Card-Carrying Villain

Actual villain business card not required.

"I am sick, deranged, sadistic, and insane. And you know what? I enjoy every second of it."

— Dr. Edgar Malbarn, Armageddon Force

"Appealing to my better nature? I'm a villain! Here is My Card! Eve L. Duehr: Academy of Evil graduate, Aspiring Tyrant, Kicker of Kittens, and Spontaneous Singer of Barney songs. I crossed the Moral Event Horizon while still in grade school and have never once looked back. And you think you can talk me out of my evil deeds? I shall laugh at your feeble attempts to stop me like so, mwhahahahahahahahahaa!"

Villains like this may be greedy, violent, comical, etc. but most importantly, they are Evil. It's in the job description. They refer to themselves as Evil, with a capital "E". Stretch it out to "Eeeeeevil" for emphasis. (They may even pronounce the "I" with emphasized shortness. Ee-vill. Like the froo-it of the dev-ill.) Terminal cases even require their minions to call them "Your Evilness". In fact, calling them evil, vile, ruthless, or any generally negative epithet will backfire and be received by these villainous types as the kindest of compliments.

The Card-Carrying Villain demands to be respected and feared and on top of the heap over everyone else because Evil Is Cool and Good Is Dumb.

Thus, they are expected to Kick the Dog and never Pet the Dog. They will shun anything saccharine, and if they acted differently, they'd lose their Evil ranking. Especially ironic if the reason they fell was because they wanted freedom from constraints on their actions. Whatever action they as a good guy wanted to do is considered "bad", so they have to do other bad things as well now. After a while, they usually forget about whatever goal it was that turned them Evil in the first place. So...in a very odd way, they're very much The Fettered; since their actions are bound by the expectation of Evil.

The "Card-Carrying" in the trope name is an expression that comes from the identification cards often given to registered members of an organization or professional society, and is not meant to be taken literally; it just means they're proudly committed to the role. If the villains carry an actual membership card, they may be part of a Weird Trade Union, but that would be a different trope. (Do we dare even ask what would happen if the Villains' Union goes on strike?) Or if they have a Literal Metaphor, that might be My Card.

There are, in general, three spheres of Card-Carrying Villainy. A lot of villains combine one or more, though:

Control — the Villain wants to rule; be it a gang, a city, a state, the country, the world, or a similar goal, and have everyone else below them obey their every whim. Sometimes goes so far as thinking of themselves as being of a superior race, a perfect being, or even a god, and therefore entitled to it.
Corruption — the Villain wants to turn other people Evil, and often To Create a Playground for Evil. Give in to The Dark Side!
Destruction — the Villain wants to destroy and kill for its own sake. Taken to the extreme, the first and second spheres may recognize that this includes them as well, so this often results in Evil Versus Oblivion or Eviler than Thou if the villain teams up with the heroes so they can Take Over the World at a later date. (You can't take over the world if it's not there!)

A Black Cloak, a low-ranking Terrible Trio, an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, or someone who's succumbed to The Dark Side is usually most likely to identify themselves this way.

A subversion is for these folks to not actually be cruel, greedy, or unnecessarily violent, but just doing their jobs. A Noble Demon is a Card-Carrying Villain who walks the talk, but has a tendency to hold back or even help from time to time.

While the trope can result in an entertaining villain, they can also be cheesy or shallow. 80s kid's shows made a lot of these, where the villain referred to themselves as evil. Writers apparently believed that the children watching wouldn't be able to define the bad guy unless he was blowing up cities or poisoning lakes For the Evulz. It also reveals a condescending belief that children are unable to understand that evil people usually don't consider themselves evil. Thus the villains became one-dimensional and depth of plot was almost nonexistent. Such villains are often derisively referred to as "Mustache-Twirling Villains". In serious works that are aimed at older audiences and/or use Grey-and-Gray Morality for their other villains, a Card-Carrying Villain has a good chance of ending up as a Base-Breaking Character or even The Scrappy.

In comedy situations/shows, this fate is usually averted, as it's a humorous thing (and thus right in place). It can also be used with a darker twist — showing a person so Beyond Redemption, so beyond what we call usual morality, that he is literally impossible to argue and reason with. This trope is also difficult (but not impossible) to pull off convincingly in a more serious, dramatic work or just live action in general. Most people in Real Life simply aren't that evil or conceited enough (or stupid enough) to proclaim themselves as such in any way. Not overtly, at least.

On the other hand, there are still dramatic situations where characters ARE that evil even in serious situations — certain kinds of world-destroyers, the excessively vengeful, and full-on psychopaths. It is easier to pull this seriously with a villain who acts like this in private but pretends to be something else in public, but even if not, it can work if the character is a total psycho. Demonic entities also have full access to this trope. In the final stage, you have a villain who insists on justifying their actions because "it's what villains are supposed to do"; see Contractual Genre Blindness. In dramatic situations, the hero may try to induce a Heel–Face Turn and tell them they have a choice. They choose to keep being evil.

The Smug Snake is one of the more likely villainous types to openly revel in their harmful actions, which tends to highlight the fact that they are not nearly as intelligent as their inflated ego leads them to believe they are.

Card-Carrying Villains are particularly likely to commit atrocities out of a sincere desire to cause harm. Expect them to have relations with the dark and/or have evil powers. Also expect plenty of petty behavior. When it goes to their head, they might even start to develop a Devil Complex.

Surprisingly, a Card-Carrying Villain occasionally has one "redeeming" quality as far as villains go: They're honest. They will not hide the fact that they're the villainous scumbag, they will not deceive you that they were worthy of some sympathy by being a misguided Well-Intentioned Extremist, that's just hypocritical. This may make them more obvious targets for the heroes to gun down, but they will not hide behind sweet talks (unless it's meant to showcase a Faux Affably Evil personality), and sometimes lies would hurt more than a blatant assault. They are also not self-righteous at all.

