Comedy Prevention

**Comedy** is considered a factor that detracts from a villain's heinousness. This is not because there is anything inherently moral about being funny; rather, it is because a villain needs to be taken seriously as a threat to be considered Pure Evil. If a villain is not taken seriously by the narrative, then their actions do not have much moral weight to them. Pure Evil villains darken the story's tone by their very nature.

With that said, it is still possible for a Pure Evil villain to be **Laughably Evil**; that is, they can still have notable funny moments in the story. This is only if said funny moments do not stop them from being taken seriously as a threat, or do not detract from their villainy.

## Comedy as a major prevention

If a villain's entire character is written for comedic purposes, that obviously means that none of their actions are taken seriously by the narrative, and thus they cannot count as Pure Evil or even as Near Pure Evil. Such a character would not be taken seriously as a threat by the narrative.

Similarly, if a villain's most heinous crimes are *all* (or *virtually* all) played for laughs, then they likewise cannot be taken seriously enough to be PE or NPE. For a villain to be PE or NPE, their crimes need to have some sort of moral weight in the story.

The villains who stand out for their heinousness, yet fall into the above-described camps, will usually automatically qualify as Inconsistently Heinous.

### Parodies

Villains who are written as **parodies**, for the above-listed reasons, cannot be PE or NPE. This is because a character written to parody certain tropes or to parody another character is obviously written as a joke. They, too, usually count as IH.

## Comedy as a minor prevention

It is possible for a villain to have all (or most) of their most heinous crimes taken seriously by the narrative, yet still have comedic moments that detract from their overall heinousness in the narrative. Such a state is quite rare, and identifying these types of characters may be difficult. It would effectively mean that a villain is too comedic to be Pure Evil, though not to an extent that would make them Inconsistently Heinous instead. As a result, such characters are often classified as Near Pure Evil instead.

To explain things breifly, such NPE villains would have all of their crimes taken seriously, but not the entirety of their character. The category on the NPE Wiki for this type of character is Minor Comic Reliefs.

## Comedy as a non-prevention

As mentioned before, it is entirely possible for a villain to have numerous comedic moments in the story that do not detract from their overall heinousness. In order for such to be the case, said comedic moments would have to do nothing to mitigate the severity of their crimes or their personal heinousness in the narrative. Such comedic moments would exist independently of the character's overall impact on the story's tone.

It is these sorts of villains with comedic moments who are able to qualify as Pure Evil, as their comedic moments do nothing to detract from the severity of their threat. However, they can still be Near Pure Evil or Inconsistently heinous if they have other preventions unrelated to comedy.

### Laughably Evil

**Laughably Evil** is a term that refers to villains with notable comedic moments more broadly. As explained above, laughably evil villains can be of any moral rank whatsoever, as it being funny is in and of itself unrelated to heinousness.

Comedic villains are a sub-type of Laughably Evil villains. The distinction between the two concepts is that Laughably Evil villains merely have notable funny moments, whereas purely comedic villains are themselves primarily intended to be funny.

## Illustrative examples

### Pure Evil

* Most versions of **the Joker (DC)** are Laughably Evil to some extent. However, the Pure Evil incarnations are always taken seriously as threats, even when their heinous crimes have a comedic element to them.
For example, there is a notable scene in *Batman: Cacophony* #1 where the Joker jokingly says to Maxie Zeus that "I'll crush you like a room full of unibrowed school kids." When Maxie says he doesn't get it, the Joker detonates bombs that destroy a nearby school full of kids before saying "Get it?" and driving away. This scene uses comedic timing that add a dark humour to it, but the actual crime itself is taken seriously by the story and it is used to underscore the Joker's evil. Therefore, his comedy is not enough to detract from his heinousness or threatening nature.

### Near Pure Evil

* **Bowser (*The Super Mario Bros. Movie*)** has all of his worst crimes taken seriously by the movie's narrative. His torture and attempted murder of prisoners has no comedic side to it, nor does his attempt to destroy the Mushroom Kingdom. With that said, his obsession with Peach is frequently played for laughs by the narrative to the point that it detracts from his overall heinousness in the film. His comedic moments detract *just* enough to disqualify him from being PE, but *not* enough to make his entire character too comedic to take seriously as a threat. This minor comedy prevention is the main reason why he's NPE.
* **Kikimora** is taken seriously as a villain and a hate sink, but she isn't taken seriously as a threat by the narrative. She's often treated as a butt-monkey, and thus has several slapstick moments that prevent her from posing enough of a threat to the heroes to be PE. In fact, by Season 3 of the show, the main heroes don't even feel threatened by Kikimora, but rather simply feel exasperated at having to keep dealing with her. Her frequent comedic moments don't detract from the seriousness of her immoral nature, but they do detract from the seriousness of whatever threat she poses.

### Inconsistently Heinous

* The film version of **Big Jack Horner** used to be considered PE for a while before he was deemed too comedic. He acts in a comically in pretty much every scene he's in, and all of his sociopathic traits are presented in an over-the-top way as a parody, meaning that they aren't taken seriously. An illustrative example of this is the scene in which he shoots his own men in the butts with unicorn horns that make them explode confetti, all the while upbeat dance music plays that illustrates further how this scene is meant to be played for laughs. Another such example is his defeat where he asks what he did to deserve this, and then clarifies that he's asking what specifically.