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Garland/Chaos: Abandoned his knighthood and sold his soul to the four fiends, trading away the world's peace so that he could live forever. Was content with living in a sick and twisted cycle where he knew he'd be defeated every 2000 years only to send the horrors of the passed into the future again, sacrificing the lives of thousands for his own immortality.

Emperor Mateus: A power hungry emperor, able to summon demons from hell itself, deciding to use his devilish power to spread monsters throughout the world in an effort to force the population to surrender their wills to him. Even death itself couldn't stop him, rising from the firey pits as the crowned emperor of hell itself for one last gambit against the world that denied him.

Cloud of Darkness: A generless beast, living between the light and darkness in what is known as the void, she twists and manipulates those with weak wills into causing chaos, her goal to disturb the balance between the worlds and allow the void to be ripped open, so she can pull all of life into the void with her.

Zeromus: An alien born of hate and prejudice, part of a race of Lunarians who thought themselves too superior to those already dwelling on the blue planet, had decided to sleep until humanity had caught up with them. However, unsatisfied with sharing the planet, Zemus wanted to simply kill every being of the blue planet, exterminating those inferior to his race, his hate birthed a creature of anger and destruction to carry out his will even in death.

Exdeath: Reincarnated from a powerful wizard from millenia passed, who traded his immortality for the power of pure destruction incarnate itself, Exdeath is a seemingly husk of blind ambitions. He seems to have no reson to destory just the deep desire to send the world into the darkness of the void. Although his motives seem shallow, he follows them whole-heartedly, willing to send thousands into the void just to complete his whole, with a complete disregard for life itself.

Kefka: A power hungry general, even before his madness he was a cruel tactioner, able to manipulate anyone he needed to accomplish his goals. In his lust for power he lost his mind to the magic infused into his body, and his actions became even more imhuman, horrifically killing humans and espers alike, even draining the power of the gods themselves, and with his newfound godhood turned to burn away everything, deeming very existance itself as completely useless.

Sephiroth: A trained solider, even before birth his fate as a monster had been decided, his genes spliced with those of a beast from deep space, mutating his body and giving him incredible power. Once he realized his true nature, he killed dozens immediately, killed himself only to be reborn and ascended to godhood, utimately desiring to aquire the very power of life itself from the world by nearly destorying it, willing to kill everyone just for his own rise.

Ultimecia: A sorceress from the future, growing up being feared and hated she turned her sights to controlling her own time, becoming its fiendish ruler, however that wasn't enough for her, as she set her sights on not only controlling everywhere, but every time. Travelling to the passed, she destoryed countless lives for her goal, ruining reputations, starting wars, and unleashing monstrosities to the earth all for the sake of her selfish goal, to deny all life and esistance and rule over a singular moment as a goddess.

Necron: A strange and mysterious entity, no one really knows what he is and what his motives are. Possibly Garland or Kuja may better serve as bosses here, however Necron did serve the purpose of the final threat, once the life crystal was destroyed he used that as proof that life was ready to end, and prepared to end all existance as it was known.

Yu Yevon: Once more noble in his motives, he led the souls of Zanarkand against the forces of a war, however, his attack was short sighted as he created a beast to destroy again and again in a countless and meaningless cycle. Trapping the souls of an entire city on purgatory, while killing countless others, as the centuries rolled forward, the cycle continues without end, forcing the spirits that once followed him to serve a weapon of terror.

No polls available, but how about a discussion of the evils of top villians/manipulators of the FInal Fantasy series, between I and X. I've listed off all 10 and a little of what they did that made them so evil, so who do you think hurt the most, was the most evil, had the evilist expectations or the most devious goal?

I suppose I was just bored, wanted to make a discussion, hopefully there will be some good comments.

Kefka. He was just goddamn maniacal, and a delightfully written and executed character as well.

Kefka was more or less just insane and doing it for fun and because he wants to, for little reason other than that he's insane. I feel he and Zagi pulled off the mentally ill villains best, but Zagi wasn't in Final Fantasy nor was he in 1 and 10.


I also felt Kuja was another really evil villain, more of a greedy person who was just extremely self-centered.

Probably Zemus or Exdeath, since they were both basically evil incarnate.

As for the "regular" villains, I'd have to say Kefka. He was really just a bat****-crazy, homicidal maniac who killed people just for the fudge of it and eventually became a god.

Kefka, only because he does what he does out of hatred alone. Plus you need to have an evil laugh. -CSM

it was kefka

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment.

Kefka was literally insane. There's a chance he had no idea what he was doing. Therefore, he's not really evil. Just nuts.