Of course the alternative is true: it can be their single most despicable quality. Even a Well-Intentioned Extremist can make a good point once in a while despite their immoral deeds. A Card-Carrying Villain on the other hand, is fully aware that they're scum and openly embraces it.

A sufficiently Genre Savvy character may call out the villain for behaving too much like a stock villain character from the stories; that's a "Clichéd Villain" Accusation.

An Implied Infernal Destination may serve as Insult Backfire for such a character.

Not to be confused with My Card, where the villain emphasizes their evilness in this trope, My Card actually deals with a business card (and is not always for villains). For people who fight using cards, see Death Dealer. Oh, and this is also not to be confused with the villains in Yu-Gi-Oh!, as everybody seems to carry cards in that series.

Subtrope of Obviously Evil. Super-Trope to Chaos Is Evil. Dastardly Whiplash is a specific subtrope from comic melodrama. Many if not most examples of Ron the Death Eater are also this.

Compare:

The Barnum: A Con Man who openly and unashamedly takes pride in their sleazy ways.
Card-Carrying Jerkass: A character with a similar attitude towards being mean and nasty to others, but isn't necessarily evil. The two tropes can often overlap, however.
Complete Monster: A villain who is pure evil with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. A Card-Carrying Villain can easily be this if their actions are Played for Drama and emphasize their love of evil by being particularly terrible.
Drunk on the Dark Side: A character gains immense power, usually via Black Magic, and undergoes a Sanity Slippage because they enjoy their newfound powers too much, regardless of morality or lack thereof. If the character wasn't a Card-Carrying Villain before, they are now.
Hate Sink: A villain who is intended to be hated by the audience. While a lot of Card-Carrying Villains are too goofy to truly hate, making a Hate Sink openly gloat about their evil nature is a good way to invoke disgust from viewers.
Noble Demon: A villain who makes no bones about that fact, but will generally do less dog-kicking.

Contrast:

Above Good and Evil: When a villain dismisses morality as a meaningless concept.
Being Evil Sucks: When a villain becomes ashamed of their evil actions and leaves the dark side.
I Am a Monster: Where the character laments rather than embraces how bad they are.
Knight Templar: A villain who views themselves as good. They can still be a Card-Carrying Villain if they embrace the evil persona others hold them to.
Moral Myopia: Where the villain decries the evil acts of others while ignoring or rationalizing their own.
Obliviously Evil: When a villain believes that they aren't doing anything wrong.
Punch-Clock Villain: Who doesn't take any particular glee in being evil, instead looking at it as just their job.

Compare and Contrast

Affably Evil: A villain who is genuinely polite to the hero and treats them like a friend. These characters can be Card-Carrying Villains as they are usually very open about their villainy.
Faux Affably Evil: A villain who pretends to be polite but is all a facade to hide the truly evil monster just underneath the mask. Card- Carrying Villains who are this usually just do this in a mocking way compared to the Affably Evil villains.
Fully-Embraced Fiend: A character who embraces becoming a literal monster, such as a vampire or werewolf. These can be of any alignment, but an evil Fully-Embraced Fiend can also be a Card-Carrying Villain.
The Mad Hatter: A character proudly embraces their insanity instead of their depravity.
Then Let Me Be Evil: A character eventually becomes a villain after being labelled as one, having lost all hope in changing others' opinion of them. They know they are a villain and embrace the image, but they do so out of bitterness at being misunderstood, not pride.

The most likely Foil is the Ideal Hero, who is equally defined by the role of being an upright good guy.

Example subpages:

Other examples:

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In this commercial for E*TRADE, Benedict Arnold seems proud of his reputation as the "infamous traitor".

Asian Animation

In BoBoiBoy, Adu Du, his henchmen, and his family acknowledge that they are evil and take pride in calling themselves evil, as some other villains tend to do as well.
Wangury in Noonbory and the Super 7 is fully aware of how much of an evil genius he is, and wouldn't want that any other way.

Comic Strips

Dilbert
- Catbert is the "Evil Director of Human Resources". That's right, he's got the word "evil" in his job title. And he lives up to it with glee:
  Dilbert: My boss is preventing me from transferring to a great job.
  Catbert: That's outrageous! There shouldn't be any great jobs in this company.
- Equally evil example:
  Alice: How many of your policies are formulated for the sole purpose of gratifying your sadistic tendencies?
  Catbert: All of them. Some are just more noticeable.
Flash Gordon's enemy Ming the Merciless. With a title like that, you know he's a bad guy.

