Normally characters in fiction are hopefully multi-dimensioned and well-developed, or at the very least entertaining. That said, even when they are well-developed, and or entertaining, or neither, these characters can be real assholes.
So who are the biggest assholes in fiction and why?
Do well intentioned assholes count? As in, they think they're doing the right thing, but the results of their actions make them literally thousands of times worse than Hitler?
The man is a dreamwalker able to dominate the minds of those gifted with magic. He uses this ability to enslave virtual every magic user in his territories and subjects them to his brutality (rape and torture) until they break and become complacent enough that they will do whatever he asks, regardless of if he uses his ability or not.
His beliefs are essentially ultra-mega communism with his final goal to activate the boxes of Orden and rule the world of life.
When told that there is a chance of him destroying the world by opening the wrong box he just shrugs and states that his empire and himself are going to the Creator (heaven) anyway for their righteous actions so it's a win-win regardless.
Kurata from Digimon Savers. He's from a kids show where its specifically a rule of the universe that digimon don't permanently die, just reincarnate. Kurata went out of his way to invent a method to permanently kill digimon out of raw racism. He's not just a darker an edgier character, he's character that outright defies the laws of the universe just to make it a worse place.
Do well intentioned assholes count? As in, they think they're doing the right thing, but the results of their actions make them literally thousands of times worse than Hitler?
Alrighty then. I nominate William Dulac, the protagonist of Alan Dean Foster's The Damned trilogy book A Call To Arms.
Some background. Two civilisations are at war in the galaxy - the Weave (an alliance of races, who are defending themselves from...) and the Amplitur, a race of psionics who enjoy genetic engineering and brainwashing alien species into following their ideology, known as The Purpose. They believe that in order for The Purpose to succeed, all intelligent beings must believe in it.
A Weave scoutship comes to Earth looking for aliens to help them fight the Amplitur. They come across a boat, which is where Dulac comes in. Dulac believes that humanity is progressing towards becoming a peaceful race (like most of the aliens), so when the aliens reveal that they want humanity to join in the war, he plots to sabotage their efforts by giving them dregs who wouldn't be good at fighting. When these dregs turn out to be above the Weave's average for soldiers, Dulac convinces the aliens to initiate contact with Earth's governments in such a way that, after fending off an Amplitur invasion, the Earth becomes isolationist and only interested in improving its local space industry. The Weave, which was already leery about accepting the aggressive humans into the alliance, leaves Earth to its own devices, only taking volunteers.
The result? The war drags on long enough for the Amplitur to capture some human volunteer soldiers, breed their own elites, which forces a tactical stalemate while civilisation after civilisation is captured by them to become yet more mind-altered slaves.For a thousand years.
If Will Dulac had not been such a colossally small-picture, selfish, narcissistic ideologue, the war could have been over in less than a few decades because due to peculiarities of the setting's FTL drives, wars are fought on the ground, and humans outclassed all the combatants the enemy could throw at them. If anything, he made the war worse because the Amplitur did not have the same restrictions on access to humans as the Weave (volunteers versus breeding).
Jack Slash from Worm. Alot of the other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine at least have interesting backstories and personalities (Though all of them are Capital E Evil and P Psychotic). Jack's defining characteristic is that he is a massive asshole.
Kurata from Digimon Savers. He's from a kids show where its specifically a rule of the universe that digimon don't permanently die, just reincarnate. Kurata went out of his way to invent a method to permanently kill digimon out of raw racism. He's not just a darker an edgier character, he's character that outright defies the laws of the universe just to make it a worse place.
Jack Slash from Worm. Alot of the other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine at least have interesting backstories and personalities (Though all of them are Capital E Evil and P Psychotic). Jack's defining characteristic is that he is a massive asshole.
Well, strictly speaking, Jack Slash's defining trait is "Totally not the Joker, honest!" Complete with his actual superpower being literal, in-universe Plot Armor.
Of course, that all translates to "massive asshole" anyway.
The Incubators from PMMM. They condemn young girls to a life of fighting as magical girls, and a life of despair as witches. Said witches are not people with pointy hats and broomsticks, but are instead otherworldly monsters, drowning in grief.
Sure, when they make their contracts with prospective magical girls, they do grant each girl a wish and the ability to use magic. This part, they advertise.
They do not, however, tell the fine print, the downsides of said contract. Like moving the girls' souls outside of their bodies and into gems, their soul gems, the "source of their magic", and the fact that magical girls become witches when their gems become filled with grief/corruption, both from the use of magic and from strong negative emotions.
Why? Because according to them, it's because said magical girls "don't ask the right questions". Oh, and although they don't tell blatant lies, they are very good at half-truths and omission of details, letting others reach their own conclusions which end up supporting the Incubators' plans anyway, usually to the detriment of the other person.
Their goal? Defeat entropy using the energy gathered from contracts, grief seeds (items dropped by defeated witches which can drain grief from soul gems) and magical girls transforming into witches.
1. She's much worse than the average terror teacher.
2. She tortures her students by making them write lines using their own blood.
3. She is willing to use the Cruciatus Curse on her students.
4. She is racist, especially towards muggle-borns, those whose parents are of different species, and those who aren't exactly human.
5. She arbitrarily evaluates and fires faculty due to her arbitrary standards.
6. She has blatant favoritism towards Slytherins, pure-bloods, Death Eaters and the like.
7. She is very rude.
8. Etc.
The Slavers. I know it's probably cheating to nominate an entire species, and I'm sure someone will say the Daleks or the Affront are worse, but for me nothing else quite compares to Suicide Night.
