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My general rule of thumb is that the more a villain brags about being evil, the less of a genuine, serious threat they're likely to be.

As soon as you mentioned being evil because it's fun, Doofenshmirtz popped up in my head

The Joker is the perfect example of being both performative and genuinely evil. Many of his incarnations are by far the most cruel and vile villains in comics, but even the most serious depictions are shown to be motivated purely by a fascination with batman and a love of their rivalry more than anything else.

The idea of a comedy villain becoming a genuinely evil villain by messing up everything for themselves like Dr. Horrible, is such an interesting story premise..

Team Rocket from the Pokemon anime is an interesting example. They aren’t doing evil for themselves, it’s a job. They are low ranking employees. Ones that happened to find a high value mark, but low to mid level employees nonetheless.

I feel like Dr. Dofenshmirtz is a perfect example at most he wants to inconvenience people but he always does good things some what unintentionally sometimes but he could always just not put a self destruct button on his inators but he does. He also thrives off of perry the platapus and trying to thwart him. I would go so far as to say he us an unwilling hero because he is so bad at being a villan it allows anything he involves himself in to fail almost thwarting his own evil plots or more sinister actually evil plots.

Megamind is a great written story; subverting expectations that feels both natural yet unexpecting

Personally I'm a fan of the trope where the goofy ineffectual villian becomes a legitimate threat over the course of the story. Nothing like antagonist character growth.

The word "villain" used to just mean "middle class" in the Middle Ages, and later became synonymous with wealthy merchants who rivaled nobility. If you wanted to justify in-universe why an organization that calls itself a "Villainous Club" exists, they might be so old that the word meant something different when it was made.

“A good pirate never takes another person’s property!” Okay, that one got me.

Brain from Pinky and the Brain always seemed like an ethical villain. Plans every night to “take over the world” but he has a big heart and often ends up the accidental hero.

I like the villans who tell you there entire plan before killing you and fail to do that

Gru didn't just see pop a balloon to upset a child. He came across an upset child, then proceeded to make that child s balloon animal, and THEN pop it.

What truly anchors Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz as a sympathetic character is his relationship to his family. Despite everything that goes wrong with his "evil plans to take over the Tristate Area", his arcs in the series are a master class in making a divorce with children work!

Are you, uh, a real villain? Well, uh, technically... nah. Have you ever caught a good guy, like, uh, like a real superhero? Nah. Have you ever tried a disguise? Nah, nah... Alright! I can see that I will have to teach you how to be villains!

I love that you guys made an entire video about Dr. Doofenshmerts lol

14:12 fun fact! Perry is basically this dude’s therapist, just… *somewhat* silent, and it also helps him overcome the trauma he experienced at a young age, very wholesome despite it being the side-story to finneas and ferb-

Always held a torch in my heart for the Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons. Tragic backstory that festered into villainy just trying to get back at the one he felt wronged by. It helps that he's absolutely adorable as a villain.

Megamind's line "Presentation!" will live rent free in my mind, and many others, till the day we die. In such a case, did he ever really fail? ... oh wait, that was Minion cosplaying as Megamind.

Giovanni Potage from Epithet Erased is another good example of this. He claims to be incredibly evil, but is actually repulsed at the sight of people being genuinely evil. Giovanni treats his boys (his minions) with respect and even cares for their safety, teaching them to put safety first before everything else. He's literally only trying to be evil for the title and the fun of it all. It doesn't matter what he claims to be, he's a Chaotic Good character through and through.

The League of Super Evil is another great example of this. The show explicitly plays with the trope of the performatively evil villains of kids shows. The League loves talking about how evil they are and frequently engage in “evil” plots. These plots often backfire and actually help people instead. The League struggles to be taken seriously by heroes and other villains

Megamind is such a favorite of mine. Especialy his definition "Youre a villain allright. Just no super one!" "Aw yeah? Whats the difference?" "PRESENTATION" *Proceeds to make a drone show while blasting guns and roses* He himself knows swag is more important than evilness

🎶 doofenshmirtz evil incorporated 🎶

TBH I feel like a lot of the villains you talk about in this video confuse “evil” with “chaotic neutral”

