History Main / AncientEvil

* ''Fanfic/ADifferentLesson'': In this ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' fanfiction, Heian Chao reveals that he's been plotting to ascend to power for roughly 900 years, unnaturally extending his lifespan for all that time via chi manipulation.

* In the ''VideoGame/SirenGames'', the BigBad for the [[VideoGame/Siren1 first game]]/New Translation remake consisted of Datatsushi/Kaiko, alien beings that landed on Earth in the 600s that were responsible for the events in Hanuda while in ''VideoGame/Siren2'', Mother and Otoshigo were responsible for the events in Yamijima Island.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'' has Eternatus, who arrived on the planet in a meteor 20,000 years ago in Galar. 3,000 years ago it caused The Darkest Day, engulfing Galar in darkness until Zacian and Zamazanta sealed it.

* In the ''VideoGame/SirenGames'', the BigBad for the first Siren game/New Translation remake consisted of Datatsushi/Kaiko, alien beings that landed on Earth in the 600s that were responsible for the events in Hanuda while in Siren 2, Mother and Otoshigo were responsible for the events in Yamijima Island.
* The BigBad of ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' is revealed to be [[TwoAliasesOneCharacter One Character With Two Aliases]]: Yggdrasil, the leader of the evil organization Cruxis, is actually [[spoiler:Mithos, the legendary hero who ended the war]] which more or less marks the beginning of recorded history. Yuan and [[spoiler:Kratos Aurion]] are also just as ancient -- they were his party members back then -- but significantly less evil.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'' games, the BigBad for the first Siren game/New Translation remake consisted of Datatsushi/Kaiko, alien beings that landed on Earth in the 600s that were responsible for the events in Hanuda while in Siren 2, Mother and Otoshigo were responsible for the events in Yamijima Island.

** Kenjaku qualifies as one himself, being at least a millenium old and having spent the better part of his existence scheming to see humanity achieve the next step in its evolution, consequences be damned. He also has a menagerie of abilities, in the form of ancient Cursed Spirits absorbed through Geto's Technique.
** Ryomen Sukuna was born thousands of years ago, and no one, not even [[WorldsStrongestMan Gojo]], has been able to destroy his remains. [[spoiler: He differentiates himself entirely from Cursed Spirits when he talks to Jougo, implying he is something of a higher nature than that.]]

* ''Animation/BoBoiBoyMovie2'': Retak'ka is more than a century old since he was imprisoned for 100 years by Hang Kasa, and has an [[AliensOfLondon old Malay accent]] to fit that. However, he hasn't physically gotten older unlike Hang Kasa because his aging stalled while he was frozen in crystal all that time.

* "Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head" by Music/{{Gorillaz}} from ''Music/DemonDays'' is a SpokenWord track, read by Creator/DennisHopper about an ancient mountain called ''Monkey'' whom the villagers below the foot of the mountain know and fear. In the end [[spoiler:it destroys everybody and everything.]]

** Ice King is over a thousand years old. He's more insane than actually evil, though.
** The Lich dates back at ''least'' to The Great Mushroom War which happened a millennium prior to the series. "Evergreen" implies that he's over 65 million years old, and "Gold Stars" reveals that he predates ''non''-existence (or at least is old enough to know of beings that did).

*** Nightmare Moon was once Princess Luna, an [[WingedUnicorn alicorn]] who moved the moon, but who became embittered by jealousy for her sister and became a villain who wanted to bring about TheNightThatNeverEnds. She was stopped by her sister and sealed inside the moon, but returns in the show's pilot after a thousand years of exile.
*** Discord was an ancient being of chaos, who ruled over Equestria and made everypony's existence miserable, until Luna and Celestia were able to seal him.
*** King Sombra enslaved the citizens of the Crystal Empire a thousand years ago. He was never killed, though he was turned into a LivingShadow and sealed in the arctic ice.
*** Lord Tirek first assaulted Equestria centuries ago in order to steal all its magic, before his brother [[HeelFaceTurn betrayed him to the ponies]], who [[SealedEvilInACan locked him away]] in Tartarus.

* Aku from ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''. In one episode which showed his {{backstory}}, he is shown fighting Jack's world's gods before the world began. This was aeons before he gained sentience and was instead just a mindless EldritchAbomination.
* Mr. Burns on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' can be one DependingOnTheWriter. Usually he's only 104 years old, but one throwaway gag had his age as an unspecified 4-digit number[[note]]To be fair, he might just use a 0 for the first digit[[/note]], and another revealed that he was born in Pangaea, making him over 200 million years old.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' has Ganondorf, an EvilSorcerer who (depending on which side of the split timeline) has been sealed away for hundreds of years at a time, only to be released and either sealed ''again'' or killed. ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' reveals that [[spoiler:Ganondorf (or Ganon, as the case may be) is the corporeal form of the "curse of Demise", who is the ''true'' Ancient Evil in the series. An otherworldly being whose death in ''Skyward Sword'' laid a curse on all those who would descend from the Link and Zelda of that game (so those possessing the spirit of the Hero and the bloodline of Hylia, respectively). Ganondorf's malice towards Link, Zelda, and the kingdom of Hyrule is that debt being paid]]. By the time of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', which takes place more than 10,000 years after the previous game, Ganon has degenerated into an AlmightyIdiot that is MadeOfEvil, while his [[WasOnceAMan origins as a Gerudo man]] are barely remembered, with the one Gerudo character who does bring it up considering it a disgrace to her people's honor.

* Creator/HPLovecraft's Franchise/CthulhuMythos is basically made of this due to the prevalence of different flavors of EldritchAbomination and AbusivePrecursors. Mythos races [[{{Ultraterrestrials}} of terrestrial origin]] and the Serpent People can be hundreds of ''millions'' of years old (Deep Ones began worshipping Cthulhu 350 MYA during the Carboniferous, the first Serpent People civilization arose 275 MYA during the Permian, Chaugnar Faugn created the Miri Nigri 370 MYA...)

