10 Of The Worst Villains In Media

Villains are great for many of us. Whether it's because they're the most entertaining character, the most awesome character, the most memorable character or whatever, villains make for some of media's most enjoyable characters for many fans of film, TV, literature and all other forms of media out there...BUT SOMETIMES THE VILLAINS CAN SUCK!!!

Sadly with the good must also come the bad and these villains are the prime example of being bad...but not in the evil sense. These are the villains that make us happy the heroes are around to kick their arses and foil their schemes and the villains we're just sick to death of seeing because they're not interesting, entertaining or even worth keeping around.

Now for this countdown, I'm NOT presenting it as a Top 10 List. This isn't the Top 10 Worst Villains In Media, just 10 villains that I think give villainy a bad name. There's no way I'd be able to do a list of what are objectively the Top 10 Worst Villains ever so this list is more opinion-based and more what I consider to be 10 terrible villains presented in no particular order, though I do think some are worse than others.

So without further ado, let's dive into 10 Of The Worst Villains In Media...

Jessie, James and Meowth from Pokémon

Pokémon is awesome and has some amazing characters to offer. These three...are not among them. If there's anything I'll forever sing the praises of Pokémon Horizons for, it's getting rid of these twerps and replacing them with The Explorers. As criminally underused as they are, at least they're halfway decent villains who don't annoy the crap out of me whenever they're onscreen!

Jessie, James and Meowth are members of Team Rocket and are Ash's most recurring enemies throughout his time on the show. If any characters overstayed their welcome longer than even Ash himself did, it was these guys. Even as a kid, I couldn't stand these morons and was always rooting for Ash and friends to kick their pathetic asses. Jessie, James and Meowth aren't credible villains in the slightest. They're not threatening, they're not particularly cunning or clever and they're not funny either. They're just an annoying running gag that stopped being funny years ago and all they ever do is steal screentime from villains who deserve it more than they do and act as a forced conflict for Ash and friends so they have something to do, even though Pokémon Horizons has proven you don't need a villain to face in every episode in order to have a conflict. Whenever they're in battle, their Pokémon mostly get their asses kicked and prove to be no actual threat to our heroes and their single-minded goal of trying to catch Pikachu all the time just makes them pathetic. I mean they keep trying this one thing and keep failing at it over and over again. You'd think they'd take the hint already. And what's even worse is that these guys are often given a chance at redemption and just NEVER TAKE IT! For crying out loud Team Rocket, you're more successful at anything other than being villains, so stop being villains and pursue the honest life for once! Your lives will be much better for it!

The only time Team Rocket are ever well-utilized is if the episode is actually ABOUT them and they aren't instigating the conflict for the millionth time. That and them being more serious and capable villains in the Black and White era helped too. But aside from that, Team Rocket are lame villains who should've been dropped from the show years ago. Thank god we have The Explorers instead of these twerps now. Team Rocket can go blasting off again and into a spot on this list...

Claudia from The Dragon Prince

You shouldn't be surprised that this b**** is on the list. I've complained about her numerous times in my reviews of The Dragon Prince over the years, so you should've expected her to be here. XD

Claudia is the worst character to come out of The Dragon Prince, bar none, and it all comes down to how the writing has no idea what to do with her. She's introduced as this goofy woman with a quirky nature and a knowledge of Dark Magic who is loyal to her father and maybe has an interest in Callum. But then later on, she becomes this obsessed deranged lunatic who can't clearly see that her father is evil (or worse, probably doesn't care and is just as bad as he is) and despite even Viren coming to see that his motivations were wrong, Claudia still can't get the hint and is still on her obsessed path of taking down Xadia. I just wish this dumbass would get the hint already but she NEVER DOES! And on top of that, while Claudia's supposedly becoming more threatening and serious as a villain, she STILL has moments of being goofy and quirky! Like, how am I supposed to take her seriously if she's squeeing about how cute something is or shaking her arse in her father's face or complimenting how nice her boyfriend's farts smell? Pick a lane writers, is she supposed to be a dangerous villain or a silly one? You can't have both, or at the very least you can't have both in the way that YOU handle it! Take the Joker from the Batman franchise. He's the perfect mix of goofy and threatening in the sense that his schemes have a clown theme going on, but they're executed in a dangerous manner that kills people, his style of humour isn't juvenile, and the Joker's clown motif doesn't stop him from being a scary and menacing villain. Claudia's goofiness just takes away any chance she has at being threatening and makes her inconsistent.

