Hello everyone!
The BBEG of our ongoing campaign is not carved in stone yet, so I’m looking for some inspiration. As far as I’ve encountered them, the overwhelming majority of evil masterminds in pop culture and fiction are male. I’d like to have anything different than that, but at the moment, I can’t think of many examples to draw inspiration from.
I don’t have a lot of specifications for what I’m looking for. Apart from not being male, they should just be examples of true spite, not someone who can be bargained with. And they shouldn’t be the right hand of another greater villain, but stand on their own feet in terms of scheming and orchestrating bad stuff. (So no Darth Vader, but an Emperor. An Empress, actually, or really anything but a dude.) They can come from any genre, media and setting. Favorable if they can pack a punch or two or more, though not mandatory.
D&D has Tiamat and Lolth, Star Trek TNG has the Borg Queen. But other than that, my mind’s completely blank right now. I’d really appreciate any suggestions for more baddies to take a look at, characters that help me to get into other evil mindsets than those I’m most familiar with.
Thank you very much!
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In no particular order…
Maleficient, Cersei Lannister, Hela, Bellatrix Lestrange, Cruella, Ursula, Queen of Heart, Poison Ivy, Wicked Witch, Mom from Futurama, not sure of the xenomorph queen from Aliens counts?, GLaDOS, Number Six, Stargate had a few over the years, Starcraft’s Kerrigan/Queen of blades, Resident Evil’s Lady Dimetrescu, Carmen Sandiego, Doom’s Olivia Pierce, Airbender’s Azula, Carrie, Annie Wilkes from Misery, Claire from House of Cards, the Aunt in Handmaiden, Harley Quinn, Lady Macbeth…
That’s all I have for now
Oh, GLaDOS personality in something like an elder brain. Sign me up.
“We Are Pleased That You Made It Through The Final Challenge, Where We Pretended We Were Going To Murder You.”
Quite some! I’ll look into those I don’t know (some didn’t come to mind yesterday), thanks!
Stop boxing yourself in. Anything any of those males can do can be divorced from their gender. Genderswap them and adapt.
Check out rejectedprincesses.com, it has a great collection of powerful women. Not all of them are “bad”, per se, but many of them are; there’s a whole collection of female criminals for example. Or you can just use the “personality” search on the sidebar.
This is awesome! Thanks for pointing out!
One stereotype to avoid (or lean into, lampshade, or subvert) is that villainous women are manipulative, seductive, using guile, deception, charm, enchantment and so on. Your basic Poison Ivy template. Even Catwoman is sometimes depicted that way (like in @neilhimself’s “Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader”, albeit in a reference to “The Death of Robin Hood”).
I’m personally kinda a fan of the trope and Ivy is my fave Batman-verse character but speaking to a lot of other women I know it’s something many are sick to death of. Especially when that seems to be the only kind of villainous woman. (Just like how chainmail bikinis became less of a problem when it was just one of many styles and not the only option.)
I see that a lot of other examples in the thread immediately went for that trope and I don’t blame 'em—only goes to show how pervasive it is and how refreshing some other approaches would be.
My initial thoughts when posting the OP were something like “When the decision against a male antagonist is made, there’s a higher probability of the baddie also having a more original motivation.” However, others have rightly said that just changing the gender of male BBEGs already gives opportunity for some great ideas inspired by such thought experiments. And my general idea when writing the OP isn’t too valid, either. Should have been less fixated on gender and more straightforward that what I’m looking for are unique personalities and original motivations of antagonists unlike the classics money, power, dogma.
Few top of my head
- Poison Ivy (DC Comics)
- The Dathomir witches, especially the Nightsister clan (Star Wars)
- Number Six (Battlestar Galactica)
- Hela (Marvel)
- Cersei Lannister (ASOIAF)
But that said often you can just take a male villain and change them to a woman. Or non-binary. Would it be anything diffrent if it was EMPRESS Palpatine? LADY Vader would change a few things, but imagine on Mustafar Anakine being late in pregnacy. Duel with Kenobi plays out and she is left legless. Then waking up and being told “in your anger you killed them”. Oh the self-loathing and hatred towards kenobi. Dammit I need dark-as-frakk Lady Vader fanfic now.
Sometimes the simplest solution is the best… Actually didn’t think of just changing their gender, thanks!
Also yeah, my head’s must have been REALLY empty yesterday, 'cause of course I know the Dathomir witches, Hela and some others mentioned in other comments. Just didn’t come to mind when I sat down, don’t know why
Cersei Lannister is the first good example that comes to mind. Dealt a hand she didn’t like by the society she was born into, played her cards really well by starting in the shadows and slowly consolidating direct power onto herself until all of the people between her and the top spot (that is, her husband and sons) were dead, not a top tier military or economic mind but great at playing the game, a skill which was lacking among many of those she defeated.
Cruella DeVille, Ursula, Poison Ivy
Star Trek also has the shape changers, which are non binary, ish?
Fey Queens.Delores umbridge.
Queen Beryl (sailor moon).Dang it, I was gonna suggest Beryl.
She’s a great BBEG, not necessarily evil per se, but I’d look into Darth Traya.
Met as an elderly light side force sensitive woman named Kreia, the Jedi Exile follows her guidance to regain her connection to the force, it having been stripped away by the council. Towards the end of her story she is revealed to be the head of a cult of sith lords who’s goal is to bring balance to the galaxy by destroying the force.
Kotor II
the winter queen from narnia
I think the second book didn’t catch me enough to read on? But if I remember correctly, the Winter Queen was already in the first book, will pick it up again
yes she definitely was. she’s a much more central figure in the first one actually. she’s the main antagonist in the second one of course but she doesn’t get as much ‘screen time’ in the lion the witch and the wardrobe so to speak. in the magician’s nephew you learn way more about her backstory and who she is
For D&D I can also think of Lolth, Tasha//Iggwilv (depending on your interpretation of that mixed bag of lore threads), Ravel Puzzlewell (a hag so powerful or madly knowledgeable she has aspects across the planes from the Planescape setting), and Loviatar the Mistress/Goddess of Pain.
There’s also existent queens like Queen Mary(“Blood Mary”) that oversaw religious purges that you could take inspiration from. (Zealots are rarely reasonable enough to be bargained with.)
You could also just take a historically male example and invert the sex and not make a deal about it. See if your players even notice.
Pearl from MST3K
Read any Anita Blake books by Laurell Hamilton? There are some good female bbegs in that. The first 10 are incredible but after that the mystery aspect gets squeezed out by sex and relationship angst and they get increasingly worse.
Honored Matres from Dune?
Some good inspirations:
Master Cyclonis from Storm Hawks is basically what happens when you put personality of generic evil overlord into a body of snarky teeenage goth girl. She has a tendency of putting people off in a “expected someone taller” way.
Arcane actually has a lot of interesting female villains, with Jinx as a villain protagonist on a downward spiral, Sevika as a ruthless, but loyal criminal enforcer and Ambessa Medarda as a cutthroat politician.
Avatar: the Last Airbender, has, of course, Azula, who is damn good complex character.
Lady from the Chronicles of the Black Company is one of best written evil overlords in fantasy genre.