My favorite example is from Giovanni from Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic. He is the quintessential “good guy” and he does his best to treat everyone around him with care. He does want to be evil, but the great thing about him is how he defines evil. Light spoilers here, he defines the best trait of a villain as “the willingness to lose.” The main antagonist of the story spends her entire time trying to be a villain, but Giovanni says she can’t. In his words, “As a villain it’s your job to try your best and and to fail. The bad guy doesn’t get to win. His job is to take the fall and look cool doing it. Everyone else gets to win, that’s kind of the whole point. If you’re a good bad guy then everyone has fun.” In his opinion, Giovanni is pure evil. Yet he does so so that everyone else can have fun. Just like the true good guy he is. Edit: I accidentally put hero earlier when I should have said villain. Sorry.

About as evil as that troubled kid who acts out because they clearly need attention.

One of my favorite examples of this trope is Veigar from League of Legends. So bad at being evil that he accidentally helps people around him and makes the world a better place.

I love both Megamind and Dr Horrible and I think their stories are just 2 different paths of the same premise. Imagine if Roxanne died and Megamind turned truly evil. Tragic. Someone write a fanfic now lol

The characters of "Gentle Criminal" and "La Brava" from My Hero Academia season 4/5 are EXCELLENT anime examples of the "sympathetic villain" trope. Gentle only ever wanted to be a hero, but when his demeanor and intellect proved not up to the task, he changed his M.O., and vowed to become the most notorious criminal in the world. This was PURELY to "be remembered" by people, not for personal financial gain, to the point where he intentionally left the "stolen goods" behind at every crime scene he robbed, rather than taking them to spend himself. The challenge was in committing the crime and succeeding, not in the material rewards of the crime itself.

This is such a cool channel I wish books were real

And now we have Giovanni Potage from Epithet Erased as a second example for wanting to be a villain but is actually a hero in denial.

Some of my favourite "Villain in Name Only" characters who weren't mentioned in this video. • Jesse, James, and Meowth - Pokémon anime series. • Giovanni Pottage - Epithet Erased • Lord Hater - Wander Over Yonder • Crow - Nefarious (video game and webcomic)

Seeing the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything in a Tale Foundry video makes me so happy 😂

"Made up accent"? It's... usually a pretty bad impression of one, but the "pirate" accent is specifically a West Country accent - most likely sparked by Robert Newton's performance as Long John Silver, and the fact that there was historically a lot of smuggling happened in Cornwall

I'd never thought I'd see a video with both Plankton and Doofenshmirtz (likely butchered the spelling of that). Spongebob and Phineas and Ferb were both big parts of my childhood, so the nostalgia levels were high on this video

A hero is a hero, but everyone loves a good villain

"those mustache twirlers and lab coat wearers", you basically described me 😂

I think Dr Nefarious from Ratchet & Clank is the rare middle ground of being a goofy villain who is fun but is a genuine threat to the protagonist. He has many MANY quirks and running gags that are genuinely funny, like when he occasionally malfunctions and a campy soap opera plays from his head or the fact he’s so over the top, deliciously hammy and loves being evil, yet his goal to turn back time before he lost to his arch nemeses not knowing that doing so will destroy the universe, or his plans to build a dimensionator to conquer only to release a more evil counterpart of himself, I think those are what I consider makes Nefarious one of the best villains ever. He’s threatening but he’s fun. He’s has his quirks but his plans and motives pose dangerous consequences if he succeeds thus raising the stakes to a high degree. TLDR version: he’s my favourite villain as he blends silly with genuine threat and I wish more villains were like that.

Probably my favorite archetype of these “in name only” villains are the ones where they actually can be a massive threat if they wanted to. But are bogged down by something, in a kids show it’s normally be the hero of show, but it can be anything like in one my favorite shows “The Venture Bros.” Most villains are kept down by their own emotional issues that they’re projecting by essentially playing dress up though also in that show the villains and even henchmen do actually kill (a lot) and the “heroes” are not really any better if not worse. I love these types because it normally gives room for the established villain to at some point just be in the living room of their arch nemesis for casual reasons leading to some really hilarious scenarios.

