Y'all ever think about the way video game bosses are designed to lose? How the bombastic soundtracks, the impressive displays of villainy, the teeth-rattling power of their attacks, are at once engineered not just to sell you on how unfathomably strong and vile they are, but also to make the player's inevitable victory all the sweeter?
Viewed this way, a boss battle is more like a choreographed dance - they call, you respond and counter-call. The trick is to learn the steps - once you know where to move, when to strike, when to defend and how to best allocate your resources, victory is not just achievable but actually almost impossible to avoid. You cannot help but recite the winning plays, over and again, because that is what the dance demands of you both - and is there not a savage sort of beauty in such a thing?
Is it any wonder then that we look back on these bosses so fondly, almost as if they were old friends? We danced together once, and oh what fun we had while doing it!
A while back, in 2022, I did a post listing my favorite villains. That post never sat right with me. Looking back on it now, that is definitely not an ALL-TIME favorite list, more who I liked at that time. And even then, almost IMMEDIATELY after posting it, I thought of a bunch of other characters that I felt deserved a spot on that list.
So.... here's my new, revised, more definitive list. Taking into account which characters have impacted my life the most, which ones have genuinely made me most excited to see them even to this day, taking out the issue of recency bias.
Bowser (Nintendo)
Jafar (Disney, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland)
Cora (Once Upon a Time)
Ardyn Izunia (Final Fantasy XV)
Eobard Thawne/Reverse-Flash (The Flash TV show)
Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars)
Frieza (Dragon Ball)
Kuja (Final Fantasy IX)
Slade (Teen Titans animated series)
Lord Zedd (Power Rangers)
From there is where things start to become less clear in the grand scheme of things, and recency bias and what my mood is at any given time tend to influence things a lot more. But I'm pretty comfortable in saying that these 10 are my favorites!
"For a moment, I felt death's chill wind, such is the might of the gods. But then, I remembered I'm immortal."
I. LOVE. ARDYN. SO. MUCH.
In this post, I will gush attempt to explain what makes Ardyn such an amazing character and villain. There will definitely be spoilers from all of Final Fantasy XV abound, so beware!!
The villains have become an important staple of the Final Fantasy franchise. Without Sephiroth, Kefka, Ultimecia, Kuja, their games wouldn't have been nearly as successful or memorable. Admittedly, as I started playing Final Fantasy XV, a game about a prince essentially going on a road trip with his three buddies, I wasn't sure what to expect as far as its villain.
The first time you meet Ardyn, before you even learn his name, the man is extravagantly dressed, his custom theme music is playing, he most definitely stands out from the crowd of NPCs around them, yet he presents himself as "a man of no consequence".
From there, Ardyn continues to keep his cards very close to his chest. Every time he comes across Noctis and his party, Ardyn playfully interacts with the crew, even helps them as much as he can, while slowly and casually revealing tidbits of information about himself - just enough to imply that he is far more important and consequential than he's letting on. In his early appearances, Ardyn is charismatic, playful, mysterious, and a little creepy. He is clearly having a blast and toying with his prey. He comes off as overly friendly, theatrical, flamboyant, and it's a lot of fun.
We get to the Leviathan boss fight - easily one of THE coolest moments in all of Final Fantasy history in my opinion - where, in the middle of the battle, Ardyn arrives and straight-up murders Lunafreya, Noctis's fiancée. Even then, he playfully mocks Noctis. He also has shapeshifting and illusion abilities, which he uses to further mess with his enemies and trick everyone. The dude is having a GREAT time and it's infectious to watch.
Ardyn is an extremely dark, threatening villain. He has 2,000+ years of torment and grudges swirling around his psyche, he's single-handedly using and taking control of the Niflheim Empire, he has basically become the embodiment of a horrifying disease that turns humans into shadowy daemons, he backstabs and daemonifies even his closest allies, but all the while he retains his playful, theatrical personality. One of his standout moments comes in the Episode Ignis DLC, where he takes off his fedora and plops it onto a random soldier's head as he saunters over to the heroes.
