpart to Louie in how he's able to look at all angles, formulate plans around them, and play a situation to his best advantage by manipulating the feelings and actions of others, and he also proves himself to be a more than Worthy Opponent to Scrooge. From his secret home civilization on the moon, Lunaris created a surveillance system by hijacking McDuck satellites and sending the transmissions to his secret war room, where he gathered information on potential threats to him that would need to be eliminated first in the invasion; one such threat being the Duck family. When Della was found crash-landed on the moon, Lunaris deceived her into thinking of him as a friend and manipulated events so that Della would ultimately leave behind her rocket ship's blueprints so that the Moonlanders could build their own rockets to go to Earth. Once Della was gone, Lunaris shot himself in the arm with his ray gun and claimed that Della had done it in an act of treachery, and that she was planning on coming back with forces to invade the moon, so they'd have to invade Earth first. When this invasion was finally launched, Lunaris directly threatened Scrooge's family in order to deceive Scrooge and Della into acting against their own best interests while he brought down a super weapon to change the planet's rotation so that it would orbit the moon. Lunaris' magnificence unravels in the end, though, as angles he's not able to see and actions he's not able to strategize a counter for start to tear all of his carefully made plans apart, driving him into a Villainous Breakdown in which he attempts to blow up the Earth as a Rage Quit, his sanity slipping further and further away during the final battle in space.
- In Big Hero 6: The Series, the first season's Big Bad, Obake, real name Bob Aken, was once the top student of Professor Granville. After an unsupervised lab experiment ended in disaster, Obake was left with a brain tumor that left him incapable of differentiating right from wrong. Fascinated by artist/scientist Lenore Shimamoto’s work, Obake flawlessly manipulates both heroes and villains alike into acquiring Shimamoto’s research as well the secret identities of Big Hero 6, taking close interest in Hiro Hamada. He secretly observes and gauges the boy’s growth from the shadows, even going so far as disguising himself as Hiro’s dead brother. In the season finale, Obake reveals his grand plan to recreate Shimamoto’s failed experiment that caused the Great Catastrophe, and rebuild San Fransokyo into something “perfect”. He takes control over Baymax and captures Hiro in hopes of swaying him into becoming his protégée once the dust settles. Thwarted by the heroes, a heartbroken Obake lets himself go down with his collapsing lair, but not without freeing Baymax from his control to go back to Hiro and save the boy who he deemed his equal. A Visionary Villain whose charming brilliance is rivaled by his ruthlessness and who was fully dedicated to his amoral approach because he sincerely believed the final results would be beneficial to the world, Obake establishes himself as Big Hero 6’s most diabolical foe to date.
- Amphibia:
- Sasha Waybright is a talented, scheming teenager and friend of Anne Boonchuy and Marcy Wu. After being pulled into Amphibia and imprisoned by Grime, she is able to charm his guards and gets many of his goons to leave his army; when Grime offers to recruit her, she teaches him to become a pragmatic warlord. Sasha strikes a deal with Grime agreeing to assist him in quashing the rebellion by executing Hop-Pop in return for a chance of returning home with her friends. After this fails she works to help Grime regain his will to fight, succeeding after skillfully defeating the warrior Yunan. When she and Grime decide to take over all of Amphibia, they recruit the entirety of the Toad Army to their cause by acquiring the legendary "Barrel's Warhammer." Nearly succeeding at conquering Newtopia, Sasha and Grime try to warn Anne when King Andrias's true colors are exposed. After betraying her friends, Sasha realizes she was a horrible person and works to finally improve herself. Creating a resistance movement in Wartwood, whose citizens she's earned the trust and respect of, she becomes a valued ally to the rebellion, helping Anne break into the castle and later fights Darcy before defeating her by severing the Core's connection.
- Tritonio Espada is a notorious bandit who uses a bogus daycare center as a front to run his operation. In the Season One episode "Combat Camp", when Hop-Pop places the kids into his care, Tritonio teaches Sprig and Polly how to use weapons and gradually earns Anne's trust by appealing to her hidden potential. He sets Sprig up to play an injured orphan so that Anne and Polly could infiltrate the train. Retrieving the gem, Tritonio swipes it with the full intention of leaving the kids to the mercy of the guards. When defeated, he expresses little anger towards them, instead using the opportunity to compliment Anne for besting him. Later on in Season Three, when King Andrias has begun to impose his tyranny upon the rest of Amphibia, Tritonio becomes the leader of a gang of thieves who defy the king and steal the tax money that his followers have been taking. In this role, Tritonio learns to put aside his street-smart code of "every man for himself" and to care for his fellow bandits, becoming a father figure to the young Jojo Potato, and joins up with Sasha Waybright's resistance when asked to by Anne and Sprig, whom he affectionately refers to as two of the best pupils he's ever had.