Fan Works

All For Luz: Unlike Governor Maxwell, Tyler Wittebane and Emperor Belos, All For One knows he's an evil bastard and doesn't even bother pretending otherwise to Luz or anyone else.
Beyond Tomorrow: Lord Komatsu, the Big Bad of the second arc fits this to a T. When his daughter Arina demands to know how he could possibly cause harm to someone as pure as Hanyuu, his word-for-word response is:
"Because I'm evil. Duh."
Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Dr. Brainstorm is a Harmless Villain who gleefully follows several cliche Mad Scientist tropes.
Code Prime:
- When C.C. calls Megatron "a monster, a demon, and the Devil incarnate" after she witnesses his Dark Geass, Megatron simply asks her if she is only realizing this now.
- Knight of Ten Luciano Bradley happily tells Cliffjumper that he joined the Britannian military so he can take people's lives, to which Cliffjumper says that at least Luciano is among the few Britannians who freely admit to being a murderous psychopath.
Crowns of the Kingdom has all the Disney villains, who frequently bicker with each other because of it.
Danganronpa: Komm Susser Tod: Sasuke Akechi openly wears his title as the Ultimate Kidnapper on his sleeve, repeatedly antagonizes everyone else, and sees nothing wrong with publicly boasting about his crimes.
Danny Phantom: Stranded: Colette Bevier knows she’s a bad person and revels in it.
- In Empowered, she confirms Danny’s accusation that she’s going use her newfound ghost powers to become a supervillain and take over the world.
- In Blackmailed, she’s flattered when Danny calls her “despicable” for blackmailing him and plans to make him as cruel as her if he becomes her boyfriend.
Daughters Of The Wicked Witch: Fairy Tristan openly admits to being a terrible person, cheerfully agreeing with Mordred's assertion that she's a monster. In fact, she proudly claims to be the greatest monster.
A Diplomatic Visit: The fourth story, The Diplomat's Life, features Rabia, once he showed his true colors to Stygian, in this role. He's extremely upfront about being evil and wanting to plunge the world into eternal darkness so his people can freely wreak havoc.
Fate/Harem Antics:
- Avenger constantly says she is a witch who wants to see the world burn.
- Gunner constantly says she is a demon and a tyrant.
Feralnette AU: Lila is perfectly happy to team up with Hawkmoth in hopes of breaking Marinette's spirit, all because Marinette stood up to her and tried calling her out on her Blatant Lies. The amount of pride and glee she takes in her cruelty ultimately bites her hard when she's hit by Lady Clarity's power, exposing her inner self in the form of a phantom. Said phantom cheerfully brags about helping 'Hawkie' to everyone present, revealing her true nature.
Guys Being Dudes: 2 out of 3 members of the Team GO Rocket trio regularly refer to themselves as "evil", say they got into the business to crush people's dreams, and that sort of thing.
Harry Potter and the Evil Summer Vacation: The villains and villain wannabes have a magazine called Evil Monthly. Hermione mentions having read an article in it about the conference Harry had mistakenly attended that summer and when he asked her what she was doing with it, she replies "I'm sure you know that both my parents are dentists."
Hellsister Trilogy: Justified. Satan Girl is Kara Zor-El's duplicate, her dark side's embodiment. Evil, unfettered desires and impulses is literally everything she is made of, so it's perfectly reasonable for her delighting in doing evil things or killing and destroying just because she can.
Ask Ernst Stavro Blofeld's Blofeld calls himself "a soulless murderous monster" without a trace of irony.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality's Voldemort is one, which is Justified because Voldemort was actually a purposefully over-the-top alias Tom Riddle created as a disposable first draft of his future Evil Overlord persona. He overestimated Wizarding Britain's defences by far and almost took over the world as Voldemort by accident before he cut back on his attacks.
Jimmy's Visit With Dr. Franklin: Ebon, After Jimmy rightfully calls Ebon a monster he replies with "I know".
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: One Cartoonist's Dream: At one point, DIO calls himself "bottomless evil personified."
Knowledge is Power:
- The Weasleys and Dumbledore, whose motivations are shallow at best and completely unexplored at worst.
- Voldemort and the Death Eaters take this to a ludicrous extreme by actually Scoring Points based on how many captives they torture.
legolas by laura features orcs who refer to themselves as "us all the bad guys".
Limpet AU: Even after everything, Vader still sees himself as an evil Sith Lord, and at one point mentions his intentions to take down the Jedi and the New Republic and re-establish the Empire if ever the opportunity arises. At least, so he claims. While trying to deny the fact that he is, in fact, spoiling his grandchildren and — to his own disgust — gone soft.
The Lion King Adventures: When Nala tells Timon and Pumbaa that they are evil, Timon replies "Who cares? Evil makes the world go round".
A Magician in Gotham: A literal and figurative example. When Hugo Strange finds a tarot card, specifically the Devil, in his pocket, he looks at it, says "Yes, I suppose I am," and puts it back in his pocket.
Mass Effect: Human Revolution: Jules Leng almost gleefully admits to rape when Adam confronts him.
My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic: Titan introduces himself as Emperor of Chaos and Nightmares, but most of the time does nothing besides gloat on his throne.
The New Adventures of Invader Zim:
- Norlock openly identifies as evil.
- Irkens, with the possible exception of Skoodge, all seem to have an overtly villainous mindset.
Ojamajo Doremi: Rise of the Shadows: All of the villains know they're evil and revel in it. Special mention goes to Evil Rin, if her name is anything to go by...
Pony POV Series:
- Diamond Tiara becomes a dead serious and depressing example after being Driven to Madness and turned into a Nightmare by Discord. The serious part comes from the fact she is convinced she was made to be a monster that causes misery and pain, and that's all she can ever hope to be, so she doesn't anymore.
- Discord is another example. He outright calls himself a 'sadistic hedonist' and has no delusions about the fact he's an evil monster, but in his case, the reason he's this trope is it's easier to justify his actions if he's completely evil and cannot be anything else. IE, he shouldn't feel bad for his misdeeds because he can't be anything else, so why should he? It's shown that the idea he might have any good in him and is thus redeemable scares him to death to the point being reminded of his Split Personality Dissy, who was a genuinely good person and loved their mother Shady is almost certain to trigger a Freak Out.
- There is also Chrysalis, who at one point states that she's "much worse than a devil". Decidedly not played for laughs: Chrysalis is this trope because she's a Sociopath and Social Darwinist who genuinely believes her sociopathy is completely natural. This backfires when the Elements give her a heart and she becomes capable of caring about how awful her actions were.
- Hydia and her clan from G1 exist in this universe and still have this trope, but it's played a bit more seriously this time around due the series knack for Adaptational Badass, though not to the point of total Cerebus Retcon. However, one dead serious example in their family is Lilith, the First Witch, who presumably inspired their entire worldview because she's Made of Evil by this point and has enough might to destroy the entire world if she had the chance. In fact, her evil is so black that her power being sucked into the Alicorn Amulet is what corrupted it into the Artifact of Doom it is now.
Queen of All Oni: Jade, after her Face–Heel Turn, openly identifies as being evil, as does practically every other villainous character.
Roman's Empire is a story about organized crime, so most of the main characters won't deny that they're not good people. However, two examples stand out.
- Roman Torchwick is proud to be a mobster and even states his aspirations to become the top mob boss in Vale. He doesn't even hide the fact that he's a bad guy. In fact, he'll be proud of it.
- Violet Kincaid, Roman's mentor, is a shamelessly cruel woman. She's a subtler example than Roman, but it's clear that she is proud of her villainy and never even tries to paint herself as victim or a good guy.
Team LVDR: Indus is a dark example. He's a faunus trafficker, and he enjoys every second of it.
Territory Wars has Gail Kim come into Ring of Honor to "save" it but later announces her real plan to oppress everyone who works for it as a dictator after hiring the International Home Wrecking Crew and Anti-Diva Army to help her in this task (though her "minions" are merely punch clock villains). Madusa also becomes one, with shades of The Social Darwinist. Winter, who usually does have this gimmick, instead is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who truly does want to save the company, though still isn't a face. Kane is a face despite possibly playing it the straightest.
HTF The Stranger, a Happy Tree Friends fanfic, has the Mad Scientist Big Bad scam innocent people into trapping them in a virtual reality where he has total control, forcing them to die over and over. He openly admits to the protagonist that he is Sick and Wrong, but all he wanted was to fulfill his dream of playing God, and he doesn't believe he brought any harm to his captives since their memories are frequently reset.
Mohg Did NOTHING Wrong centers on Mohg brainstorming with Varre a way to improve his public image.
Mohg: Some of the albinaurics have been calling me an incestuous, Empyrean stealing sexual predator. Which of course I am, but I don't want THEM saying that.
The Zero Context Series: The Brotherhood's top brass are card-carriers by and large, being antagonists for antagonism's sake.
- The organization's leader-by-proxy, Missy Coco, sees nothing wrong with blasting sailor fuku-adorned people just for kicks. When Callista was contemplating what to do with Bahija for stalking her, Missy advocated straight-up killing her. Her outlook is justified, given that she's a clone of Callista's darker traits with little in the way of morality to balance it out.
- Bahija herself is a former intergalactic warlord named Acutus, who is entirely unapologetic for committing mass murder in the name of conquest, being a complete nymphomaniac, and forcing people to serve her against their will. It is implied that at the height of her power there were few lines she wasn't willing to cross. When called out on her behavior, she just smiles and daydreams about Callista.

