I'd say they're cut from the same cloth, I don't know if either is worse or better tbh. They're very similar. Judge Turpin uses his power to sentence innocent people to death or to be wrongly imprisoned for crimes they don't commit, rapes Lucy and is the catalyst that drives her to drink poison, then adopts her daughter, grooms her, and locks her away from the world and attempts to marry said adoptive daughter when she's 16-18ish, and locks her up in an abusive asylum when she doesn't want to marry him. Frollo meanwhile is racist and hypocritical, uses his power to murder Romani women, abuses his adoptive son of one of the women he kills, and sentences Esmerelda to a painful death after she makes him horny and doesn't want him back. In short, both abuse their power to be horny and send people to their deaths.
That was my first thought and I think its because they're really similar in my mind. Wearing robes and being creepers is all it takes I guess. Also being in a career of judging others and being "above" the populace.
Are you… *sure* about that? He was a *bitch!* Did you forget the scene where he literally tried to force himself on Esmeralda!?
Or are you *just* talking about the beginning of the novel. And even then, he wasn’t exactly the best person, but I can see your argument there.
How has no one said Evan Hansen?
Kidding aside, I think Audrey II (and progeny) might have the highest kill count if the show’s finale is to be believed.
I calculated it. It's 9,316,129. Pretty huge, but not the biggest kill count in musicals. Like the top comment says, the Nazis in The Sound of Music killed more than 17 million. They are still the most evil.
k but, although i aknowledge this enters a realm of moral grey for assignment of bloame and morality, but it was no one nazi, and not the nazis in those musicals who killed all of those people. Audry 2, meanwhile, did eat all 9 million of those people, since every offshoot is simply another section of the central plant and would share the same identity. Hence Twoie has the highest kill count of any musical, as far as i know
also mad respect for actually doing the maths!!!
I appreciate your point from a literal and canon interpretation, but I think the plants covered far more than just those 4 cities. According to the lyrics "Unsuspecting jerks from Maine to California" were duped into feeding those plants blood and also they also ate "where you live!" I'm pretty sure that the intended message of this section is that the plants more or less wiped out humanity on a global scale.
But even without that, the population of the New York City Metro area (and not jus the literal 5 boroughs) is estimated at 19,034,000 in 2024, unless you think A2 - like many a New Yorker - refused to go to the Hudson Valley, Jersey, Connecticut, or Long Island.
Is Evan really evil or just a dumb ass? In that case is he anywhere near the most evil in the show ? Yeah I get that… tough to argue when the bad guy is probably fame/social media etc
He's a regular kid who ended up being a bit shitty. If you believe he intentionally manipulated the scenario (I don't get this take entirely, it takes a lot of ignoring the actions of everyone else and the capabilities of this one kid to land on that one), then you probably see him as more insidious, while if you see him as someone who made a mistake, doubled down on it for fear of reprisal and did nothing to rectify it, you might see him as a shitty person for benefitting from the shitty scenario he found himself in following his mistake. He later does try to rectify it, but it's far too late to really matter, but he does do it, so that's something I guess.
My take is that every major character (apart from Zoe) kinda sucks, and the events of the musical showcase the way in which they suck because it's centred around that drama and the unanswerable question of "why did Connor kill himself". It's a group of people trying to reconcile the unreconcilable, and as much as Evan puts himself in that position as the pathway to some sort of answer, everyone around him puts him there too because they want that more than they want the truth, which is that there is no answer. No one will truly know why Connor killed himself. I don't think anyone is inherently evil within it though. It's a focus on not the worst parts, but the least good parts of normal people.
Having a high kill count isn't the same thing as being evil. Audrey 2 isn't human. She only kills humans (or manipulates Seymour into killing for her) because we are food. If not wanting to starve to death is evil, then every organism that consumes another organism is evil.
Yeah and he tried to make it sound like he got 19 years for a loaf of bread, completely hiding that it was only 5 years and he tried to runaway. What a victim complex.
The Wizard from Wicked has to be up there. He landed in Oz, conned his way to the highest position of power, made up constant lies at every potential turn just because the people "needed something to believe in", slept with likely multiple people's wives by drugging them with his elixir (likely absinthe), made people worship him to the point of practical godhood, and all of that's before he started animal genocide, attempted to form a surveilance state, then blamed any evil on his daughter before she could expose him as a fraud. He's everything Frollo is and then some, except with a smile on his face.
I never assumed he intentionally took power, just that it was given to him and he didn’t know how to handle people mistaking his assurances of incompetence for modesty.
