Hello everyone!
The BBEG of our ongoing campaign is not carved in stone yet, so I’m looking for some inspiration. As far as I’ve encountered them, the overwhelming majority of evil masterminds in pop culture and fiction are male. I’d like to have anything different than that, but at the moment, I can’t think of many examples to draw inspiration from.
I don’t have a lot of specifications for what I’m looking for. Apart from not being male, they should just be examples of true spite, not someone who can be bargained with. And they shouldn’t be the right hand of another greater villain, but stand on their own feet in terms of scheming and orchestrating bad stuff. (So no Darth Vader, but an Emperor. An Empress, actually, or really anything but a dude.) They can come from any genre, media and setting. Favorable if they can pack a punch or two or more, though not mandatory.
D&D has Tiamat and Lolth, Star Trek TNG has the Borg Queen. But other than that, my mind’s completely blank right now. I’d really appreciate any suggestions for more baddies to take a look at, characters that help me to get into other evil mindsets than those I’m most familiar with.
Thank you very much!
One stereotype to avoid (or lean into, lampshade, or subvert) is that villainous women are manipulative, seductive, using guile, deception, charm, enchantment and so on. Your basic Poison Ivy template. Even Catwoman is sometimes depicted that way (like in @neilhimself’s “Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader”, albeit in a reference to “The Death of Robin Hood”).
I’m personally kinda a fan of the trope and Ivy is my fave Batman-verse character but speaking to a lot of other women I know it’s something many are sick to death of. Especially when that seems to be the only kind of villainous woman. (Just like how chainmail bikinis became less of a problem when it was just one of many styles and not the only option.)
I see that a lot of other examples in the thread immediately went for that trope and I don’t blame 'em—only goes to show how pervasive it is and how refreshing some other approaches would be.
My initial thoughts when posting the OP were something like “When the decision against a male antagonist is made, there’s a higher probability of the baddie also having a more original motivation.” However, others have rightly said that just changing the gender of male BBEGs already gives opportunity for some great ideas inspired by such thought experiments. And my general idea when writing the OP isn’t too valid, either. Should have been less fixated on gender and more straightforward that what I’m looking for are unique personalities and original motivations of antagonists unlike the classics money, power, dogma.