Music

"I'm makin' a career of evil..."
Danish metal band Evil only released one EP, but half the tracks on there fit this trope perfectly: their namesake track and"Son of the Bitch."
George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" is a song sung from the point of view of someone who really likes being bad. (And is often played in movies when actual Card-Carrying Villains appear.)
Denis Leary's song "Asshole" describes someone who delights in making other people miserable, and proudly proclaims himself to be the "world's biggest asshole". He does such things as driving really slowly in the ultra-fast lane, and intentionally parking in spots for handicapped people when said people need the parking spots.
The Diamond Head song "Am I Evil?". The answer is, unsurprisingly, "Yes I am!".
Eminem's Slim Shady character uses "Evil" as one of his pseudonyms, often brags about how twisted and perverted he is, claims he's here to corrupt your kids, declares himself a criminal, and describes himself like this:
You can't miss me: I'm white, blonde-haired, and my nose is pointy.
I'm the bad guy who makes fun of people that die
in plane crashes and laughs, as long as it ain't happenin' to him
The narrator of The Furnaces of Palingenesia is fully aware how chaotic and insane the fascist regime he works for is.
You will be made to deny the dissonance and conflict that is at the heart of the experience of our World. You shall join the chorus of praise that flows from the absolute perfection we have created by the sole power of our will. We shall bleed you white, but you will think that it is an act of unconditional love.
Gloryhammer's albums feature the recurring villain Zargothrax, Bane of Cowdenbeath, Scourge of Auchtermuchty, Arch-foe of the Questlords of Inverness, Master of Nightmares, Keeper of the Celestial Flame of Abernathy, Wielder of the Vorpal Laserblaster of Pittenweem, Wizard-King, Chaos Incarnate, Binary Thaumaturge. While he's never referred to by all these titles in the same song, he does hold them all by the end of the fourth album.
Quasi-subversion: the Something Wicked two-part Concept Album by Iced Earth deals with the Ancient Conspiracy of the Setian race. The Setians are AntiVillains with a detailed Start of Darkness and a reasonable motivation for wanting to destroy mankind...but they still, consistently and repeatedly, refer to themselves as "Wicked".
Many songs from the point of view of a serial killer. For example, "The Ripper" by Judas Priest.
Voltaire's song "When You're Evil" is a song about a guy who admits how much he loves being evil...or possibly actually is evil itself, as the speaker/singer says "The Devil tips his hat to me."
N.W.A's MC Ren.
The narrators of "Mr. Bad Example" by Warren Zevon and "The Future" by Leonard Cohen.
Uncle Ernie from The Who's Tommy: "I'm your wicked Uncle Ernie..."
- Same with Cousin Kevin: "I'm the school bully/The classroom cheat/The nastiest play-friend you ever could meet..."
Kids Praise: Risky Rat's Villain Song cements his status this way: he describes himself as a conman, a spiritual gangster, and he's clearly proud of it!

Mythology and Religion

Satan is often depicted in this manner. In the Bible at least, he comes off more like a Knight Templar. Orthodox Christianity states that it is because he envies and hates them, trying to paint them in the worst light vis-a-vis God.
In Zurvanism, a heretical branch of Zoroastrianism, this is what Ahriman has to say after being born:
"It is not that I cannot create anything good, but that I will not."
- He pretty much chose to be evil by default, out of the blue.

Pinball

In Popeye Saves the Earth, Bluto is a proud and unrepentant planet-destroying polluter.
As in the source material, Dr. Evil from Austin Powers plays this straight.

