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Best Villains for Every Tier

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I prefer Horus as a villain for his plots, tactics and how evil he actually is. Magnus isn't as evil or corrupted but I do prefer Magnus as a character in general rather than a villain. Personality wise would be Vulkan.
 
Horus is just a bland boy who was evil because the plot demanded of him to be evil due to being the emperor's favorite and having the rank of the warmaster.

Look at Fulgrim, he's got passengers on his ship that cut themselves, paint pictures with shit and blood, and actually seeing him detorieatw because of one sharp sword is also interesting, as well as being disgusted at his arrogance. Fulgrim is just like Griffith, he's a scumbag and he's good at it. He even made Primus Eidolon looking like a mangled sack of balls attached to his neck.
 
Anyways I can't be typing essays for Ahriman before I type my essays for school so I'll keep this one to a brief summary, but can go further if things get disputed. I'll suggest him for both tiers and you guys can pick if he or Oryx or whatever other 4-B win.

Beginnings
Honestly just go read A Thousand Sons, it's a good read and he's a central character. If not go here for a summary of sorts, though it doesn't go too deep into things and I could type a better version now if I wanted to.

His Big **** Up
Ahriman is infamous in verse for casting the Rubric of Ahriman, simultaneously saving and damning his legion. It gave all the Psykers a huge amp, while turning everyone else into Rubricae, automatons of dust that are basically the souls of what once were Thousand Sons trapped within their armors. Why would he do such a thing? He did it out of desperation and a desire to save his brothers. The Thousand Sons since their inception were always plagued by mutations due to Tzeentch and being a legion of Psykers, even affecting Magnus the Red himself. These mutations were very, very bad (even killing his twin brother) and with the legion already crippled directly after the hersey started, they were set to spell the doom of the Thousand Sons. Even Magnus pledging to Tzeentch didn't work. Because of this, in secret Ahriman and a bunch of other really powerful sorcerers planned to cast this spell to empower everyone and stop the Flesh Change. Worst part? It apparently would have actually worked, if Kairos Fateweaver didn't change a line of the Book of Magnus. They were this close to using the energy of change to stave off the mutations of change, somehow, but of course that was an effort doomed to failure. Doesn't stop it from weighing heavily on Ahriman to the point that most of his reason to keep living is because he still thinks he can fix his mistake. It grows to define him and the conflicts he finds himself involved in (Like how all of Sorcerer was between him and Amon, another sorcerer at the Rubric. Amon wants to kill all the thousand sons to put them out of their misery, Ahriman thinks he can fix things still). He even was fully on board with casting a spell he thought would cure everyone when he was under the impression that it was absolutely gonna kill him, because he still cares for his brothers over himself. He doesn't take this failure lightly.

Ahriman's idealism in a grim, dark future
Now calling a character like Ahriman, the crazy prepared future seeing chessmaster standing atop webs and webs of manipulation an idealist may seem a little weird at first, but it makes more sense when you take a look at things. Hope is his defining characteristic. He still holds onto the hope ten thousand years later that he can fix things, still holding onto that hope of a brighter future for humanity, and it is this more than anything else that inextricably links him to Tzeentch, much as he may hate the god. Ahriman has two major goals in present: Reviving the Rubricae, and finding the Black Library so he can become a god and kill Tzeentch. The former is taken to such a degree that when Yvraine revived a few Rubricae by channeling the nascent Ynnead, Ahriman let her, the Visarch, and the Yncarne out of his weird little space where he had them all at his mercy and could have ended them with a thought, because here in front of him is his lifetime goal and it could possibly be achieved. Straight up drops everything because he thinks his hopes can finally come to fruition. This makes it all the worse when Yvraine punts them into the warp in front of his eyes, banking on him being more likely to try and save them than just annihilate her posse on the spot. It works just as she planned, but just think about having a goal you've worked towards for thousands of years dangled in front of you like that then just thrown away, a chance to wipe away some grave mistake you once made just ripped from you like that. Pretty ******* awful. And yet, that didn't break him (He's probably gonna do bad things to Yvraine if he ever finds her again but that's understandable), he's still holding on to hope in this hopeless world. I guess this is where the real tragedy of Ahriman comes in. He represents this ideal of self determination and forging one's own path, trying to wage war on fate itself. He has so much hope for this and so much ability, but in the end this only makes him closer and closer to the god he hates, for the concepts of Hope and Change and Fate are what makes up Tzeentch. Ahriman hates him but Tzeentch loves him for being a perfect reflection of what it is to embody Tzeentch, since he doesn't really care about worship. Ahriman is all to aware of this, by the way. So why keep going? Why not just die, or become some power hungry raider living a life of hedonism?

