Unholy Matrimony

"We've got a love strong enough to rule the whole wide world!"

Xanatos: We're genetically compatible, highly intelligent, and have the same goals. It makes perfect sense to get married.
Fox: True, but what about love?
Xanatos: I think we love each other, as much as two people such as ourselves are capable of that emotion.

— Gargoyles

It's the classic story. Big Bad meets Baroness. Baroness meets Big Bad. They look up, their eyes meet — and a flowering meadow goes up in flames while a thousand iron violins wail their love song. It's a match made in Hell!

Lord Worldbreaker and Lady Firestorm are dangerous enough by themselves. Add The Power of Love to the mix, and things are going to get downright apocalyptic. A pair of villains with love on their side is enough to give even the most hardened heroes pause. Defeating one will enrage the other — or make them vastly more sympathetic — and worse yet, villainy done out of love can't be entirely evil, can it?

...of course, they're still villains, so you can never really be sure of that whole "true love" thing. If one of them truly loves the other, expect remarkable sacrifice — only for the other to take everything they have to offer and then discard them afterward. There are few more effective ways to cross the Moral Event Horizon than to betray genuine love.

But if both were faking it, expect them to show their true colors at the same time and for it to never be mentioned ever again.

The most classic version of this trope occurs when two previously established antagonists take a newfound interest in each other, but it can also involve a newcomer falling for an established villain, or even two villains who were a couple from the start. In the first-mentioned scenario, Enemy Mine may occur in order to match the united power of the couple — which can get particularly interesting if the "bedfellow" is another villain, who is driven by jealousy...

They may form a Big Bad Duumvirate.

Compare Villainous Friendship, when the two are truly friends with each other, but not in a romantic way. Contrast Minion Shipping (which involves minions instead of actual villains) and Mad Love (which is one-sided). Outlaw Couple is the petty crime version of this. In the case of fiction with multiple villains where taking two out of the equation would still leave a bunch of bad guys, if it's genuine on both sides this can be used as a prelude to a Heel–Face Turn or at the very least a "Get Out of Jail Free" Card. If the couple in question is heterosexual, expect the man to be the more important half of the couple, possibly making her more of a Dark Mistress. On the other side of things, consider Lady Macbeth.

This is a subtrope of Even Evil Has Loved Ones. Not to be confused with Awful Wedded Life, which describes the marriage itself to be terrible, not the people involved.^note While those two tropes can overlap (see: Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers), they certainly don't have to (see: R.L. and Angelique in Kevin & Kell). Contrast with the Celibate Hero, a heroic character who is not in a romantic relationship and avoids being in one, or at least used to be.

noreallife

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Examples:

Advertising

• One Match.Com commercial, created by Ryan Reynolds, has Satan using the app to meet a girl... who happens to be the Anthropomorphic Personification of the year 2020. They're seen picnicking in an empty stadium, exercising in an empty gym, watching movies in an empty theater, stealing toilet paper, taking selfies in front of a literal dumpster fire, and wistfully taking in the sights as a massive meteor shower starts crashing down, all to the tune of Taylor Swift's Love Story.

Anime & Manga

• In Akuma na Eros, a girl named Miu makes an odd Deal with the Devil with Satan—the price being her virginity. Therefore, it looks like the story is heading towards them pulling this. It does. Oddly, what Miu truly needed to be Satan's bride was dying; when she's murdered by Satan's Clingy Jealous Girl Sara, she becomes able to leave her former life as a human and rule with him in Hell.
• Claire and Chane from Baccano!. They actually end up quite Happily Married.
  • Marriages between the morally questionable appear to be genetic, as Chane's father Huey's one and only true love was a misanthropic serial killer, Monica Campanella.
  • A joke ending in the DS game has Claire wind up in a just as happy — and far more depraved — marriage with Ladd Russo.
  • Debatably, Isaac and Miria also qualify — though they're more in the Plucky Comic Relief Anti-Hero role than anything else.
• Hansel and Gretel from Black Lagoon. Despite being underage siblings, their relationship is the only humanising thing about them.
• Riful and Dauf in Claymore are this. While she constantly berates him and threatens to leave him, when push comes to shove it becomes clear that they do genuinely love one another. A side story reveals, at least for Dauf, it was Love at First Sight.
• Code Geass gives us Emperor Charles vi Britannia and his not-so dead wife Lady Marianne who are partners in crime, in love with each other, and evil.
• In Death Note, there is Light and Misa. Just what the Villain Protagonist needs: A Psycho Who Works for Free. Then there's Kiyomi Takada. She and Misa have a little subtext argument about who's really his lover. As Near said "Light is popular with the ladies." On the other hand though, Light couldn't care less about either of them because he thinks that women are useless and annoying.
• Flame of Recca has Mokuren and Mikoto. They're quite happy until she gets wounded and he decides to just kill her For the Evulz. She probably should have known better.
• Subverted in Fushigi Yuugi. Soi loves Nakago, but he doesn't seem to reciprocate (although he does use her Deus Sex Machina to heal, and generally treats her pretty nicely for a Big Bad of his caliber). However, Soi gets killed in battle, and Nakago carries her corpse around. Make of that what you will.
• The Maoh King and Parome in Genma Wars. They are a demon couple that rules over a post-apocalyptic earth and serve as the primary antagonists. Subverted in that while they are bound by marriage, it's completely loveless: the Maoh King is extremely unfaithful preferring to take several human females as concubines, which makes his wife Parome extremely bitter. In the end, Parome and her husband end up killing each other.
• The Hero Laughs While Walking the Path of Vengeance a Second Time has the Villain Protagonist, Ueki Kaito, do this every time he recruits a rather attractive female "accomplice" on his path to vengeance. Not only do they solemnly swear to share their revenge targets and experiences, but their lives, and only death can, and will, part them.
• Dio Brando, a century-old vampire and Enrico Pucci, a morally ambiguous catholic priest make up for a very interesting case in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Although it's still controversial if they are this or villainous friends, the author himself has lately confirmed Dio to be into both men and women. Or at least, willing to use sex to manipulate either.
• In Kagerou-Nostalgia Evil Overlord Kiyotaka Kuroda appears to have his wife, Yasha, and his son, as Morality Pets. As the series progresses though, it becomes increasingly apparent that Yasha is every bit as manipulative and cruel as her husband (and he knows it) and their son is both of their Morality Pet. Rikimaru would really love to be this with his Gender Bendered Co Dragon and Heterosexual Life Partner Ranmaru.
• In Kekkaishi, this is implied to be the relationship between Byaku and the Princess, given the fact that not only do the two of them seem to genuinely care about each other, but they seem to only care about themselves and each other.
• X and Ai in Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, a psychotic shapeshifting serial killer and his best friend and lover the terrorist.
• In My-HiME, Miyu and Alyssa make a nice couple—so loving towards each other that Mai at first has a hard time believing that they're actually villains. This plays with the trope heavily; it's not a sexual relationship, though it's definitely a loving one, Alyssa's a Tyke-Bomb rather than a true villain, and Miyu simply believes in My Master, Right or Wrong.
• The Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge OVA ends with Evil Overlord vampire Demitri hooking up with Hot as Hell Succubus Morrigan to presumably rule the Demon World together.
• In Overman King Gainer, Siberian Railroad executive Yassaba Jin and his dragon, Adette, are in love, and actually make a pretty cute couple. Indeed, Jin's combat-prowess goes up noticeably when he's fighting to prove himself to Adette, rather than just for corporate objectives...
• In Puella Magi Oriko Magica, the villains behind the magical girl murderers are Oriko and Kirika, who have at least a strong Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, but more likely a couple, especially according to Kirika. They even end up Together in Death.
• In Rurouni Kenshin Shishio Makoto and Yumi have a bit of a subversion on this. Yumi legitimately loves Shishio... When Yumi throws herself between Shishio and Kenshin during their battle to beg them to stop for Shishio's health, Shishio uses it as an opportunistic attack to stab THROUGH her to wound Kenshin. This appalls the good guys and Kenshin is horrified. Shishio calmly tells them that they don't understand since he and Yumi knew this would happen, and Yumi declares that she's happy she could help Shishio fight for once since she always was pissed off for being a Neutral Female. He then holds and comforts her while she dies and begs him to not lose... because he really loved her too - just enough to use her. But it's all good, sort of: after he perishes, they meet up in the afterlife and plan to take over hell together. Along with Shishio's devoted Battle Butler; he lights up at the thought of going into Hell if it means serving his master.
• Kunzite and Zoisite in the first Sailor Moon series. Homo or hetero, depending on version.
• In Shigurui, there's Lady Iku with Seigen to whom she is completely devoted to. It is unclear how much Seigen cares about her, although he does treat her much better (ie. like an actual human being) unlike her previous lover Kogan.
• Snow White with the Red Hair: Lord and Lady Tohz are deeply embroiled in Earl Bergatt's traitorous plots, like him seem to see common people and other nobles as things to be used to their benefit rather than people and even with their ally captured continue developing poisons and trying to overthrow lords who oppose their ideology. They're also devoted to each other with Lady Tohz only getting captured after evading detection when she tries to save her husband.
• Khyron/Kvamzin Kravshera and Azonia/Laplamiz from Super Dimension Fortress Macross/Robotech. They weren't married but had HEAPS of Belligerent Sexual Tension, he gave her a Forceful Kiss once, and they ended up Together in Death.
• Hunt and Sarah from Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee.
• Kriem and Jake Martinez in Tiger & Bunny.
• Tono to Issho: Oda Nobunaga fell in love with Nohime because she was prepared to stab her father in the face without hesitation.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds:
  • Barbara and Lotten, the two antagonists of the Crashtown Arc, and clearly two of the most vile villains in the series, only officially married in the dub version, but still two lovers who were unrepentantly evil. (In fact, there's some debate over which was worse among fans; Barbara seemed loyal to him, while he was willing to leave her to die at the end to save his own hide, but on the other hand, he was the only one she was loyal to, and was willing to betray anyone else to get what she wanted, using seduction and her beauty to do so.
  • Earlier in the series, Dark Signer Carly proposed this to Jack, promising him that if he let her win their duel they'd rule over the desolate, post-apocalyptic world together. He turned her down saying he only wanted the old Carly back.
• YuYu Hakusho:
  • Sensui and Itsuki are a rare homosexual example. Well, sometimes...
  • Hiei and Mukuro seem to have this going by the end of the manga.