^I disagree. Even through his madness there was a spark of genius. Evil doesn't look or act like anything; it's a concept that covers all deeds done in spite or hatred for some dark or murderous purpose, without love or a soul or anything like that - and it's a very broad term, as technically we could all be evil if we set our minds to it. Kefka was motivated by both his insanity and a natural human desire for power. He was evil despite of and perhaps with the help of his glorious mental illness.

Hojo was a pretty evil bastard, using his own unborn child to experiment with alien cells, killing and doing horrendous splicing on Vincent, trying to trick the planet into summoning the end of the world so he could fuse with its bearer . . .

Honestly, Sephiroth's sort of emo evil aside, Hojo was the one who made him, and the one who tried to turn the planet against itself and kill everyone so he could become Omega. He was also pretty insane himself . . . maybe not as insane as Kefka, but mentally smarter which might make him more dangerous.

Exdeath; the evil God-clown is demonic but takes a while to get there, while Exdeath is already known as a vile being from the beginning and repeatedly appears, killing people and ripping worlds up just so he can be a jerk.

Many of the others come close. I sort of doubt the egotistical ones (Ultimecia, Sephiroth, Kuja, etc.) as pure 'evil' and seem to be more of a 'Gimme more' sort. While that's evil, it's self-interested evil, while world-destroying jerks like Exdeath just represent pure destruction and hatred.

^^Ah, I was going to say that. I always saw Hojo as the real villian - Sephiroth is more just messed up in the head. And then, of course, there's always Jenova.

I have to say, Seymour was pretty messed up in the head too. He's more the villain of that game than Yu Yevon, IMO.

Kefka, the line There is sand on my boots and he gets someone to wipe it of without saying anything more, branded him Mother****ing badassvillan for me.

Metal Man wrote:Exdeath; the evil God-clown is demonic but takes a while to get there, while Exdeath is already known as a vile being from the beginning and repeatedly appears, killing people and ripping worlds up just so he can be a jerk.

I suppose that is true, but then again Exdeath was sort of a failure at that, not only could he not fully control the void, but it ended up eating him up as well, granted he did turn into the badass NEO-EXDEATH after that, a twisted mess of demon parts, evil and void, but in the end he sort of turned out to be a watered down version of Euno.

I do think Sephiroth was a little weak in comparison to Hojo's motivations, I mean don't get me wrong, Sephiroth had his evil moments, and was trying to ascend to godhood himself, but it was Hojo who created him and a lot of the evil in the FFVII universe, plus while Sephiroth used to be good until he learned the truth, Hojo was always an evil bastard. I suppose Jenovah was evil too, but I certainly wouldn't call her a main villian, she was practically inert a few thousand years before the game even started, it was only her cells really that were evil, and that was more like a weapon then a will to be evil. At least in my opinion, maybe someone would argue with that.

I do think Seymour was a dangerous sort of evil, because I think deep down he thought him being evil was actually good, so he believed in what he wanted to reap whole-heartedly, that if he killed everyone, all the suffering of the world would end (which was technically true). Granted his body count was less than the other main villians, he did do some evil things, like nearly wipe out the entire Ronso's from the world, he could have just stopped them, but he wanted to exterminate him, and even after he was defeated his reputation nearly caused the rest of the Guado to become extinct as well.

^I've read somewhere a theory about Seymour.

[spoiler]
Unsent are the souls of the dead clinging to their self-identity through some powerful emotion or purpose: some focused bit of the psyche that death can't break down. I believe that unsent retain the original matter of their dead bodies patched, reassembled and preserved by the pyreflies, which act as magical life support systems after the body's processes give out.
–Before turning into his first "Boss" form, Seymour absorbs the dead bodies of Kinoc and three of his guards. His first "boss" form is larger than he was by about the same amount of matter as those he absorbed.
–in the Mt. Gagazet battle, after killing a bunch of Ronso, Seymour appears in a third, larger form with a huge bony exoskeleton. I suspect he absorbed the Ronso as he had Kinoc. (Possibly, Yunalesca's creepy forms are made of all the summoners and guardians she's killed).[/spoiler]

And suddenly, Seymour is much much creepier than before.

But, of course, I'm not arguing that he's he most evil. I'd say Garland or Exdeath for that.

Insult Time

Garland/Chaos: I thought I could live forever through some convolted time warp theory about dying and sending Fiends to the future lol. Also, knocking you down. Yep.

Emperor Mateus: Hi, I think sending demons throughout the world will give me control of everything, and not destroy everything I'm trying to conquer. Though, I am awesome enough to come back from the dead.