It's because hope is basically all he has.

Think about it, why would he live if he's just gonna give in to the nihilism of the setting? Why would he keep going? Hell, Tzeentch didn't even let him kill himself and changed his mind when he offered a permenant and true death, he can't even get that if he wanted to. To abandon hope would be the ultimate destruction of Ahriman, rendering his existence utterly meaningless. Sure he still would be strong, but what good is that when you know you have a direct link to some god unfathomably above you? You can't even die right, so can't kill yourself, so you're basically just stuck in a living hell for all eternity. This is why he still has hope, because Ahriman refuses to give in to this sort of thinking, even though his chances are getting worse and worse as things go on.

Ahriman the Loyalist?
Ahriman is really the truest Loyalist I can think of, but not in the sense of serving the Imperium. No, Ahriman remains loyal to humanity, believing all the atrocities he commits are ultimately in service of procuring the salvation of humanity. Even back in the pre hersey days this was where his true loyalties lay. While others would fight for The Emperor, Ahriman hated this religious dogma and would instead fight for the future of mankind. Even in the present he thinks he's just doing what he needs to do to save humanity and that Chaos is just a means to an end, believing he can use their power ultimately against them. Mind you he doesn't see the Imperium as good either (which it really isn't). He doesn't want to serve the imperium, he wants to carve out a new age for humanity, an age of prosperity, which is where much of his wanting to be a god comes from.


In short, Ahriman believes wholeheartedly that his actions are in the service of a greater good, holding onto the last scraps of hope he has that he can be in service to this goal even as he delves deeper and deeper into the reaches of Chaos and gets closer and closer to Tzeentch.

I also like how his level of power is well known in verse and actually established as opposed to just being incidental. Given what happened to Khayon and that the Emperor and Magnus are more accurately described as warp entities, Ahriman is the strongest human psyker there is, probably, and is well known for it. He's got a powerset that essentially boils down to "all of them, with future sight" that he can use to great effect, though he had to build this up over ten thousand years mastering his magic, honing his body and mind, and procuring knowledge from a myriad of exotic locations. Current Ahriman is insane and gets the notability it would logically result in in verse, but its not like he didn't have to work to get there or anything.
 
Oersted for 2-C. It's really amazing how... right they wrote his character. I could probably go into a lot more depth about every little thing that makes him such a good villain, but he's a very tragic villain that falicitates an incredible plot-twist and is the underlying reason for pretty much the entire game.

FYI: You could argue that Oersted is technically not 2-C, Odio is, but Oersted should have access to Odio's 2-C power anyways (as that is when he's an actual villain). Plus, Oersted's probably gonna get reworked a lot, and 2-C is the only thing staying the same
 
Yüki Terumi for Low 5-B

The only things you know at the start is the fact that he's maniacal, calculating yet twisted. Truly adds a layer to his character. Yet this isn't even the best part about him. His motives due to unfortunate events that befell him and his his motives are what makes him interesting.