- The Cloak Bot is a relentless android sent out by King Andrias Leviathan in order to murder Anne Boonchuy. Using their invisibility to sleuth through and try and assassinate the teen, the Cloak Bot remains steadfast in eliminating her no matter how much damage it takes, repairing itself with Earth world materials, and tapping into a radio tower in order to track Anne down after his sensor was destroyed. When Andrias uploads a self destruct sequence onto the Cloak Bot, it remains relentless in pursuing Anne, chasing her, the Planters and her parents to the junkyard, nearly able to kill Anne if it wasn’t for her mother attacking it. Even when impaled and in pieces, The Cloak Bot can only laugh as it tries to use the self destruct sequence as one last attempt to take them all down with him.
- Mr. X is a special agent of the FBI assigned to Los Angeles to capture the Plantars. A normally relaxed, eccentric and flamboyant man who nonetheless takes his job very seriously, Mr. X, along with his silent assistant Jenny, immediately deduces where Anne and the Plantars have gone to and hounds them down at the cinema, seemingly anticipating their every move at all turns and able to scan the whole cinema to expose all hiding places, so they only barely make it out with help from Anne's parents. Mr. X nearly traps them again at a studio lot but willingly backs off from his task when threatened with a potential lawsuit. Finally capturing the Plantars and properly meeting Anne, who he acknowledges as a Worthy Opponent, Mr. X anticipates the Boonchuys and their allies coming to rescue the Plantars from his FBI base and uses the frogs they'd once distracted him with as a decoy to capture them. When a subsequent prison break occurs, Mr. X gives chase and manages to install a tracker in the getaway truck without them knowing, allowing the FBI to track them to Terri's lab just as they are opening a portal to Amphibia. After being told about King Andrias and his planned invasion of Earth, Mr. X has a change of heart and trains Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy as agents, becoming a pivotal ally when Andrias and Darcy invade Los Angeles, providing assistance at key moments during the crisis all while never failing to be stylish and efficient.
- "A Caravan Named Desire": Renée Frodgers is the director of a theater caravan who uses her shows as a distraction to rob banks, as they don't make much money anymore. Saving the Plantars' lives and recognizing Hop-Pop's passion for acting, Renée invites him into the troupe, even casting him as the lead. Even when Hop-Pop realizes Renée's true intentions, she plays on his pride and lifelong dreams to convince him to keep supporting the art. When this stops working and Hop-Pop exposes Renée in public, she makes a swift getaway on her caravan and is only defeated by an intercepting sandworm, reacting with delight at some real drama.
- The Owl House:
- Darius Deamonne is the head of the Abomination coven. Once mentored by one of the many Golden Guards, his mentor's death and his growing suspicion of the 'Day of Unity' led to him secretly turning on Emperor Belos. Discovering that there is another traitor in the Coven Heads, he set up a trap for the other rebel group and 'captures' Raine Whispers; truthfully recruiting them into his own rebellion. Having been inspired by Eda's curse, Darius plots to use it to corrupt Belos's draining spell, with his initial plan being to release flesh eating beetles into a crowd to allow his group to bring Eda to the spell's circle. Even after his plot fails, Darius is later shown working with Alador Blight to create superior technology that helps with getting rid of coven sigils, thereby securing a better, more choice-driven future for all of the Boiling Isles.
- In Season 1's "Sense and Insensitivity", Piniet is a manipulative publishing agent who promises aspiring witches and demons fame and fortune if they sign up with his publishing house. In truth, Piniet is a shamelessly greedy con artist who ensures his clients pump out one masterpiece after another by trapping them within literal writing blocks, forcing them to write on "crunch time" as the blocks squeeze. Piniet's made millions by the time he convinces King to publish a book with him, and when King can't produce a sequel, Piniet pieces together he's dependent on Luz Noceda and tosses them both into the writing block. Piniet sets himself above other one-shots with his sneaky charm and fun modus operandi, and he cheerfully escapes justice after finding an even better author than King, letting the heroes off with no extra trouble.