Oh and the writers constantly try to make her sympathetic despite us having no reason to feel sorry for her. Get used to this complaint coming up as many of the villains on this list have this same problem. A villain who's supposed to be sympathetic but isn't is NOT a good villain in the slightest and Claudia is one such example of this.

If I knew Dark Magic, I'd cast a spell to get rid of this crazy witch. The sooner she's gone from The Dragon Prince, the better I say...

Megatron from Transformers 1-5

Megatron is one of my favourite villains of all time, especially the Transformers Prime incarnation of the character. So you can imagine that as a Megatron fan, it hurts to have to put at least one version of the character on this countdown. And that version of course is the one from the Michael Bay Transformers films.

The Michaely Bay Transformers films are NOT good Transformers media at all and have done more harm than good for the brand. Their depiction of Megatron is one such example. This Megatron isn't the cunning, badass, threatening gladiator of the pits of Kaon that he usually is, but is instead a generic brute who has a very vaguely defined backstory with Optimus and as the films go on, his competence levels drop and drop until he ends up constantly playing second-fiddle to another villain. It's pathetic how these movies couldn't get Megatron right in all five installments. He was decent enough in the first move and actually came off as a threat, but then the sequels came and he suddenly becomes weaker and weaker as they go along. In the first movie, he was tossing Optimus around like a ragdoll and ripping Autobots like Jazz in half. In the second movie, he can barely even TOUCH Optimus, even with help from Starscream and Grindor, and only won that battle because Prime was an idiot and let himself get distracted. Then in the third movie, he's sitting around like a lazy bum doing nothing and has to be coaxed by Carly into taking down Sentinel Prime when the REAL Megatron wouldn't need such prompting. And then after that, he gets killed in five seconds by an injured, one-armed Optimus Prime. Again, PATHETIC! He briefly looked competent again in Age of Extinction when he came back as Galvatron and actually held his own against Prime, but he was stuck fighting for screentime with Lockdown and the human characters so he had to be brushed aside in the climax. And then come The Last Knight, he gets defeated in five seconds by Prime AGAIN!

This clown doesn't deserve to be called "Megatron". He's a disgrace to the name of "Megatron". He's not interesting, he's not cunning or intelligent, his threat levels decrease as the movies go on and he just comes off as an afterthought in most of the movies, like even Michael Bay and his team have no idea what to do with him. There are far superior incarnations of Megatron out there such as Prime, Animated, Transformers One and hell, even the Netflix cartoons have a superior take on Megatron compared to these films! If I were a Decepticon, I wouldn't follow THIS Megatron into battle, or anywhere else for that matter....

Reva/Third Sister from Obi-Wan Kenobi

How fitting that the worst character from this show gets a spot on the list? If any Star Wars villain deserves to be here, it's Reva without question.

I already detailed in my review of Obi-Wan Kenobi back in 2022 what a terrible villain this girl is, but it bears repeating. Reva Sevander was a character who was far more interesting in concept than in execution. She's a survivor of the Jedi Purge in Episode III and was a youngling at the time Order 66 was carried out. Yet what does she do when she grows up? Becomes an Inquisitor and gleefully commits acts of murder or dismemberment despite the fact she was traumatized by the events of Order 66. She hates Darth Vader for what he's done to her and the other Jedi, yet she joins him and gleefully commits acts of villainy? What the hell? Did the writers have ANY idea what they wanted to do with Reva? It's like they wanted her to be unrepentantly evil, but then another writer said "No, make her sympathetic" and thus we have this clumsily written mess of a villain in where she does evil things to people, especially with little provocation...and yet we're supposed to feel sorry for her because of what happened to her? Sorry guys, but a sympathetic backstory doesn't make a character sympathetic. Reva's nothing more than a giant hypocrite who is unworthy of redemption, yet the season ends with her getting redeemed because...I genuinely have no idea why, she just does.

Not only is Reva terribly written, but as a villain she's a complete joke. She acts like this overly emotionally, impulsive, reckless idiot who gets outsmarted very easily, is all talk and no show and she's such a nobody that Darth Vader is able to toy with her before stabbing her. And if that wasn't lame enough, she somehow survives that when a lightsaber stab is always fatal (or it should be). So yeah, she's not only badly written, but she's like a bad fan OC from a bad fanfiction in where she can survive impossible odds despite the fact that in regular canon, something like that would normally kill someone. Reva is just a terrible villain overall and unworthy of being part of the Star Wars brand. She's hypocritical, unthreatening, an absolute joke of a villain and gets an unearned redemption arc in the end. The Force was NOT strong with this character in any sense of the word...