Comic Books

• Marvel Universe:
  • Captain America:
    • The Red Skull's daughter Sin and her lover Crossbones (one of the Skull's henchmen).
    • Viper, a high-ranking and sometimes leader of Hydra, and Silver Samurai, a Heel–Face Revolving Door (but mostly villain). The two were briefly in an arranged marriage, but really did love each other. Viper still laments that things didn't work out. The Red Skull was briefly involved with the Viper, attracted to her nihilism as well.
  • Fantastic Four: The Mole Man and Kala (both rulers of subterranean realms, incidentally) have had a relationship that has been rocky and tumultuous. They have been married and divorced more than once, and Kala has betrayed him at least once. When last seen, they seemed to have reconciled, at least for now.
  • The Incredible Hulk:
    • The U-Foes, an Evil Counterpart to the Fantastic Four (though oddly not Fantastic Four enemies), naturally also included an evil version of the Richards couple: Vector and Vapor.
    • The Absorbing Man and Titania were married. Absorbing Man left her because Titania couldn't let go of her fixation with She-Hulk but they have since then got back together.
  • The Punisher: During Stilt-Man's funeral, it's revealed that he and Princess Python from the Circus of Crime had been married. Later Punisher arcs showed that Princess Python tends to do this... she's been married many times, ALWAYS to another supervillain, most recently the Gibbon.
  • Runaways: The Pride is a criminal syndicate formed of six married couples, all of whom appear to genuinely love each other while sacrificing teenagers and ruling the Los Angeles underworld with an iron fist.
  • Spider-Man:
    • Kraven the Hunter is married to a woman named Sasha, and they have three kids. The entire family shares Kraven's crazy hunter tendencies, and conspired to resurrect him in Grim Hunt after his death in Kraven's Last Hunt. Kraven was not happy, which led to the family's dissolution as he killed Sasha and forced his kids to hunt each other.
    • Another Spider-Man villain, Carnage, had a very close relationship to fellow sociopath Shriek. This is elevated to be a literal case of the trope in their live-action debut in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, where they were childhood delinquent sweethearts, and once Carnage breaks Shriek out of prison, they plan to get married - while killing Eddie Brock, Venom, and the cop who shot Shriek's eye in the ceremony.
  • Thanos:
    • Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight, the two leaders of the Black Order. They're both the adopted children of Thanos, and slaughter entire species as a day job and revel in it. They both also deeply love each other, and Proxima is devasatated when she thinks Corvus might die (he can survive as long as his glaive does). The two border on Sickeningly Sweet Hearts, because they're always complimenting each other's carnage.
    • There is perhaps the biggest and baddest example of this trope yet in the Marvel Universe brewing between long established villains, Thanos and Hela as of Unworthy Thor #5. A disguised Hela had previously helped Thanos escape from his earthly prison and she also bargained to obtain for him Ultimate Thor's version of Mjolnir if he paid her a favor in return. When she was ultimately unable to retrieve the mighty hammer from the Odinson, she killed two of Thanos' top enforcers (Proxima Midnight and Black Swan) to prove her power and then offered to give him everything he had ever wanted in return for him helping her take back her kingdom, upon which the two shared a passionate embrace. Writer Jason Aaron has promised that we will see more of them getting up to no good together in the future.
  • X-Men:
    • Mystique was in a long loving relationship with fellow brotherhood member, Destiny, before they got separated by the latter's death. Mystique even refers to Destiny as her "wife" in House of X. It's unclear if this is meant as a term of endearment or if they got legally married at some point during their long history together.
    • Vulcan and Deathbird entered a relationship and overthrew the rulers of the Shi'ar. While it was initially in part because each found the other useful, they did grow to genuinely love each other, and Vulcan is pissed when she is hurt.
• The DCU:
  • The Sportsmaster and the Huntress/Tigress, two Golden Age villains revealed to have married when they returned in the 1960s. They had a daughter, Artemis, who became the new Tigress and then hooked up with another villain, Icicle. Last we heard of them they had a daughter of their own.
  • Batman:
    • Harley Quinn puts quite a lot of effort into persuading The Joker to enter into this joyous state, but has only gone so far as Mad Love, probably to the benefit of all concerned. She does have a semi-regular relationship with Poison Ivy, whenever Mr J throws her out/tries to kill her or one of them is captured, but it never lasts long due to Harley's obsession with the Joker and/or Ivy's absolute misanthropy.
    • Death of the Family: Poison Ivy and Clayface are now husband and wife. This may seem odd, but it makes sense when one considers that she's a plant lady and he's a pile of clay (which is a part of the earth), and plants and earth go together just fine! It was a ploy for Ivy, to use Clayface as bait for some plan
  • From the always reliably warped Doom Patrol, we have a rare gay example: The Brain, a disembodied brain who occasionally has a robotic body, and his Dragon Monsieur Mallah, a hyperintelligent French Marxist gorilla.
  • In the Crime Syndicate, the Mirror Universe version of the Justice League of America, Superwoman (evil Wonder Woman) is married to Ultraman (evil Superman). But she's contemptuous of her husband, and her illicit affair with Owlman (evil Batman) is closer to the trope.
  • Wonder Woman:
    • Wonder Woman (1942): Golden Age villains "Captain Redbeard" and Nifta are a married couple, with Nifta being the actual mastermind and leader of their pirating and Red set up to take the fall in order for her to remain innocent in the public eye. They do not take it well when Diana unmasks their organization's true leader.
    • In Wonder Woman (1987) Circe plays a Memory Gambit in order to get close to Ares without him realizing it's her, since even she thinks she's the Amoral Attorney Donna Milton. As Donna she grows to honestly trust and love Ares and they have a child together before the relationship goes south.
  • The New 52 Flash series has Sam Scudder (Mirror Master) and Lisa Snart (Glider) as a couple before they got their powers and Lisa was a criminal (she knew Sam through her brother Captain Cold). After they receive their powers and Glider embraces her family's lifestyle, this trope is in full effect.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • There's Scourge and Fiona Fox. Fiona pulled a Face–Heel Turn to be with him, and when Scourge took over Anti-Mobius and made himself king, he made her his queen. They seem to actually care about each other, as several times they've both come to each other's aid when it would have been easier to abandon each other.
  • There's also the Iron Queen and King, who thankfully were just a marriage of political convenience. The Queen did, however, have a thing on the side with Snively, and while each seemed to be using each other to advance their positions in Eggman's empire, there was also clearly some genuine affection there.
• Gold Digger: Sherisha and Gothwrain serve as a counterpoint to the numerous good Battle Couple around. A pair of incredibly old wererat assassins who rule the criminal underworld and have been married only slightly less long than weres have been around, which shows in their incredible teamwork.
• In the original Chaos! publication, Lady Death and Evil Ernie formed an undead couple that plotted to Kill All Humans. She wished to return to Earth, but could only do so after all humans were destroyed, so she corrupted a young man and turned him into The Dragon to fulfill this purpose, promising to love him forever. What Death did not anticipate is that she would genuinely fall in love with him, playing this trope unusually straight for an omnicidal maniac pairing.
• Judge Dredd: Played with when the Dark Judges brainwash a woman to become a helpless slave so they can use her as a psychic bridge to Mega City One to start their Necropolis. In her dreams they hold a mock ceremony where she elopes with Judge Death (who's a walking corpse, by the way) and affirm the unholy matrimony by murdering her actual husband. As soon as she outlives her usefulness, they kill her.
• Requiem Vampire Knight
  • Count Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory, the ruling vampire couple that governs the hell-like dimension of Résurrection with iron fist. With that said, their relationship is very loose: Dracula keeps an harem of brides for his own enjoyment which would later add Rebecca, the hero's girlfriend to their numbers, while Bathory takes numerous paramours including the very feminine and extremely evil Claudia Demona.
  • Black Sabbat and his lover Aiwass, a demonic entity in the form of a (male) mandrill. They are both quite evil and plotting to overthrow the current regime to rule together, but they are in love with each other. In fact, Sabbat regards their relationship even purer than than the love between Requiem and Rebecca because it transcends species.
• Savage Dragon: Mr. Glum and Angel Murphy from another universe. He is a diminutive Galactic Conqueror while she was originally a superheroine that fell in love with him and later willingly joined him in his campaign of conquest. They even make love in a battlefield over their enemies' corpses.
• In the Yank Wilson story in the first issue of Next Issue Special, Rajiv Bahdgi and his wife Berlin Holiday are... special. Bahdgi's villainous activities have become wild, unfocused, and more destructive than ever since his marriage. When Yank Wilson and his team are sent to apprehend him, we discover why: his overbearing wife has been driving him mad and he wants to be captured just so he can get away. Unfortunately for him, due to the heinous nature of his actions, the government has a special arrangement for him in Leavenworth: he and his wife will be sharing a cell. Cue Big "NO!".
• Tales of Telguuth: One story features two demons who are happily married to each other. A clever human manages to gain control of the male demon thanks to a magic ring and orders him to kill his wife. This ends up biting the human in the ass the instant the spell wears off and he becomes demon lunch.
• The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis: Mr. Burns and Mom are major villains in their respective series. They also fall in love with each other in the second miniseries.
• Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: The Italian Disney comics introduced the character Trudy Van Tubb who serves as a romantic partner and partner in crime for Pete at the same time.

Comic Strips

• Mordac the Preventer of Information Services and Webmistress Ming from Dilbert, even after the Pointy-Haired Boss makes Ming into Mordac's subordinate.
  Ming: We can still date, but I feel obliged to hate your guts now.
  Mordac: It works for me.

Fan Works

• Beyond Birthday and Light Yagami in That Epic Plan:
  "In the past few weeks, they'd managed to convince everyone that they were in fact a loving couple rather than two psychopaths hooking up for kicks. Although Light wasn't too sure about L, the detective still seemed suspicious and watched their every move. Although Beyond kept insisting L was just a peeper."
• The Bleach fanfic series Heirverse, in Heir Aizen and Gin are married and doing the Take Over the World thing.
• In Those Who Stand for Nothing Fall for Anything there's Light and L when the two are ("working") together. Also, Light and Takada of the variety where both are faking it for personal gain, although it's suggested that Takada does carry some affection for Light. Ryuk and L have some of this going, too.
• In the remake of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Thousand Year Door (but not the original) the Shadow Queen has been officially married twice.
  • Her second marriage was a loveless one of convenience to Count Bleck, who is Vladimir's father. He plays a role in the fic of a secondary villain, trying to usurp her rule of Arcadia and trying to win his son from her in a demented parody of a custody battle.
  • Her first marriage, to the man she truly loved, was to Lyrius, the Queen's Shadow. He was killed in the original battle a thousand years ago, but his failure to protect her resulted in him lingering on as a phantom. He was given a temporary pseudo-life in the second half of the book, becoming The Dragon for all intents and purposes, and survives the ending, making a Heel–Face Turn at the sponsoring of a higher power. Plans are in the works for a Spin-Off that feature him as the star, likely one where his goal is undertaking an Orphean Rescue to save his beloved's soul from Graz'zt.
• Dark Harry and Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Descent into Darkness. After Dark Harry helps Voldemort get his body back they instantly take a liking to each other.
• Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange in A Very Potter Musical. You could also say in a Ho Yay sense for Voldemort and Quirrell, especially since later in the play after Quirrell is sent to Azkaban Voldemort's idea of getting off with Bellatrix is to be behind someone's head and hang out. At the end of the play, he and Quirrel are reunited after Voldemort is reduced to just a bodyless soul again needing a host.
• Trixie and Prince Blueblood in story 2 of the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Legion of Gloom. Not only is their dating considered one of the Squickiest things in the fic in-universe, but their marriage ceremony is also... well...
  The Author: Then by the power invested in me by myself, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride, though I would prefer if you didn't.
• It's not unknown for the Grand Highblood and the Condesce of Homestuck to be portrayed this way. Hivefled uses Deliberate Values Dissonance to crank up the villainy; they're moirails, and so by the standards of their society are supposed to be Platonic Life-Partners who prevent each other from becoming violent. Not only do they actually make each other much worse, they had children, with the intention of torturing and sacrificing them later.
• The Ask a Pony blogs Discorderly Conduct and Cupidite, in their frequent crossovers, portray Discord and Queen Chrysalis as having had a relationship long ago. It... didn't end well, and is strongly implied to be the Start of Darkness for both of them.
• Arzt and Nie, witch assassins of Resonance Days, are a very, very intimate couple, who often talk about how their arrival in the afterlife is proof that love conquers all. Most other characters find them saccharine or creepy (and the uncanny resemblance doesn't help). To a lesser extent, the Madam, a brutal crimelord, and Margot, her Battle Butler, have a very close relationship and enjoy nuzzling when not finding inventive ways to torture people who can't die.
• In the Naruto and Soul Eater Crossover fic He'll Never Be My Son, Orochimaru and Medusa seem very happy together, as romantic partners and Evilutionary Biologists helping each other out.
• In the final story of the My Hostage, Not Yours series, Zim and Gaz — who transition from Anti Heroes to full Villain Protagonists — get married a while after taking over North America, and end up honeymooning in Europe after that's conquered as well.
• In A Charmed Life Ryuk and Light shack up together in the Shinigami realm.
• Alena from The Swarm of War is called the Overmind's Queen-consort. Chapter 60 shows it's more than just a formal title.
• This is the premise of the fic My Dark King—Jack and Carly both turning evil and ruling what's left of the world, while maintaining their love for each other.
• Some Fullmetal Alchemist fans like to pair up the manga's Big Bad, Father with the 2003 anime's Big Bad, Dante. The fact that they actually have quite a lot in common certainly helps. Here's a particularly hilarious example.
• For perhaps one of the most horrifying examples possible, this image pairs up Maleficent with the Slender Man!
• In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, veteran Assassin and previously confirmed bachelor Mr Mericet, a man feared by generations of pupils for his command of the art of dark sarcasm, gets a late-flowering romance with spinster Domestic Science teacher Miss Sanderson-Reeves. She too is feared and respected by her students for her command of poisons, stylishly delivered in the form of irresistible food, and for her commanding aspect of old-time classroom monster. Mericet becomes an unlikely Mr Chips who isn't ready to say "goodbye" yet. Pupils at the Assassins' School observe this disbelievingly, note that neither teacher appears to have softened or mellowed out in the slightest, and agree that it's a very good thing both are too old to have children.
• A Man of Iron has Asha Greyjoy and Ivan Vanko, who hooked up and joined their raider crews together when they realized that their respective vicious natures complimented each other.
• Mr and Mrs Gold: Belle and Rumpelstiltskin is considered this. Downplayed, as calling Belle a villain of any kind would be a bit of a stretch.
• The Fire Emblem seriesInto the Darkness has a few examples:
  • Corrin and Azura. In this series, instead of having two fairly moral individuals, it features two very broken people that cheerfully murder, invade and manipulate to their heart's content. They have never mentioned having affections for anyone else (other than their children and niece.)
• In Dragon Age's Walking in Circles, Evelyn and Solas eventually become this. They are a pair of Well-Intentioned-Extremists aiming to destroy the Veil and fully bring back magic and spirit to the world at the cost of killing countless people (even if it is to save the elves and mages). Ruthless as they are, the two are in love with each other and do anything they can to physically and emotionally support one another.
• Loved and Lost, an extended retelling of the 2nd season finale of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, has a subversion. The 11th chapter reveals that Prince Jewelius started with Queen Chrysalis a partnership to conquer Equestria on Princess Cadance and Shining Armor's wedding day. Despite the fact that Chrysalis couldn't drain love from Jewelius, she accepted her fellow villain as a coltfriend. However, as Jewelius spent time with Twilight Sparkle, the only pony who had suspicions about the disguised Chrysalis, he decided the magical prodigy to be more valuable as a mate than the Changeling Queen, so he double-crossed Chrysalis by helping Twilight expose and imprison her, and took the throne for himself by scapegoating all the other heroes but Twilight for the Changeling invasion. When Chrysalis asks from her cell why Jewelius betrayed her, he mocks her for thinking he'd allow to his side a "despicable animal" such as herself. After Chrysalis escapes, she tries to have revenge on him and comes to take it when the heroes have cornered Jewelius in the climax. Jewelius dares to call Chrysalis his love as he begs for her help against the heroes, but she orders her Changelings to eat him alive.
  Jewelius: Chrysalis, my love, please help me! Destroy them and we'll rule Equestria as promised!
  Chrysalis: My love?! I thought you said I was a 'despicable animal'. You may not have any love for us to feed on, but we'll just have to settle on everything else. Feed on this despicable excuse of a pony, my subjects!
• Mumm-Ra is forced into this by the Ancient Spirits of Evil in Evil's Bride, when they give him a choice - either bring a deceased Luna-Tak Back from the Dead and marry her, or be stripped of his power completely. It's not a completely happy relationship, but they seem to have grown more fond of each other in the sequel.
• Henry and Walter^note As in Henry Townsend and Walter Sullivan of Silent Hill 4 in Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail are married and are shown to be affectionate to one another, not afraid of cuddling and kissing (even in front of other people). They are also the Arc Villains for Act 2 of the Infinity Train side as they wish to enact a ritual to entrap the Apex and have either brainwashed or tortured three of the components of said ritual.
• Voldemort and Malvina Devereaux seem to be on the way to becoming one in The Awakening of a Magus. The girl is Ginny's age, but her evil genius mind and heritage make her a suitable consort in Tom's eyes.
• The main storyline in Temporal Anomaly is about 2068!Sougo (an Evil Overlord that killed half of the human population on his homeworld by triggering an apocalypse before ruling over the rest and is now trying to take over the current world he's found himself on) romancing and courting the Intoners(a group who created a False Utopia after overthrowing the previous tyrannical regime by brainwashing their citizens into blind obedience and love, with the exception of the eldest sister, who is a Sociopathic Hero at best and previously was on a quest to murder her siblings in order to be the only one left with their unique powers).
• The All Guardsmen Party previously had two Interrogators who were more of a threat to the party than the enemy. The first was Angelic "The Bitch" Dominicus, a Chaos cultist who tried repeatedly to murder the party and massacred millions of civilians. The second was Bane Johns, a latent psyker whose ability to siphon luck from everyone nearby had turned him into a psychopathic hedonist and nearly killed the party. As such, learning they were the antagonists of The "Stealth" Mission and dating was not well-received.
• Chelsea and Afton in Luminosity take part in many of the Volturi's worst atrocities, and like all vampire couples, they're unbreakably devoted to each other. (Though that's not to say they have a healthy relationship; her first move upon meeting him was to use her power to cut away his bonds to his human family so he'd have no one to love but her.)
• From Russia With Love is a Lackadaisy fan fic wherein Mordecai and his new partner, Innochka, strike up a close friendship that eventually turns romantic. Considering how cold and unfeeling Mordecai is, seeing Innochka draw him out of his shell and the warmth that blossoms between them is very sweet and charming. Except they're murderous borderline sociopaths bonding while carrying out brutal hitjobs for their respective employers. Obsessively Organized Mordecai even sighs happily when he sees how efficient Innochka is at dismembering corpses for immolation. (She grew up butchering pigs.)
• The Chaotic Masters:
  • The Chaotic Masters each had a harem, composed of various villains and corrupted heroines all totally dedicated to them, with the feeling being mutual.
  • Tirek the Devourer and Chrysalis apparently were a couple back in the day, until she apparently dumped him (though he claims he was the one to turn on her).

