Perpetually Confused
Moved since people were Edit Warring over it (Included both version):
- Even Evil Has Standards: While Baba Yaga loves dark magic and is certainly plenty evil herself (though she's much more of an Affably Evil Pragmatic Villain in this game), Bonehead remarks in conversation that the Cult trying to summon a Dark One into the world is too evil even for her.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While Baba Yaga loves dark magic and is certainly plenty evil herself (though she's much more of an Affably Evil Anti-Villain in this game), Bonehead remarks in conversation that the Cult trying to summon a Dark One into the world is too evil even for her.
For the record: Anti-Villain is straight up Round Peg Square Trope: To be an Anti-Villain, Baba Yaga would need to have noble goals (It's literally the first line of the trope description). She doesn't. She just wants to feed herself and at no point ever hint she has any motivations beyond self-serving ones.
I'd also say Affably Evil is a stretch, considering she uses magic to paralyse you, constantly muses about eating you. To quote the trope description "Then there are villains who are Affably Evil. There is absolutely nothing separating them from being normal, polite people except for the fact that they want to Take Over the World or use human souls to power their Artifact of Doom." This doesn't really match her as she literally traps you, then gloats about how she's gonna eat you less you can placate her. There's nothing "affable" about it, nor does she act like a "normal polite person".
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She cracks a lot of jokes while she's musing on eating you, so at least she's entertaining.
Keep in mind that Baba Yaga is never actually proactive about any of the things she does in the games she appears in.
She only curses the Baron of Spielberg and the rest of the valley because he tried to drive her out first. It's also possible to complete the first game without interacting with her at all (though the valley remains cursed), while dialog with Erasmus implies that she's at least on good enough terms with the rest of the wizardly community to be invited to their card games (although she DOES cheat). Unlike every other antagonist in the series, Baba Yaga is really sort of just there. Ad Avis is actively seeking to free Iblis and later Avoozl (and working to undermine Katrina). The Demon Wizard is trying to release his master and destroy Tarna. Minos wants to put a puppet on the Silmarian throne, with the threat of releasing the Dragon of Doom as insurance. Baba Yaga's actions prior to the start of the first game were really a matter of self-defense, and she doesn't actually DO anything else. Even after the Hero confronts her the first time and brings her the Mandrake root.
In Quest for Glory IV, Punny Bones only got cursed because she took his jokes about the events of the first game personally when she just happened to be at the venue at which he was performing. Even Evil Has Standards definitely fits because Bonehead makes it clear that releasing Avoozl is too evil even for her; However much she enjoys the dark magic of his influence on Mordavia, she also knows that unleashing a Dark One is just plain stupid. Also, where Anti-Villain starts to fit is that you can't win the game without her help: Baba Yaga gives you one of the rituals (ok, you trade her a pie for it, but still).
Throughout the series we see that Baba Yaga really just wants to be left alone, and she does honor her agreements with the Hero.
The fact that you can't win the game without her help doesn't make her an anti-hero. It's her goals that matter. Also, remember that the only reason she rewards you at all for bringing her stuff is because her pets (The bat and the spider) goad her into it. They are the reason she honors her agreement at all. If they weren't there, she'd just take your stuff and kill you and eat you. She at no point ever makes a decision to prevent the release of the Dark One either so her opposition to the Dark One, is a best academic because she never does anything about it - she helps you coz you helped her and her pets tell her she should reward you for it.
Yes she's not as actively evil or as proactive as the other villains, but that just explains while she's the lowest rung in the series' Sorting Algorithm of Evil. It doesn't make fit the definition of Affably Evil nor Anti-Villain.
Plus ya know, she eats humans. So it's not like the people of Spielberg weren't justified in wanting her gone and she's a poor victim of intolerance.
Yes she's an example of Even Evil Has Standards.
Edited by 198.84.254.118
I've added back Even Evil Has Standards for Baba Yaga per the above.
My recent edit pertaining to Katrina and Dark Is Not Evil:
First of all, it is not remotely true that it's hard not to be happy that she's easily destroyed. I'm just taking the whole response out since it's begging for a counter-argument, and then another and then another.
I'm leaving in the argument that Katrina is not necessarily evil even though she does selfish things, but I'm taking out the assertion that she doesn't come across as evil. She does—but her actions have less-than-evil motivations, which I've added, that keep her potentially sympathetic.