10 Obscenely Evil Video Game Villain Plans

1. Inventing Fascism - Final Fantasy XIV

final fantasy 14
Square Enix

Far and away the most obscenely evil, screwed in the head, "dude, that is effed up" video game villain plan hails from Final Fantasy XIV, and fandom darling Emet-Selch, the inventor of fascism. No, I'm not kidding.

To inform those unaware without spoiling too much, Emet-Selch is a member of the Ascians, an immortal order of wizards from the literal, actual dawn of the universe, whose goals are (for various spoiler reasons) to cause as much chaos as they possibly can. And nothing sows chaos like conflict, so Emet-Selch was put in charge of creating villains, while his cohort Elidibus was put in charge of inspiring heroes to fight them.

Emet-Selch proceeded to then invent the political concepts of fascism and imperialism, introduce them to humanity through various disguises, and then set about a millennia-spanning cycle of building up generic evil JRPG empires, ducking out when the inevitable JRPG heroes came along to tear them down, waiting a few decades, then starting all over again.

The real evil genius of this plan is that he gets what he wants no matter what. Defeating fascism is never done peacefully, so even if this or that empire doesn't last long, lots of people are dead by the end. And if they do last a while, all the better. An established, world-spanning government suddenly collapsing is guaranteed to throw everything out of order. The ultimate, horrific example of the Xanatos Gambit.

The blood on Emet-Selch's hands is truly incalculable. But he's also Very Very Sad, so this fact is conveniently forgotten by fans who wanna suck his toes. Tale as old as time.

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Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?