Films — Animation

• Scar and Zira from The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, even if this relationship is off-screen.
• In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Satan is in a gay relationship with Saddam Hussein, though the later is negligent and at times verbally abusive while Satan is sort of a loser. By the end, it's quite clear that Saddam's main concern is that the coming Apocalypse will allow him to get back to Earth and conquer it for himself; with some prompting from Kenny, Satan finally snaps and kills Saddam.
• In Minions, Scarlet and Herb Overkill have a very loving relationship.
• Concept arts from Wish (2023) reveals that Queen Amaya was originally supposed to be Happily Married to King Magnifico where the former is a willing compliance the latter's evil acts. In the movie itself, this is averted where Amaya immediately defects as soon as Magnifico embraces the Forbidden Magic and willingly abandons him to his fate after he's defeated. Despite this, it becomes a common Fandom-Specific Plot to restore this concept and depict Amaya being as much of a compliance to Magnifico in the fan fictions.

Films — Live-Action

• Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me:
  • Dr. Evil and Frau Farbissina have a fling, leading to The Reveal that Scott Evil is their love child, thanks to some fun with a Time Loop.
  • Before that/after that, Frau Farbissina gets involved with a female professional-golfer-assassin.
• Averted in Batman Returns during The Penguin and Catwoman's brief partnership. While he would like this trope to happen, she has no romantic or sexual interest in him whatsoever, and turns down his advances both times he comes on to her. After the second time, he spitefully tries to kill her, but she gets better.
• Chucky and Tiffany from the Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky are vicious murderers, but love each other... most of the time.
• Chocolate: Zin and Masashi are both hardened gangsters who fall genuinely in love, to anger from Zin's boss. The two conceive a daughter and try to keep a relationship despite being driven apart.
• The Crow: Wicked Prayer: Luc Crash and Lola Byrne are this trope, and are, by all indications, genuinely in love. Then they go through with their Unholy Wedding Ceremony, and Luc gets possessed by Satan...
• Sol and Viper, the fun-loving cannibal couple in Doomsday.
• The Fifth Commandment has the deadly Outlaw Couple, a married pair of assassins named Z and Li, who "loves killing as much as they love each other". The hero, Chance, managed to kill Li during a shootout, only to have the vengeful Z hunting him for the rest of the movie.
• In Foxy Brown, the main villain is Katherine Wall, who runs a combined call girl and drug empire. Steve Elias is The Dragon of the organization, but also her lover. Katherine seems quite passionate about him, while Steve seems to have a more pragmatic attitude and keeps flirting with the call girls.
• Godzilla (2014): From the moment they've reached their adult forms, the MUTO pair are seeking each-other out specifically so they can mate and reproduce their kaiju species, which will be nothing short of an apocalypse for the human race if they succeed. The MUTOs even get moments of sympathy when they meet and nuzzle, and especially when they react with extreme distress (the female especially) to the destruction of their nest and all their unborn young.
• Gremlins: A sharp-eared listener who pays attention to the news report at the film's end will learn that Mrs. Deagle, the miserly Jerkass old woman, was married to Donald Deagle, who was a "famous stock-swindler". This trope applies more strongly to the novelization version, where it's revealed that Mrs. Deagle is actually a participant in a real estate fraud, scheming to drive as many people out of their homes as possible so she can sell their land to people who want to use it as a toxic waste dump.
• Hold the Dark: The Slones are both ultimately revealed to be murderous and under some sort of shared psychosis. It's also implied that they're siblings.
• Hounds of Love: The villains are a married couple who abduct young woman and hold them captive for rape and torture before murdering them and burying them in a shallow grave. Charming. Vicki learns, however, that their marriage is less than ideal, and though Evelyn joins John in the crimes for a "bonding" activity, she's jealous of John's fixation with his victims and he really runs the show.
• The Mayflowers, the Card Carrying Villains of the deliciously campy Hudson Hawk, are passionately in love with one another in a way that makes them more villainous and creepy. The only time Darwin loses his Psychotic Smirk is when Minerva is horribly killed by a splash of molten lead.
• In the Line of Duty III: Force of the Dragon has Nakamura Genji and Michiko Genji, a ruthless assassin couple who leaves behind piles of dead bodies in Osaka and Hong Kong, serving as the main villains of the film.
• The Mummy Returns had Imhotep reunite with a reincarnated Anck Su Namun in an unhealthily undead version of Reincarnation Romance. By the movie's climax he's clinging for dear un-life on the lip of a gaping hole to the ancient Egyptian underworld as the Collapsing Lair falls around them and the hero couple. He extends his hands to her for help, and she... leaves. Imhotep turns to the O'Connells (where Evie did help Rick up) and gives them a heartbreaking smile before letting go. Anck Su Namun got punk killed shortly afterwards.
• In Natural Born Killers, Mickey and Mallory begin their romance by murdering her parents and eloping on a nation-wide killing spree.
• The Princess: Big Bad Julius and The Baroness Moira, his lieutenant, are lovers.
• The Retreat (2021): Gavin and Layna are a married couple who obviously love each other. Both are also vicious kidnappers and murderers.
• Running Scared (2006): There's a particularly depraved example in a well-off couple who kidnap children, then molest them, videotape it, and kill them. However, it's ambiguous whether they genuinely love each other or if they simply bonded over their shared proclivity.
• In Shredder Orpheus, Hades and Persephone are happily married and run the soul-sucking EBN network together. Hades finds Persephone too avant-garde at times, as she has a soft spot for Orpheus and true love, but he also lets her go on summer vacations and overall they're very happy together.
• Cletus Kasady and Frances Barrison in Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The climax involves them getting married.
• Magneto and Mystique of the X-Men Film Series. However, it is thoroughly broken by X-Men: Days of Future Past, where they try to kill one another.