- 101 Dalmatian Street: Fergus the Fox is the trouble-making leader of the Canal Crew, and friend of the Dalmatian family, specially with Dolly and Dylan. Being a stray animal, Fergus lives by stealing, causing troubles and generally bothering others, but without really harming anyone seriously and helping his friends when they need it. The major proof of this could be when Cruella De Vil appears to catch them and kill them to make her infamous fur coat, Fergus and the crew quickly jump to rescue them from her. Having the enough fast thinking to plays dead and attacking Cruella when she uses him as a shawl, and some charisma to easely convecing the puppies to do the house chores themselves—something that surprises Dylan—makes him a great ally and friend to the Dalmatians. However, despide being a friend of the Dalmatian family, Fergus isn't above to make them troubles and take advantage from them, but unlike Sid and Big Fee, he never goes too far. Being a trouble-maker prankster, Fergus brings a lot of trouble to Candem Town, but also a good friend to the Dalmatian family, helping them when they needed it, even from such great dangers like the infamous Cruella De Vil.
- Once Upon a Time:
- Rumpelstiltskin (or Mr. Gold), the Dark One of Misthaven, is the charismatic and manipulative architect of the entire saga. A skilled player who can use both friend and foe alike, Rumplestiltskin rises from humble origins to become the powerful Dark One to save his son. After losing him to the land without magic, Rumplestiltskin orchestrates a centuries-long group of gambits to reach him AND still be free to keep his magic powers, and directly corrupts various characters to do It. Rumplestiltskin has mastered the art of the deal, suckering virtually every fairy-tale character into his plans in one way or another. Even from behind bars, he was cheerfully cutting deals and calling the shots with the Evil Queen. In the Storybrooke reality, he literally owns the town and has ensnared both Emma Swan and Regina Mills into owing him favors, usually while maintaining a smooth, charismatic, occasionally generous and affable persona. Gold even helps orchestrate Emma Swan becoming the new town Sherrif by helping create a series of unfortunate events that would help her election. He later skillfully plays Hook's feelings to turn him into his pawn to achieve freedom from the Dark One dagger and when defeated can claw his way back by corrupting Emma to create a world where villains like him get happy endings. Rumplestiltskin bounces back even from this setback and uses Emma to become the most powerful Dark One in history while searching for even greater power. Rumplestiltskin also has softer moments in his endeavors and helps the heroes against various villains that threaten to destroy the town of Storybrooke. Redeeming himself, Rumplestiltskin spends an entire season helping to create a situation so he can be free of his immortality and be with his wife in death. Affable, charming, and tragic, Rumplestiltskin whether friend or foe always gets on top.
- Speaking of Regina Mills, she could be quite the Magnificent Bitch in her own right in Season 1; even getting the drop on Rumplestiskin twice. In the fairy-tale world she manipulates Belle into almost stripping him of power, and in the Storybrooke world arranged for his Tragic Keepsake to be stolen, helped him get arrested, and then forced him to reveal that he was unaffected by the curse like she was. She tried to manipulate Emma and Henry by arranging so Henry would overhear Emma doubting his belief in the curse. She also arranged for the genie of Agrabah to murder her husband via a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, then tricked him into becoming her magic mirror. Regina and Gold are basically a Magnificent Bastard tennis match with everyone else in town as the tennis balls.
- Even worse? Cora (Regina's Mother) manages to manipulate both of them. Once a poor miller's daughter who, after a life of hardship, was taught magic by Rumplestiltskin, Cora fell in love with Rumple before ultimately choosing her lust for power over him. Wanting Regina to have the life she never had, Cora poisoned her old rival Queen Eva before making Snow White's horse go wild so Regina could save her. Later manipulating Snow into telling her that Regina is planning to run away, Cora kills Regina's love, Daniel. Imprisoned in Wonderland, Cora spends years plotting to reunite with her daughter and later protects herself, Hook, and a few others from the curse, before taking over the refugees by pretending to be Lancelot. Upon making it to Storybrook, Cora comes up with a plan to frame Regina for the murder of Archie, before convincing her to join her. Planning to and nearly succeeding in killing Rumpelstiltskin, Cora eventually dies in Regina's arms, telling her that she would have been enough. Encountering the heroes in the Underworld, Cora tries to convince Regina to go home before being imprisoned by Hades. Managing to use her cunning and Hook's hook to escape, Cora makes amends with her daughters before ascending to Olympus and the afterlife beyond.