Cloud of Darkness: I am Chaos the 2nd! Fear my knowledge of balance and how to disturb it. FEAR ME. Also, I look Female lol.

Zeromus: You Blue Planet bitches, I'm going to posess a guy who will posess another guy, who will then bring me the power to destroy a planet who's lack of existence will knock my planet out of orbit and possibly into a sun. Then again, I turn into a random pile of bone and flesh so why should I care what happens after I win?

Exdeath: I just want more power, because no one will respect my moon face. 2ND FORM GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Kefka: I'm so cruel and insane, I pull off my goals of becoming a god, and send the world into chaos because I am an evil clown. Seriously, I may have single handedly made all clowns scary. Also, I kind of look like Ganondorf. Before he was invented. eh.

Sephiroth: Everyone knew I would be a monster, so they trained me to be a soldier with a 20 foot sword. Yep, this won't have any reprecussions. Not at all.

XBOX. EAT BERRIES.

Ultimecia: I'm so damn selfish I need to have always controlled everything. Nevermind the fact that I could just go to the existence of creation and control everything from then on. Eh, I was pretty creepy.

Necron: grrrr i am monster ready to destroy you. nom nom.

Yu Yevon: I created a monster made to destroy all of existence again and again to help Zanarkand, but instead I get a corrupt religion built around me. I also don't care. rawr.

;)

tl;dr

In the earlier games, the main boss seemed more like faceless forces of nature. It was like fighting against a hurricane or beating up an asteroid. Maybe it was just a matter of poor presentation (e.g. limits on hardware specs like lack of memory), but the early series bosses had little characterization and ridiculously stupid motives; it wasn't required, though, since the spotlight was usually on the player and the player characters. I consider it a side-effect of an emerging industry and less experienced story-telling. Of the games that I've played (I, III, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX), villains before VI never felt evil.

Kefka was pretty damned evil; he had the weakly evil emperor to contrast how much of a badass he was. He personally screwed over every one of your player characters (e.g. Cyan's family poisoned, Celes imprisoned, Terra controlled, etc.) so it was a lot more personal than "guy wants to destroy all of creation, which by the way includes stuff you like." You also get to see how his evil impacts the world, when the overworld changes from a nice green-blue to a grey slush.

Sephiroth is sort of odd in that he's the product of "evil." Hojo (Mojo-Jojo) was mentioned, and in retrospect he's the most evil in the game, in that he lacks any sort of moral compass. There's a theme of being a puppet throughout the game, and I think that really defines Sephiroth's role. There's Jenova in the background controlling him, but it's sort of difficult to cast her as evil, partially because she doesn't do anything directly in the plot, partially because she is a parasite and she does this for a living (i.e. it's not personal, it's business). Most of the evil felt in the game is from Shinra itself, which is sort of controlled by Jenova, and here it starts getting all pear-shaped.

Ultimecia was just confusing. Also, there's the theme in this game about questioning what is "evil" and "good"; Squall at one point thinks to himself that there is no evil and good, only different points of view. Seifer's not evil insomuch as he's an idiot.

IX was a throwback to the old days of Final Fantasy, and what I remember from the plot is sort of sketchy. Kuja was a jerk, and there was some guy (Garland again?) who wanted to destroy the cosmos. I recall there wasn't a strong villain presence in this game; every now and then Kuja would come in and defeat your party (but leave you alive, for some reason).

^Kuja was rebelling against Garland (his 'creator'), and manipulating the various leaders of the World into starting war with one another, so that the Iifa Tree could harvest the energy from the dying souls and he could then take that power and use it for himself.

[And this is all before Kuja founds out he's mortal and decides to flip the **** out. But overall, Kuja isn't 'pure' evil...his actions stem mostly from wanted Garland to respect him [spoiler](as Garland created Zidane, who was the superior brother, to 'replace' Kuja as a Genome).[/spoiler]

Seymour didn't do it for me; he was like Newman from Seinfeld without a soul.

Hojo is definitely evil as well, much more so than Sephiroth, which is just a failed experiment (similar to Kefka, although Cid never really was evil; he was just being used).

Kuja's motivation is unclear. Remember

[spoiler]
Kuja becomes good in the end
[/spoiler]

and that adds a whole new dimension to Kuja. -CSM

Amongst them all, that I've seen, I gotta go with Kefka. An insane evil clown? That's demented enough to work. I've only otherwise seen Garland/Chaos, and he just doesn't seem as evil.

Damn 8-Bit Theater...

Meh it was new and all. You couldn't get that much detailed, if anything "ZOMG IT'S GARLAND!!!" was probably enough for "ZOMG, Lynx is Serge's FATHER!!! And they switch BODIES!!"