As you learn his backstory, and witness it firsthand in his DLC episode, it's hard not to sympathize with him. He was originally a healer, destined to become the first king of Lucis. When the Starscourge started spreading, Ardyn travelled the land to heal the people, taking their darkness into himself. His jealous brother, Noctis's ancestor, betrayed Ardyn, killed his lover, and took his throne away from him. Ardyn was rejected by the gods, deeming him too corrupted by all the darkness he took in to save everyone else. His lover, an agent of the gods, was even implied to be involved in their betrayal.
The gods essentially decide to make Ardyn a scapegoat, a boogeyman of history. They want him to take his revenge on the royal line, but to die in the process, restoring balance to the Force or whatever. Ardyn is further embittered by this fate, but ultimately submits, prioritizing his need for revenge.
Ultimately, Ardyn wins for a time. As Noctis is absorbed into the Crystal for 10 years, Ardyn cloaks the world in endless night, unleashing countless daemons on the world and taking over Lucis and Niflheim. He has Ifrit, a friggin deity, daemonified and under his control, and his newfound leadership of Lucis also gives him the ability to control the ghosts of past kings, including his brother, to defend his castle.
My one disappointment when it comes to Ardyn? I wish he had epic transformations in the final battle, like every Final Fantasy villain before him. Don't get me wrong, his final battle is still a very powerful and emotional moment in the game. But in a series known for its epic final bosses with multiple forms, and in a game where Ardyn himself daemonifies people and transforms them into grotesque shadow monsters, having become basically the human embodiment of the Starscourge and all of its darkness, he's unable to turn himself into some big shadow form? Would've been really cool, is all I'm saying.
The book "Dawn of the Future" lays out further DLC episodes that unfortunately never happened. I've yet to read this book (I need to!!), but my understanding is that Ardyn ends up allying himself with the heroes against the gods, and they all work to defy their fate. I can't comment too much on this storyline since I've yet to experience the novel, but I like the direction this takes his character, and how he redeems himself while still keeping his darkness and everything that made him a great villain.
He is essentially a Disney villain. You know the type -- theatrical, extravagant, campy, are clearly relishing and having fun with their evil ways, powerful and still a legitimate threat despite their campiness, probably some kind of magic-user... Ardyn completely steals the show and chews the scenery every time he shows up, he is extremely dangerous and unpredictable, and he easily stands out as one of the best Final Fantasy villains in the entire franchise.
In 1994, season 2 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers premiered. And with it came the arrival of Lord Zedd, the show's new main villain. This character has been a large part of my life ever since.
I've always loved this character, but he also didn't have a whole lot of depth in those earlier seasons. To be fair, nobody in that period of the show had much depth. But decades later, he resurfaced in the Boom Studios comics and in recent seasons of the TV show. These new appearances gave the character some much-needed depth, backstory, and even finally gave us a final showdown.
These recent appearances took a character I already had a lot of love for, and catapulted him up into being one of my favorite characters of all time.
So here's the thing about Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: It's a fun, cheesy spectacle, and a lot of people to this day will swear up and down that it's the best era of Power Rangers' 31-year history. I'm old enough to have grown up watching those old earlier episodes and I have a lot of love and nostalgia for them, buuuuut.... The writing and character work are really not that good? Later seasons do a much better job of giving its characters distinct personalities and arcs.
All of the Rangers in the Mighty Morphin era have personalities, but like barely. These "teenagers with attitude" are all upstanding, morally-righteous kids that do various activities for charity and teach classes at their youth center and juice bar...but that's about it. Billy was a genius, Zack was into music and dancing, Kimberly was good at gymnastics, etc, but they all used those skillsets for charity and all had pretty generic goody-good personalities.
The villains sit up in their castle on the moon, shouting about how much they want to destroy the Power Rangers and creating monsters for them to fight....but that's about it.
Rita Repulsa, honestly, was kind of a joke of a character at first. Her scenes were dubbed Sentai footage, limiting the writers on what they could do with her. Her scenes on the moon were surreal and barely coherent. She'd send down a monster, there'd be a bunch of random shots of her randomly laughing or cheering on her monster, she inevitably would make her monster grow for the Megazord battle, and then she'd rant about having a headache. Rinse, wash, repeat.