Literature

• Majyk by Accident: Bibok and Calosta in Majyk by Design. On Orbix, Majyk is a psuedo-sentient tangible substance that actually provides the power behind spells. Our hero Kendar may have scads of Majyk, but the two of them together are positively dripping with it. Married wizards and sorcerers have a time getting divorced if their Majyk doesn't want to separate. This is taken care of during the final fight when Kendar's ex-wife pretends to have had an affair with Bibok. Calosta proceeds to turn him into a variety of amusing shapes until finally he's turned into a rat which Scandal, Kendar's talking cat, eats, thereby gaining his share. Calosta was winked out of existence by Kendar's Aunt Carageena (Or was it Glucosia?) when her Sacred Eye of Delbert paperweight slipped out of her hands and struck Calosta in the chest. They didn't realize that the paperweight was, in fact, the actual artifact.
• In one Conan the Barbarian story, The People of the Black Circle, a villainous sorcerer was convinced by his lover that he should betray his four masters and Take Over the World on his own. He was actually able to use The Power of Love to hold all four of them off for a while—until they realize what's happening and target HER instead. He gets the last laugh, as he lives just long enough to give Conan information on how to kill them.
• Odiana and Aldrick in Codex Alera. One is an insane water witch, the other is a brutal mercenary. They are also absolutely devoted to each other and every scene of them being together is filled with such tenderness, love, and overt passion for each other that you could easily forget about the horrible violence they are perfectly willing to inflict on anyone else.
• Harry Potter:
  • Lucius Malfoy is a bigoted terrorist who uses his money and power to manipulate others, while his wife Narcissa is a just-as-bigoted snob; as the series goes on it becomes apparent that these two's love for each other (and their son Draco) is their strongest and most (only) redeeming quality. As Voldemort begins to show just how little he regards any of them, their love for each other over him results in the family's practical Heel–Face Turn.
  • Vernon and Petunia. They're selfish and abusive to Harry, yet they seem quite devoted to each other and their biological son.
  • This is exactly what goes on between Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange...in the latter's twisted and hopeless dreams. Confirmed due to the introduction of Delphini, daughter of Bellatrix and Vodemort in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
• Dangerous Liaisons has as its protagonists the amoral and sociopathic duo of Valmont and Merteuil.
• Poppy Z. Brite's novel Exquisite Corpse has a gay version of this trope. Andrew Compton and Jay Byrne are necrophiliac serial killers who scheme to murder and eat the secondary protagonist.
• Caine and Diana from Gone by Michael Grant. He's a megalomaniac, power-hungry sociopath. She's a deceptive, selfish, manipulative girl who has betrayed everyone at some point. And yet they're in love, prompting him to make a temporary Heel–Face Turn, help the heroes, and try to kill his former lieutenant, who had just given her a nearly fatal injury, all for a chance to save her life. By Plague, though, it's debatable whether they still love each other, or ever did. Caine lies to Diana and uses her for sex, and she leaves his side the second she realizes she can't control him. There are, however, those who think their relationship is beautiful, so we'll just leave it at a "maybe".
  • In Light it seems to be a definite "yes". Although, admittedly, with a very bittersweet note.
• Norman and Sandra Arminger from the Emberverse. He is ruthless, imaginative, and a powerful warrior; she is cool, brilliant and manipulative. Together they form and control the Portland Protective Association, a medieval recreation/protection racket that seizes control of a huge chunk of the Pacific Northwest after the Change destroys most modern technology.
  • Stirling likes this trope: his Nantucket trilogy features the appalling partnership of deranged sadist Alice Hong and her husband William Walker, a genocidal warlord.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Esteban and Esmeralda Batiste, nicknamed "The Eebs", are a husband/wife assassin team for the Red Court. Susan thinks that their relationship is romantic in an incredibly warped and psychotic way.
    Martin: They have complementary insanities. Don't justify it with anything more than that.
  • The Red Court also has Duchess Arianna, an ancient Mayan vampire who turned and married the Spanish Duke Paolo Ortega in revenge for what he and his men had helped do to her people. She loved him enough to plot elaborate revenge upon his death.
  • Nicodemus Archleone and his wife Tessa may have been this at one point, but by the time the series rolls around they have had about 2000 years to get on each others' nerves and their relationship has soured in a pretty epic way.
  • This is outright stated in Skin Game with regards to Nicodemus and Deirdre, daughter of Nicodemus and Tessa. Yes, that means exactly what it sounds like. The relationship between Nicodemus and Diedre became incredibly twisted and disturbing and at the same time quite genuine. Toward the end of the book, Harry is even able to use the disturbing love between the two to cause Nicodemus to go into full Villainous Breakdown after he sacrifices Dierdre to get into Hades' vault.
• Aaron and Stacie from The Radiant Dawn. He is a lich knight serving the demon lord Tyadrig. She is a warlock of the same demon lord. They seek to destroy humanity to serve their demon lord and summon him to Earth.
• Black Iris: Blythe and Laney, near the end. They even start a secret society (named Black Iris) for vengeful, mistreated people like themselves and appear to be still leading it as of the blurb release of Bad Boy.
  Laney: I want you. I want the badness in you. I want the craziness, the animal. I'm going to hurt them all. Every single person who's hurt me. And you'll be there at my side.
• Black-magic users Isaac and Selena Izzard in John Bellairs' The House With a Clock in Its Walls, although they're both dead by the time the story starts.
• Red Seas Under Red Skies has Requin and Selendri. He's the vicious head of a casino where anyone suspected of cheating is put to death; she's his Two-Faced top enforcer. They are absolutely devoted to one another, to the point where Requin hideously burned his hands trying to scrape off the contact poison that led to Selendri's current condition, then did...something unnameable to the man who took out the hit.
• In Death series: This has happened a couple of times, like in Salvation in Death and New York to Dallas. However, in those cases, one of the couple is genuinely in love and the other has nothing but contempt for the other. The contemptuous one will murder the other one, thereby crossing the Moral Event Horizon...if s/he has not already done so!
• Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: A number of stories has this going on between the bad guys, like in Lethal Justice, Vanishing Act, and Deadly Deals. However, the "love" between such couples is apparently not genuine, as they will inevitably turn on each other once the Vigilantes and Karma start closing in on them.
• It was apparent from the start that Billy-Ray Sanguine from Skulduggery Pleasant has a twisted affection for Tanith Low, but it was only when Tanith got a Remnant permanently bonded to her soul that she started reciprocating those feelings. What makes it even worse is that Tanith is not in full control of what she's doing and so there's some very rape-y overtones on top of that. Squick indeed.
• In Lois McMaster Bujold's novel Mirror Dance, House Bharaputra is run by a married couple, Baron and Baronne Bharaputra, who appear devoted to each other. Although in the Baronne's case, it's possible that she's just looking for the extended life in a cloned body that he offers.
• In Carrie, Billy and Chris (although not actually married, since they're still in high school) qualify. Put the two most sociopathic teens in town together....
• In The Traitor Son Cycle, the Earl and Duchess Muriens. He's a jerkass Blood Knight whose first reaction to "Your son is alive" is "He couldn't even kill himself properly?". She's working to destroy the kingdom because of a grudge against its ruler. They both cheat on each other and insult one another at every opportunity, but they're in love and make a formidable Battle Couple.
• The Shadowhunter Chronicles:
  • According to the testimony of Tessa Gray in The Dark Artifices exactly what happens with parabatai, who fall in love with each other. Parabatai can only love themselves as siblings or friends, but not as a couple of lovers. Unilateral infatuation of one of the parabatai is usually harmless, but if both love each other romantically, they become much more powerful than ordinary shadowhunters, but after a while also very evil, and then kill all around them.
  • Sammael and Lilith are both evil demons, but they do seem to love each other. In The Lost Book Of The White Sammael delays his plans to take over the world, so that he can personally torture Simon for incapacitating Lilith.
• In the Nightside series, Julian Advent's arch-enemies from the old days were the Murder Masques, a husband-and-wife team of arch-criminals.
• Into the Drowning Deep: Jacques and Michi are a pair of murderous Egomaniac Hunters and love each other as the only person in the world who can understand their natures. The narration notes that Michi's influence is the only reason Jacques is a big game hunter instead of a Serial Killer, and her death leaves him fatally unhinged.
• Torol and Ialai Sadeas of The Stormlight Archive are a pair of snobbish schemers working to undermine their former friend Dalinar, up to the point where Torol strands Dalinar and his army at the top of a plateau, intending to make their deaths look like an accident. Ialai acts as spymaster where Torol goes out and fights using slave labor as bait, and both work to take over the kingdom politically. When Torol is murdered, Shallan is unable to tell whether Ialai is truly upset or simply a good actor. Given that Ialai is a drunk and apathetic towards her own death as of Rhythm of War, it's probably the former.
• The Monster of Elendhaven: The main couple is Florian and his assistant Johann. The former is a vindictive noble sorcerer who intends to destroy the city that ruined his family with a deadly and incurable plague, the latter is a Humanoid Abomination and Serial Killer that is in love and subservient to him. Their love for each other is genuine and they're even attracted to each other's evil deeds.
• Girls Don't Hit: Joss and her apprentice Echo, both of them unrepentant cold-blooded assassins, fall for each other. Their love is genuine, deep and would be sweet if they weren't horrible otherwise.

Live-Action TV

• The Addams Family is more Affably Evil than outright villainous, but Morticia and Gomez's relationship could technically qualify as this. They are a very loving couple, and their show is one of the few sitcom-style series on TV without marital strife as a running gag.
• The Boys (2019): Season 2 reveals that Frederick Vought was Stormfront's husband, and she was the first successful recipient of Compound-V. Even after abandoning the German war effort, they apparently both remained committed Nazis.
• Buffyverse:
  • Angelus and Darla. Once Darla teamed up with Angelus, the duo started traveling the world, often staying wherever a genocidal civil war was currently going on.
    Cordelia: Imagine Bonnie and Clyde if they had 150 years to get it right.
  • Spike and Drusilla, who seemed to be genuinely in love, albeit still murderous. Sad it didn't last through all of the seasons. Spike's later relationship with Harmony counts as this as well, though it rather notably doesn't work quite so well and doesn't last nearly so long, for more than one reason.
  • Vampire Willow and Vampire Xander in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Wish", much to Cordelia's exasperation. Besides killing people, their relationship involves Xander watching Willow brutally torture people.
• In the Charmed (1998) episode "Marry-Go-Round", if someone wants to remain aligned with Evil in marriage, it must be performed with a Dark Priest, at night, in a cemetery.
• Chinese Paladin: Used as a means of demonstrating The Power of Love when the heroes find a snake- and fox-demon couple preying on travelers. The snake-demon sacrifices his physical form to save his wife, who then pledges to devote herself solely to preserving his soul. Unfortunately, the hero doesn't know about that, and kills her, too.
• Criminal Minds: Anita and Roger Roycewood, the couple of child abductors and murderers. The show featured a range of UnSubs with couple dynamics. One was a young couple on a whirlwind romance who went on a spree of revenge killings, another was an older married couple who had been killing runaways and hookers for decades and underwent couples counselling.
• Crisis on Earth-X has Dark Arrow and Overgirl, the Earth-X Evil Doppelgangers of Oliver and Kara, respectively, who are married. Supergirl is vocally grossed out by this.
• Daredevil (2015): Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. the Kingpin) meets art museum curator Vanessa and falls in love with her. After going on a date and learning just who he really is, she falls in love with him. She supports him unquestionably as our hero Matt Murdock tries to tear down Fisk's empire. At the end of the first season, he proposes to her as he's being dragged away by the FBI.
• Dexter: A couple show up as Victims of the Week (Dexter hunts criminals who manage to escape the law), telling each other that they love each other even while Dexter is about to kill them for murdering several innocent immigrants. Dexter actually thought the husband was the sole brains of the operation before he discovered that the wife was in on it; before killing them, he even asked them for marital advice!
• The Flash (2014): Season 4 Big Bad Clifford DeVoe/the Thinker and his Dragon Marliz/The Mechanic are eventually revealed to be husband and wife. As their Origins Episode shows, they were happily married for years prior to their Start of Darkness, and their descent into supervillainy has done nothing to dampen their love for each other. Eventually, however, it turns out that Marliz still has some morals, which puts her at odds with Clifford's increasing megalomania, causing him to repeatedly drug and mind-wipe her to keep her compliant.
• Madalena and Gareth from Galavant. He brings her a present of earrings—with the previous owners' ears still attached. For his birthday, she starts a war with a neighboring kingdom.
• Gotham: Tabitha is a ruthless criminal, but also genuinely devoted to her brother Theo (with their relationship heavily implied to be a sexual one). She later falls for Butch, with them being touchingly close despite them being criminals. Tabitha becomes lovers with Barbara on Butch's disappearance and they also genuinely love each other. She dies seeking revenge on Cobblepot for harming Butch.
• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess: Over the course of both shows, Ares has been romantically involved with both Callisto and Hope, even impregnating the latter.
• House of Cards (UK): Francis Urquhart seems to have a genuinely loving and mutual relationship with his wife, to the point where she will allow and suggest that he have affairs in order to gain someone's trust. She knows all of his devious acts (including the murders) and they conspire and live together happily.
  • Same applies to House of Cards (US).
• Liquidation: Chekan is in a bandit gang and Ida works for smugglers. They have very few morals and don’t shy away from casually killing off people who stand in their way. They have also been madly in love for years, are willing to do anything for each other, and their death is a huge Tear Jerker.
• Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman has a rich Sickeningly Sweethearts couple who keep their marriage alive by brewing evil plans together.
• The Mentalist: In the episode "Red Hair and Silver Tape", a couple who owns and runs a luxurious restaurant kidnap girls with the intention to murder them. Jane first suspected only the husband. Agent van Pelt especially is horrified to learn that they were in it together.
  van Pelt: I don't get it. She actually enjoyed helping him kill. One crazy evil person, I understand. But two? Husband and wife? Marriage is supposed to be a sacred, loving thing.
  Jane: They were soul mates in their own strange way.
• The Middleman: Vlad and Lizzie, the vampire couple.
• On Mr. Robot, Corrupt Corporate Executive Tyrell Wellick and his wife are this. He sleeps with a male secretary in order to further his career and she is implied to know about it. They also go to dinner with the head of Evil Corp in order to secure him the CTO position. When Tyrell's intimidation tactics fail to get him the position, she simply tells him to try again.
• The New Statesman: Even though he's the protagonist, Alan B'Stard and his wife Sarah are both amoral and power-hungry enough to qualify for this trope. (They take "love-hate relationship" to whole new levels...)
• The Night Agent: Ellen and Dale are ruthless, cold-blooded assassins. They're a couple too and have a genuine love for each other.
• Nikita: It's eventually revealed that Amanda is in a secret alliance/relationship with Ari Tasarov; together, they plot against both the protagonists and their respective superiors, in order to gain more control and power for themselves. Even after their master plan fails and they're forced to go on the run, it's shown that they actually do truly care about each other. One could even argue that their relationship itself is an Evil Counterpart to the one between Nikita and Michael.
• Only Murders in the Building: The killers in season 2 turn out to be a couple who apparently genuinely love each other even as they murder for personal gain while framing people for their crimes.
• Power Rangers:
  • In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa actually went as far as subverting the inevitable failure of the Love Potion — and eventually getting married. Later it's revealed that Zedd loves Rita for real, when he is exposed to an antidote against the love potion. The behind-the-scenes reason for this Unholy Matrimony is that the Moral Guardians thought Zedd, acting as an evil overlord, was too scary for kids during his early run. Therefore the producers toned him down by making him part of a bickering married couple.
  • This is why Space Pirate Divatox wanted to release Maligore in Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. She started having second thoughts after getting a good look at him, seeing that he is a berserk fire demon.
  • In Power Rangers Zeo there were two cases of villains who had been married before making their first appearance (in a way, considering that both couples were robots). King Mondo had Queen Machina as his royal consort, and likely had for a long time. Also, Mondo's firstborn (first-built?) son Prince Gasket had eloped with Princess Archerina, the daughter of Mondo's rival, at some point in the past, and the two later returned when Mondo was believed to be dead.
  • Poisandra is preparing for this with Sledge in Power Rangers Dino Charge, although it hasn't yet happened in over 65 million years. They finally marry in "Edge of Extinction".
• Resurrection: Ertuğrul: Colpan Hatun, wife of the unscrupulous and conniving Ural Bey, proves herself to be just as despicable as her husband several times. One notable instance of this is when she informs Halime Hatun that Ertugrul decided to marry Aslihan (Even though he actually went against it) simply so she could destroy their relationship.
• Revolution: As of episode 8, Major Tom Neville and his wife Julia are revealed to have this going on between them. Their love seems to be quite genuine, considering that they went to great lengths to save their son's life, and that Julia is urging Tom to kill off Monroe and take his place as head of the Monroe Republic. Episode 10 shows that Tom would surrender before he sacrifices Julia. Episode 13 has Tom fail a mission for Monroe, and so he personally hurries to Julia and has her pack up and flee the Monroe Republic with him.
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand:
  • Batiatus and Lucretia have a great and loving relationship, but are the Big Bad for the first season. A lot of their scheming, both in "Blood and Sand" and the prequel "Gods of the Arena" is done for love of the other, and they seem to bring out the worst in each other.
  • While Glaber and Ilithyia have a rockier relationship, they are matched in ambition and scheming skills. By the end of Vengeance, in the episode "Monster" they reunite for evil and declare they are both monsters. To stress the point they proceed to have sex covered in the blood of Seppia, whose corpse is still floating in the pool next to them.
• Supergirl (2015): When Lex Luthor returns in the final episodes of the series (having disappeared following winning a trial for his previous crimes), it's revealed that he had traveled to the future and met Nyxly (the Big Bad of Season 6), whom to his own surprise he genuinely fell in love with. Together, they managed to gain the ultimate power of the All-Stone and conquer the universe, only for something to go wrong and Nyxly to die. Heartbroken, Lex returns to the present to ally with the current version of Nyxly and avert that part of her fate. It isn't long before his devotion starts to win her over, turning them into a couple again.
• Tidelands (Netflix): Violca and Colton, two minor villains, turn out to be a genuinely loving couple. She gets pregnant and they're overjoyed to become parents. It doesn't make Violca become any less ruthless, but actually doubles down as she knows Adrielle won't let her have a baby. So she grows determined to kill Adrielle and Augie as well since he'll object to her taking over in L'Attente. Their scheme is found out by Adrielle; Colton gets sacrificed at her orders with Violca fleeing.
• True Blood: Russell Edgington and Steve Newlin. Slow-dancing to Katy Perry in a frat house full of bodies they've fed and murdered, flirting while glamouring Jason into showing where the fairies and his sister are hidden, Russell kidnapping a small werewolf girl so Steve can have his "first pet"... It's cute, in a sociopathic way.
• The Vampire Diaries: Inverted Trope: Damon loves Katherine but she's more interested in his little brother.