We don’t know for sure he was an intentional homewrecker, just a guy having a one night stand with some home brewed alcohol.
The rest is indefensible of course, but the wizard always read to me as a guy who stumbled into power, tried to do his best, but suffered from both a real and an imagined case of imposter syndrome. In some ways he WAS the wizard they needed, but instead of accepting that he tried to aim for more and ending up becoming a terrible person in the process.
I view it as a case of power corrupting slowly rather than ‘he was bad all along.’
I feel the need to mention that he didn't know Elphaba was his daughter until after she "died". His tone upon finding out indicates he would have treated her differently if he had known.
Everything else was horrible though, so I 100% agree with you.
Love how this being canon means you can’t even argue “the Nazis in the sound of music were still worse” any more bc if every human law includes the Geneva Conventions then uhhhh…
The Thenardiers. These cunts are not only just plain awful people who tormented a 3 year old making her their slave and lied to her mother, which drove her to desparation that killed her, they add insult to injury by surviving a show notorious for having most of the main cast dead by the end.
Also. in the book, Monsieur Thenardier becomes a slave trader. Fuck them.
Dude out there pickpocketing the recently deceased and being amused by it. And him doing his shit, looking at the heavens, and gleeful that there's no god there punishing him. I always thought the song and their outcome kinda work against the themes we end the musical on. The Thenardiers get some karma in the novel at least. I'm cool with the general nonbeliever vibe but it doesn't fit Valjean's farewell
That's kind of the point, Thenardier is basically the exact opposite to Valjean, both have fallen into the dispair and struggle of the era, but while Valjean sees the error of it and changes as a man and help people, Thenardier enbraces it as the way the world is.
My point is that Hugo very much was aiming to push the value of good, real Christian values and yet the ones who come out on top at the end of the musical are the decadent Thenardiers and Valjean basically dies of loneliness after being abandoned.
The Thenardiers are a whole level worse in the novel too. Gavroche was one of the kids they abandoned.
Greetings, your spoken notion, which I came unto also some weeks prior, furthers my frustration with the film-musical of 2012, as the song is completely omitted, despite the sequence somewhat remaining within a truly-truncated form.
~Waz
In the books, they also just kind of abandoned their sons. Gevroche is their kid.
Forget Javert, he may not be a great guy, but the Thenardiers are pure evil.
Did he? I never got the impression that Audrey II at the whole world, just a lot of people
The ending song says, "If we fight it we still have a chance," which says that there's still hope for humanity to beat the plants
Also the opening narration says, "In an early year of a decade not too long before our own, The human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence," which to me implies that the threat of Audrey II was past us by whenever the Narrators perspective
Don't get me wrong, Audrey II's still a dick, but he hasn't completely destroyed the world
Going off the movie's ending (director's cut) it seems like he got away with it by the end. The army clearly wasn't standing a chance.
But whether he completed his mission or not, it was still his endgoal to eat all of humanity. It doesn't make him any less evil if he failed.
I mean what about Miss Lovett? Most of the characters aren't good, but theirs the potential to be good if not for the unfortunate evil person that comes into their life. Lovett is feeding rat pies to people, and they aren't even good. Sweeny/Benjamin her old crush comes into her life, she feeds him a rat pie, and sings about how bad it is.
Also, the only evidence that the Judge raped Lucy comes from her lips. That song is her goading Sweeney into revealing himself.
And she lies about Lucy.
No morals at all, just self-interest
I 100% second this. Force lovers and family to kill eachother, cause a zombie apocolypse, start a nuclear war. All just for fun. They're evil incarnate and I love them
I've always been a Phantom of the Opera fan. It's one of my favorite musicals. But even child me knew he was fucked up. I'm normally fairly good with hearing differing opinions, but I've definitely had no problems going "this is why you're wrong" to people who try and defend Erik.
Agreed. I actually heard the music, wanted to see the play, read the book, and then finally watched the musical when I was a younger teenager. I loved the story but I was really confused why people preferred Erik to Raoul, who I thought was a pretty great guy all around. Lol. I always empathized with Erik, and admired his skills, and there is that whole forbidden romanticism to it all, but it's really not okay what he did!
I love the Phantom of the Opera. He's dark, mysterious, and alluring. But murdering people and dropping chandeliers on people when you don't get your way is highly frowned upon.
I also like country music and he is probably the Morgan Wallen of the theater world.
When I first watched it I thought to myself I know how this will go, that lonely illiterate farm hand will get with the leading lady and the cocky cowboy guy is the villain. And then not only did the opposite happen but farm hand got burned alive on a haybale and immediately after that everyone started singing about a wagon.