This video should have been called “your thinking of doof and we will make you wait for him”

From what I heard about pirates it goes like this: If you saw a pirate ship you had two options, either give up or run. If you couldn't run you gave up because pirates didn't mess around, if you tried to fight back they would punish you if you failed by brutalizing you in front of everyone in the most horrific ways. If you gave up, unless you encountered particularly violent pirates they would take your cargo and valuables and go, because they didn't particularly care about you, though they may also take some of your crew. However the second kind of pirates you could encounter no one really talks about, these were pirates that flew a red flag and their intentions were simply violence, giving up did nothing, they intended to hurt, destroy, and steal. Your only options were to fight and hope you won or run and hope you got away. Neither were nice and you wouldn't want to encounter either of them because it either ended with you dead or everything they could carry being stolen while you were at sea, which would make it kind of hard to get back to land.

I don't think a good villain has to have complex backstory. Overly Sarcastic Productions did a Trope Talk on the Pure Evil Villain which fits in with the villain who just revel in being evil.

Three great examples of this that I think fit perfectly into this archetype: Robbie Rotten, Waluigi, Gentle Criminal.

For I moment I thought you were going to be dissecting what you thought was the worst written villain in the history of media, so you can imagine my happiness when you opened up describing what is essentially Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. Edit: AND THEN YOU ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT HIM!!!!! You, you are amazing. Thank you and God bless!

They have been doing a lot of villain videos lately and I’m here for it :D

Bondrewd has to be the most pure form of villainous evil I've enjoyed in the past decade.

I recently came up with an idea for a villain like this! Picture an intergalactic sci-fi adventure show, where the main baddie is actually just a little kid treating everything like a game. He has all these weapons and a mech suit to make himself look intimidating and evil, but he still has morals that he never breaks (i.e. killing people.) I can easily see what dynamics he may have with other characters, such as having a brother who acts more like a serious villain than he, or the princess and leader of the rebellion being his favorite playmate, someone who understands him more than others and knows deep down, he's just a kid. It's a concept I would love to expand upon if I ever get the chance to run a sci-fi themed tabletop campaign with my friends.

this channel is truly a guide to be a perfect writer

I'm reminded of Garou from One-Punch Man. He keeps going on about how he's going to become the ultimate evil and an unbeatable monster, but when asked by the Monster Association to kill 100 people, he finds it distasteful and wonders "What does killing people have to do with being an evil?" We find out that in his childhood he first of all just found monsters cool, and felt it was unfair that they never got to win in Saturday morning cartoons. But he was also unpopular, and always got assigned the "monster" role during hero play, being mistreated by the popular kid. The popular kid was adored while mistreating him, while he got punished and bullied for fighting back. He learned that in this world, heroes are popular and always win even while being jerks, and the monsters always lose, even when just fighting back. So he made it his mission to prove that the monster can win, and beat the unfair heroes. Despite wanting to become the ultimate evil, he saves a little boy, who reminds him of himself, from being bullied, and later from monsters. When fighting a hero who becomes terrified of him during a fight, he starts to feel like a bully, and all these conflicting goals and emotions cause him an identity crisis. He eventually finds an answer to what it means to become ultimate evil. He will become an entity so strong and feared, that humanity will forget all their other strives. People so grateful just to be alive, that all differences will be forgotten and meaningless. A world where class doesn't matter, and no little kid will be bullied. "What the world needs isn't biased justice, but absolute unbiased evil!" Some evil monster he is, saving kids from bullies, fighting the corrupt hero association, and trying to create world peace.

Glad you put Dr. Horrible in there

I think a good example of this type of villain is found in the kids show "Word Girl". The villains are more in it for the fun. When another hero shows up and is not playing around, all of the villains are very confused.

As the video started I immediately thought of the villain SNL skit. Imagine my joy when it was referenced as a "perfect example" 😂

Yes! I’m so happy Dr.Horrible was brought up, that’s all I was thinking about while watching “he would really fit for this video”

OK I just want to say that your intro is just so so beautiful. It’s like animated as a Disney film and it feels so magical and all that.

I was eagerly awaiting for you to talk about Doofenschmirtz, he's the quintessential "evil by name" villain, but he's also at the same time a genuinely great three-dimentional character, that's why I, and a lot of other people, love him so much.