When Lord Zedd finally showed up in season 2, it was a breath of fresh air. Lord Zedd was not from the Sentai, so the show filmed entirely new scenes for him. The dubbing didn't have to do weird ad-libbing to make the footage make sense, they could film the footage around their writing for the character. And, to contrast Rita's goofy look and demeanor, Zedd was freaking terrifying. He immediately one-ups Rita, exiles her to the far reaches of space, and takes over her operation. He has Serpentera, an extremely powerful and humongous Zord capable of destroying entire planets.
Only, Zedd ended up just being Rita 2.0. He stayed in the moon palace, he would create monsters out of something precious to the Rangers (which was a fun new twist for Zedd), there'd be a bunch of random shots of him randomly laughing and gloating about his upcoming victory, he would inevitably make his monster grow for the Megazord battle, and he'd blame the failure on the incompetence of his minions. Rinse, wash, repeat.
A turning point came about midway through season 2, when Rita Repulsa came back from her exile (using a new actress, so she was no longer limited to weird dubbed-over Sentai footage) and used a love potion to make Zedd fall in love with her, and the two teamed up to take down the Power Rangers and rule the universe together. So begins a weird but magnificent era of the show where Rita and Zedd's story arc was still largely disconnected from the rest of the show, and they still sent down monsters and made them grow and stayed in their moon palace away from the rest of the action, but they did actually have their own story arc for the first time. Their scenes in isolation became this weird sitcom on the moon and I absolutely adored it.
In season 3, Rita's brother Rito showed up. Rito was a bumbling idiot, but also a competent fighter, which made for a fun dynamic. He'd go down to Earth and fight the Rangers and partner with Goldar, but then he'd go up to the sitcom on the moon and keep making Zedd mad by calling him "Ed". Then Rita and Rito's father, Master Vile, showed up. Apparently Master Vile is this big, ultra-evil dude that made even Lord Zedd feel inadequate in comparison, and Master Vile didn't approve Rita marrying Zedd. It's all completely wacky and I love it.
Even as Rita and Zedd became more fleshed out through these wacky family sitcom shenanigans on the moon, their role to the Rangers was still as these distant figures sending down monsters to do their bidding and very rarely actually interacting with the Rangers. Even as a child I desperately wanted to see them in action. What would a battle with Rita or Zedd even look like? How powerful are they? Rita would sometimes come down to Earth to issue orders to double-agent Kat or taunt the Rangers, but still never fought. There was implied to be a lot of history and bad blood between Zedd and the Rangers' mentor, Zordon, but it's never explored. What could their relationship have looked like?
Lord Zedd also became a little more present in season 3. There was an episode where he fought Tommy one-on-one, and he was winning, until Tommy broke his staff and forced him to retreat. He also introduced a team of Dark Rangers, corrupted teenagers he intended to use as his own brand of Power Rangers, but... well... they looked like this.
Because their costumes were so cheaply-made, there was never any actual fight with these Dark Rangers. Disappointing.
When Power Rangers Zeo began, new villains the Machine Empire chased Rita and Zedd out, and their sitcom on the moon became a universal road trip in a camper (yes, a camper). In Power Rangers in Space, they allied with a bunch of other villains and were ultimately turned good when Zordon sacrificed himself to eliminate all evil in the galaxy. Although he didn't appear again for many years, he's heralded both in canon and IRL as one of the most powerful, impactful villains of the franchise.
Overall, Zedd made an impact on me. I was introduced to the character in 1994 when I was 7 years old. In a show where all the characters were pretty shallow and static, Zedd and Rita were the ones driving the show forward and eventually even getting their own storylines with the wacky moon sitcom. I wonder to this day if this show was why I grew to love villains so much for the rest of my life. Rita and Zedd were damn entertaining and kind of became the main characters of the show in a sense? They also had a sense of mystery to them. What made them evil? What was their history with Zordon? There was also this eternal buildup to an inevitable final battle against Lord Zedd that just.... never happened. Where's the payoff?