- Peter Pan is quite literally the biggest Magnificent Bastard on the show. He kidnapped Henry using a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, managed to manipulate and play literally every single character to his own ends, always staying 2 steps ahead of every one of them. He's probably one of the very few characters that is capable of outwitting Rumpelstiltskin multiple times, who happens to be his own son. All of it in a grand scheme to gain immortality, one in which he very nearly succeeded with style. And even when that didn't work out he exchanged bodies with Henry thus still staying ahead of everyone else whilst he still happens to manipulate them to his favor with ease as part of initiating his Plan B - one that puts everyone and everything in Storybrooke at risk.
- Ingrid the Snow Queen in Season 4A becomes a major one, with some fans calling her the best villain the show has had since Cora or Pan. A charming, soft-spoken woman who was unjustly punished by her sister for an accidental murder and left to rot self-aware in an urn for decades, Ingrid desires a family once more and sets about to get it. Coming to the Land without Magic, Ingrid begins a scheme to help Emma Swan and Elsa become her new sisters and help them conquer their fears and embrace their powers. Ingrid plays the various heroes into helping her construct the Spell of Shattered Sight to destroy the citizens and allow her and her new sisters peace and even lets herself get captured in order to get close to Emma to emotionally manipulate her into setting off and allow her to embrace her heritage. Always calm, collected and charming, Ingrid even dies with true dignity, accepting that what she's done is wrong and giving her life to fix it, ultimately allowing her to rejoin her sisters in the afterlife in one of the show's most touching send-offs.
- Hades, Lord of the Underworld, God of Death, and Big Bad of season 5B, is up there with Pan in terms of magnificence. Having been cast out from Mount Olympus after an attempted coup, Hades was confined to the Underworld lest he find true love with his emotions damped thanks to his cursed frozen heart. Desiring to woe the witch Zelena he loves, Hades puts the heroes through loops as they attempt to resurrect Captain Killian "Hook" Jones. Tricking Rumplestiltskin into destroying his way out from the Underworld only to reveal Hades has a contract to his unborn child, forcing him into servitude; and manipulates Hook's brother into keeping information of his own weaknesses away from the heroes. Hades also tricks Belle into damning Gaston to crush her hopes and empower himself, even responds to Rumplestiltskin's capture of Zelena by setting up Emma as a contingency plan and later trick the heroes into nearly being trapped in the Underworld forever with a false story about Hook. Hades ultimately proves to be one of the heroes' greatest foes and very nearly succeeds in his plans to rule the mortal realm with Zelena by his side.
- Doctor Facilier, aka Mr. Baron Samdi, was once a witch doctor with a foot on each side, who tricked Tiana into giving him the Firefly Ruby by making a Frog into a Prince. In another instance, he gets Tiana to kill an alligator, so he can get Regina's necklace and return it to her. In Hyperion Heights, he awakens Nick so he will kill the witches that are his competition and sees through Regina's attempts to trick him. Having Sabine's food truck shut down, Facilier has Drew earn her trust by helping her save it. Killing Nick when he gets caught, Facilier tricks Ivy into siphoning magic from Anastasia and gives Regina the magic to save Henry, all in exchange for a smile. Facilier later helps Lucy cure Henry because she impressed him. Smooth-talking and only beaten by a sneak attack, Facilier proves to be the most competent villain introduced in Seattle.
- Mighty Med:
- Neil Gundenhauser, better known as the Annihilator, is a hulking, muscled supervillain with a brilliant mind, renowned for defeating and draining the powers of various superheroes. Born a bullied youth due to his powers, he eventually came under the tutorship of Hapax "The Elder" Gonzales and decided to embrace evil to pay back the world for causing him pain. Defeating and depowering Skylar Storm, Annihilator manipulates her friend to evil to try and capture her and later plants a tracking device on her powers when Kaz and Oliver get it back from him. Corrupting Skylar's powers through sleight of hand to evil, Annihilator turns her evil and uses her to infect the various superheroes and turn them into his army of brainwashed soldiers. Intending to bring the world under foot, even after being fatally injured he still gets the last laugh by poisoning his killer.
- The Diabolical Mastermind known as "Mr. Terror" is secretly Bridget, Oliver's mother who rose to villainy as a way to protect her son, viewing the world of supers as a danger to him. After usurping her master, Bridget took over a large chunk of the supervillain underworld through a mix of her intelligence and intimidation tactics, all without powers of her own, and searches for the power source the Arcturion to gain ultimate power. Thinking on her feet after the Arcturion is caught in a fight between superheroes and villains, she waits until they're all defeated before seizing it. Seducing Horace Diaz, she gets him to fall in love with her and later resurrect her, having known the Arcturion would kill her, now allowing all of the power within without cost, now intending to remake the world all in order to protect her son.