As is, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP BULLYING MOSES INGRAM ABOUT THE CHARACTER! HATE THE CHARACTER, NOT THE ACTRESS, ALRIGHT?!

Chairman Drek from Ratchet and Clank

This is a villain who's mostly let down by how stupid his plan is, but I'll get to that.

Chairman Drek is the main villain of Ratchet & Clank, the first installment in the popular PlayStation exclusive video-game franchise that is still going to this day. And as the first villain in the first ever game in the series...he was not a good first impression in the slightest. Not only does this guy look completely unintimidating with his design that makes him look more like a comic relief villain than anyone we can take seriously, but he's a villain who's so dumb that it beggars' belief. He's the kind of guy where his plan doesn't make a lick of sense whatsoever.

So, what is his stupid plan? He wants to take pieces of other planets to build a new planet and his entire motivation for doing this is simply for profit. First of all, I don't think that's how building a planet works. I'm no scientist but even I know that a plan like this is dead on arrival. Second of all, why the hell did they make that dumb twist that his motivation is solely for profit? They had a good motivation for him to do it when he suggested he was doing it to save his own planet from destruction, so why ruin that by making it so he has a really dumb reason for what he's doing? Granted, his plan's already stupid in the first place, but at least doing it because he thinks it'll save his world made sense as a motivation. Doing it for profit makes NO sense whatsoever! Like, how is he possibly going to profit from this operation if he's going to keep destroying planets? If all the planets end up gone, then there are no planets left to give him any money! All he's going to do in the end is end up draining away his own finances with this dumbass plan because by the time he's done, there'll be no one left to profit from! How is it I can see that this plan is asinine but he can't? Granted, he's probably insane so of course he can't see how idiotic his plan is.

So as I've said, because his plan is so dumb, it's impossible to take him seriously as a villain when all you can do is think about how idiotic his motivations are. I can't take a villain seriously if they're as stupid as he is! Thankfully, the Ratchet and Clank movie vastly improved this guy by making his plan less stupid by removing the profit motivation. This time, he really is motivated by a desire to save his world and wants to clean up his father's mess. It's still a dumb plan, but at least he doesn't have a ridiculous reason for carrying it out. As is, the video-game version of Chairman Drek deserves the medal for Dumbest Plan In Media History, and that alone is why he ended up on this list...

Damian Cray from Alex Rider: Eagle Strike

Alex Rider is awesome, and many of his villains are awesome. Sadly, Damian Cray is the one exception to this rule. For this entry, I am STRICTLY talking about his portrayal in the novels, NOT the Amazon Prime show. Just FYI though, he's MUCH better in the TV series than in the books.

Damian Cray is on the list for the same reason as Chairman Drek is, the fact he's a villain who's plan is so idiotic and nonsensical that it makes him impossible to take seriously. Unlike Chairman Drek where he did have the occasional funny moment and at least a little charisma, Damian Cray has none of that. He's just an arrogant douchelord who has no charisma whatsoever and is essentially a spoiled manchild who is rich in dollars but poor in sense. The fact he acknowledges he does horrible things yet still thinks he's a good guy doesn't do him any favours at all. And then there's how he doesn't even care about his parent's deaths and even sees it as a blessing, which has me beliving he may have arranged that "bizarre accident" that killed them...

But all that pales in comparison to his plan, his stupid, idiotic, asinine, moronic plan. OK, so he wants to deal with the world's drug problem. Fair enough. So how does he go about with this plan? By hijacking Air Force One and firing nuclear missiles at the countries that supply them.

...

...

DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN WHY THAT IS SO STUPID?!?!

How is THAT supposed to solve the world's drug problem?! Nuking the countries that supply them will just cause more problems than it solves by infecting the world with radiation that will poison everybody for generations to come! He claims he'll "save lives" with this ridiculous plan WHEN ALL THAT'LL DO IS KILL MORE PEOPLE THAN THE DRUGS HE'S SO AGAINST ARE DOING! And to make matters worse, Alex Rider points this out to him and he STILL goes with his stupid plan! What mental gymnastics do you go through in order to conclude that nuking countries to stop a drug problem is a good idea?!