Then, decades later, Zedd made a comeback in the Boom Studios comics as well as recent TV season Dino Fury and again as the main villain in Cosmic Fury. These new appearances ultimately gave me everything I'd been wanting for the character ever since I was a kid. After 30 years of buildup, we finally got payoff.
I'll start with the comics. Boom Studios' comics are kind of set between episodes of the original show, while also serving as something of a soft reboot? It's more modernized, the characters have cell phones and text each other, and it's aimed for older audiences, giving the comic room to give these characters depth, real demons and personality, etc.
THESE are the Dark Rangers Zedd makes in the comics. Instead of random corrupted teenagers with cheap suits, it's empowered, badass versions of the minions that have been around since the original show (and a shapeshifted Putty Rita, since the story was set during real Rita's exile).
Zedd's personality is much more harsh and terrifying. He's got the demeanor of a hardened warlord. He retains his quirk from the original show of turning objects the Rangers love into monsters, but it's explained that he does this not as a means of destroying the Rangers, but to corrupt and chip away one little thing that they love at a time until they're emotionally broken.
And OHHH BOY HIS BACKSTORY
We learn in the comics that Lord Zedd was once Zophram, Supreme Guardian of the Planet Eltar.... and Zordon's friend and mentor. He fought to save other planets from evil. He slowly grew disillusioned with the politics and bureaucracy of Eltar, and was highly manipulated by Zartus - another friend and mentee - into destroying himself and becoming a monster that Zartus could rally people against for his own political climb to power. Believing that it was Zordon who betrayed and manipulated him, Zophram became Lord Zedd and sought to destroy everything he stood for.
In the "present", Zartus becomes the main villain of the Eltarian War story arc as he begins a full-scale invasion on Earth. It comes out that Zartus was the true evil, and Zedd and Zordon team up to take down Zartus together. Though Zedd shows some remorse and hints of forgiveness toward Zordon, he is too far gone now and continues on the path he's on even after Zartus's defeat.
And THEN, in the Darkest Hour story arc, Zedd even gets a morpher of his own AND BECOMES A POWER RANGER!!!
The series ended after the Darkest Hour event. Zedd never really got too much to do as a main villain in the comics, the focus was more on showcasing other villains and storylines that the show couldn't, but Zedd was still given A LOT of depth as a character. There still was no big final battle or closure against him, and I wish they got to do more with Zedd's cool Ranger form and even his team of Dark Rangers, but he was still very cool and he was given a lot of much-needed character development and layers that still felt respectful of what came before in the show. Evil wasn't born, it was made, and by the time he realized Zartus's deception, he'd already gone too far and killed too many people to be able to take any of it back even if he wanted to.
So hey, all I really need now to satisfy my inner child is CLOSURE and a cool final battle. ENTER DINO FURY AND COSMIC FURY
Zedd gets resurrected. He's still a bit goofy, Power Rangers is a kids' show after all, and they keep his more sitcom-y elements and wit. He teams up with Bajillia Naire (haha pun), the CEO of a big evil interplanetary weapons organization, and seeks to take over the universe. Bajillia even gives him footsoldiers created in his image called Zentinals that are really cool.
In his style of corrupting innocent things, he brainwashes the Blue Dino Fury Ranger, Ollie, into his slave and lieutenant. And honestly? I liked their dynamic a LOT more than I was ever expecting to. He ends up becoming a kind of twisted father figure to Ollie, giving him advice and gifts and showing him compassion and understanding. Ollie seeks his approval and seems to actually have an emotional investment in serving Zedd, rather than doing it just because mwahahahaha.
His big universe takeover plot also leads him into invading and taking over Planet Eltar, Zordon's home planet (and his own, if you follow the comic continuity) and hey, that's a pretty fun development. He stations himself on Eltar and makes his base there, showing just how proud he is to have taken it over.
Annnnnd THEN COMES THE CLOSURE
Zedd's plan in Cosmic Fury is to essentially harness the energy of the Morphin Masters, ancient and all-powerful beings that basically created the Power Rangers (they've been mentioned on and off since the original Mighty Morphin days, so, yay continuity) and absorb all of their energy into himself, becoming the Morphin Master and the single most powerful being in the universe.
