"She was beautiful—there can be no doubt of that. But did I desire her, even for a moment? No. For within that attractive trapping was evil—pure evil, intent on bringing humanity to ruin. If a man dared touch any part of it, his own flesh would rot and fall away. She was a lethal poison. She was a witch."
— Werner on Lyblac, First game
Of the many villains inhabiting the eight tales of Bravely Default's Spiritual Successor, and related games, these are the worst.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Multiple games
- First game & Champions of the Continent:
- Galdera the Fallen is the setting's resident God of Evil and the greatest evil in the entire series. The thirteenth child of the noble goddess Orsa, Galdera murdered his own divine mother with his accursed flame then promptly attempted to slay his brethren, seeking to make the world of Orsterra his and his alone. Sealed away but creating a "daughter" named Lyblac to carry out his evil, Galdera is through her behind all the evil in the first game and Champions of the Continent, as Lyblac masterminds insane amounts of carnage all in his name. When he's finally unsealed, Galdera tries once more to devour all life in reality, his fellow gods included, and make all life in existence nothing more than a tortured extension of himself forevermore.
- Lyblac herself, daughter of the thirteenth god Galdera, is the architect of every single misfortune in the first game in her bid to open up the Gate of Finis and hand the world over to Galdera for the subsequent consumption of all humanity and the gods ruling them. Lyblac is behind the actions of nearly major villain in the first game, from convincing Yvon to begin the blood crystal experiments; to running the various horrible activities of the Obsidians through Simeon; to destroying the kingdom of Hornburg and countless lives therein with Werner. Lyblac also fed off the hatred of a misanthropic orphan named Ceraphina, twisting her into a psychotic cultist whom Lyblac eventually disposes of after using her to find a host for Galdera. Lyblac relentlessly hounds the Crossford lineage in her attempt to have them bear Galdera's essence; when Graham Crossford escapes her clutches, Lyblac turns him into a mindless monster with just enough lucidity to feel perpetual torment at his condition. Lyblac is described as a lethal poison by her own uneasy allies, a witch truly worthy of the epithet "Daughter of the Dark God".
- Cyrus Albright's path: Lucia is an ambitious scholar who seeks and values ultimate knowledge of the world, even over the lives of humanity. Allying with Lyblac in corrupting Headmaster Yvon into evil, Lucia then commissions the amoral sorcerer Gideon to perform dozens of horrifying blood experiments on innocents, resulting in their agonizing deaths, to perfect a working blood crystal. After orchestrating Yvon's death, Lucia reveals her plans to harness immortality and then spend years amassing all knowledge that humans are unaware of—such as cures to illnesses or things that would help humanity progress—then hoard and keep them all for herself, just for the pride of being the smartest entity on the planet.
- Olberic Eisenberg's path: Werner was once a mere sellsword with lofty ambitions before he was given a chance to realize his dreams by Lyblac, at the cost of the entire kingdom of Hornburg—a price Werner considered worth paying. Werner wins his trust with the local people of Hornburg by arranging bandit attacks on border villages and beating them back with his own warriors, the Black Brotherhood, before integrating within Hornburg's own royalty and arranging the assassination of the king and his personal guard. The fallout destroys countless innocent lives and annihilates the entire kingdom, while Werner walked away from the ashes a rich man. When Olberic, one of Hornburg's last soldiers, finally tracks him down, Werner's set himself up as the despotic ruler of Riverford, regularly having innocent people burned alive on trumped-up charges or solely as a means to curb rebellion. When Werner tracks down the resistance, Werner proceeds to have them all massacred while murdering his own men when they refuse to fight the much-stronger Olberic, even pridefully gutting himself in front of Olberic at the end rather than admit his guilt in destroying thousands for self-gain.
- Primrose Azelhart's path:
- Helgenish is bar none the most repulsive Starter Villain in the game. A depraved, obese tavern-keeper who employs several exotic dancers to entertain his guests, Helgenish brutalizes and demeans the women under his care while beating any who try and fight back to near-death, leaving them in the gutter to die. Helgenish favors Primrose herself, subjecting her to sexual and physical abuse to assert his control of her, and when Primrose defies his orders with the help of her only friend Yusufa, Helgenish has Yusufa brutally tortured. When Primrose comes back, Helgenish murders Yusufa right in front of Primrose's eyes, hysterically mocking her tearful last words and noting "if she'd shown that kind of potential earlier, maybe I would have kept her on longer!" Helgenish also deals with the ruthless Crow Men, providing them slaves for their Human Trafficking operation.
- Rufus, the left hand of the Crow Men, is one of the leaders of the Obsidians, involved in the murder of Primrose's father while maintaining the Obsidians' various connections in the present. When Primrose tracks Rufus down, he's maintaining the Obsidian Parlor, a whorehouse specializing in unwilling prostitutes Rufus hands out to the whims of powerful and depraved men for a profit while keeping a personal harem himself. Rufus is seen giving a woman to serve the incestuous desires of a priest in his service as just one example of the many lives he's ruined to the services of the Obsidian Parlor, while mocking Primrose even to his last breath.
- In the English version, Simeon the "Puppet Master" is the head of the Crow Men, the master of the Obsidians, and the bane of Primrose's existence. As master of his "Wings", Simeon has a hand in all forms of mass murder, assassinations, and human trafficking, all while eliminating anyone who could stand up to his organization's rule, notably murdering Primrose's father with his own hands. A complete psychopath who gets the most joy out of life by hurting and tormenting others, Simeon takes sick glee in befriending Primrose and developing a romance with her, only to stab her, make her watch a play of Simon's own production showcasing the tragedies and traumas of her life that ends with her and Simeon in a "happily ever after", then make a final attempt on her life, never ceasing his vicious mockery and proclamations of his desire to see her die screaming in despair.