Professional Wrestling

Ric "The Dirtiest Player in The Game" Flair. There was really no difference between his heel and face personas: he'd low-blow and cheap shot heel and face alike and tell you beforehand he would.
Razor Ramon - "Say hello to the bad guy" as a play on the Tony Montana line.
The Undertaker, when giving his Motive Rant upon one of his heel turns, said, "And I know that some of you are wondering how it is that I can join forces with such an evil, despicable, maniacal individual [as Paul Bearer]...well, if that isn't reason enough all by itself then I don't guess I can explain it to you folks any better!" He would go around calling himself The Lord of Darkness and saying things like, "Embrace the purity of evil," leading to the official debut of the Ministry of Darkness (UT, Paul, The Acolytes), with Dennis Knight being "sacrificed" and renamed Mideon, on the January 11, 1999 Raw.
Eddie Guerrero (along with nephew Chavo as a Tag Team) was pushed as a heel in 2003 as someone who would always "lie, cheat and steal" his way to victory. It backfired, as fans grew to like the fact that Eddie was honest about his dishonesty (and because it made him look smarter than his foes).
Tasha Simone at points has given "The Darker Side Of Evil" as her hometown.
Kane makes no effort to hide the fact that he's evil. It's in his intro video.
Kaientai (TAKA Michinoku and SHO Funaki). Whilst clearly speaking Japanese but being dubbed into English over the mic with no regard to what he was actually saying, Michinoku would make an amusing speech that always ended with "We. Are. EEEEEVVVVILLL" and Funaki would make a long speech that was translated "INNNDEEEEEEEEED". Of course, they were huge faces and didn't favour cheap tactics.
William Regal actually has the word "Villain" written on his tights. More to the point; Villain is the name of his Ring Entrance Music. He once told MJF he was a "Proper Ol' Villain" and that he didn't need to cheat to win matches, he just really enjoys hitting people with brass knuckles.
Crazy Rudy and Bandido, starting in WWC. The name of their tag team was "Bad Guys" even.
Team PMA, made up of Malia Hosaka, Syren and their referee, Evil Zebra. Hosaka also proved EEEEEVVVVILLL enough to briefly join TAKA Michinoku and Funaki.
Pro Wrestling ZERO1 had, among others, the Real Evil Makers, REM.
Chikara's resident super villain, Ultramantis Black. He used to be a good guy but that got tiring.
CM Punk will never deny how much of a jackass he is, or can be, to the point that he was extremely proud to be the recipient of "Dick Move of the Year" for singing "Happy Birthday" to Rey Mysterio's daughter.
To bring Suffering, Chaos, Ugliness and Mayhem to Ring of Honor. Such was the mission of S.C.U.M.
April Hunter would like to inform you "her" tag team of Taylor Made and Allysin Kay, Made In Sin, is not a play on their names but what they are! They embody the seven deadly, and will teach you the eighth.
More along the lines of card carrying Jerkass, but El Rudo De Los Rudos Axel Cruz fits otherwise, even though he's surprisingly friendly.
Act Yasukawa of World Wonder Ring ST★RDOM self identifies as "Evil Actress Soul".
The monstrous teens of UCW Zero, Team Bad
Ethan Carter The Third in TNA openly admits to being a bad guy, because as he says, bad guys win in real life.
In 2015, Takaaki Watanbe changed his name to King of Darkness EVIL.
"The Villain" Marty Scurll of Progress Wrestling, you've got to be one of these for that to be your nickname.
Taeler Hendrix as her ROH career went on. She released a video for the fans explaining how good vs evil was the greatest story ever told, how it must never come to an end, and how she would be doing everything she could to let them see good fail as many times as possible, encouraging them all to embrace their inner villains.
In All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling, Dump Matsumoto's faction was named the "Atrocious Alliance". They were the most over heels in the history of the promotion, mainly because they were the kind of bullies the target audience of schoolgirls were likely to have to deal with in real life.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman proudly calls himself a "scumbag". He's a surprisingly complex example for the genre, being a bullied kid all grown up who eventually admitted that his deliberately unpleasant persona was a defense mechanism: people can't reject you if you reject them first. He even tried to overcome his fears and make a Heel–Face Turn... until his best friend revealed that their entire friendship was a lie to could get close enough to betray him, leading Max to drop off the face of the planet for half a year before returning with a declaration that he would never trust anyone again and a mission to completely destroy all of AEW's fan favorite wrestlers to punish the wrestling fandom for cheering the man who took away his world championship, now acting worse than ever.
Chris Jericho spent the first year plus of his time with AEW coming out to 'tron graphics proudly declaring "AM I EVIL? YES I AM".

Puppet Shows

Kingdom Adventure: Dagger routinely refers to Zordock as "Your Evilness", and Zordock doesn't mind that title: if he did, Zordock would've certainly used his Agony Beam magic on Dagger for calling him that!
Spitting Image's song "I've Never Met A Nice South African" — written during The Apartheid Era — features a chorus of Amoral Afrikaners who gleefully boast about how rotten they are. When they bring up Breyten Breytenbach, who was imprisoned for opposing apartheid and who spent the rest of his time in Paris until apartheid ended, they concede: "Yes, he's quite a nice South African/ And he's hardly ever killed anyone/ And he's not smelly at all!/ That's why we put him in prison."
Tales of the Tinkerdee: Taminella refers to herself as "The Witchiest Witch of them all!" and seems proud to have no scruples.
Achmed the Dead Terrorist boasts about being a suicide bomber and wanting to kill people. ("I KEEL YOU!") The problem is that he's not good at it; in fact, he's dead because he botched his one and only attempt. He now just comes across as an Laughably Evil Harmless Villain.

Radio

The ironically named Mr. Gently Benevolent in the Dickens parody Bleak Expectations; "Every day, I take two evil pills and some naughtiness supplements". Also, the less ironically named Hardthrashers and their cousins, the Sternbeaters, Whackwallops, and Grimpunches.
Lord Darkness in ElvenQuest, an aspiring Evil Overlord who openly champions the Forces of Evil against the Forces of Good.
Slocum in Riders Radio Theater even has his own song "Someone's got to do it" that explains he's evil because somebody has to be, and he loves his job.
That Gosh Darn Hippie Show: As opposed to the character he’s parodying, who seems mostly oblivious to how his actions affects other people, Anthony is all too aware of the terror he induces in others and just enjoys being evil for the sake of it.