Manhua

• Ravages of Time: Sima Yi finds his match in beautiful, intelligent and equally unscrupulous Shan Wuling (who was originally out to replace the Sima clan as the political mover and shaker of the realm, and only concedes defeat when he outmaneuvers her).
  Zhang Lei: A match made in heaven... a dog and his bitch.

Music

• The Ax-Crazy couple in "A Little Piece of Heaven" by Avenged Sevenfold.
• "Criminals" by MSMR seems to be about someone realizing (and accepting) that they're one half of this type of relationship.
  Do you want a way out? Do you? Do you?
  Do you want a way out? Do you? I don't want a way out.
  You and I know the truth: even though it hurts, I just wanna be a criminal with you.
• Precisely 50% of the songs on Seanan McGuire album Red Roses and Dead Things involve this trope with varying degrees of creepiness.
• "Lucifer" by Blutengel.
• A lot of Ordo Rosarius Equilbiro's work fits this trope. Especially "Do Lust and Murder Make Me a Man?" and "Let the Words of My Murder Be the Last Words You Hear."
• "Killers in Love" by Tub Ring.
• "Black Wedding" by In This Moment.
• Tom Cardy and Montaigne's "Red Flags" ends with the two main characters planning a The Human Centipede themed wedding, where they plan to turn all the guests into one, giant centipede. That way they can save on the catering bill.
  Tom: I can finally open myself up to love!
  Montaigne: I can finally sew a mouth to a butt!
• "Blacksnake" by Charming Disaster is not obviously about villains, but it is a very moody song that seems to be about a romance between a dark-flavored witch and a guy who seems to be some type of nocturnal undead, and how they're both being hunted by someone and doomed to die.
  The scarab on my pillow whispers vespers as I sleep
  You saved me from the sparrows, now my soul is yours to keep
  Come morning we awaken to a garnet-colored sky
  The mirror cracked and broken, making X-es of my eyes
  Light the fire, sing the song
  Hit the high hat, kick the drum
  Secret language on the tongue
  Something wicked this way comes
  • "Be My Bride of Frankenstein" has a similar theme.
• Twin Temple has the song Let's Hang Together, which quotes the trope name verbatim. The band's headers are incidentally a somewhat literal (albeit not villainous) version as well, being married and practicing Satanists.

Myths & Religion

• Older Than Dirt with Mesopotamian Mythology: Nergal and Ereshkigal ends up with Ereshkigal, goddess of underworld, marrying Nergal, the god of plague. Kind of an Unbuilt Trope, however, because none of the two is actually evil and their union actually puts a Happy Ending to a cosmic conflict.
• Older Than Feudalism with Classical Mythology:
  • Typhon and Echidna. She's a beautiful woman with the lower body of a snake, and a fondness for eating travelers. He's a giant with one hundred dragon heads, and a tendency towards deicide. Together they sired the Hellhounds Orthrus and Cerberus, the Chimera, the Nigh-Invulnerable Nemean Lion, the Sphinx, the massive eagle that eats Prometheus' liver, and the nearly-unkillable Hydra. It becomes even better if you realize that among the Greek pantheon they're probably the two deities/monsters/primordial beings who are the most faithful to one another; there are no reports of either sleeping around (admittedly, when you look like that...), in sharp contrast with someone like Zeus, who, to say the least, Really Gets Around. Truly a match made in Tartarus (who is, coincidentally, Typhon's father).
  • Neither Hades nor Persephone were really evil (despite popular belief), but both were feared by the ancient Greeks, seeing as they ruled the afterlife, and were generally dark beings (yes, Persephone too, in her role as Queen of the Underworld). Their marriage may have been based on kidnapping at first, but, if nothing else, Hades was far more faithful than the average god.
• Also Older Than Feudalism with The Bible, namely the Books of Kings, with the Ruling Couple of Ahab and Jezebel in northern Israel. That being said, Jezebel is a Lady Macbeth who orchestrated much of Ahab's villainy.
  • In the Book of Esther, Haman is married to a woman named Zeresh, and seeks her advice twice in the story. Some Jewish legends expand on her, saying that she knew sorcery and actually came up with Haman's genocidal plan.
• Arthurian Legend: One interpretation of the early Welsh stories is that Mordred was married to Gwenhwyfach, Guinevere's evil and identical sister, since his conflict with Arthur resulted from the sisters fighting over chestnuts (and Gwenhwyfach slapping Guinevere, which is a horrible disgrace for a queen). Ironically, later legends have Mordred married to the saintly Cwyllog instead.

Pro Wrestling

• Lita and Edge are an iconic example.
• Dolph Ziggler and A.J. Lee are an evil power couple, but seem so blissfully happy together that it's hard not to root for them.
• Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are this to a tee, especially during the McMahon-Helmsley and Authority Eras.

Radio

• Parodied in Bleak Expectations: When Harry Biscuit has a Face–Heel Turn from Mr Benevolent's mind-control, Pippa turns evil as well because she thinks a couple should share their hobbies and turns out to be much better at it than him, so that when he becomes good again, she becomes Mr Benevolent's Evil Consort. In the following season Harry undergoes another Face–Heel Turn under the influence of an evil pen, and this time Pippa is only pretending to be evil in order to stay with him.
  • Played with earlier than that. Mr. Benevolent turns good and marries his childhood love, Sweetly Delightful... except on their honeymoon he tells her all about his evil deeds, and she gets interested in the idea. From the way Benevolent describes it, he'd turned evil again for her, but by the time the honeymoon was over he'd lost interest, and was only going along with it for the sake of the henchmen.

Tabletop Games

• From Warhammer, the vampire couple Vlad and Isabella von Carstein. After turning Isabella into a vampire he raised a giant army of the undead and they tried to conquer The Empire. As you do. When Vlad was slain Isabella committed suicide.
  • Vlad took Isabella as his bride to seize control of Sylvania. He fell in love with her afterward, while she was still human, and did everything he could to avoid turning her into a vampire. Then a plague hit Sylvania, the doctors couldn't do anything for Isabella when she caught it, and Vlad, out of options, gave her an Emergency Transformation. She took it amazingly well.
  • In gameplay, if you have both on the table and one of them is killed, the other goes completely insane, picking up Hatred of the enemy army and Frenzy. Translation: the bereaved spouse charges directly at the enemy lines and tries to rip apart the bastards that killed their love with claws and fangs.
  • With the End Times, Vlad was returned to life as a Mortarch. However he's more than a little miffed that not only was Isabella not revived, but apparently they didn't go to the same afterlife. He's now only following Nagash, who is bent on turning the world into an undead paradise, so that Nagash will revive Isabella for him. When it turns out that Isabella was revived by Nurgle, who convinced her that Vlad never really loved her, his reaction is nothing short of a Heroic BSoD. He then performs a Heroic Sacrifice to free her from Nurgle's control.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: The leaders of the Nighthaunt, Lady Ollynder and Kurdoss Valentian are "married" inasmuch as two ghosts can be; it is, however, a completely loveless marriage, arranged more as. a cruel joke by the death god Nagash than anything else. In life, Ollynder was a Black Widow who achieved power by marrying and murdering powerful men, while Kurdoss backstabbed and schemed his way to power. Now she's bound to a man she can never kill, and he's forced to get her permission before giving any orders or excerising his power, both of them trapped in their own Ironic Hell.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Count Strahd Von Zarovitch believes that all he needs to do to achieve this trope is to turn the reincarnation of Tatyana, whom he'd pursued and lost centuries ago, into his vampire bride. Subverted because A) the Dark Powers that hold him captive ensure that his schemes to do this can never succeed, and B) Tatyana had no romantic love for him even before he murdered the man (his own brother) she was in love with. She viewed him as an admirable, if distant, and wholly honorable elder brother-in-law-to-be.
  • Belgos and Silussa, a drow vampire and succubus who make up a Dual Boss in the 1st Edition module Vault of the Drow (written by gary Gygax himself) are stated to be consorts and lovers, but whether they truly love each other isn't clear. As far as the written strategy goes for the module, Belgos does indeed gain a bonus to his attack roles if Silussa is in danger, but Silussa will abandon him and flee if her life is in danger. (The module gives the DM a lot of leeway in regards to personality and background meaning they could adore or despise each other, depending on personal interpretation.)
  • Another famous example of this from Dungeons & Dragons (which ended badly) was the relationship between Mammon, the ruler of the third layer of Baator, and Princess Glasya, the daughter of Asmodeus. Glasya was his lover and consort, but after the failed mass coup called the Reckoning, Mammon proved to be a groveling coward before Asmodeus. As part of his punishment, Asmodeus forced him and Glasya to annul their marriage. Glasya has since become far more powerful and become ruler of the sixth layer, and her attitude towards him now is unknown; some believe that they have secretly renewed their relationship (despite the fact that Mammon has a new consort) while others believe she despises him now for failing to defend their love.
  • There was also the rather...twisted relationship between the Evil Sorceress Iggwilv and the demon lord Graz'zt; they were lovers for a time, he helped her forge an empire, and she bore his son, who would grow up to be the cruel tyrant Iuz...all despite the fact that she had technically kidnapped him and was holding him prisoner. It ended very badly. (Oddly enough, while some sources have claimed that Graz'zt has killed minions for simply bringing it up, a Fourth Edition write-up on Graz'zt claims that Iggwilv is his "ally and occasional lover". Given how chaotic demons are, anything is possible, though 4th Edition was known for at best only having Broad Strokes canon from previous editions.)
• From Deadlands fluff, we have Miles and Mina Devlin: ruthless railroad barons, dark sorcerers, devoted spouses and loving parents. After Miles' assassination, things go downhill.
• In the Giantslayer adventure path in Pathfinder, the main villain for the first part of the module, Skreed, is an evil alchemist that is in love with a mercenary that he met when trying to recruit followers in a bid to conquer human civilization. The two carry magical lockets that tell each the current physical status of the other. Their love is genuine; should Skreed die in the first part (which is extremely likely, as he fights to the death), his lover attempts to get vengeance in the second part of the module.
• There are a number of examples in Vampire: The Masquerade, most notoriously Troile and Moloch, and Tremere and Goratrix (an uncommon gay example).
  • Then there's the Dracon, Antonius, and Michael, which stands out for being a gay villainous throuple. Although the trio's original goal of making Constantinople a center of culture, faith, and learning wasn't innately villainous, dysfunction, manipulation, and control were a part of the relationship from the start because, well, vampires. After Antonius's death, it only got worse, with Michael getting diablerized by the infernalist Mary the Black, while the Dracon started dabbling with being an Omnicidal Maniac and got reduced to a flesh-tumor by the eldest of his blood. In recent nights, Michael has grabbed control of Mary's body, and the couple has finally reunited and is looking for a third to complete their vision of a perfected Constantinople... with some obvious turns.