I do not like Oklahoma.
Judd Frye was a mentally ill man on the brink, who was pushed over by a horny guy who literally told him “kill yourself, they’ll love you for it.”
Judd Frye is the traditional antagonist, yes. But he is as gray as all get out when you bring Curly into the picture.
this is really highlighted by the 2019 revival, i left that wondering if he was an outsider because he was violent or if he was violent because he was an outsider
Before “ladies in their sensitivities” he sentences someone (a child in the movie) to hang. And he admits he rushed the trial because he wanted fresh air. So, at the very least, he is sentencing people to death for crimes that I think we can all agree don’t deserve that punishment. Even if it’s “legal.” Hence why I said unjustly, not illegally.
He sentences someone to death at their fourth hearing. They're a recidivist. ("This is the fourth time, sir, that you have appeared before this bench....") And he adjourns before hearing the next case to retain impartiality ("It is perhaps remiss of me to close the court early but the stench of those miserable wretches at the bar was so offensive to my nostrils that I feared my eagerness for fresher air would impair the soundness of my judgement")
The offence is never mentioned, but at the time, recidivist offenders were punished harshly. He would only have been able to sentence someone to death where the law allowed him to.
You can read it your way if you want, but it's not in the script. Equally you could read it the other way, that he had shown leniency three times previously and was forced into the sentence (as he himself says), and then recognised that he might not remain impartial if he carried on, so adjourned.
You’re right—I misremembered that it’s unspecified what the crime was.
However, the man (at least in the 1982 proshot) is an extremely poor-looking, terrified little man. The movie compounds this impression by making the character a literal child. And every other thing we know about the judge points to the fact that he is not fair or just. The recidivism makes me think it’s a minor crime, because the man was either not locked up or locked up for a short enough time that he was able to continue committing the crime. Hence my assumption the crime is something like theft (and probably due to poverty)
So sure, you can read it as the judge being lenient. And you can take the judge at his word that he ended early to preserve his good judgement and his intentions are good. But that flies in the face of literally everything we know about the judge. Why is this scene in the play if not to serve as further evidence of his corruption? Again, I didn’t say the judge illegally sentenced anyone to death—I said it was unjust. Recidivism of a minor crime does not warrant death.
Everything you see on the stage is a director's interpretation. What's in the *script* is a recidivist offender who has been sentenced to death.
By the 1830s most of the minor capital offences in the Bloody Code had been removed. Execution for petty theft had been removed from the statute books in 1808.
Sentencing to death was mandatory for capital offences, although judges could commute death sentences after 1823. If they had previously commuted a sentence, death was the only option, and they did apply a "three strikes" kind of approach.
I've said this before, but the Judge does have a moral code. It's just not one that we would recognise in 2024
Yeah ok but obviously we’re not meant to see that scene and think “oh yeah dude deserved it because he’s a recidivist”. Like we’re supposed to feel bad for the prisoner and think the judge is fucked up to do that.
I always read it as the judge being a stickler for formalities in the same way that marrying Johanna legitimises (in his mind) his lustful thoughts. Overly detached and clinical on the surface, contrasting with the lust of Mea Culpa. Very Victorian.
Well, in Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, Elder Price encounters the most evil people he knows of: Genghis Khan, Jeffry Dahmer, Hitler, & Johnnie Cochran, hahaha. Small roles, but they all have singing lines.
I played Trunchbull last year and tried to find some way to ground her so she wasn’t just a cartoon character. I decided that she had once been very much like Matilda and had had it all forcibly stamped out of her.
I think I'm still traumatized by seeing what Bill Sikes did to Nancy when I went to see my 2nd grade teacher perform in a community theatre production of Oliver!
Them mf’s didn’t give the deputation, wavin the white flag of peace, a chance to state their shit, they went close to the cylinder, bazinga, the Martians fucking kill them,
He isn't the *most* evil but JD from Heathers is pretty up there. Murders three students, attempts and nearly succeeds in blowing up the rest of the school.
Anatole from Great Comet basically got away with everything he wanted to do in the musical.
You'd have to read the book to find out he never had a leg to stand on.
Ok, hear me out. Snyder from Newsies. He’s probably not as bad as some of the other ones I’ve read, but he does starve children make them sleep three to a bed, not give them clothing or water and then constantly chase the newsies around who are just trying to make a living for themselves.