Rides

In their Villain Song the Pirates of the Caribbean devote at least four sentences in the lyrics into characterizing themselves as rascals, scoundrels, villains, knaves, devils, black sheep, really bad eggs, blighters, and ne'er-do-well cads. The rest of the song is devoted to their misdeeds.

Roleplay

Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- While Simon is a moody but morally decent young man, his alter ego- the Dark Dragon- revels in being as openly, bombastically villainous as he can manage.
- Daigo, as a result of being told all his life that he was 'evil' and 'wicked', has come to embrace the terms, and created his gang of outcasts specifically because he thought that society had given them no other option besides being evil.
Multiple organization and individuals in Discord Plays Stellaris don't bother justifying their nefarious actions with any kind of ideology and admit to being only out for power. The most prominent examples are Chancellor Ela Maxima, who confessed to having enjoyed organizing coups and the Evil Corp, which name tells you everything you need to know.

Sports

Thoroughly embraced by Floyd Mayweather Jr., who actively and gleefully seizes the black hat in the build-up to any of his big fights.
During the 80s, the Miami Hurricanes reveled in being the college football team America cheered against.

Tabletop Games

"Evil" is one end of one of the two alignment axes in the AD&D ruleset. Most Evil characters recognize this. Not to mention how they are penalized if they don't act evil.
- 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons tossed out the penalties, but there are still races that are simply unable to act otherwise.
- 4th Edition tossed out the second dimension of alignment. The law-chaos scale determining another portion of one's mindset is gone, so now alignment is simply determining just how good or evil you are.
- 5th Edition downplays this. There is no spell to determine what someone's alignment is (the spell detect evil and good still exists, but it detects creatures based on their type rather than their alignment), and there's no particular penalty for acting contrary to your alignment, only any formal moral codes you might have. Evil people are generally implied to be very selfish rather than reveling in being evil in the Backgrounds as well. The Always Chaotic Evil races are also said to have members who buck the trend and are usually given explanations for their behavior (aboleths, for example, are all actually the same Lawful Evil creatures who oppressed the world in The Dark Times-they reform in the Plane of Water if killed). However, there are occasional slip-ups. For instance, the Talisman of Ultimate Evil grant in-game powers if your alignment's eeeeeevil. Theoretically, this would mean anyone that uses the talisman should instantly suffer a Heel Realization, rather than become a Card-Carrying Villain...but how does an In-Universe piece of jewelry measure your evil-ness? If there is an evil to be measured, where does that mean for Card Carrying Villains?
  - Perhaps the reason it's called that is because once you realize it works for you, that means you're evil. You chose to keep on being so in full knowledge you are objectively a terrible person. You just don't care.
- 2nd Edition's concept of alignment was often deeply stupid (for example, it was outright stated that a True Neutral character torn between a Good hero and a puppy-kicking Evil villain should choose randomly). However, it did specify that Detect Evil detects evil intentions, someone actually intending to do you harm, rather than an evil person going about their daily life.
- It is worth noting that in many settings some entities are Made of Evil and are thus obviously aware of their evil status. A Devil or Demon is not evil because of personal morality or decisions they have made, but because that's just what they are. There are some instances of them becoming "good", but they're generally still considered evil for all mechanical purposes.
Exalted gives us the Infernal Exalted; while they aren't Always Chaotic Evil, the cards are stacked against them. For one thing, if they go against the will of their Yozi masters, they accrue Torment, which can backlash and affect mortals in nasty ways. The only way to bleed off torment is to engage in Acts of Villainy — stick your foes in death traps, force an innocent into an arranged marriage, monologue at your archnemesis, etc. This is what happens when the guy behind the plan is the cosmic embodiment of douchebaggery. Mind you, it's doesn't say who you have to perform some of those Acts of Villainy on...
- Also a subversion in that any given Infernal's dastardly evil scheme could be "make creation into a utopia" and their Acts of Villainy don't even have to be evil. All that matters is that they act like a Card-Carrying Villain.
- And then there's the whole reason they're like that — the Ebon Dragon had an active hand in their creation. Each of the Primordials represents a principle of Creation, and the Ebon Dragon once represented betrayal. Every thing he does is based around screwing someone over, even if it screws him as well.
The Devil-Tiger Dharma of Kindred of the East combines card-carrying villainy with punch-clock villainy. The path to enlightenment the Devil-Tigers walk expects them to be magnificent devils, both in the wickedness they perform and the punishments they deliver to sinners - even devils have their place in existence, after all, and that place is the punishment of evil. The Devil-Tigers throw themselves into the role wholeheartedly, devoting themselves to its pursuit.
The Nephandi from Mage: The Ascension want to send the entire world to Hell and rule over what dark landscape remains. They often serve as The Corrupter, luring people into vice, violence, and hatred. The very process of even becoming a Nephandus involves entering a cancerous rent in reality where the mage is faced with everything they consider anathema to their very nature... and embracing it fully, literally inverting their soul. That said, the Nephandi do not boast or act openly, because they know that every other mage will put everything else aside in order to reduce the Nephandus to a greasy smear. Rather, the closest some come to acting openly is to embrace dark or Satanic imagery in a fashion that could just be written off as shitposting, especially in a community with as much countercultural influence as the Awakened.
Volrath from Magic: The Gathering was just absurdly over-the-top in how eeeeeevil he was. "I once had a race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them." To be fair, he was R&D's first real attempt at creating a Big Bad, and, as it turned out, he was The Dragon to someone just as evil but with no bloody time or inclination for theatrics.
- They subsequently created a new variant for casual play called Archenemy, a one-vs.-many game where, by dint of being the Big Bad of the game, the outnumbered player gets a number of benefits, including use of a "scheme" deck, a set of cards (that actually have the type Scheme) maintained separately from the library that give special benefits (usually for free) once per turn. (The idea is that the Archenemy is such a threat that other Planeswalkers have put aside differences and banded together to stop him.) The kicker is that each Scheme has a grandiose title (usually accompanying an equally devastating effect), often degenerating into card-carrying villainy, and some darkly appropriate flavor text. For example, Behold The Power Of Destruction destroys all nonland permanents target player controls. The flavor text?
  I'd call that a successful first test. Golem! Rearm the Doom Citadel!
Certain Imperators (and possibly their associated Powers) in Nobilis will be like this, with Devils and Magisters of the Dark being the most obviously villain looking and acting (although Third Edition made this a bit more complicated; Devils are motivated by compassion for all things, especially ugly and corrupt things that have nobody else to love them, and are affected by that depth of affection, and Magisters of the Dark champion absolute freedom, especially the freedom to act against your best interests and destroy yourself). Of all Imperators though, the clearest example is Lord Entropy, the Darkest Lord, who wants to be feared by everybody and hates love to the extent that he made a law against it just to have something he could punish everybody for.
Chaos and the Dark Eldar in Warhammer 40,000 take delight in being on the extreme wrong side of the Moral Event Horizon. Considering the latter group lives off of Squick taken to the point of nightmarish, this is perhaps understandable. A quote from the nearest thing they have to a leader: "Death is my meat, terror my wine."

