NOTE: Since this trope reveals a villain being responsible for other events in the series (potentially even after their own demise), expect spoilers.
Villainous Legacies in Literature.
- C. S. Lewis gave us a potential example in The Chronicles of Narnia, speculating in The Silver Chair that that book's villain might be somehow connected to the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. However, since the villain of The Silver Chair remains a Diabolus ex Nihilo outside of that one vague hint, we ultimately don't know the nature of the possible connection between the two baddies.
- The Cosmere:
- In Mistborn, the empire and religion founded by the Lord Ruler have repercussions long after his death at the end of the first book. The Fantastic Caste System and its nobility cause ongoing problems, many of the outlying nobles believe the Lord Ruler isn't dead (and some continue to worship him), his hemalurgically-engineered Super Soldiers are dispersed across the empire, and the omnicidal God of Evil he built the Empire to keep sealed is waking up. The ramifications drive the rest of the trilogy and have fallout in the later books.
- Most of the problems seen throughout the Cosmere can be traced back to one threat: Odium, the Shard of unbridled emotion. He caused the events of Elantris by killing Devotion and Dominion on Sel, created the Unmade and Voidbringers, is probably the cause of the Desolations, indirectly caused untold havoc on Threnody via his battle with Ambition, and much more. He creates mayhem and destruction everywhere he goes and is pretty much the ultimate villain of the setting.
- The Empirium Trilogy: The impact Rielle's death had on Avitas can be felt even 1,000 years later. Eliana and many others blame her for the rise of the angels and rendering all elementals powerless.
- In the Erast Fandorin series, the Azazel conspiracy that Fandorin busts in the very first book has by far the most impact on the later installments: e.g. the villain of book two turns out to be a student of Azazel's leader, while the one of book four is a former Azazel hitman who killed Fandorin's first wife, among other people.
- Foundation's Edge plays with this trope. There isn't a legacy, but the commonly believed presence of one, and the mysterious absence of another serve as early plot points: Golan Trevize of the First Foundation deduces the continued existence of the Second Foundation based on the Seldon Plan not only remaining accurate but seemingly becoming more accurate as time passed since the Second Foundation was believed destroyed, meaning that despite common belief the Plan's accuracy can't just be the legacy of the Second Foundation, they still have to be out there manipulating things in favour of the plan (he's absolutely right). Meanwhile, Stor Gendibal of the Second Foundation notices that the Plan is too accurate — there should still be disruptions as a legacy of the Mule's reign the Second Foundation has to work against, but instead things are more in line with the Plan than what is statistically likely. From this, he deduces that there is some other organisation of Mentalics out there, a group of "anti-Mules" that for unknown reasons are also working to strengthen the Plan, at least for now. He's absolutely right, and was led to this conclusion by said group as part of their plan.
- Graceling Realm: King Leck of Monsea was one of the titular Gracelings, graced with the power to convince anyone of anything. Being a complete and utter sadist, he naturally abused this ability to the fullest. (For just one example, he was noted to be particularly fond of telling his advisors that they wanted to rape and vivisect random women For Science!. He'd then take notes, shove the bodies into a corner, and tell everyone that they enjoyed the stench and vermin). While he's killed near the end of the first book, the sequel is almost entirely concerned with trying to get a kingdom whose populace has had their minds broken and twisted out of all recognition back to something resembling stability. Worse, it's gradually revealed throughout the book that portions of his commands and conspiracies still remain in effect, resulting in otherwise honest government officials manipulating and subverting their queen's authority due to the random interaction of beliefs Leck implanted in them years ago.
- Harry Potter:
- Voldemort's ancestor Salazar Slytherin, one of the original four founders of Hogwarts in the Middle Ages, is primarily responsible for his House's present-day obsession with magical purebloods and its tendency to produce Evil Sorcerers. More directly, the giant Basilisk underneath Hogwarts that is revived by Voldemort centuries later used to be Slytherin's personal pet.
- Long before the series' main time frame, Marvolo Gaunt's deplorable treatment of his children (particularly his daughter Merope) not only led her to marry the elder Tom Riddle, but also the literal birth of Lord Voldemort himself (Marvolo's grandson) and therefore many of the conflicts in the Harry Potter series.
- In The Heroes of Olympus, Lamia wove the spell that allows monsters to detect demigods, three thousand years ago. That one act has shaped everything that happened since.
- In the long-ago Back Story of the The Sharing Knife books, the ancestors of the Lakewalkers managed to kill their villainous sorcerer-king that threatened to destroy the world. However, it split into fragments and spread over most of a continent, each piece able to grow into a malice. The Lakewalkers in the books are still clearing those out, several hundred years later.
- The Silmarillion: Even after the Big Bad Melkor/Morgoth was thrust by the Valar through the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World into the Timeless Void, he was the ultimate cause of much of the evil in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He is said to have created the orcs by cruelly torturing and corrupting captured elves, Sauron (the Big Bad of The Lord of the Rings) was one of the Maiar that Melkor corrupted and turned to the path of evil, and the Balrogs were other Maiar that Melkor corrupted. This was specifically stated in The Silmarillion....the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.
- A Song of Ice and Fire has the Neglectful Precursors of the current Lords and Ladies. Martin goes out of his way to show that one VERY big reason that Westeros is such a Crapsack World - almost on par with the Realpolitik - is that no one ever forgets their grudges even when the people responsible are long dead. Oaths broken, wars fought, people killed - the actions of the past shape the ways the nobility interacts in the present and will continue doing so well into the future. Tyrion sadly lampshades how each generation puppets the generation that comes after from beyond the grave.
- Star Wars Legends:
- There is an entire subgenre of books dealing with the immediate aftermath of Return of the Jedi (The Thrawn Trilogy, the Jedi Academy Trilogy, the X-Wing Series, etc.) — just because the Emperor is dead doesn't mean there's nobody who is interested in continuing the Empire. Also, the Sith as a whole based much of their tradition (including the Rule of Two) on Darth Bane, the one who revived it in its more well-known incarnation after infighting among them led to near-extinction at the Jedi's hands.
- All the villains of the Hand of Thrawn duology have motivations that revolve around Thrawn, who has been dead for over a decade.
- A Tale of Two Cities gives us the first Marquis de Saint-Evremonde. By the time the story begins, he's already dead, but it's revealed in a flashback that he was the linchpin for everything bad that happened when he raped Madame Defarge's sister, causing the good Madame to swear revenge and mark the Marquis' entire family and anyone who would help them for death. Unfortunately, this includes the completely innocent main characters.