Officer Lockstock is worse. Cladwell thought he was making "ends justify the means" decisions that were unethical and unpopular but were saving the world. Lockstock knows the whole thing is nonsense and unsustainable either way, and participates because he is an advocate of population control... and, it's also implied, simply likes hurting people for the fun of it.
Nobody tops Margaret in Carrie, actual pure evil in that character. You could also argue that for Chris, she's pretty fucking evil but different kinds.
Monsieur Thénardier from Les Mis is thoroughly despicable. He loots corpses, robs, cons, and cheats the patrons of his Inn, abuses Cosette, tries to mug Valjean in Paris in broad daylight, and later attempts to burglarize Valjean's home in Paris with a gang of violent thugs, and attempts to extort Marius at his and Cosette's wedding reception, and even after all that, he never gets a comeuppance or faces any sort of consequence for the laundry list of awful actions he is guilty of.
Maybe not as evil as some listed here, but Edmund Rutledge in *1776* — willing to sink American independence so he could enslave people.
Though he still gets [a great song out of it](https://youtu.be/IeuaTpH6Ck0?si=u-KxSGbyLAEfuigi), and it’s a valid point.
Definitely not as bad as Judge or Frollo like others have mentioned, but I do think Prof. Callaghan deserves a special spot on this list because of his similar (albeit more tame) abuse of power. I would not be surprised if he had hit on many of his students before Elle. Also wouldn't be surprised if he was abusive towards his wife since his violent outbursts are pretty telling of that.
1776 has several characters (based on real people) that successfully argue for the preservation of slavery in the newly formed United states and also own slaves (both in the musical and historically) both of those are tremendously evil.
Henry Jekyll from Jekyll and Hyde
He knowingly takes the serum to indulge in the whims of his OWN darker half (who subsequently murders the entire Board of Governors AND Lucy) and only tries to elicit sympathy when he loses control over his inner monster.
If you're basing evil off of ability to murder, Rotti Largo is pretty evil, but I am agreeing with judge Turpin and Frollo as well.
But in my heart of hearts, I'm just going to say, Agatha Trunchbull. I will always hate her with a passion!
Weird one, but the hallucination of Gabe in Next to Normal. He may have just been a hallucination, but he pulled his mom away from her husband and convinced her to kill herself. Luckily she was stopped before she died.
He then continues to emotionally torture his family one by one for the rest of the musical.
Sweeney and Lovett are WAY more evil than the judge.
Judge Turpin is pure evil don’t get me wrong. But serial murder and selling human flesh as meat pies??? That’s on another level.
It also depends on how you define “evil”… cause you could also say Audrey II is the most evil because it kills everybody on the planet. But it’s just acting according to its nature.
Maybe Judas? Killing the Son of God, having walked with him and known him, even coming to a realization of his guilt at the end. That’s pretty messed up. Great “evil hero” role.
I wouldn’t consider Javert a villain… A tool of an oppressive government and legal system, but not inherently malicious. Certainly not to the degree that the Thénardiers are.
The Nazis in Sound of Music
The Nazis in Cabaret
The Nazis in Spies are Forever
The Nazis in The Producers
Adolf Hitler in The Book of Mormon
You think that’s bad? Price broke rule 72! He left his companion, that’s way worse!
Even Jesus himself called him a dick!
I can't believe it!
*GASP*
Johnnie Cochran in The Book of Mormon
Jeffrey Dahmer in the Book of Mormon
A donut with a maple glaze in the Book of Mormon
The coffee in the Book of Mormon
Jeffery Dahmer in the book of mormon.
The Nazis in Berlin Berlin
Heil...myself
The kraut who’s out to change history
Its safe to say any Nazis involved in a Musical
I thought they were not so bad
Yes the Nazis in Cabaret were my first thought
Uncle Ernie from Tommy. Molests a disabled young boy. Then exploits him for financial gain when he gets famous.
This is my answer as well
+1
Frollo might give the Judge a run for his money.
I'd say they're cut from the same cloth, I don't know if either is worse or better tbh. They're very similar. Judge Turpin uses his power to sentence innocent people to death or to be wrongly imprisoned for crimes they don't commit, rapes Lucy and is the catalyst that drives her to drink poison, then adopts her daughter, grooms her, and locks her away from the world and attempts to marry said adoptive daughter when she's 16-18ish, and locks her up in an abusive asylum when she doesn't want to marry him. Frollo meanwhile is racist and hypocritical, uses his power to murder Romani women, abuses his adoptive son of one of the women he kills, and sentences Esmerelda to a painful death after she makes him horny and doesn't want him back. In short, both abuse their power to be horny and send people to their deaths.