I think the perfect example for a "villain in name only" is Liam Sera Banfield from the light novel "I'm an Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire". In his past life he was betrayed, manipulated and used by others which is why he decided to become a villain in his next life. The thing is: when he finally was reincarnated into his next life, his parents did already all possible evil things which are possible. So, he couldn't suppress his denizens at all nor do any other evil deeds. So, he decides to build up his domain to crush it later, however clueless and innocent as he is, he does actually a lot of good things and gets incautiously manipulated by his environment to do good things. For example, he "bribes" a merchant, although he just basically invested in him. That means, the merchant himself isn't even evil and sees Liam actually as a good person because of his deeds. Then at some point he raises taxes when his domains became more stable, however, the taxes actually helped his domain even further. Now he reached even the point where he became so popular and a role model for the people, that his denizens demonstrated for him to finally produce a higher so that they could maintain their wealth and good life conditions and don't have to fear that some other corrupt noble would ruin their life again. 🤣 In short: he is actually a good mc who is convinced to be the most evil villain who had ever existed. I can just recommand it. It's so damn funny and a bit wholesome too.

I was honestly expecting you would mention the monarch or the guild of calamitous intent from the venture bros.

I love this archetype of character. To use ttrpg terms, I think they most often end as chaotic neutral characters mistaking themselves for evil.

The pirate thing goes back to the pirate confederacy of the Caribbean, the idea of a bunch of criminals creating their own society Complete with laws, a hierarchy, and doing things like liberating slaves and providing a safe haven for the downtrodden is romantic and captures the minds of individuals. All of that is real and historical as well, but pepper in murder, destruction, and terrorism in there.

I never thought I'd see Plankton of a Take Foundry video, 10/10

Probably one of the my favourite videos in a long time! Saw the inclusion of Doofenshmitz from a mile away!

12:35 Ok, thank goodness. I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for some reference or talking point about Doofenschmirtz thinking SURELY he fits this bill to a T and there's no way he'd be left out! I was starting to get a little nervous, but I'm glad to see he is indeed included! 15:11 I was also seriously hoping to see Dr. Horrible. Excellent! 👏🏻

The Monarch and the Guild of Calamitous Intent is a good example as well.

those are basically "heels" in pro wrestling. another type of "not actually evil but identify as/with evil",and that is usually rebels against individuals or organizations who are "good" at least identify/look like good. we see people IRL using "satanic" and other type of identity that is commonly associated with evil when protesting against authoritarians. and in fiction, "evil for the sake for pissing off the holier-than-thous" would be an interesting idea. actually, it would be interesting for a rebel to repurpose a symbol of evil that is the "in-universe equivalent of the pentagram+swatstika" into a symbol of freedom against a tyrannical regime

One of the more memorable "villains" in this trope for me personally happens to be Don Paolo from the Professor Layton series (specifically the first trilogy), the man goes to great lengths to get revenge on Layton that often fail (remote controlling a ferris wheel to chase after him and Luke, posed as an inspector to frame the professor for murder as well as _almost_ successfully pretend to be the professor's adopted daughter in the second game due to him being a master of disguise, and so on) but he very quickly is shown to not even be a major threat - even becoming an ally by the 3rd game with a tragic backstory of unrequited love turned envy and hatred towards the eponymous protagonist

For megamind it wasn't so much that he liked the sound of being evil but more so that it was what society decided he was, just like how metro man didn't really choose to be a hero and instead was designated as one by the people, megamind was designated the villain and he just went along with it thinking that was what he was supposed to be

Love the video. I wasn’t sure you were going to mention Dr. Horrible, who is my favorite example of this kind of villain precisely because he gets “everything he ever wanted,” but it leaves him empty and lost.

I feel the inverse of this is the 'Uriah Heap': someone who is a supervillain at heart, but intelligent enough to understand that implementing their wishes requires power they will never achieve. But if you end up at their mercy? The mask is off. They know what they want, and they'll take it in increments.

I love to watch your videos, while writing. They have such an inspireing atmosphere, helping my creativity to restock, when I am burned out.

I was waiting basically the whole video for Doof to get mentioned, so when Tale Foundry began setting up for the Doof reveal, I hoped it was Doof and audibly chanted his name, then loudly cheered when I was right.