- My Babysitter's a Vampire: Horace "Jesse" Black is the former vampire master of Whitechapel, before being overthrown, even then ruling vampire community from behind the scene. As a top high schooler by day, and cult leader by night, Jesse used his position to organize a vampire attack to harvest the souls of his victims and resurrect his fallen flock, kicking it off by draining a girl in front of an audience, considering the loss of his current followers a small setback. Returning from the dead, Jesse comes out on top by having forcing his ex girlfriend Sarah to drink Ethan's blood after biting him. When exiled, Jesse returns when learns of the threat Stern poses, out of ostensible altruism. It's revealed Stern is the descendant of a wizard that Jesse previously saved the community from, having sacrificed dozens of his follows to do so, keeping the Lucifactor safe and out to reach. When Lucifactor has been found, Jesse directly helps fight Stern, nearly getting himself killed in the process. A charismatic, if manipulative vampire master who bounces back from his failures, Jesse manages to be a one of Whitechapel's more formidable figures even without his power.
- The Evermoor Chronicles (2014): Bridget McCoy is Tara Crossley's great-aunt and the former leader of the Everines. After losing her older sister to the moors of Hollowfall, she turns against the Circle and fake her death while manipulating various events from behind the scenes. When Tara discovers her, she'd explain the powers of the golden thread and tapestry, and train Tara to become the Supreme Everine in secret. At one point, she'd take advantage of Tara's self-doubt to steal her powers herself and strike a deal with the Founder Everines in exchange for their help in creating a new Evermoor for a time, though she'd eventually realize just how dangerous the Founder Everines were and regret working with them. She'd reveal herself and lie about being the true Supreme Everine and although she was taken hostage by the Founder Everines to assist their plan, she'd manage to secretly aid Tara and her team behind their backs. Eventually, Bridget would take back her powers and after learning the true cause of her sister's disappearance, let go of her bitter feelings and restore Tara's Supreme Everine powers so she could set things right, living happily with Agatha after.
Video Games[]
- Aladdin: Nasira's Revenge: Nasira is Jafar's equally cunning twin sister, who seeks to revive her brother and Take Over the World. Recognizing Aladdin and his friends as a threat, she hypnotizes the palace guards to kidnap Jasmine and The Sultan so that she could take over Agrabah and place a bounty on Aladdin's head. Capturing The Genie and throwing Aladdin into the dungeon, she flees upon his escape and hatches a plan: disguise as a mystic to lure Aladdin into numerous traps, while having him collect the artifacts needed to resurrect Jafar. Upon Aladdin gaining them all, she quickly teleports in, paralyzes him and steals the artifacts from him, immediately leaving to resurrect her brother. By the time Aladdin finds her, she's already powered up Jafar, aiding him in fighting Aladdin.
- Chicken Little: Ace in Action: Foxy Loxy is the Arch Enemy of Captain Ace and his team. Organizing the escape from the prison on Pluto, Foxy took control over all the robots in the area and imprisoned the warden in a giant Mecha, ordering it to attack Ace, forcing the team to let her escape. Getting enough fuel from Sleazel Weazel, Foxy turned the entire Moon into a rocket filled with explosive vegetables and threatened to ram it into Earth if the president wouldn't give her control over the galaxy, kidnapping Abby to use her as a "bargaining chip" against Ace. When Ace and the team infiltrated her base, Foxy evaded their attempts to capture her, using Mechas to battle them, and after they disabled the "Moon rocket", she simply activated the self-destruct sequence to try to kill Ace and his team as she escapes. Escaping from the team, Foxy was only captured by Mister Fish turning team's ship invisible and putting it on her path, causing her to crash into it.
- Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two: The Mad Doctor seems to have change of heart, now ready to help the other toons rebuild Wasteland after the recent strings of earthquakes. After making his grand re-entrance in Mean Street in an extraveggent musical number, he manages to gain Oswald's ear again, but as Mickey and Oswald discover later, his good acts were all a ploy for his true motives: to become a full toon again and leave Wasteland to its destruction. While traversing through the World of Evil projector, the doctor reveals (in song) that he survived his last battle and crash-landed in the Disney Gulch, beginning to the scheme of his revenge against Wasteland. He created the Blotworx to be his new army but had to outcast them because of their unpredictable and irrational nature. They discover more of the Doctor's plans after discovering his old attic from Lonesome Manor - while he caused Grenlin Prescott to turn on his friends, he had him build a television to broadcast his show to the cartoon world. While he also used guardian siphons to pull the guardians out of Wasteland, the REAL reason for Wasteland's recent earthquakes, he would use them to gain a heart of his own and become a toon again, and he would be able to leave Wasteland after the cartoon world remembered him enough so that he could escape. In the Paint Ending, upon being rescued from total destruction by Mickey and Oswald, the Mad Doctor, touched by their goodness, agrees to befriend them and help Wasteland out for real, in the process gaining a heart and getting the toonhood he'd wanted.
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge: Oogie Boogie has Dr. Finklestine's brain replaced with one that'll let him control the doctor. He then has the doctor tell the residents that Jack wants a more "Dangerous" Halloween, and if they don't comply, Jack will never return. Desperate for Jack to come back, the citizens set up booby traps all over Halloween Town, unaware that they're actually for Jack himself when he comes back. When he's finished with them, he then has some monsters he's created attack the town, swiftly taking it over in one fell swoop. He also steals the leaders of the other Towns, and steals and hides the doors that lead to the other Holiday Towns, just to be sure, and imprisoned sally to distract jack.When Jack does come back, he finds Halloween Town is crawling in traps and evil monsters, and actually has to fight them for once. Luckily for jack, he brought a weapon with him on his travels, so he's prepared to take them on.Throughout the game, Oogie fights him head on, using a shadow clone that he can create now apparently. Either way, he still speaks like it's Oogie himself that's talking, so it's safe to assume that he's directly controlling them.After Jack takes down his second clone, who was pretending to be the real deal, he reveals that he currently in Christmas Town, and he's hidden its door somewhere dangerous.Once Jack makes it to Christmas town, he sees that Oogie has already begun taking it over, having put Santa Claus on a railway trap and stole his sleigh. once jack rescues Santa, he takes off, the Heroes only being able to follow because Sally happened to had made another sleight. Once Jack knocks Oogie off his sleight, he lands in a junkyard, where he uses the fact that he's The Worm That Walks to his advantage and becomes a hulking behemoth, taking jack head on, and after a lengthy boss fight (And a few musical numbers), he finally perishes, all the bugs flowing out of his body, and the holidays are saved.
- Toy Story 3, the Video Game: Mister Evil Dr. Porkchop is the most reccurring threat Woody and the gang face during playtime. From launching an ambush on Woody while he's rescuing a train of orphans to teaming up with The Witch to hypnotize the world using cake, Dr. Porkchop has been Andy's go-to antagonist, combining his original toy's sharp wit with a bombastic personality. In his most brilliant scheme, he disguises himself as a benevolent mayor of a small town and convinces the Sherif to make as much money as possible, so that he can swoop in on his ship and abduct it from the bank, making him rich.
- Kingdom Hearts series: Examples can be found here.
Other[]
- In the wartime short Chicken Little, Foxy Loxy stands out as one of the shrewdest Disney villains in this cautionary tale. Desiring to eat all of the birds from a nearby farmhouse but prevented from getting in by force, he turns to a "psychology" book to manipulate Chicken Little into thinking the sky is falling. When his plan is foiled by Cocky Locky, the birds' leader, Foxy uses disguises and rumors to make the others think he's unfit to lead, then encourages Chicken Little to declare himself leader. Foxy uses another piece of "sky" to discredit Cocky Locky and tricks Chicken Little into luring the birds to his cave, where he successfully eats them all.
- In the stage show Twice Charmed, Franco DiFortunato is the Wicked Fairy Godfather who wagers Lady Tremaine and her daughters' livelihoods on whether or not they can stop Cinderella from marrying Prince Charming by going back in time. Flirting with Lady Tremaine and cajoling the family into accepting his deal with a catchy Villain Song, he uses his magic to shrink Cinderella, then makes Anastasia and Drizella graceful despite his doubts at whether his magic would be strong enough, in the updated show also wiping the Prince's memories and making the slipper fit Anastasia. When Cinderella and the Prince are reunited, Franco gleefully makes the Tremaines his servants for eternity, then leaves to help the Wicked Queen from Snow White. Charismatic and cunning, Franco is never defeated and is pleased with the outcome as he sets off to make another deal.