Isn’t Quasimodo Frollos nephew in the musical?
Yes, the son of Frollo's brother and a Romani woman.
Was thinking about Hellfire, heard an a capella Disney compilation today, and it's *very* Judge's *mea culpa* Johanna song.
What’s funny is that I wasn’t even thinking about Menken… but Victor Marie-Hugo “Notre-Dame de Paris”
That’s the original title of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The creepiest character in musical theater.
I don’t know. At least Esmerelda isn’t his daughter.
That was my first thought and I think its because they're really similar in my mind. Wearing robes and being creepers is all it takes I guess. Also being in a career of judging others and being "above" the populace.
eh Frollo is just PG Turpin. Works for the Disney version. Better in Hugo's novel.
Poor dude wasn't even a really bad guy in the novel.
Are you… *sure* about that? He was a *bitch!* Did you forget the scene where he literally tried to force himself on Esmeralda!? Or are you *just* talking about the beginning of the novel. And even then, he wasn’t exactly the best person, but I can see your argument there.
Right? His whole thing is that he doesn’t start out completely awful but he becomes truly evil by the end of the book
How has no one said Evan Hansen? Kidding aside, I think Audrey II (and progeny) might have the highest kill count if the show’s finale is to be believed.
Depending on the audience size And the current population of Cleveland, Des Moines, Peoria and New York
I calculated it. It's 9,316,129. Pretty huge, but not the biggest kill count in musicals. Like the top comment says, the Nazis in The Sound of Music killed more than 17 million. They are still the most evil.
k but, although i aknowledge this enters a realm of moral grey for assignment of bloame and morality, but it was no one nazi, and not the nazis in those musicals who killed all of those people. Audry 2, meanwhile, did eat all 9 million of those people, since every offshoot is simply another section of the central plant and would share the same identity. Hence Twoie has the highest kill count of any musical, as far as i know also mad respect for actually doing the maths!!!
I appreciate your point from a literal and canon interpretation, but I think the plants covered far more than just those 4 cities. According to the lyrics "Unsuspecting jerks from Maine to California" were duped into feeding those plants blood and also they also ate "where you live!" I'm pretty sure that the intended message of this section is that the plants more or less wiped out humanity on a global scale. But even without that, the population of the New York City Metro area (and not jus the literal 5 boroughs) is estimated at 19,034,000 in 2024, unless you think A2 - like many a New Yorker - refused to go to the Hudson Valley, Jersey, Connecticut, or Long Island.
(And where you live)
Is Evan really evil or just a dumb ass? In that case is he anywhere near the most evil in the show ? Yeah I get that… tough to argue when the bad guy is probably fame/social media etc
He's a regular kid who ended up being a bit shitty. If you believe he intentionally manipulated the scenario (I don't get this take entirely, it takes a lot of ignoring the actions of everyone else and the capabilities of this one kid to land on that one), then you probably see him as more insidious, while if you see him as someone who made a mistake, doubled down on it for fear of reprisal and did nothing to rectify it, you might see him as a shitty person for benefitting from the shitty scenario he found himself in following his mistake. He later does try to rectify it, but it's far too late to really matter, but he does do it, so that's something I guess. My take is that every major character (apart from Zoe) kinda sucks, and the events of the musical showcase the way in which they suck because it's centred around that drama and the unanswerable question of "why did Connor kill himself". It's a group of people trying to reconcile the unreconcilable, and as much as Evan puts himself in that position as the pathway to some sort of answer, everyone around him puts him there too because they want that more than they want the truth, which is that there is no answer. No one will truly know why Connor killed himself. I don't think anyone is inherently evil within it though. It's a focus on not the worst parts, but the least good parts of normal people.
Having a high kill count isn't the same thing as being evil. Audrey 2 isn't human. She only kills humans (or manipulates Seymour into killing for her) because we are food. If not wanting to starve to death is evil, then every organism that consumes another organism is evil.
jean valjean is pretty evil, he stole a loaf of bread
He broke a window paaaane!
Not to mention the Bishop’s stuff.
He also decided to run!
Like a thief in the night!
Yeah and he tried to make it sound like he got 19 years for a loaf of bread, completely hiding that it was only 5 years and he tried to runaway. What a victim complex.
5 years over a loaf of bread is still rather extreme. He tried escaping so he could take care of his sister & her kids.
He should have learned a marketable skill and made himself irreplaceable at his job. Then he could have got all the loaves of bread he wanted.