He does this. And he becomes a new form (pictured above), Master Zedd.
There is a short battle that follows. Zedd is blasting everything and completely overpowering the Rangers. There's no chance they can beat him. He's won.
......uuuuuuntil Bajillia Naire betrays him and sucks him into the device they'd been using to trap the Morphin Masters. Turns out her plan all along had been to kiss up to Zedd and get him the ultimate power he wanted, so that she could sacrifice him to unleash a wave of pure evil across the universe that will destroy all things good. This mirrors Zordon's sacrifice that erased all evil from the universe and caused Zedd's original defeat way back in Power Rangers in Space. Yay continuity.
Eventually, Bajillia is defeated and the Rangers talk Zedd into giving up his Morphin Master power to save his own life. This is done when Ollie, the Blue Ranger that he had previously brainwashed, connects with Zedd and reminds him of advice that Zedd had given him before. Even without the brainwashing spell, Ollie understands Zedd's mind and how he works and manages to talk him down. Zedd is trapped in an endless nightmare of being with Rita (which is a fun fate for him), and it's said he will be stuck there until he reforms, however long that takes.
And like.... okay. The big final battle with him was a bit different than I was expecting. But I really like it?? His big universe takeover plot had essentially worked, he won, and his defeat was a fun nod to his previous defeat from decades ago and even his relationship with Ollie had a payoff.
Cosmic Fury had finally given us closure to a villain that, for decades, had a ton of buildup and no real confrontation or battle against. They did it in a way that was true to who the character previously was, and even added some interesting new directions for the character. This, on top of all the depth and backstory he was given in the comics, has made him a surprisingly complex, complete character, and that's what I had always wanted for him ever since I was a kid.
I've been a HUGE fan of the Xeno series ever since Xenogears. These games (Xenogears, the Xenosaga trilogy, the Xenoblade games) have THE best stories I've ever experienced in a video game series. They're SO GOOD.
That said, Praetor Amalthus of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has slowly become one of my favorite characters of all time. I love him, I feel like he's underrated and that a lot of people don't seem to really understand his character, so allow me to map out why he is so cool and complex!
One of my favorite character archetypes is the manipulative mastermind villain. The behind-the-scenes schemer who was behind EVERYTHING all along. The Xeno series has some GREAT villains, and just about EVERY iteration has one of those masterminds I described - in fact, some of them even have SEVERAL, so there's always suspense over WHICH mastermind grand plan will be the one to top all of the others. I'm sure I'll be gushing about other Xeno antagonists in future posts.
Although he's not the most present in the game, or the final boss, Amalthus is most DEFINITELY the main antagonist of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and the mastermind directly behind just about EVERY single major event in the game and its DLC.
I honestly feel Amalthus is underrated - and from what I can tell, a lot of people online don't seem to understand the character very well. The game doesn't do much in the way of directly explaining a lot of his motivations, but at the same time they very purposely give us so much subtext surrounding his character to piece together the answers ourselves.
At a very young age, Amalthus suffered through an extremely traumatizing event. Trauma really changes people - without going too deep into it, I myself had a very rough and traumatizing childhood, and I'm here to tell you that shit can REALLY warp you if you let it. I let it turn me into a pretty bad, vengeful, hateful person for a while.
But here's the thing: No one wants to be the villain in their own story. As trauma changed and corrupted Amalthus, his mind justified the actions he took as a result of that corruption. He saw the world as a violent, awful, murderous place with no redeemable qualities. He turned to Indol, a religious state, to get answers and help the helpless, but his missionary work only showed him more murder and violence and lawlessness. He became so desperate for answers and hope for the world that he climbed the World Tree to confront the Architect. Instead, he found the Aegis Crystals, which he saw as holy relics, and formed Malos.
Malos was born from Amalthus's warped view of the world, and so he became a violent, hateful, murderous force. The ironic thing is that, because Amalthus essentially saw Malos as a holy symbol and a representation of the Architect's will, he took Malos's nature as proof that the world was an awful place, and that even the Architect was devoid of any sympathy. Amalthus and Malos became terrible influences on each other without realizing it.
