Basic Trope: A deity who is the ultimate embodiment of evil.
- Straight: The goddess Malsophia is the embodiment of evil, reveling in spreading misery and tempting people to commit heinous crimes for the sheer pleasure of it.
- Exaggerated: Malsophia the Vile is literally all evil in the universe, from the genocidal maniac to the toddler stealing another's lollipop.
- Downplayed: Malsophia has dark aspects, and villains frequently pray to her, though she herself merely puts forward a religion of considered self-interest.
- Malsophia only represents a certain type of evil, like avarice, pride, or wrath. She can't even truly be evil because it's in her nature to be like that.
- Justified:
- Malsophia was created as the dark twin of Lucisophia; without her shadow Lucisophia would scorch the world by focusing mercilessly on the non-evil imperfections of mortals.
- Malsophia's job is to do "controlled burnings"; without seeding smaller evil acts, mortals, with nothing to bleed out their natural discontent, will eventually do much, MUCH bigger ones on their own with one spark.
- Just because nobody in their right mind would worship Malsophia doesn't mean that she wouldn't be there. The gods in that setting exist regardless of the mortals' or other gods' opinions of them.
- Inverted: Malsophia is Dark Is Not Evil, and her shadow actually heals and protects the world from the harsh Light Is Not Good of Lucisophia.
- Subverted: Malsophia is spoken of in dark whispers and she's feared by all, but when she actually shows up she's cheerful and even compassionate, trying very hard to stop people from worshipping her and committing evil acts. Yes, the goddess of evil she says, but that doesn't mean she herself is evil. She actually tries very hard to make evil unrewarding and unappealing, knowing full well that despite her efforts the nature of man makes evil seductive
- Malsophia isn't a god, just a really powerful angel/demon with a god complex who rebels against the true God
- Double Subverted: ... which is exactly how she lulls the good guys into trusting her, all part of her Xanatos Gambit.
- Too bad God Is Evil as well.
- Parodied: Malsophia has a fan club of hilariously incompetent worshippers, not even a proper cult, and because of this she herself is just barely able to summon up static cling levels of divine retribution.
- Zig Zagged: Malsophia is the goddess of evil, except Lucisophia was evil originally and usurped Malsophia's goodness. However Malsophia is now genuinely evil and Lucisophia ended up Becoming the Mask of goodness.
- Averted: There are antagonistic gods, but none are outright evil or of evil.
- Enforced: The story is a morality play with Black-and-White Morality, Malsophia has to be a goddess of evil.
- Lampshaded: "So your goddess' name is Malsophia? Yeah, I can just tell she's a bundle of hugs."
- Invoked: Malsophia is actually a goddess to a small tribe enslaved by Lucisophia's civilization. They proceed to label her as evil as a way to justify their oppression.
- Exploited:
- As a goddess of evil, Malsophia is free to rebel against fate. So she willingly takes on the role to Screw Destiny and save the world in a long con.
- Since Culture Justifies Anything in this setting, Malsophia's followers are able to get away with (almost) anything, because vile acts are considered part of their dogma.
- Defied: Malsophia refuses to become evil, and purposely sabotages all attempts to be worshipped or make the world worse.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Deities dedicated to evil are always a bit of an odd concept. I mean, what twisted mind would offer worship to them in the first place?"
- Implied: We never hear about Malsophia's doctrine or from the goddess herself, but between the common outfits of her cult and their insistence on Human Sacrifice, it's not hard to guess...
- Deconstructed:
- Worshipping Malsophia is outlawed, and isn't seen as a "real" god.
- Malsophia is slain by the heroes, but they soon find out that she actually had a very important job.
- Reconstructed:
- The stigma against worshipping Malsophia drives her mad.
- Malsophia later reveals she's still alive, and allowed the heroes to defeat her because she wanted to teach them the consequences of trying to fix everything.
Back to God of Evil.