Theatre

Jonathon from Arsenic and Old Lace. His "similarity" to Boris Karloff (constantly played for laughs as in Broadway production he was played by Boris Karloff) marks him as Obviously Evil. He even attempts to kill his own brother just so he can top his aunts' Mercy Kills.
Mordred of Camelot is so Obviously Evil he might as well have a Dick Dastardly mustache. Not only is he openly proud of being the bastard (in more ways than one) son of Arthur and Morgana, he actually has a Villain Song where he outright rejects all of the virtues Arthur lives by. To be fair, Lancelot isn't always the most sympathetic character, so having the villain wear a "Hello my name is Asshole" badge may be called for.
Played with, even subverted, in Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto — in the prologue, Rodrigo Borgia hears the way people talk about him ("He walks around the Vatican like he owns the place! That unrefined jerk from Spain is making the church rot!" and replies that he doesn't care what people say, he'll do whatever it takes to become pope. He then says that his children must work for his advancement, and gives an Evil Laugh, after which his son Cesare, the protagonist, says "My father is a monster". However, after that, we don't see Rodrigo doing anything monstrous, besides the same political scheming as everyone else, and loving his illegitimate children too much — he wants to grow his own power so that he can pass it on to Cesare, he says. The play counteracts the family's general Historical Villain Upgrade, as his rival is the one sending assassins after the 16-year-old Cesare and getting his classmates killed.
Doctor Faustus insists that he's evil beyond redemption.
Mr. Lethe from Jasper in Deadland takes utmost pride in being an awful person, and has seeded the living world with his drugs for years.
Nerdy Prudes Must Die: Max is completely open about and comfortable with the fact that he's a Jerk Jock who lives to torment other students, and spends his introductory song relishing in his status as The Dreaded of Hatchetfield High.
I roar, and you cry!
I'm the reason you run and hide!
No Exit: Ines, unlike the other two Villain Protagonists, is well-aware of and open about the fact that she is an evil person who deserves to be damned.
Captain Hook in Peter Pan and subsequent productions is proud of being, in his own words the sleaziest sleaze of the seven seas.
In Pokémon Live!, the entirety of Team Rocket is devoted to world conquest in the name of evil, including Giovanni, who boasts of his evilness in a villain song.
In Sonic: Live in Sydney, Robotnik is proud of being big, bad, and mean, as detailed in his villain song.
Junior in Starship is a third generation villain and proud of it, even having a line in his Villain Song claiming that he's "evil and bad to the bone!" His rampage against the bugs is entirely For the Evulz.
Many William Shakespeare villains were motivated simply by wanting to be a villain:
- Most famously, Richard III, who notes "I am determined to prove a villain." To be sure, the root meaning of "villain" is "villein, serf" — and just as "noble" or "gentleman" became a term of praise, so it became an insult, starting with meaning unchivalrous and crude. In Shakespeare's time, it still carried some of the connotations. So it could be interpreted as, "If everyone thinks I'm just a common thug, by golly I'll show them how scary a thug I can be". Interpret that thought how you will. (C. S. Lewis discusses the term at length in Studies In Words.)
- Lady Macbeth is at one point in the play shown praying for demons to remove any capacity to do good from her body.
- Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, counseled to act nice to remain in the Prince's good books, retorts that he's always believed in being true to your nature. Since his nature is that of a villain, he's going to go ahead and be one, rather than pretend not to be — even if it's counter to his best interests.
  - And, of course, in case you have any doubts about that true nature, he's also a bastard. Being born out of wedlock makes you inherently a jerk.
  - The Elizabethans would have regarded an illegitimate-born person as a stereotypical villain. But in this case it's also justified. Don John is jealous because he will never have the status and wealth of his brother Don Pedro - because unlike his brother, Don John was born outside of wedlock.
- Iago continually changes his reasoning for his actions in Othello. Originally, it was out of jealousy because he was passed over for promotion; however, he eventually abandons not only this justification, but all possible rationalizations. He is identified simply as a "Villaine" in the list of characters in the first folio, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously noted his "motiveless malignity". Iago himself, when questioned on his motivation, simply refuses to explain anything...though there are those who attribute his actions to less incomprehensible motives.
  - Or there's the possibility that he's simply jealous of anyone who has anything good that he doesn't and fucks with Cassio, Desdemona, and Othello accordingly.
  - Then again, in the play he says it is "thought abroad that twixt my sheets/He's done my office," when referring to Othello. In other words, it's rumored Othello and Emilia are themselves making the beast with two backs.
  - The "Othello/Emilia" interpretation is certainly the motive most commonly cited, though as stated above, it's not the only reason he gives, it's just the first. If you don't count his general racist hatred towards Othello prior to that. Really no matter which way you look at it, Iago's motive could be any of the potential four explicitly stated in the play or something completely different...but the most likely is nothing at all, which ultimately makes him have the bizarre combination of playing this trope straight, averting it, subverting it, or zigzagging it simultaneously.
- Aaron in Titus Andronicus states outright that all he wants to do with his life is to be evil; the only reason he aids the play's antagonist instead of working against her is because it gives him a chance to do very evil, uncouth things. His last line in the play is:
  Aaron: If one good deed in all my life I did,
  I do repent it from my very soul.
  - Modern interpretations, including Julie Taymor's memorable version, sometimes have his actions as payback for the way he is treated, and add a Pet the Dog moment or two.