- Pardis III is the King of Edoras, who, while initially appearing to be a stern and aloof ruler, quickly reveals himself to be one of Orsterra's most ruthless warmongers. Believing himself the only one "worthy" of ruling the continent, he lures the Ringbearer Chosen to his kingdom before personally murdering Mahrez, his general and a beloved hero of his people, only out of spite for Mahrez being more popular than him, and frames the Chosen One for the crime. After stealing the rings, Pardis launches a massive invasion on the rest of Orsterra, leaving countless dead in his wake. When Elrica, his daughter, opposes him and tries to put an end to his campaign, Pardis brutally beats her before beheading her in front of both the Chosen One and his younger daughter Alaune, purely in an attempt to break the Chosen One's spirit so that Aelfric's Ring becomes corrupted. While all the other villainous Ringbearers are some degree of Tragic Villain or otherwise have lines they will not cross, Pardis stands out for lacking any of those and simply being a selfish monster.
- Arcanette is the true mastermind of the Moonshade Order, so misanthropic and sadistic that she seeks to revive Vide the Wicked God to purge all that lives. Under Arcanette's banner, countless people are tortured, experimented on, and otherwise slain by the Order, with the Kal clan having been subject to genocide. Arcanette manipulates the sole survivor of the Kal clan, Kaldena, into murdering over a dozen innocent people under the illusion it would avenge her people; in truth, Arcanette just uses her to eliminate her foes before transforming her into an agonized abomination. Arcanette has many people manipulated and made into sacrifices to Vide the Wicked God; her most despicable manipulation is to convince the innocent woman Tanzy into falling desperately in love with her, before agonizingly sacrificing her without a second thought to put out one of the Sacred Flames. In the end, Arcanette reveals herself to the party and tries to murder them all, mocking them the whole time about the world's coming destruction and each member's individual trauma.
- Hikari Ku's route: General Mugen Ku, the half-brother of Hikari and son of King Jigo Ku, despises his family for seeking peace over conquest. As a firm practitioner of Might Makes Right, Mugen decides to act by not only assassinating his father but having the entire civilian city full of friendly NPCs massacred upon taking the throne, all to spite Hikari and make any rebellion against his rule futile. Mugen vows to drown the entire world in war and blood, seeking to build a kingdom built upon the corpses of the weak, and to this end orders his advisor Ageha to carry out the massacre of an entire conquered kingdom's population. When the reluctant Ageha notes this would include children, Mugen ruthlessly threatens him into carrying out the slaughter regardless. Even the clans he spares live in fear of destruction; Mugen forced Clan Mei to assassinate Hikari's birth mother under the threat of destroying them all. Though he is influenced by the destructive voice of D'arqest like his brother and father, it is Mugen's refusal to tolerate anything but bloodshed that ultimately makes him a monster.
- Osvald V. Vansteins's route: Professor Harvey may be the most sadistic Arc Villain in the entire series. Driven by absolutely nothing but his petty envy of his fellow scholar Osvald, Harvey burned down Osvald's house with his family still inside, then framed Osvald for the deed and has him shipped off to a soul-crushing prison for five years. Harvey didn't murder Osvald's family in the blaze, though, instead making them the centerpiece for something infinitely worse; when Osvald finally confronts him again, Harvey gleefully reveals he's used Osvald's wife to create a horrible monster that he subsequently forces Osvald to put down, mocking his anguish with nothing less than hysterical glee. Even worse is what he does to Osvald's daughter; he brainwashes her into thinking Harvey is in fact her father, staging a loving father-daughter reunion with her just to break Osvald's mind even further, before trying to use the poor girl as a Human Sacrifice while forcing Osvald to watch. Harvey is also responsible for the existence of the Darkling in Ochette's story, taking the Animal Companion she didn't choose and torturing it for ten years to turn it into an omnicidal monster. So depthless is Harvey's envy that he's willing to ally with the omnicidal Moonshade Order and provide them the means with which to summon Vide, a sentiment that disgusts even the cult's heads for how readily he'd "give up the dawn to best the man."
- Throné Anguis's route:
- Claude is the true creator of the Blacksnakes, who seeks to create a worthy heir to his legacy so that he can finally end his immortal life. The progenitor of "countless children by countless women"—many of which were not remotely consensual—Claude uses the Blacksnakes to transform his many children into unfeeling, killing machines who turn on and murder one another, Claude hoping to whittle down his progeny until only the strongest remain to succeed him. Claude has murdered several of his children with his bare hands when they failed to meet his expectations, and even killed the baby shared by Father and Marietta to take Marietta for himself. Claude is also revealed to have been behind the corruption of Trousseau into an insane mass murderer by showing him the Book of Night and driving him mad with despair. Caring for nothing but satisfying his own ego, Claude has run a campaign of abuse and murder of children for decades, and is willing to sacrifice hundreds of lives to see his legacy secured.
- "Mother" is the current head of the Blacksnakes, who gained her position by manipulating Father into murdering the previous leader, Throné's true mother. Believing in pain as the ultimate method of control, Mother uses her "Garden" to gather dozens of orphan children at a time and subject them to brutal training that corrupts those who survive into assassins and thieves wholly loyal to her. Mother regularly finds any reason to viciously torture the children under her purview with a whip, taking a sadistic glee in physically and psychologically tearing them down until they are nothing but her broken slaves, and encourages them to murder one another to gain her favor. When confronted by Throné, Mother mocks the girl over her mother's death, and with her dying breaths proclaims her hatred of all children who aren't her personal puppets.