I think, at every step of the way, Amalthus truly sees himself as a good person. It's the rest of the world that is awful. His attempts to gain as much control as possible over all of Alrest, and the countless wars and murders done in service to that, is an attempt to save Alrest from the lawless chaos he sees it as. Even arguably his darkest moment, saving a baby and then murdering it, was an act of mercy in his eyes. He was saving the baby from growing up in such a terrible world.
His motives, in his eyes, were valid. He was trying to help Alrest. But because he already saw Alrest itself as such a horrible, violent world, it meant that he, too, had the moral authority to be horrible and violent. In his mind that was just how the world worked, it was how to get things done. When he meets Rex and the party, he's pleasant and kind to them, because that is the person he sees himself as. He tries to work with them, but manipulates them and gives them his own skewed version of events.
But another thing I LOVE about Amalthus is that, even though he and Malos ultimately become enemies, and Malos and his Torna group actively work against Amalthus, they are kind of unwittingly his minions? Torna wants to destroy the Architect and, essentially, the world. Amalthus can't quite see or admit it to himself, but that is exactly what Amalthus wants too, he is just not nearly as self-aware as Torna is.
As the party learns of Amalthus's true nature and evil deeds, he starts becoming much more openly antagonistic. He essentially saw it as a betrayal of his holy purpose and saw them as the enemy. As time goes on, he starts going so far as trying to destroy the World Tree and essentially all of Alrest. I think that, partly, is a result of Malos's corruption of him, with Amalthus thinking the Architect's will itself wants to destroy Alrest. But it's also a desperate grab for control - if he can't see the Architect and/or save the world, no one can. In his mind, no one has earned that right more than him. He's the only person that was dedicated enough to climb the World Tree. He found the Aegis Crystals and bonded with one of them. He worked hard to control every government, to control the Core Crystal trade itself by registering them and licensing their Drivers, etc.
But like.... okay. I'm sorry. The game takes place in a world where continents are living, organic Titans. Civilizations live on the backs of giant monsters that roam the giant Cloud Sea of Alrest. It was probably the coolest friggin moment of any Xeno game EVER when Amalthus started mind controlling the Titans. Amalthus quite literally took control of the world itself.
I also love that his huge "final battle" form is essentially a manifestation of his manipulations. He registered and "cleansed" the Core Crystals, and turned himself into basically a grotesque monster by fusing himself with all of his Crystals. And like, sure, Malos and his Artifice are the final boss of the game, but Malos himself is essentially a manifestation of Amalthus's hatred and warped worldview.
Amalthus is a VERY effective villain, and he's an interesting study on just how much mental gymnastics a person can do to justify their own evil. He had zero self-awareness, he actively sought to find the good in humanity but instead kept finding signs that his twisted mindset was correct, and grew to use the world's own ruthless ways against it.
Just because nintendo SAYS the Koopalings aren’t Bowser’s kids, doesn’t mean they aren’t his kids. You can’t have a bunch of kid underlings and NOT just instantly be their father. Even if it’s not biological…. BESIDES, it’s canon that all babies come from storks in that world, let the man just have a horde of babies because the stork won’t STOP SENDING THEM.
Maybe each koopaling wasn’t technically Bowser’s kid but little bastards that none of the Storks wanted to deal with so they dumped them at Bowser’s every time because they kinda look like him and so they can be his problem and Bowser just rolled with it.
… I mean why else would they have their own rooms in some versions of Bowser’s castle, their own airships and castles with their names on it if they ain’t special to Bowser in some way? Petey Piranha doesn’t get that kinda treatment.
And, being Bowser, he probably doesn’t even question any of it, questions are for nerds. Except possibly how did “Roy come pre-packaged with sunglasses?” because let’s face it, he probably did arrive like that.
Just realized: the fact that babies come from storks in the Marioverse means that sex isn’t even required.
So it IS entirely plausible that Bowser Jr. was sent to Bowser during a period where Peach was long enough at his castle that whoever sent the stork babies was sure she and Bowser were married.
So Bower Jr. calling Peach “Momma”… …might not be far off.
