Akumatized villains

SHOW/HIDE SPOILERS

**Akumatized villains**, also called **Evilized villains**, are people transformed into supervillains by Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth with Akumatization, the superpower of the Butterfly Miraculous.

Whenever a person has strong negative emotions, such as anger, hunger, frustration, jealousy, fear, sadness, humiliation, dedication, tearful, tragic, grumpy, disappointment, guilt, betrayal, miserable, misfortune, upset, despair, misery, Hawk Moth senses it from his lair and charges a butterfly with Miraculous magic, transforming it into an Akuma. The Akuma then flies away from Hawk Moth’s lair to the targeted person and possesses an important object that belongs to the person.

Once the object is possessed, it immediately creates a telepathic link between Hawk Moth and the other person, allowing them to communicate through a butterfly-shaped light mask that appears in front of Hawk Moth’s and the victim’s faces. Also, in that moment, the area around the person’s eyes darkens to a darker shade of moderate vermilion.

Once the connection is established, Hawk Moth gives them a new name for their supervillain identity and explains to the person that he’ll give them the ability to accomplish their goals if, in return, the person will retrieve the Ladybug Miraculous and Cat Miraculous from Ladybug and Cat Noir.

When the person agrees, a dark purple ether appears from the possessed object and surrounds the person. Once it recedes, it reveals the victim has transformed into a supervillain. If Hawk Moth needs to telepathically talk with them again, his light mask will reappear on both Hawk Moth and the villain, unless an amok infects said villain with an akuma, or if the Butterfly Holder fuses with the Peacock miraculous and releases either Akuma or Amok.

Every villain, after being corrupted, remembers the cause of their distress and the person who caused it, so they usually try to get revenge. Additionally, some villains, namely Copycat, the Evillustrator, Horrificator, Stoneheart, Syren, Backwarder, Silencer and Oni-Chan remember the people whom they have romantic feelings for (Ladybug, Marinette (Evillustrator and Silencer), Ivan Bruel, Mylène Haprèle, Lê Chiến Kim, Wang Fu and Adrien respectively) and still care for them while transformed.

Hawk Moth can’t mind control his villains, psychologically manipulating them instead. He can’t read their minds either, however he can see through their eyes and sense their feelings, allowing him to see and feel what they do. If he needs to, Hawk Moth can control their bodies for a brief amount of time in order to inflict pain on them until they agree to do as he commands.

Hawk Moth can revoke the Akuma, removing the villain’s powers. Sometimes he also uses this as a threat against his victims to keep them on task.

As seen in “Robostus”, any sentient creature with emotions can be Akumatized. For example, the robot Markov is Akumatized in the aforementioned episode, and the infant August is Akumatized in “Gigantitan”, although since he was a baby, he couldn’t really understand Hawk Moth.

Sometimes, other living things or beings are indirectly transformed with the main victim, such as Fang changing into a dragon in “Guitar Villain” when Jagged Stone is Akumatized, and Albert becoming a far more advanced AI in “The Dark Owl” when Mr. Damocles is Akumatized. Inanimate objects that are not the Akumatized object can change because of the victim’s Akumatization, such as Roger Raincomprix’s car transforming in “Rogercop”.

In “Startrain”, it’s revealed that the mental connection is dependent on proximity. If the Butterfly Miraculous holder and the Akumatized person are too far away from each other, the communication can’t be established, and Hawk Moth can’t control the Akumatized person or revoke the Akuma.

Rarely, it is possible for someone with extreme willpower to resist or even overcome Hawk Moth’s influence; Miss Bustier (in “Zombizou”), Chloé Bourgeois (in “Miraculer”), Cat Noir (in “Cat Blanc”), Luka Couffaine (in “Truth”) and Alya Césaire (in “Gang of Secrets”) have ever been shown doing so; Caline, Cat Noir and Luka succumbed after approximately 30 seconds, while Chloé and Alya remain the only people to ever completely reject an Akuma to date.

As shown in “Félix”, Hawk Moth can Akumatize more than one person at once just with one Akuma, as long as the victims hold onto an object which the Akuma enters or, as shown in “Gang of Secrets”, as long as each person has an emotional link to the object, Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth can akumatize as many people as he wants with just one Akuma, even if only one person holds the object.