Theater

• Nixon in China: Mr. and Mrs. Mao Zedong are largely portrayed as a loving and romantic, if occasionally disturbing couple. The cut composition, "The Chairman Dances", is dedicated to this trope.
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett has shades of this, even though they're not married and she's the only one who wants a Relationship Upgrade.
• Monsieur and Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables. Though how deep the love goes is questionable. "I used to dream that I would meet a prince—but, God Almighty, have ya seen what's happened since?!"
• In Twelfth Night, Toby and Maria spend a lot of time together preparing Batman Gambits in order to make fools of others, and sure enough, at the end of the play we find out that they've eloped.
• Macbeth: The title character is married to his Dragon Lady Macbeth. Probably the most famous example, and even has a subtrope named after it.
• Though Plankton and Karen lean more towards Awful Wedded Life in the cartoon, The SpongeBob Musical characterizes their relationship more along the lines of this trope, where they use evil scheming to bring the "spark" back into their love life.
• 35MM: A Musical Exhibition: The vampire couple from "Twisted Teeth," maybe. They gleefully hunt people together and the woman states she'd die for her husband, and she seems happy. However, he bit and transformed her without her consent, and it's possible she's either supernaturally enthralled by him, or is accepting the situation for what it is and trying to make the best of it by convincing herself she loves him and the monster she's become.

Video Games

• Baldur's Gate has a few examples:
  • Sarevok, the Big Bad of the first game, has two relationships on the go — the first with a Kara-Turan woman called Tamoko, the other with a woman called Cythandria. Cythandria is in love with him because of his capability as a villain, but Tamoko is an odd case — she seems to love him in spite of his evil rather than because of it, and wants him to abandon his Evil Plan to stay with her instead.
  • To confront and expose Sarevok late in the game, the characters first have to get an invitation to his inauguration ceremony in the Duke's Palace. They get one from the two assassins Slyth and Krystin who hang out in the Undercellar brothel before they get to kill the remaining dukes. These two seem quite crazy and nauseatingly in love, and manage to put up quite a fight when you encounter them for the first time.
  • In the sequel two characters talk about how their families are driving them apart since they're a bad influence on each other. One of your options is to be a Love Freak and tell them that they should run off together. They thank you and tell you everything they do shall be in your name. Later you overhear a conversation about those two. Turns out they were an Outlaw Couple and are now robbing people in your name.
  • Viconia can be redeemed to True Neutral if you romance her as a good guy, but you can also romance her as an evil character and she'll happily play the role of Lady Macbeth, supporting and encouraging your godly ambitions.
  • A romance with Dorn Il-Khan is this in the extreme, and can lead to either Bash Brothers or a Dark Lady and Black Knight match-up, since Dorn is blatantly bisexual.
  • Romancing Hexxat is a downplayed version of this. She doesn't seem very evil most of the time (especially compared to Dorn) but she is a vampire who drains the blood of the living to survive. Hexxat is also quite the flirt, not just with Charname but also with her contact Cabrina and Viconia — both of whom are evil.
  • Your own parents were this. Your father was Bhaal, the Lord of Murder, who planned to either sacrifice his children or set them on each other as part of a Thanatos Gambit. Your mother was one of his priestesses, who was so devoted to him she rejoiced at the opportunity to give birth to and sacrifice one of said children.
• Soltier and Lapis of Blaze Union. This, along with the fact that they're Anti Villains, helps to earn them life in one of the game's endings. Their feelings for each other are both very mutual and very genuine.
• In Borderlands 2, Big Bad Handsome Jack is in an active and happy relationship with Nisha, the Sheriff of Lynchwood. He's a fascist, megalomaniacal MegaCorp dictator intent of wiping out everyone who he considers a "bandit". She's a psychopathic Blood Knight who gets off on hurting people and being hurt right back. They're a perfect match. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! shows how they eventually got together if you play as Nisha, with her gradually becoming more and more attracted to Jack as he slides down the slope and becomes more and more violent and ruthless. She outright admits that she's in love when Jack throws his own science team out an airlock on suspicion that one of them is a traitor. In Borderlands 2, if you end up killing Nisha in Lynchwood, Jack will admit that he's kind of pissed off that you killed his girlfriend, and he's actually surprised at how angry that makes him.
• Catherine: In one of the Multiple Endings, Vincent storms and takes over hell, then proceeds to rule it with Catherine at his side. And yes, the two are genuinely in love and are Happily Married.
• City of Heroes:
  • Black Scorpion and Silver Mantis seem to have this sort of relationship. He's a sadist, she's a masochist, they're both cyborgs, and what others consider impalement and dismemberment they consider foreplay.
  • Then we have Lord Recluse and Red Widow. She assassinated his boss for him, he founded a nation of evil with her. World domination is a relationship goal, as far as they are concerned.
• Morrigan and Demitri are presented as this in Darkstalkers franchise, but interestingly enough, not in the original games themselves. In their home games, Demitri just wants Morrigan to be his mistress i.e., Sex Slave due her beauty and strength as well as getting House Aensland under his thumb, whilst Morrigan is a free spirit who isn't interested in being another addition to Demitri's Vampire's Harem and turns to stone rather than let Demitri claim her as his own. In the Darkstalkers manga and aforementioned anime and Cross Edge, they play this straight, being genuinely attracted to each other whilst being as demonic as ever.
• In Dominion of Darkness, the male player character can make one of his female lieutenants/agents his consort, which brings mechanical benefits and some new scenes. A Female Temptress character can "marry" optional boss King of the Pain instead of fighting him.
• Zigzagged with Towa and Mira in the Dragon Ball Online, Dragon Ball Heroes and Dragon Ball Xenoverse games. They play this straight in the former two titles genuinely caring for each other in their pursuit of power and treat Fu as their own flesh and blood child (he does have their cells, but his birth is unclear especially given he wasn’t Born as an Adult like his dad). In Xenoverse however their relationship is more like master and servant with Towa only seeing Mira as a tool rather than her lover and Mira even betraying her in the sequel, though he does regret it after being beaten. Despite this change, Fu the proof of their union still shows up in Xenoverse 2.
• Dynasty Warriors from 5 onwards has an example in the couple of Cao Pi and Zhenji. She is a sadistic Lady Macbeth, he is the ambitious, cold-as-ice successor to the Throne of Wei. Together, they spread terror on the battlefield! Notably their affection appears genuine, in both directions. Zhenji is happy to have found a partner who can match her drive for conquest (Cao Pi being her second husband), and as for Cao Pi, Zhenji's presence is one of the very few things that can make him show some emotion. They aren't as 'villainous' after the sixth game forward, but it still shows that they're not by default nice and takes things in a more proud and antiheroic way. Interestingly, this is quite a divergence from the source material, in which Cao Pi amused himself with Zhenji for a while — after killing her first husband and taking her as spoils of war — and then forced her to commit suicide when he found a new favorite. Presumably, it was decided that this wouldn't play well with a contemporary audience.
• Elden Ring has Rykard and Tanith. The former may be a giant god-killing snake abomination whose own knights want you to kill him, but they do honestly love each other, with Tanith being utterly shattered when you kill Rykard. Rykard even made a potion for his adopted daughter Rya so she could forget the truth of her origins and live a normal life. It's kind of sweet, if you ignore all the other stuff he gets up to.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Night Mother is the mysterious Evil Matriarch leader of the Dark Brotherhood, an illegal assassin's guild with a propensity toward Psycho for Hire traits in its membership who practice a Religion of Evil worshipping Sithis, a primeval God of Evil force representing chaos, change, and limitation. The Night Mother is said to be the "bride" of Sithis who, according to legend, was once a mortal woman who bore Sithis five children, then sacrificed them to him.
  • Skyrim:
    • Astrid and Arnbjorn are Happily Married. They're also the de facto leaders of The Remnant of the Dark Brotherhood.
    • Hert and Hern, the owners of the Half-Moon Mill. They're vampires who lure unsuspecting travelers to their doom by offering them shelter for the night.
  • In Online, Vaermina, the Daedric Prince of Nightmares, reveals that she is in love with her champion. Her reaction to his death (at your hands) backs this up, as she gleefully describes how she is going to spend the next century or so Mind-Raping you for killing him.
• Eric Bloodaxe and Gunnhilde the witch in Fate/Grand Order. In life, they perpetrated massacres and conquered kingdoms together; according to Eric's interlude quests, they're still Together in Death as Heroic (villainous?) Spirits.
• The girlfriend's mother and father in Friday Night Funkin' are trying to stop the Boyfriend from dating their daughter by challenging him to singing battles. You have to battle The Father in week 1, The Mother in week 4 and both of them in a duet in week 5.
• Probably the most difficult boss fight in Illusion of Gaia is the one against Jack and Silvana, a married couple of vampires. Oddly, while if you defeat Silvana first Jack rages about how he's going to take his revenge on you for killing his wife, if you beat Jack first Silvana says she's glad he's gone.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Mortal Kombat II: In Mileena's non-canon ending, she is a "secret partner" with Baraka. They both kill Shao Kahn and take over the Outworld, ruling it as king and queen.
  • Mortal Kombat 11: In the original timeline of games, Sindel was forced to marry Shao Kahn and committed suicide from despair. Resurrecting and brainwashing her was used as the means for Outworld's invasion of Earthrealm. Mortal Kombat 11 changes this. Sindel's non-canon ladder ending, several fight intros, and her role in the story expansion Aftermath all confirm Sindel was not only Not Brainwashed, but a willing accomplice to Shao Kahn's conquest of her realm of Edenia, going so far as to murder her prior husband, King Jerrod. Shao Kahn tells Kitana in the story mode that he only kept Kitana around to please Sindel. One fight intro between Shao Kahn and Sindel has him respond to a challenge to prove he hasn't become weak and pathetic with a fond "Just as I remember", and their shared chapter in Aftermath has them as an unstoppable, sincerely affectionate Battle Couple.
• Downplayed in Mother 3 with Tazmily's mayor Pusher and his wife Elmore. While they are not outright evil, they are easily the two most unpleasant people in Tazmily village. Elmore even outright tells Lucas that she and Pusher hate him.
• Neverwinter Nights:
  • A possibility with Blackguard Aribeth and the player in the end of Hordes of the Underdark.
  • If you pick the evil path in the second game, the player and Gann or Safiya (depending on gender). Also in the second game, before it was cut, an evil female player and Bishop.
  • Certain mods do have examples, including Vico and the player in A Dance with Rogues and Alex and the player in The Bastard of Kosigan.
  • In the Shadowlords mod series, it's possible for an evil female character to slowly corrupt Nooble Unders, paladin-wannabe through the right dialogue choices, while the sequel series, Dreamcatcher, has the option of starting a rather interesting romance with him.
• Overlord gives you a choice in Mistresses, though there's always one that's actually relatively non-evil and arguably the Only Sane Person in this Crapsack World. First game featured the prim and proper Rose and the greedy and slutty Velvet. The second game (which confirms Rose as the canon choice) offers Victorious Childhood Friend Kelda, Gold Digger Juno and Fallen Hero Dark Fay.
• While not exactly the main villains, William and Annette Birkin in Resident Evil 2 seem to be a happily married couple of Mad Scientists.
• Oda Nobunaga and Nouhime in Samurai Warriors starting from the second game. (In the first, she struggles between killing him and killing for him.) Nobunaga is cordial and amused with Nouhime's attitude about him, but they are more or less attracted to each other's lust for carnage.
• Lilith and Samael of The Secret World. She was a human exiled from the Garden of Eden, he was a Fallen Angel, and they initially teamed up out of convenience - the outcast Nephilim using the mortal as a pawn in his attempts to achieve world domination. However, through a mixture of magic and science, Lilith rose to become Samael's equal and eventually the two fell in love and married. Over the courses of the Ages that followed, they became an eldritch Outlaw Couple: Lilith the Mad Scientist Humanoid Abomination plaguing the world with monsters of her own creation, Samael the semi-divine Omnicidal Maniac with "a passion that could extinguish civilizations"... right up until their attempts to gain control of a Gaia Engine blew up in their faces. These days, however, the couple's marriage is on the rocks thanks to Samael's decision to go native in the human world, and the two have been made into separate menaces.
• Oda Nobunaga and Nouhime in Sengoku Basara. Nobunaga is an Evil Overlord, while Nouhime is his Love Martyr Psycho Supporter. On Nouhime's death, Nobunaga deems her worthless.
• Lady and Killer from Shadow Hearts: From The New World, though whether the latter is actually in love or merely mind-controlled is debatable.
• In The Sims 2, this is heavily implied with Circe and Loki Beaker of Strangetown. Loki is a Mad Scientist and Circe's bio says that she knows 238 different ways to make someone scream. They also have a cell-like room in the basement for Nervous Subject, who, according to their family bio, they are experimenting on.
• Sorceress Mortis and warlock Isa in the Spirits of Mystery series. Their affections were quite genuine, as shown in the bonus chapter of Spirits of Mystery 4: The Silver Arrow.
• Star Wars:
  • In Knights of the Old Republic, Bastila suggests this possibility to a male Player Character near the end. You can take her up on it.
  • With the Restored Content Game Mod, this is possible in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords on a Dark Side path, although with either gender with who gets complicated.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic has this with The Dark Side Sith Warrior Player Character and his apprentice/wife Jaesa Willsaam. There's also Darth Malgus, one of the main villains, who's happily married to a cute Twi'lek (ex-)slavegirl. The fact that he treats her like a wife rather than a slave is a source of annoyance to the largely xenophobic empire, but since he refuses to play politics and spends most of his time on the Imperial Fleet fighting (and mostly winning) battles for the Empire, it's largely ignored. That, however, does not mean that their apparently genuine, two-sided love doesn't wind up with a tragic ending...
  • The KOTORII Game Mod Knights of the Old Republic III: The Jedi Masters has Darths Kilorme and Iilo, members of the True Sith inner circle who lead their Humanoid Abomination shock troops known as Screamers. However, the two themselves were warped in a similar manner to them by The Dark Side, just barely retaining their sense of self, and your Spirit Advisor Freedon Nadd questions whether they can even comprehend their own marriage anymore.
• Done very humorously at the end of Super Mario RPG. Booster proposes to Valentina in Marrymore, and she says "yes"; however, he chickens out for some unknown reason at the altar, causing her to chase him.
• Tales of Monkey Island:
  • LeChuck tries to do this in Chapter 5: Rise of the Pirate God, using his Voodoo powers from La Esponja Grande and the Crossroads to turn Elaine into a Demon Bride/Goddess like himself which makes her turn evil. It's all a plan by Elaine, to allow Guybrush to save her and defeat LeChuck later.
  • Before that, it is discussed at the end of Chapter 4, when, after LeChuck breaks free from prison and saves Guybrush and Elaine after the cure of the Pox of LeChuck, he tells our hero that "it was the only way to win Elaine's hand in unholy matrimony"...confusing him and allowing LeChuck to make a clever, fatal ambush on him.
• Alice and Decus of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, with the "one playing the other" thing (gender-flipped). When Decus becomes a Love Martyr, that changes everything...
• Traffic Department 2192: Near the end of episode 3, Generals Talon and Marilith are not only lovers, but conspiring to murder the other generals, Kreel and Orlok, in contention for the position as the Overlord's successor.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Subverted with Dalliah and Soccothrates, the quarreling demon couple in Acratraz. It is highly implied that spending so long as cellmates has made them despise each other. Should the heroes focus on one of them, the other does nothing to help his/her spouse, watching while providing snarky commentary.
  • Deathwing and Sintharia. However, they were only together because she was the only one of his consorts strong enough to survive the mating after his Face–Heel Turn. Also during the earliest days of the Cataclysm Beta there was datamined info that Deathwing was going to corrupt Alexstrasza the Life-Binder and together they would conquer the world.
  • King Ymiron and Queen Angerboda, the leaders of the villainous Vrykul.
  • Sally Whitemane and Renault Mograine, the overseers of the Scarlet Monastery. Which have a villainous Lady and Knight vibe going on about them. As of the fourth expansion, this evolved into an Alas, Poor Villain scenario. Mograine had been canonically killed by his father ghost as revenge for his betrayal and murder of him (long story), so Whitemane carries on as the leader of The Remnant of the (in)famous Scarlet Crusade, this time with Commander Durand to replace Mograine for gameplay purposes. But what really sells it are Whitemane's last words following her allegedly final defeat:
    Whitemane: Mograine...
  • Malygos and Saragosa. Killing Saragosa and then taunting Malygos over Saragosa's corpse earned the red dragon Keristrasza a Fate Worse than Death at the hands of a berserk Aspect of Magic. And then death, too, in The Nexus.

