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Sandbox / Generic Doomsday Villain Wick Check

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On this page, we will be doing a wick check for Generic Doomsday Villain.

Why? A Generic Doomsday Villain is supposed to be a villain who lacks a clear motive and/or personality, but is often misused as "any one-dimensional/cliché villain", even if they have a motive and/or personality, no matter how basic (ie, a villain who wants to Take Over the World and is characterized as power-hungry wouldn't qualify even if they had no other characterization). A test is if the character is an approved Complete Monster, which means they have the personality to not be this trope.

This is undoubtedly because of the name, as calling something "generic" makes it a complaining magnet.

Wicks Checked: (50/50)

    open/close all folders 

    Correct Use (15/50) 
  • Anime.Godzilla Planet Of The Monsters: The reason for the mass kaiju invasion or Godzilla's animosity with humankind is never explained, but it is enough that Godzilla will not let any human in sight leave the planet alive.
  • Anime.Kira Kira Happy Hirake Cocotama: The Minus Power. It’s just a... tree thing that just makes people miserable with its petals. It isn’t even sentient!
  • Film.Death Stop Holocaust: The masked killers are never identified or unmasked, nor is there any explanation for why they're doing this or how they have so much control over the town.
  • Film.Sea Fever: The parasitic marine lifeform that threatens the crew isn't fleshed out beyond the threat it poses to the crew and the potential ramifications of its infection being carried to civilization. It's precisely this that makes the creature more alien and frightening.
  • Film.From Paris With Love: The leader of the muslim terrorist cell receives no characterization beyond being an imminent threat for Reese and Wax to take out. He only appears for a few moments, doesn't have any dialogue, or even a name. Caroline just describes him as "a man who opened my eyes to his faith".
  • Franchise.Kirby: Many of the games have the Big Bad as some sort of powerful force capable of destroying Planet Popstar, but their exact motivations are rather vague and border on an Excuse Plot. This has become less common as time goes on.
  • Literature.Reborn As A Space Mercenary I Woke Up Piloting The Strongest Starship: The crystal life-forms. They assimilate everything they come across, asteroids, spaceships, people, everything. There is no way to communicate or reason with them. It's either shoot them down and then gather the remains with extreme care, to make sure they don't reassemble themselves, or get swarmed and consumed.
  • VideoGame.Colossatron Massive World Threat: Colossatron has no knowable motives or agenda, and smashes up everything because, well, what else would a giant mechanical serpent bristling with weapons do?
  • VideoGame.Action Fish: The CEO doesn't have much of a reason or motive behind what he does. It's not even stated that Greed is his motive, it's almost as if Evil, Inc. poured chemical waste into the ocean For the Evulz, though it could also be a case of Humans Are Cthulhu.
  • VideoGame.Bio Force Ape: The villain has no explained motivation for kidnapping the professor and his child.
  • VideoGame.Hong Kong 97: There's no motivation behind the mainland's resurrection of Tong Shau Ping into a Pointless Doomsday Device.
  • VideoGame.Sunman: Spectre has no real motive and just seems to be destroying the city for fun.
  • VideoGame.Xerix: The alien structure has no backstory, no reason, no motivation, nothing. It's defined solely by its threat level.
  • Webcomic.Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki: ironically averted with Surtur, who was this in the original mythology; this version of the character does have a reason (if a silly one) to hate the Aesir and try to kill them. Correct use as an aversion.
  • WebVideo.Dusks Dawn: The villain's motivation is never really explained. He's just doing… evil, well… because he's evil.