I was waiting for doof for this entire video. also hearing tale foundry talking about spongebob and despicable me completely seriously is a level of strangeness i am unable to describe

*screams* i legit was thinking you were gonna bring Doof into this I KNEW IT

9:00 pirates don't have 'Made up Accents'. It is based on the original; treasure islands actor who, to be an 'authentic' pirate, he based the accent on the blackcountry accent, found in the west midlands, England. This was done because a lot of real pirates were from various impoverished areas and thus, the 'blackcountry' accent, like most 'lower class' british accents, fits.

The villain in name alone is honestly pretty much the idea that spawned one of my currently biggest works. Like, the protagonist, Nathaniel, takes up villainy literally as a career path after being laid off, and immediately picks the villain alias "The Demon King of the Underworld". Sure, they somehow managed to make it big in villainy by some journalism and the fact the hero who came to stop his schemes was an up-and-coming hero who is basically the pinnacle of heroism (to the point where he's almost a parody of himself), but her schemes are mostly robbing banks (rent won't pay itself) and performance (helped by their illusion powers). He and Mighty Man sometimes even hang out after battles to make sure one didn't hurt the other too badly. And then the fun part about such a trope, is when the real antagonist shows up, and you get to subvert expectations there as well because the antagonist, was the most powerful superhero before Mighty Man. And the fun part? His cruelty didn't start when he was overthrown. It just added another person to his off-list. In essence, what I'm saying is, this is a very good trope and more people should play with it.

In the novel Wicked the centeral character Elphaba started the novel aiming to do good, but after a longtime of misery and failure comes to identify being evil as failure. And that’s true for the musical as well.

Dr. Draken also comes to mind though not quite a perfect example

I'm seeing more than a few similarities to the "outlaw, but totally not criminal" archetype, ala Mal from Firefly. "I aim to misbehave," and all that.

Brother The art, the animation, the voice, the visuals This unexpectedly appeared in my recommendations, and the animation and visuals caught me eye immediately. Im about half way through the video and im absolutely loving this video! Its so interesting and informative, it will likely be put into my playlist for material i use for story writing. I love nothing more than a good villain, and i like parody villains too, so its brilliant!

The stupendium has a song called “Fiend like me” and that just summarizes this entire thing perfectly. Also sidenote, I had been waiting for Doofenshmirtz since the start of this video and just got to him now!

Was so waiting for you to mention Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and am so glad you did!! Was also hoping for a League Of Super Evil reference. Wasn't expecting the pirate example though, but it makes a lot of sense.

So what do you guys think, in my book im writing, the main villain is going to be wayyyy too powerful for the hero to ever defeat, so he goes back in time to essentially kill him in the cradle. But due to the nature of time, the farther you go back the harder it pushes, making it harder exponentially to go further back. Hero eventually stops in the timeline, and finds the villain. Villain and hero are much more closely matched now, so theres a chance. They fight through a city, and eventually villain stops in front of a house an does everything to protect it. Claiming, "there are children in there!" The hero, only knowing the villain from his villainy, takes the bet that hes lying, because he has the PERFECT opportunity to strike him down, then and there. He takes the shot, villain attempts to redirect, but its too strong, and it hits the building, burning the family of a wife and three children inside. Villain starts screaming, and something visibly breaks in him, and the hero having realized what hes done, is shocked. Villain attacks and wounds him. Hero is forced to retreat. He goes back to the future, because he cant strain anymore in this timeline. Pops back into future, hero considers whats happened. Villain shows up. Villain monologue of badassery, "Do you know why I have done all this?" "Why I kill all magical beings, and take their bodies and make them part of mine?" "Because of you. That was my family you killed. My children. My happiness. My world." "And because you burnt down my world... I will burn down this one, and every single one until there is no magic left, until no creature knows mana. Until no creature knows the disgusting villainy capable of you WIZARDS!" Good villain? Y / N?

This is why whenever I run a D&D game, I don't have the BBEG monologue, he jumps straight to trying to kill the player characters, unless they approach the problem in a way that would make him or her hesitate or otherwise wait to attack.

I am currently struggling with education problems, i am out of school and home school is getting repetitive, and you single handedly showed me a genius solution to my problem! Not only have i gotten such a cool idea for a villain, but also the single hardest problem in my life right now was solved! Thank you!