Visual Novels

• Li'l Ronnie/Ran-Ru and her Servant Lancer in Fate/EXTRA.
• Caster and Kuzuki Souchirou in Fate/stay night.
• In Hate Plus, Ryu and Oh Eun-a.
• In Henchman Story, should main character (and henchman) Stan fully commit to becoming a villain, he can pursue a relationship with the supervillain Madame Scorpion.
• In Saya no Uta, the main couple, Fuminori Sakisaka and Saya, become this when Fuminori turns evil halfway through.
• In Umineko: When They Cry, it turns out this is the case between Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, who have similar circumstances and would both do anything to stave off boredom. The latter is rather Ambiguously Evil though.

Web Animation

• Helluva Boss:
  • The series first example is Moxxie and Millie. The two are demons and will kill people in the living world for the other demons in hell. They are also madly in love with each other, bordering on Sickeningly Sweethearts at times, and are the only two members of I.M.P. that get along swimmingly.
  • A second, decidedly less wholesome example of villainous wedlock can be found between Stolas and Stella, whose union is implied to have been of convenience rather than love and never provided either of them with emotional fulfillment. It's strongly implied that Stolas considers their daughter, Octavia, the only good thing that ever came out of their relationship.

Webcomics

• In Cheshire Crossing — which is essentially a Massive Multiplayer Crossover between The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Mary Poppins, with a couple of historical characters thrown in for good measure — the Wicked Witch of the West finds her way to Neverland and, after meeting up with Captain James Hook, the two start a rather *intimate* partnership. This also effectively turns her into a witch-pirate, or maybe pirate-witch, which is awesome. Pirate.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Nale's girlfriend, Sabine, is a succubus — truly a match made in Hell (or the Abyss, if you want to get technical). Their love is maintained through black magic and human sacrifice. And shapeshifting. While often played for laughs, there actually does seem to be a more serious side to their relationship which one can sense when Sabine talks to Vaarsuvius. Later strips would emphasize just how much Sabine cares for Nale; She seems to imply she would defy the Archfiends for him. She smashes her boss T.V when she sees Nale die and tells Vaarsuvius info on how to defeat the group responsible.
  • Also, it can even make a secondary unit of measure (in this case, a constant level of evil of 4.8 kilonazis with 0.4 kilonazi deviation):
    Roy: Who does the green line represent?
    Deva: A hypothetical offspring of Cruella de Vil and Sauron.
• During a Flashback sequence in General Protection Fault, it's revealed that Trudy—chessmaster extraordinaire—had a "team-up" like this during college, with an equally-despicable individual named Trent, who later became her archnemesis when he betrayed her.
  Trudy: We both had this...appreciation for the sadistic and morbid. We enjoyed our evil pranks so much that we quickly fell deeply in love with each other. It was black magic.
• Subverted in Episode Five of Demonology 101, when Isaac, the main villain, and Madeline, his demon 'handler,' genuinely falls in love halfway through the episode. She was supposed to keep him out of trouble, but once she starts sympathizing with him, winds up encouraging him to kill his brother Gabe. (As if he needed more encouragement.) However, when she herself is fatally injured, Isaac willingly barters her cure for a final truce with Gabe and the other protagonists.
• Minions At Work: Leading up to it.
• Axel and Aerith in Ansem Retort. Axel's a homicidal evil Buddhist god and Aerith's a conniving bitch who actively used Axel to get revenge on Cloud. And she admits to having a murderer fetish. And then Aerith got worse... for Riku, at least.
  Riku: Well, my skull's caved in and I'm stuck in the ceiling. I think I popped some vertebrae too.
  Aerith: Well, pop 'em back in! You've got more slings to be shot out of!
  Axel: God, I love you.
• In Kevin & Kell, Angelique is accidentally set up with R.L. after someone hacked into the Flea Bay website for a grooming date. R.L. plans on eating Angelique at the end, but becomes enamored with her after hearing Angelique brag about cheating on Kevin during their marriage, and managing to get him to pay her alimony despite initiating the divorce. The two soon marry after Angelique gives R.L. secrets on catching rabbits. Even when R.L. was missing (presumed dead) and Angelique took over Herd Thinners, restructuring it and using it as a stepping stone to conquer the world, he wasn't bitter. He just pointed out what a headache world conquest was. Angelique agreed to just make loads of money instead. And when the two shared a prison cell, they were just happy to be together. The only thing they needed beyond each other to be happy was their kids.
• "Black Hat Guy" and his... um... girlfriend in xkcd.
• Didi and Gogo in Fine young cannibals by VanHeist, inspired by Sweeney Todd. Aren't they a cute pair?
• Occurs between Mad Scientists Spencer Ecchs and Ada Byon in Patchwork Champions. She seduces him on the orders of another supervillain to steal his secrets, but when she carries out her mission successfully, the two continue to date, ending with her joining Ecchs's group and marrying him.
• In Sluggy Freelance, it looked like Crushestro and Monicruel were heading this way, until Chestro, his real wife, arrived. If she's not eviler than them both, she's at least more wrathful, and knows how to hit a cheating husband where it hurts — his criminal conglomerate. Nonetheless, Crushestro didn't waver — and, in fact, divorced his wife to stay together with Monicruel. They are adorable together. Or were, until Hereti-Corp attacked their secret base and hit Monicruel with a DFA. Crushtero survived — barely — and his reaction to seeing her apparently disintegrated certainly removed all doubt about HIS feelings, at the very least.
• Roommates: Jadis in the Buildingverse is prone to have such relationships. Her ex in the backstory of Roommates is the Erlkönig and she is currently together with Darkness the Prince of Darkness in Girls Next Door (her son from the first relationship doesn't need enemies: he has two parents from hell and a stepfather he loathes with passion).
• Girl Genius:
  • According to Castle Heterodyne, Dagon Heterodyne and the Skull-Queen of Skral were an example, sending attacks as overtures of flirtation. The Skull-Queen is noted to be Agatha's many-times-removed great grandmother, so it seems to have worked pretty well between them.
  • A rather hilarious scene when two Ax-Crazy characters finally find each other. Bangladesh DuPree suffers instant infatuation with Vole upon hearing a bloodthirsty visionary rant from this walking death machine. She even drops Tarvek whom she was trying to torment at the time.
• Jack Noir and the Black Queen from Homestuck are a weird version of this. Specifically, they are considered to be in a kismesissitude, a sexual relationship based around hatred.
• In CKarrus Ton Shi and Xylla are both not nice people with plans to murder the hero, but they are also a lovingly married couple. Doesn't mean they are always nice to each other though.
• Subverted in L's Empire. While Dark Star and Phala had each been the Big Bad at one point, Phala had undergone a Heel–Face Turn by the time that they hook up.
• Lemon and Lime in Evil Plan are a married pair of black market super villains.
• Downplayed in Ennui GO!. Sybil and Xoltan meet while speed dating and instantly hit it off due to their shared love of trying to make everyone else just a little bit more miserable.

Web Originals

• Obscured Eyes: Dr. Nightshade may be a Mad Scientist who conducts human experiments, but he is still very much in love with his wife Madame Scarlet, who admires his work.
• Some examples in the Whateley Universe. Some of the Bad Seeds (a clique you can only join if at least one of your parents is a supervillain) go to Whateley Academy. Nephandus has as parents The Troll Bride and Hexmaster. In a slight subversion, they're regarded as the Battling Bickersons of the supervillain world.
• Worm has a very creepy example in Night and Fog, neo-Nazi supervillains who act out the role of a married couple with so little emotion or deviation from the routine that even their teammates find it disturbing.

Web Videos

• Pokemon Pals: Apparently Jesse and James are married. James wanted to steal Pikachu to rekindle a spark in their relationship.
• Critical Role has Sylas and Delilah Briarwood, the couple that killed Percy's family. They are a vampire and a necromancer, respectively, and they are conducting a ritual that could bring an extremely evil god into the word. They are also happily married and deeply in love, to the point where some of the party members were visibly upset after seeing Delilah's reaction to them killing Sylas.
• The Nostalgia Critic has Hyper Fangirl and Devil Boner. Their first onscreen moment as an official couple has them gush over how they both held the Critic hostage at different points, and they're even pronounced "psycho husband and stalker wife" at their wedding.
• Nightmare Time: "Forever and Always" has Not-Emma and Paul 23, an android and clone, respectively, who independently pulled a Kill and Replace on the real Emma Perkins and Paul Matthews, then met each other and fell in love. The episode starts with Not-Emma admitting she took over the real Emma's life (leaving out the fact that she orchestrated her death) and Paul saying he still loves her and wants to be with her regardless. Things escalate from there, and the episode ends with the two dumping a dead body, planning to murder a homeless man because He Knows Too Much, and fondly reaffirming their love for each other. If anything, their relationship gets stronger once all the murderous cards are on the table because there are no more secrets between them.
  "We've hurt each other. We're murderers. But... do you still love me?"
  "I do."
  "Then I will do anything to stay by your side."