* The BigBad of Creator/VernorVinge's ''Literature/AFireUponTheDeep'' is the Blight, an EldritchAbomination implied to be a kind of sentient computer virus that is capable of running on both mechanical and organic platforms -- i.e., any sentient creature. Humans inadvertently boot up an ancient database that has hosted the dormant Blight for ''at least'' a few tens of billions of years, and it immediately begins to spread out over the galaxy-wide computer network, infecting both computers and sentient creatures.

* The Un-man from ''[[Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy Perelandra]]'' uses his nigh-eternal existence to make the young Queen of UsefulNotes/{{Venus}} believe he has wisdom outside of his knowledge ([[OurDemonsAreDifferent shared with his fellow Earthlings]]) on how to kill, corrupt, tempt, violate, and haunt innocents who have yet to hate the universe as much as he does.
* Creator/DeanKoontz's ''Literature/{{Phantoms}}''. The BigBad is a gigantic amorphous creature that's older than humanity, and possibly as old as life on Earth.

* The entire structure of TheFederation in ''Literature/LoneHuntress'' is a reaction to the Fey, an alien species bent on conquest through nefarious schemes involving the fostering of tyrannical regimes of target species, then eliminating and supplanting the highest echelons of those regimes. In essence, the only way to ensure security against the Fey is by protecting liberty, rather than curtailing it.

* An ancient Egyptian princess from ''Film/TheAwakening'' was so evil that her father, the Pharaoh, had her SealedEvilInACan in an unmarked tomb, and erased almost all traces of her existence. The evil princess takes possession of an archaeologist's daughter once he opens the hidden tomb.

* Related to the above, an ancient and still existing civilization that has either been reduced to a backwater empire or has long since migrated away. Again, may be presented as being evil ''because'' it is so old -- either because it is a survivor from a time when every civilization was evil, or because it has been corrupted over time (a form of ImmortalityImmorality as applied to cultures). May have a hand on an AncientConspiracy and maintains a {{Masquerade}}, but they may sometimes go openly.

* ''ComicBook/ElfesEtNains'': Lah'Saa is an ancient evil sorcerer who was defeated millennia ago but has returned to conquer the world.

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-->--'''A Deadite possessing Cheryl Williams''', ''Film/TheEvilDead1981''

* Related to the above, an ancient and still existing civilization. Again, may be presented as being evil ''because'' it is so old -- either because it is a survivor from a time when every civilization was evil, or because it has been corrupted over time (a form of ImmortalityImmorality as applied to cultures). May have a hand on an AncientConspiracy and maintains a {{Masquerade}}, but they may sometimes go openly.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda'' has Ganondorf, an EvilSorcerer who (depending on which side of the split timeline) has been sealed away for hundreds of years at a time, only to be released and either sealed ''again'' or killed. ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' reveals that [[spoiler:Ganondorf (or Ganon, as the case may be) is the corporeal form of the "curse of Demise", who is the ''true'' Ancient Evil in the series. An otherworldly being whose death in ''Skyward Sword'' laid a curse on all those who would descend from the Link and Zelda of that game (so those possessing the spirit of the Hero and the bloodline of Hylia, respectively). Ganondorf's malice towards Link, Zelda, and the kingdom of Hyrule is that debt being paid]]. By the time of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', which takes place more than 10,000 years after the previous game, Ganon has degenerated into an AlmightyIdiot that is MadeOfEvil, while his [[WasOnceAMan origins as a Gerudo man]] are barely remembered, with the one Gerudo character who does bring it up considering it a disgrace to her people's honor.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', [[GreaterScopeVillain Yhwach]] he is the [[{{god}} Soul King's]] son, the progenitor of the Quincies, fought Yamamoto in the past over 1000 years ago, and was indirectly responsible for the Gotei 13 being what it is in the present day.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' has [[GreaterScopeVillain Yhwach]]: he is the [[{{god}} Soul King's]] son, the progenitor of the Quincies, fought Yamamoto in the past over 1000 years ago, and was indirectly responsible for the Gotei 13 being what it is in the present day.

* ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}, ''Franchise/TheDCU'''s extremely powerful God of Tyranny, has been around for a very long time. He bedevils the heroes of the twenty-first century, he'll fight the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes one thousand years later in ''ComicBook/TheGreatDarknessSaga'', and he'll endure for as long as there is evil.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' has the original Tailed Beast, also known as the Juubi (Ten-Tails). It was originally a benign, very old and powerful WorldTree who simply existed until Princess Kaguya ate one of its fruits, becoming the first human with the power of chakra, in order to stop the neverending wars of the humans. Said tree was not amused and turned into the Ten-Tails, terrorizing all humans until Kaguya's son, the Sage of the Six Paths, sealed it within his body, and later split off its power into 9 creatures (who became the 9 Tailed Beasts) while creating the moon to bury its body beyond the Earth. In modern times, it is successfully revived through the efforts of the Akatsuki and gets sealed in their leader Tobi [[spoiler: (who was later revealed to be Obito Uchiha)]], gaining its tremendous power. [[spoiler:Or, at least, that's what everyone ''thought'' it was. In reality, the WorldTree was ultimately just that -- a tree. The Ten-Tails came about when Kaguya became jealous of the power her sons inherited from her and merged with the tree to become the demon of legend and take it back, subsequently being sealed in the process, but not before she created Black Zetsu, who spent the next several thousands of years engineering the history of shinobi in order to revive her and erasing nearly all traces of her existence and records of her rule in order to prevent anyone from trying to stop her unsealing. So there ''is'' an ancient evil at work -- just not the one everyone thought it was]].