Damian Cray is Alex Rider's worst enemy, and I don't mean in the "he's my arch-nemesis" sense. He's pathetic, he's unappealing, he's not charming and his plan is the only plan in media history that's probably as dumb as Chairman Drek's. It's no wonder I always enjoy reading his death scene at the end of the book he's in...

Number 4: Namaari from Raya and the Last Dragon

If I ever made a list of the worst Disney Villains, this b**** would be Number 1 without question because I have one serious bone to pick with this woman.

It's such a shame too, because Namaari had potential to be a complex and interesting character, but damn it all if the execution didn't ruin her chances to be great. Namaari is like Reva in how she's a character who does terrible things throughout her movie, has no remorse for her actions and yet somehow is meant to be sympathetic and we're supposed to be rooting for her. Yeah, I fail to see how I'm supposed to feel sorry for someone who gleefully manipulated Raya so her family could get what they wanted and take over Kumandra and doesn't once feel any remorse for her actions, or even see herself as being at fault for what's happened. What's worse is that the narrative AGREES with her and frames it as if RAYA is the one who's wrong despite Namaari being the cause of everything going wrong! I can't even wrap my head around such idiotic writing choices that went into this film's story that somehow nobody realized were idiotic ideas. How is Raya the one who's at fault when Namaari is the one who manipulated her and caused the Druun to run rampant and petrify everybody?

And to make matters worse, near the climax of the movie, Namaari seems to be willing to work with Raya and Sisu...only to then pull a crossbow on them for no reason, thus exploiting their trust yet again, and she ends up shooting Sisu dead, thus dooming Kumandra to the Druun since Sisu was their last hope of saving the world! And on top of all that? SHE STILL DOESN'T REALIZE ALL THIS MESS IS HER FAULT! She still frames it as if Raya's the one who's wrong here and Raya somehow agrees with her! And just like Reva, she gets an unearned redemption in the end by helping to save the world. Yeah, the evil b**** who doomed the world in the first place and blames everybody but herself for her actions gets redeemed in the end. Yippee, what a wonderful message to give to your audience Disney. =P I can't believe Kelly Marie Tran actually wants Raya and Namaari to be a couple in the future. Such an idea makes my skin crawl...

Namaari: if there's anyone who can never be trusted, it's this evil creature. She deserves nothing more than to be petrified by the Druun forever...

Number 3: Hawk Moth from Miraculous Ladybug

Oh Hawk Moth, you had such promise at the beginning...TOO BAD YOU THREW IT ALL AWAY AS THE SHOW WENT ON!!!

I've talked extensively about Hawk Moth in previous posts, especially my Vs. essay on the Miraculous Ladybug movie and TV show and also my Vs. essay of the Agreste family vs. Lillie's family from Pokémon Sun and Moon. So if you want the full details, check out those posts.

For this one, I'll just cover the same basic points that many fans have made regarding Hawk Moth. Hawk Moth is yet another one of those terribly written villains in where he's the most evil man you can every imagine, and yet we're somehow supposed to feel sorry for him. I really couldn't care less that he's grieving for his comatose wife, I'm NOT going to feel sorry for a guy who brainwashes people (including a friggin' BABY!), takes great pleasure on committing his acts of evil and terrorizes Paris on a regular basis just to steal the magical items of two superpowered teenagers. Oh and the fact he abuses Adrien on a regular basis and makes it seem as if Adrien is wrong to object to his treatment doesn't help. But what makes him worse than examples such as Namaari and Reva above is that he essentially wins in the end. He gets to make his wish and gets to be remembered as a hero while suffering NO repercussions for his actions whatsoever. Yay, I'm so happy the evil monster who abuses his son and does evil things for the lolz got what he wanted in the end. :/

Like with Drek and Damian Cray, this character was done much better in other media, namely the movie in where he actually IS sympathetic and DOESN'T get away with his crimes in the end. So as you can see, Hawk Moth is a villain who can work, easily. It's just with the show's horrendous writing and the way it handles its characters, we got this guy in where he's a terribly written villain with inconsistent motivations (he goes from world domination to trying to revive his wife over the course of a single season) and we don't get the pleasure of seeing him defeated in the end. It's frankly miraculous that the writers ever thought this was a good villain for their show...