To start, Terumi is trapped in an unending time loop due to the Takamagahara system. Why? Its because the Takamagahara system resets time every time Ragna's dumbass falls into the Cauldron. A time loop? It can't be that bad right? Wrong.
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Not only can he remember the events of every reset, but time is reset by 100 years. Times this by a trillion or so and you roughly get how many times Terumi went through this. And all of this without even mentioning him having to endure going through infinite simulations of every possibility.
Now that's covered, Terumi's motives are pretty straightforward. His first motive essentially comes down to the fact that he's bored. Fairly understandable aftrer seeing what he's been through. Here's an apt quote from him to for his general mindset:

Seriously, I can't believe you just asked me that! OK, all right, fine! How about this reason? Seems as good as any. I do all the wonderful things I do because I want to see the miserable look on the faces of people like YOU when you're wallowing in despair, dismay, grief, frustration, misery...all sorts of other unpleasant nouns... I guess you could say I'm bored. At least misery is interesting.
~ Yuuki Terumi in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift.​

This isn't all, however. We see later on that his motives are much more deeper than "he's bored". We see in Central Fiction that Terumi's tired of the Master Unit "intervening on him; controlling his every action. All he wants is true freedom from both the Takamagahara system and the Master Unit. But he really puts into perspective that the main character and the supporting cast are truly the evil ones:

You're the trash, humans. How many worlds have you destroyed, in your desire for the power of a god?...Although I suppose my words are wasted on you. Hah... Don t try to put the blame on me. You humans are the ones who made the choice. You collect only the possibilities that are convenient for you,and create a future only for yourselves. The worlds that lost their "possibilities" are destroyed by Doomsday, the Black Beast.


Finally, Terumi only exists as long as people have hate and fear towards hims. His goal is to create a world where people fear him in order to sustain his existence. But in the end he falls short and his defeat is due to the fact that not enough people hate him. Ragna mentally changes everyone's perception of him from being a villain to beong a hero. So in the end, Yuki Terumi became the hero that he detested from the start.
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EmperorRorepme said:
You're disregarding literally everything Horus did whilst listing things Fulgrim did. That isn't a fair comparison.
He killed his own men, his brother, and crippled his father, all because he couldn't stomp one fodder plague marine. He only did bad things because he was turned bad, nothing about that is interesting.

Best villian 11/10
 
Vecna for 2-C. Not only is he considered one of the most iconic villains of D&D (alongside Orcus, Lolth, Strahd von Zarovich, etc), he is also the most enterprising of the bunch. Originally just a lich leading an army to achieve whatever their goals were, he scoured the multiverse for worthy followers- including Kas, the vampire, and Acererak, a cambion-lich (cambion = spawn of a demon).

Eventually, Vecna was betrayed by Kas, robbing him of an eye and a hand (which remain mummified as immensely powerful artifacts of the maimed god to this day). Upon his apparent death, Vecna immediately became a deity. In the time since, Vecna has enacted an absurd amount of plans and plots- actions well-fitting of a deity whose portfolio revolves around secrets told behind closed doors.

Vecna has many notable plots, but none so great as his plan to transcend The Lady of Pai herself, the enigmatic ruler of Sigil, the city at the center of the Multiverse. He did this by speaking directly to the source of all magic, the Serpent (side note, it is said all magic users merely hear the faintest of whispers from the Serpent, manipulate the smallest of facets of this beast, as they cast spells- but Vecna speaks directly to the Serpent, and the Serpent speaks back).

Through this ploy he would bypass the wards of sigil and begin his rituals to become greater than even the mightiest god, and the Lady of Pain, literally a being so strong that they refuse to give her any stats whatsoever because this implies she can be killed without the instantaneous destruction of whatever opposes her, which is impossible. Impossible for all but Vecna.

TL;DR Vecna is kind of a badass for only being 2-C in base form.

I'd also suggest other often recurring villains of D&D, such as the aforementioned Strahd and all, but Vecna I feel is most deserving to be mentioned first.

Brief History of Vecna
To keep things short.

As a child he was taught magic by his mother until she was executed by those fearful of their powers. Vowing revenge, he trained to become inarguably the most powerful magic-using mortal known to mankind- some even thought that from this young age he was tutored in horrible eldritch arts by the Serpent himself.