Two stories I think need to be discussed in this light: Venture Bros (its like half the point of the show) and Worm (Main Character is an interesting take on V.I.N.O.)

Thank you Tale Foundry. You always give such inspiration. You taught me about Xenofiction and anti-heroes and anti-villains and so much more. You have been a tremendous help in my writing and I want to than you for it. God bless you and your team.

I am so glad you made a video on this archetype. I wrote one of these for a small game my friends and I shipped a few years ago, and that experience got me hooked writing up more schemes of his in the years since. What does a sentient, ice-cooled, super-ultra-high-spec gaming PC do with his free time? Why, he builds an underwater fighting arena (complete with a personal secretary handing out liability waivers at the front desk) to test any budding heroes who would dare stop him from freezing the world's oceans, all while he sits in the final stage of the gauntlet reading light novels, patiently waiting for a final showdown. Instead of fighting you personally of course, he wants a deluge of hench-bots to overwhelm you, but his second-in-command calls to tell him she gambled away all the money in a get-rich-quick scheme, thus, not having any money to keep the hench-bots he designed on payroll. With no other options, he'll fight the hero... "confidently"... and then a single punch to the ice encasing his superconductive components causes him to shatter apart completely. The best part of these guys aren't even their schemes. It's the sheer confidence that comes with being a ne'er-do-well that masks their squishy personalities. Writing monologues, seeing how they react to a plan that's off-script; it's all about crafting a performance. This video encompasses everything I love about comedic villains!

I love how you are so very calm w your voice

Ooh yay new video!!! ❤ i love your intro btw its very pretty

I think Team Rocket are a great example of this! They don’t want to harm anyone or rule the world, they just want to sell some random kid’s rat for their job. Plus they are shown throughout the series to be relatively kind and empathetic. They’re really bad at being bad

the amount of work in this project is staggering. it’s a wonderful video

As soon as I listened to your intro to this video, a few examples popped into my head, all of which you managed to address, from Megamind, to Phineas and Ferb, Doctor Horrible's sing-along blog, to even that SNL sketch about the world's most evil invention... I honestly did not expect you to mention that last one on here. XD

This kind of villain can be ridiculously fun (and hilarious) imo. Really awesome video! One of my favorite moments of this in comics involved a story where the Riddler of Batman notoriety getting released from Arkham Asylum to rejoin society. The Riddler didn't particularly want to go back to crime in this instance, but was overwhelmingly bored with mundane life and felt like nobody/nothing was challenging him anymore. Basically, guy missed Batman. He tries to get in touch with Batman through regular, non-criminal means. Batman doesn't have time and is annoyed at the interruption. But again, the Riddler is extremely bored. So he buys an apartment, stages an elaborate threat with lives at stake. It's all terribly ominous and of course, wrapped in a riddle. Batman shows up by crashing through the window only to find the Riddler with a nice dinner table set up. He's serving surf and turf in a kiss the genius apron. Lives at steak, you see. The only thing being killed that night is a lobster. And he's ecstatic that Batman solved his puzzle to make it there punctually. I don't think he technically did anything illegal there--apartment was unoccupied. No one was actually in danger short of delicious crustaceans. Still, good for him lol.

I somehow knew this was building up to Doofenshmirtz

One of the ppl I follow that I am genuinely happy to follow is because you make me actually realize you already know this and expand your concept of and depth of a single word like this evil. Homie wants me to write a book and get my philosophy doctorate degree 😅

I love the way this was presented!!

I spent the entirety of the first 12.5 minutes of this video anticipating the mention of Doofinshmirtz so much that during the "describing but not quite mentioning" part that came right before the reveal, I was actually tensing every muscle in my body out of excitement. I'm very weird.

The first time this occurred to me was as a kid, watching GI Joe. The Cobra Commander was the ultimate evildoer. But what did C.O.B.R.A. even actually want to achieve?

I love Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. He starts out as evil in name only. By the end, he becomes unintentionally evil, and that breaks him.

Im so glad you mentioned Dr. Horrible. The entire first half of the video I was thinking it fit no one better than him. So determined to be accepted as evil to be popular and get the girl while genuinely not being even a bit evil. Then the tragic turn where he gets his dream at the sacrifice of everything that mattered.