EVERY Villain from RWBY

RWBY is a show that has MANY things that suck about it and its villains are no exception. Even RWBY's most die-hard fans are inclined to agree the one thing the show can never do right is make actual good villains.

I did cover at least partially why these villains don't work in my rise and fall of RWBY essay, but I can go into more details here. The problem with RWBY's villains is that they all share the same problem: they're all overpowered juggernauts who have such little to their characters that the writers make them near unstoppable in a battle just to make them look "cool". Needless to say, they failed miserably at it. Not once did I ever take a shine to any of these villains. They're not interesting, they're not sympathetic, they're not charismatic and they're certainly not entertaining to watch when they all feel like the same bloody character in how they're just super badasses who can kick our hero's asses with ease. Making your villains all unstoppable juggernauts DOESN'T make them cool, it makes them annoying! How can we possibly believe our heroes are getting any better if these losers can keep curb-stomping them all the time? And don't tell me "it's to raise the tension and keep the threat levels high", you can do that without making EVERY. SINGLE. ONE OF THEM stupidly overpowered!

Take away their overpowered natures and what are you left with? A bunch of blank slates that had potential to be interesting but were let down by the poor writing. Roman Torchwick is just a punk who talks a big deal but is really just a pawn for Salem's scheme and has the charisma of a depressed donkey, Cinder Fall is this evil creature that the writers keep saying we're supposed to feel sorry for because of her backstory that rips off Cinderella, Hazel is this brute who hates Ozpin for being responsible for his sister's death to the point he'll murder Oscar despite Oscar not being responsible for the deed, Tyrian Callows is just the Joker with a scorpion tail, Emerald is someone who's loyal to Cinder and completely onboard with her evil until she...just isn't anymore, Mercury...I don't really know what his deal is but I bet it sucks, Adam Taurus is just your typical abusive ex-boyfriend who is an even bigger criminal than the racists that made his life hell, Neo is a mute psycho who's loyal to Roman for reasons that allude me because why would anybody be loyal to that douchelord and Watts...um...he exists. That's all I can say about him. The only villain who's kind of interesting is Salem, and even then she's let down by the slow build-up to get her involved in the story and she's all talk and no show in the end.

It's fascinating how this one show managed to fail at making any of its villains interesting at all. All of them are either one-dimensional, uninteresting, terribly written or poorly executed and the fact all of them share the same problem of being uber-powerful juggernauts to make them seem threatening just means they're all flawed in the same way. These characters should be used as examples of how NOT to write villains...

Injustice Superman

How many superhero fans wish this trope would just die already? I know I feel that way...

The Evil Superman trope is a trope that has lost all meaning, and it's all thanks to this sorry excuse for a villain. Injustice Superman is such a terrible villain that I wrote an entire essay last year discussing why he's so bad. Injustice Superman embodies everything I hate in a badly written villain: he's hypocritical to the point he comes off as pathetic and childish, he tries to come off as sympathetic despite being the least sympathetic character in the game, he throws away any chance at redemption for no real reason and he's ultimately based around a lazy and bland concept that makes him an interesting character. If you weren't sick of the Evil Superman trope, then this guy probably has done it for you. The trope was better used in the Justice League two-parter, A Better World, where that Superman was a more chilling villain and wasn't meant to be sympathetic. Injustice Superman is just Justice Lords Superman done wrong and it's such a pity as he could've been a cool villain. Instead, he's one of the worst villains in all of media due to how terribly written he is. He's not sympathetic, he's not interesting, he's so hypocritical that it baffles my mind as to how he's able to think the way he does and not see how he contradicts himself and he's just not a villain that I can ever find compelling to watch.

Anytime I play the Injustice games, I'm always having fun beating this loser up, because he doesn't deserve the Superman name and he certainly DOESN'T deserve to call himself a hero. This is a Superman who is no better than the villains he faces and it's why he's one of the worst villains in media...

And that's all I have for my choices of 10 of the worst villains in media. I hope you enjoyed the list and I invite you all to share your thoughts down below. Do you hate these villains too? What are YOUR personal picks for the worst villains in media? Do let me know.

Next week, I'll be reviewing Transformers One. See you then media fans!

(Dis)Honourable Mentions

Fiona Fox from Archie Sonic

Jafar from the Aladdin remake

Zemo from the Marvel Cinematic Universe