One thousand years later, Vecna would besiege the city of Fleeth and nearly be slain were he not saved by Acererak, a cambion he had saved ages earlier after the cambion suffered similar persecution as the lich. After recovering he succeeded in conquering the city, and the officials came to him to beg for mercy- first they offered all the riches in the city and the city itself. Then they offered themselves, if only to spare the citizens. One family of the officials was given to Kas, a vampire lieutenant, to torture and murder in front of the other officials. Still unsatisfied, Vecna slaughtered every single citizen in the city. The remaining officials were set free, and were under the ward of Vecna forever after that.

Soon after the lich was slain by Kas and, after an attempt to make him into a greater god, locked away in Ravenloft, realm of Nightmares and group of planes controlled by Shar. However, unlike most other denizens of the planes, Vecna devised a method for escaping, and absorbed the power of Iuz, the cambion child of demon lords. It was then he made his move on Sigil, which, canonically could have worked (though the story itself presumes he did not).

Even after the defeat he suffered at the hands of the Lady, the lich remained, unkillable, and used his scheming to appear in the Prime Material.
 
WeeklyBattles said:
Viktor (League of Legends)

I still stand by hi being a good "villain" when you can see how his motivation to help humanity is genuinely well-intentioned and you cant tell who is meant to be the actual 'villain' in his dynamic with Jayce after reading things from his perspective.
That's more an antagonist then a villian tbh
 
Tony di bugalu said:
Waiting for Warren and his big post for why Rein should be in his tiers :v
Well, not today.

I have written many posts about Reinhard's character in the past, and I don't feel up to it as I have already written a couple of long posts today as it is. I could copy and paste posts about Reinhard's character that I have made though.

Although for the 4-A spot, is Galactus really a villain? AFAIK, Galactus is a completely neutral force that only ate worlds because he would die otherwise.

I mean, if you can father this thing... then you can't be all that bad, right?
 
As for characters I would vote for, I guess Daud from Dishonored at 9-A.

He was definitely my favorite character right after The Outsider - who is more of a neutral force.
 
Remember that villain is a matter of perspective. Galactus' entire function was to act as a force of destruction, but of course this puts him at odds with human interests. Ahriman doesn't see himself as a villain. Oryx is a great guy according to the morality system of the Hive (though its a morality system where killing your siblings is basically just a prank, because everyone can rez).
 
Wokistan said:
Remember that villain is a matter of perspective. Galactus' entire function was to act as a force of destruction, but of course this puts him at odds with human interests. Ahriman doesn't see himself as a villain. Oryx is a great guy according to the morality system of the Hive (though its a morality system where killing your siblings is basically just a prank, because everyone can rez).
Should we establish rules on what qualifies for a villain then?
 
This stems from it being extremely difficult to define something 100% objectively as "evil". People dedicate their entire careers to this sort of thing.
 
Wokistan said:
I think a lot of my favorite villains end up being ones that bring up this concept of ambiguity and moral relativism, allowing the consumer to ponder on it.
Most of my favorite villains are like that as well.
 
TriforcePower1 said:
@Warren
Does that mean you don't like Ganondorf? OvO
I like Ganondorf, and I feel like there is potential for me to love his character with the perspective established in The Wind Waker, but Nintendo always manages to disappoint me.
 
Ganondorf is still by far the best reoccurring character in Zelda if were speaking about development and such.
 
Wait a minute.

Ok I'm being 100% serious but Imma flip my shit if Griffith doesn't make it on here

He's universally proclaimed to Ben one of the most notorious animanga villains, he's done terrible things, and people hate him for it which is what every villain should be about.

He deffo needs a spit here
 
If I were admin I'd shut the whole wikia down if Griffith wasn't in a list like this.
 
TriforcePower1 said:
@MrKing
Do I need to expand on why Kira is best villain of 8-C?
Technically, uh, Only Kira Quin is 8-C and Yoshikage is 10-A (I doubt it, since he can damage Koichi with his bare hands) so I don't know.
 
Konaguna said:
Wait a minute.
Ok I'm being 100% serious but Imma flip my shit if Griffith doesn't make it on here

He's universally proclaimed to Ben one of the most notorious animanga villains, he's done terrible things, and people hate him for it which is what every villain should be about.

He deffo needs a spit here
Who is Griffith?
 
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