    One-Dimensional and/or Cliché Villain (17/50) 
  • Characters.Loren The Amazon Princess: (Fost) More or less, though an ending in which Saren/Eleanor sacrifices themselves hints at greater depth. According to the rest of the folder, he wants to Take Over the World and is a Mean Boss to his minions, so he does have a motive and basic characterization.
  • Anime.Final Fantasy VII Advent Children: The film has an unusual in-universe example. Cloud accuses Kadaj and the Remnants of being this, even telling them outright that they have no idea why they are doing what they are doing. Kadaj refuses to care. Not sure if an in-universe accusation is really worth an entry, especially since they do have characterization.
  • Film.Air Force One: Radek thanks to his lack of screen time. He's only seen being taken prisoner, in prison before being released and then shot. His actions are hinted at, but the audiences knows so little about him that he's more a MacGuffin than a character. Gibbs betrays the president to Russian terrorists, for no explained reason. It's never so much as hinted as to what his motivation was, other than that he's evil. Radek maybe, but the mole is an approved Complete Monster and so clearly does have sufficient characterization.
  • Film.Cobra: While the Night Slasher reveals himself to be The Social Darwinist near the end, we never learn why his New Order is motivated to do so much for a serial killer. They might as well exist just to be an army of psychotic mooks for the hero to kill to get to the bad guy. They're mooks who presumably share his philosophy. I'm pretty sure that's enough.
  • FireEmblem.Tropes F To L: As Book II goes on, it becomes clear that Surtr is designed to be this. Anything that comes out of his mouth is more or less how much he loves the sight of people burning, suffering and despairing, and he'll do everything to make those happen for his own amusement and then rub the salt in his victims' wounds. He comes off as an invincible Generic Doomsday Villain as he's Nigh-Invulnerable and has very little depth compared to other villains in the franchise. He also kills Gunnthrá in cold blood in front of her sister. Finally, just as the heroes think they've killed him for good, he instantly comes Back from the Dead, rendering their efforts thus far futile, taunts them even further, and is given more time to rile up the players by doing more evil acts up until his death at the end of Book II. Approved Complete Monster.
  • Characters.Final Fantasy III: Downplayed: Xande was the first Final Fantasy antagonist with something resembling a complex motive, but his actual screentime is less than the than the thing that hijacks him, and while Doga and Unei explain why he's doing what he is, it's never explained what his overall end goal is beyond triggering a flood of darkness. The remake goes the Tragic Villain route by portraying him as desperate avoid dying to the point of triggering the flood and his calling the Cloud of Darkness being an accident. Xande is, as far as I know, universally considered the worst Final Fantasy main villain because of how bland and borderline-nonexistent he is, even in the DS remake, but he does have a motive, which in turn gives him the character trait of fearing death.
  • TheScrappy.Video Games: The Didact, a Generic Doomsday Villain who indulges in eloquent speech (that might remind you of Gravemind), instead of, you know, killing his enemy. The Chief and the player do not even get the satisfaction of beating him in a boss fight, instead he gets beaten in a Quick Time Event. WatchMojo even described him as the General Grievous of videogames, in the sense that his origins and motivations are only explored in secondary material but in the main event he comes off as bland and unoriginal. As far as I can tell, even in the original game he had characerization. Also, Grievous was characterized as a Dirty Coward in his debut film, so he doesn't qualify either.
  • VideoGame.A Game With A Kitten 2 Darkside Adventures: Captain Horatio doesn't have much going on for him in terms of personality. According to the game page, he wants to overthrow the Imp King, so presumably his motive is power, hence he has a clear motive. Also, he is apparently motivated by some form of Dude, Where's My Respect?, though the example given is a ZCE that doesn't elaborate.
  • YMMV.Ace Attorney Investigations Miles Edgeworth: The Scrappy: Big Bad Quercus Alba, widely considered the worst main villain in the entire franchise. Besides his infamously overlong final confrontation, many fans consider him a very weak character due to his lack of development. He has very little if any screentime before being revealed as the Big Bad of the game (so much so that Edgeworth never has an extended conversation with him), preventing there from being much if any investment in stopping him, and no ties to the backstory or characters other than being the leader of the smuggling ring, making him look like a Generic Doomsday Villain. His personality is also almost entirely defined by his arrogance, making him very one-note in terms of personality, and he constantly hides behind his extraterritorial rights throughout the confrontation with him to where it comes off as immensely repetitive and unintimidating. Quite a few fans have been left wishing Yew/Shih-na was the villain instead. Another approved CM.
  • Anime.Pokemon Genesect And The Legend Awakened: While it's rather ambiguous as to whether Mewtwo's creators are "evil" or not, from what we see of Mewtwo's past they seemingly made an all-powerful Pokémon for no real reason other than to shoot lightning at it and get bitten back.
  • Series.Photon: The Warlord of Arr wanted to cover the universe in darkness, but there was no real explanation as to who he was, where he came from or what he got out of it. The description given by one of the books (referencing Will Rogers of all people) trying to give his generic evilness some meaning was kind of admirable.
  • VideoGame.Boktai: Jormungandr, the monster that Black Dainn is intent on releasing to exterminate the living, is a creature whose only instinct is to eat everything it sees. Justified by the fact it's the Beast of the Apocalypse, so its only purpose is to bring about the end of the world if it isn't stopped.
  • Series.Photon: The Warlord of Arr wanted to cover the universe in darkness, but there was no real explanation as to who he was, where he came from or what he got out of it. The description given by one of the books (referencing Will Rogers of all people) trying to give his generic evilness some meaning was kind of admirable.
  • Recap.Review Team S 2 E 6 Anuby Villain: Kal-Roh. Finn even calls his plan "So cliched, it hurts."
  • Music.The Cog Is Dead: Lampshaded. The singer of Bad Guy calls himself "one-dimensional" as part of his Card-Carrying Villain persona.
  • Literature.Avesta Of Black And White: The Generic Doomsday Villain is something that generally only exists as some simple threat to be dealt with that wants nothing more than destruction. Khvarenah is initially played as this with him being a Planet Eater that only seems to exist to cause destruction whenever he shows up and to be the possible ultimate evil. Except, in the end he is someone who is stuck in his role just as much as everyone else with him bringing destruction by simply existing. Underneath it all is a being with an almost childlike naivete who wants nothing more than to see the beauty and goodness in everything, but to never be able to reach it due to his nature, which in turn makes him keep on searching which only perpetuates the cycle. Wanting destruction is still a motive, landing this entire thing here.
  • Film.Vlad: Though his backstory is fleshed out in the opening, Vlad just kills most people he comes across indiscriminately and no reason for doing this is given besides being driven by hate of all things after all the misery he endured. Again, a bad motive is still a motive.

    Unsure (5/50) 

    ZCE (13/50) 

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