Visual Novels

Danganronpa:
- The series' Big Bad Monokuma/Junko Enoshima specifically spreads despair and hosts the killing games aware that despair itself is a bad thing. Junko's Motive Rants during the final trial of the first and second game confirm as much that she knows what she's doing is bad, and she yearns for the satisfaction of despair precisely for how unpredictable it is.
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Downplayed with Celestia Ludenberg. Gambling is illegal in Japan, so attending Hope's Peak as the Ultimate Gambler means declaring herself a criminal. And while gambling probably one of the least severe crimes that Hope's Peak students regularly get away with (Fuyuhiko's part of the Yakuza, Nagito bombed the school, Mondo leads an outlaw biker gang etc.), Celestia likes to lean into the 'criminal underworld' angle of gambling in Japan by calling herself the Queen of Liars and priding herself on her ruthlessness and deception.
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: Gundham Tanaka, the Ultimate Animal Breeder, is a Chuunibyou to the extreme, loudly proclaiming himself to be an evil warlock who will one day use his peerless dark sorcery to conquer the world, and insisting that his four adorable hamsters are actually his terrifying evil minions. Underneath it all, though, he's actually a nice guy. While he does commit murder, he does it for selfless reasons (everybody was trapped in a funhouse with no food until a murder occurred), and while he does try to avoid getting caught (and would have very likely done so if not for a Spanner in the Works), he admits his guilt pretty much the moment suspicion falls on him. His victim was also his consenting opponent in a Duel to the Death, who recognized that he just wanted to save everyone from starvation and shared that desire, making it more of a Suicide Pact than an actual murder.
- Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: Kokichi Oma, the Ultimate Supreme Leader (or so he claims), claims to be the boss of a Nebulous Evil Organization with sights set on world domination (essentially the Bond movie villain to Gundham's fantasy anime villain). However, he's a self-admitted Consummate Liar and a massive Troll who screws with everybody pretty much 24/7, so everyone assumes this is just another one of his lies. Unlike Gundham, he appears to be as depraved as he claims, getting pleasure from his classmates' suffering and had orchestrated, directly or indirectly, most of the deaths in the killing game. Despite this, he is revealed to dislike being forced to participate in the killing game and controlled by the mastermind, which leads to him convincing someone else to murder him for the sake of ending it, though it is unknown whether he genuinely wished to save his classmates, or he just wanted to . He masterminded his own death with the goal of making it so utterly unsolvable that not even Monokuma would be able to figure it out, hoping that this would cause him to end the killing game prematurely. However, his status as a nefarious criminal organisation's leader is more of an exaggeration. He is the boss of an organization of sorts, but it's just him and his ten Mooks who go around in clown masks committing nonviolent petty crimes and pulling harmless pranks for the lulz, and have an explicit rule against killing. Ultimately, how immoral he actually is gets left somewhat up to interpretation.

Web Animation

Grej: Darwinist has no problem with people calling him evil, and doesn't do much to hide it, even admitting to being the "Evilest motherfucker you'll ever meet"...
Carl from Llamas with Hats. He admits to being a "dangerous sociopath with a long history of violence". When his roommate Paul tells him that his meat dragon looks terrifying, he responds with "Thank you".
Paul: All you do is kill people, Carl!
Carl: That's like saying all Mozart did was write songs.
The Most Epic Story Ever Told in All of Human History: Ridiculously Epic refers to himself as “evil” several times during “Ten Steps to Saving the World that Totally Won’t Work”, and has “evil” written across his skateboard during “The Most Epically Inspirational Sports Movie Ever”.
Mercury in RWBY, unlike the rest of the villains, is not personally invested in Salem's plans and has fun trying to crush the protagonists emotionally. When Emerald asks why he joined Salem, his response is that 'it was meant to be'. However, Tyrian deconstructs this, stating because Mercury grew up badly abused, he is now too afraid to walk away from his life of pain and violence.
The RWBY Chibi version of Cinder Fall is a complete 180 of her normal counterpart, using Evil Laughter, enjoying the idea of killing kittens and using copious amounts of Most Definitely Not a Villain. The Chibi version of Roman Torchwick is similarly proud of his villainous ways, and boasts about his skills as a criminal to Neo on various occasions.
Terrible Writing Advice: JP portrays himself as one. In "Traditional vs. Self-Publishing", when Inner Critic tries to explain to him what justified text alignment is, JP confuses it with the alignment system from Dungeons & Dragons and replies "Well, I'm really somewhere between Chaotic Neutral and Neutral Evil on the alignment chart".
The Auditor from Madness Combat seems to be fully aware of his role as the Big Bad, as his chat handle is BIGBADAUD999.
In this GoAnimate video, after Boris gives Caillou white torture, he calls him a psychopath. Boris agrees, and goes on to admit to being a serial killer, a child abuser, and a criminal mastermind.

Card-Carrying Villain

Example subpages:

Other examples:

Video Example(s):

Evil Bratt

Alternative Title(s): Card Carrying Evil

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Evil Bratt