Western Animation

• The 7D has Hildy and Grim, married wizards who constantly cause trouble. While Hildy can be a bit spoiled, they both love each other.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Zuko and Mai, for a brief time in the third season while they're in a steady relationship and both side with the Fire Nation. It falls apart after Zuko undergoes his Heel–Face Turn and leaves Mai behind, but there are clearly lingering feelings on both ends by their next meeting, and her love for Zuko ultimately drives Mai to backstab Azula and make a Heel–Face Turn of her own. Whether or not they actually ended up together remains to be seen as they've broken up in the comics and the creators have outright ignored questions about who the mother of his daughter, Izumi, is (though she and Mai have the same distinctive face shape).
  • Azula tries to invoke this with Chan, a guy she meets at a party in the Beach/Villain Episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, openly stating that she plans to conquer and rule with him by her side. Since Chan is a Jerk Jock but not a power-mad despot, he's predictably terrified.
  • Sequel Series The Legend of Korra gives us a very genuine and almost sweet example with the Affably Evil Empowered Badass Normal Zaheer and the towering, aloof, and volatile-in-more-ways-than-one Dark Action Girl P'Li. While Bolin is captured by them, he hints that long-haired, incongruously jovial lavabending Ghazan and Handicapped Badass water-and-ice Ming-Hua have an unspoken attraction. They don't (and never do) confirm it, but they share an awkward look with each other.
  • Former Metal Clan guard captain turned dictator Kuvira is planning on marrying one of the Beifong Spin-Offspring, who also seems to be her second-in-command. But then she blasts the building he's in with a spirit laser in an attempt to kill Korra. He survives, but it's pretty clear their relationship is over after this.
• Darkstar and Charmcaster in one episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. Darkstar being Darkstar, he was merely trying to take advantage of her by using her as a power source. Since she was the strongest of the two, this doesn't end well for him when she finds out the truth...
• In BIONICLE: Web of Shadows, King Sidorak proposes to his Viceroy, Roodaka, and she accepts. While the movie portrays this as Sidorak having genuine affection for Roodaka, other story materials affirm the No Hugging, No Kissing nature of the franchise and explain that "marriage" is just a political union and the proposal was a power play on Sidorak's part, as sharing his throne would get him influence in Roodaka's homeland and hopefully slake her power-lust, keeping her out of trouble. Whatever the motivation, it doesn't work, as she realizes that once she's Queen he becomes expendable...
• In Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Dr. Blight and her assistant MAL have a weirdly flirty relationship in the early seasons, though it becomes more Like an Old Married Couple in later seasons. She has also been known to flirt with Looten Plunder, though he seems Oblivious to Love.
• One episode of Care Bears (1980s) has Professor Coldheart convince villainess Auntie Freeze that he wants to marry her and asking the Care Bears for help throwing the wedding. The gullible Care Bears agree, reasoning that anyone capable of love can't be bad. The reason is to sneak in an organ loud enough to destroy the cloud kingdom and crash the bears down to Earth, but when Auntie figures out that it's a sham, she just twists his ear and leads him off to receive punishment...
• Codename: Kids Next Door had one-shot villain duo Mega-Mom and Destructo-Dad. They're Chad Dickson (a.k.a. Numbuh 274)'s parents.
• The Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "Muriel Meets Her Match" features a pair of married partners-in-crime named Maria Ladrones and Manuel "Mano" Ladrones. Maria looks similar to Muriel other than having black hair, darker skin, a beauty mark, reddish eyes, and different clothes, while Mano is a disembodied hand.
• In Cyberchase, Hacker and Wicked have an on-again, off-again partnership. They seem to be genuinely attracted to each other, but they'll also stab each other in the back the moment they think they can get away with it.
• Danny Phantom:
  • Johnny 13 and Kitty, though Johnny's not the most faithful boyfriend.
  • Also, though not nearly as blatantly, Skulker and Ember. Danny doesn't know who Skulker's girlfriend is, nor does he believe Skulker has a girlfriend.
    Skulker: Now that just plain hurts...
  • Freakshow and Lydia are implied to be this; the latter of whom being the only ghost who serves the former willingly rather than being brainwashed into it.
  • The Ultimate Enemy reveals that Lunch Lady and Box Ghost have a Kid from the Future together: Box Lunch. Team Phantom is heavily squicked out by this.
• DuckTales (2017): Flintheart Glomgold tries to invoke this with Goldie O'Gilt in "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains!", but Goldie has more interest in keeping their Villain Team-Up strictly professional.
• In Earthworm Jim, Evil the Cat gets a girlfriend in Malice the Dog, his Distaff Counterpart. Unfortunately for him, she has to leave for another universe when she gets offered a star role in her own TV show.
• El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera:
  • This happens between Puma Loco and Sartana of the Dead. It seems that both of them are faking it at first, but towards the end it is revealed that Puma Loco does holds a torch for Sartana. It gets a little Squicky as Puma is human while Sartana is a walking skeleton. Word of God says that they had a son together, though their relationship was on and off.
  • He almost did this many years ago with fellow supervillain Lady Gobbler. He actually left her at the altar for his future wife Dora, who would give birth to their hero son, Rodolfo. The salt in the wound? Dora was the chief of police at the time. Irony at it’s finest. This betrayal fueled her lust for vengeance against him and the other Rivera men, as well as her daughter and granddaughter getting spurned by Pumo Loco’s son and grandson, respectively.
  • In the alternate ending where Manny chooses to be evil, he and Frida are confirmed by Word of God to be married while also being the Laughably Evil rulers of mankind.
• Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda on The Fairly OddParents!. Possibly also a subversion, as Anti-Cosmo doesn't seem to be particularly happy in the arrangement.
  Cosmo: [moments before undergoing a potentially fatal transplant with Anti-Cosmo] If I don't make it, stay away from my wife!
  Anti-Cosmo: And if I do make it, take mine.
• Gargoyles:
  • Xanatos and Fox make for an Affably Evil — or, after their shared Heel–Face Turn, Affably Magnificent — couple. The fans love 'em.
  • Same deal for Demona and Thailog, until they break up. (The relationship cracks when he threatens her daughter — and shatters completely when he reveals that he had a concubine cloned from her.)
  • Oberon and Titania, though calling them "evil" is a bit of a stretch.
• Destro and the Baroness from G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. They have a rather established relationship by the third miniseries, and in the comics, they had been together since before they joined COBRA. In the comics, whenever one has been in serious danger, you'd best be prepared to get out of the way of the other because they will stop at nothing to ensure each other's well-being.
• The House of Mouse episode "Halloween with Hades" has Hades trying to get the attention of fellow villain Maleficent. While he does succeed at the end of the episode (after finally losing his temper on Mickey for all the bad advice the Mouse gave him), there's no real plot or continuity in this show, and they're never seen together again.
• Kim Possible:
  • In one episode, Dr. Drakken manages to charm DNAmy into cooperating with him. While Amy seems remarkably responsive to his cheap pick-up lines, the most interesting thing about this single-episode teamup is probably that Shego seems to be downright jealous...
  • The Grand Finale gives Drakken and Shego an implied Last-Minute Hookup... but it's not clear whether they will continue to be villains after being hailed for helping to save the world from an Alien Invasion.
• The Legend of Vox Machina has Sylas and Delilah Briarwood, mass-murdering tyrants who are working towards realizing their patron's evil plans of world domination. But the two of them are also shown to be deeply in love with one another. In fact, Delilah made the bargain with their otherwordly patron in the first place because it was to save her then-terminally-ill husband's life by turning him into a vampire. When Sylas dies at the hands of Grog and Keyleth holding Sylas in a beam of holy light, Delilah voices a cosmos-tearing shriek of outrage and despair. In her grief, Delilah attempts to summon The Whispered One to bring Sylas Back from the Dead. But Delilah is Killed Mid-Sentence before she can do so with a sword through the neck, rendering both of the Briarwoods Killed Off for Real.
• Moral Orel: Clay and Ms. Censordoll, at first competing in office, end up making out with each other at the end of "Nesting." They share a mutual infatuation with eggs, the former due to his Oedipus Complex and the latter due to having been "castrated" as a child.
• The Mummy: The Animated Series: Anck-Su-Namun is even worse in the Animated Adaptation. Which is saying something, considering the movie version threw venomous snakes at people. It's implied in the cartoon that Anck-Su-Namun was just in a relationship with Imhotep for a chance at achieving power; after he goes through the trouble of resurrecting her, she abandons him the moment she gets her hands on the Artifact of Doom of the week. When they encounter each other again in the series finale, Imhotep is apparently over her, as he leaves her to rot in the Underworld in an And I Must Scream state.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Starting in the episode "We're Captured", Lord Boxman begins courting Professor Venomous. They later move in together, forming a blended family, and are seen wearing wedding rings in the finale, hinting that they got married.
• The Owl House: While it's clear that Odalia wears the pants in their relationship, Alador and Odalia have a surprisingly functional marriage (it's even implied during a flashback that they've been together since their school years). He makes the weapons she sells, her social graces make up for his lack of tact, and she genuinely praises his abomination-making skills a few times. Too bad they're both Abusive Parents and ruthless, money-driven, image-obsessed, and blue-blooded arms dealers. Ultimately subverted in "Clouds on the Horizon"; it's made clear their relationship is strained as Odalia only seems to view Alador as a business partner instead of a romantic one, and when her lack of ethics go too far, Alador quits and sides with their children over her.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • One episode features Doofenshmirtz dating a woman just as evil as he was. They even got a song together, though the relationship unfortunately doesn't work out, thanks to Doof's Evil Plot of the Week coming back to bite him in the butt.
  • In the Second Dimension, it turns out that Charlene is also evil, and the two are still married.
• Chief from Pucca, head of the local Quirky Miniboss Squad, has a crush on Garu's enemy Tobe. In one episode, they become this trope after Tobe is hit by one of Cupid's arrows, and they have a little love montage showing them robbing stores together and so on. In fact, before the stuff wears off, they're this close to getting married (the trope name is even used).
• An example of two villains who are a couple from the beginning is Boris and Natasha of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
• Saddam Hussein and Satan in South Park, though most of their in-series appearances are after they break up. See above under "Films — Animated".
• Mac and Molly Mange of SWAT Kats. They were powerful gangsters and married before they died the first time, and when they come back as robots, they quickly cheer over their new strength, durability and firepower. Yeah, they bicker a lot, but when one of them gets hurt, you can bet your aft that the other will drop everything to save them.
• In the Transformers: Animated episode "SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy", a new villain shows up called Slo-Mo who can slow things down. She apparently also can reverse aging, as she did with Nanosec. She and Nanosec flirt with each other throughout the episode. Swindle stealing Slo-Mo's timepiece (the source of her power) is a definite Kick the Dog for Swindle. Interestingly, they subvert the gender dynamic mentioned at the top of the page: while they act as equals, Slo-Mo is far more important to the episode's plot.
  Slo-Mo: I like a man who does it fast.
  Nanosec: I like a girl who takes it slow.
• The previous trope image was the Monarch and Dr. Mrs. the Monarch from The Venture Bros., professional villains with one of the strongest relationships in the show.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender has Zarkon and Honerva, a.k.a. the witch Haggar. Played with as, until the Season 3 finale, she doesn't even remember that they're married.
• Defied in Wander over Yonder. Lord Dominator has no intentions at all to return the romantic feelings of Lord Hater. After Dominator sets the record straight in "My Fair Hatey", Hater loses his feelings for her and instead becomes intent on stopping her from destroying the galaxy.
• Some older fans of Wild Kratts sense a bit of Belligerent Sexual Tension between Zack Varmitech and Donita Donata; they even went out on a date in canon — although, if there is any actual attraction, it seems one-sided on Zach's part.
• Icy and Tritannus in season 5 of Winx Club. The two meet in the prison of Andros and fall in love. Icy (member of the Trix, Winx's archenemy trio) likes how Tritannus tried to assassinate his brother in order to become crown prince and Tritannus feels that Icy is the only one who understands him and his lust for power. The two break out of prison (with Icy's sisters who don't trust Tritannus) and plot to rule the Magic Dimension together.
• In Xiaolin Showdown, it's strongly hinted that Chase Young and Wuya are this.

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