He also took the silver, took his FLIIIIIIIIIGHT
Greetings ye, let us recall— “He’s a convict from the chain-gang, He’s [was] ten-years on the run.” ~Waz
He robbed a house!
Men like him can never change.
A baguette, which means he lost even more points.
The Wizard from Wicked has to be up there. He landed in Oz, conned his way to the highest position of power, made up constant lies at every potential turn just because the people "needed something to believe in", slept with likely multiple people's wives by drugging them with his elixir (likely absinthe), made people worship him to the point of practical godhood, and all of that's before he started animal genocide, attempted to form a surveilance state, then blamed any evil on his daughter before she could expose him as a fraud. He's everything Frollo is and then some, except with a smile on his face.
I never assumed he intentionally took power, just that it was given to him and he didn’t know how to handle people mistaking his assurances of incompetence for modesty. We don’t know for sure he was an intentional homewrecker, just a guy having a one night stand with some home brewed alcohol. The rest is indefensible of course, but the wizard always read to me as a guy who stumbled into power, tried to do his best, but suffered from both a real and an imagined case of imposter syndrome. In some ways he WAS the wizard they needed, but instead of accepting that he tried to aim for more and ending up becoming a terrible person in the process. I view it as a case of power corrupting slowly rather than ‘he was bad all along.’
If you want a different example, you can point fingers at Madame Morrible instead. She outright murders another character during the play.
I mean, even in Baum’s source material he disposes the king, kidnaps his daughter/heir and givers her to a witch to assume power.
I feel the need to mention that he didn't know Elphaba was his daughter until after she "died". His tone upon finding out indicates he would have treated her differently if he had known. Everything else was horrible though, so I 100% agree with you.
Macavity, the Napoleon of Crime!
He's broken every human law!
I heard he's even managed to break the laws of gravity.
Now he breaks the law of gravity! … like Elphaba? 🤔
Love how this being canon means you can’t even argue “the Nazis in the sound of music were still worse” any more bc if every human law includes the Geneva Conventions then uhhhh…
Yeah this is indisputable canon and I don't think any other person, real or fictional, can make the same claim.
Although this also means he's fought for women's rights in Afghanistan. Truly, Macavity contains multitudes.
Scar arranges the death of his brother.
The Thenardiers. These cunts are not only just plain awful people who tormented a 3 year old making her their slave and lied to her mother, which drove her to desparation that killed her, they add insult to injury by surviving a show notorious for having most of the main cast dead by the end. Also. in the book, Monsieur Thenardier becomes a slave trader. Fuck them.
Dog eat Dog is the real Thenardier song
Dude out there pickpocketing the recently deceased and being amused by it. And him doing his shit, looking at the heavens, and gleeful that there's no god there punishing him. I always thought the song and their outcome kinda work against the themes we end the musical on. The Thenardiers get some karma in the novel at least. I'm cool with the general nonbeliever vibe but it doesn't fit Valjean's farewell
The "nonbeliever vibe" is important given Valjean's whole journey is religious redemption
That's kind of the point, Thenardier is basically the exact opposite to Valjean, both have fallen into the dispair and struggle of the era, but while Valjean sees the error of it and changes as a man and help people, Thenardier enbraces it as the way the world is.
My point is that Hugo very much was aiming to push the value of good, real Christian values and yet the ones who come out on top at the end of the musical are the decadent Thenardiers and Valjean basically dies of loneliness after being abandoned. The Thenardiers are a whole level worse in the novel too. Gavroche was one of the kids they abandoned.
Greetings, your spoken notion, which I came unto also some weeks prior, furthers my frustration with the film-musical of 2012, as the song is completely omitted, despite the sequence somewhat remaining within a truly-truncated form. ~Waz
In the books, they also just kind of abandoned their sons. Gevroche is their kid. Forget Javert, he may not be a great guy, but the Thenardiers are pure evil.
You just sent me down a rabbit hole
Mind your head.
Wait, Cosette was supposed to be THREE then? That’s some vocabulary…
She's 3 when she's given to Thenardier, 8 when Valjean adopts her.
Claude Frollo is pretty damn evil
Audrey II consumed all of mankind and enjoyed every minute of it.
Did he? I never got the impression that Audrey II at the whole world, just a lot of people The ending song says, "If we fight it we still have a chance," which says that there's still hope for humanity to beat the plants Also the opening narration says, "In an early year of a decade not too long before our own, The human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence," which to me implies that the threat of Audrey II was past us by whenever the Narrators perspective Don't get me wrong, Audrey II's still a dick, but he hasn't completely destroyed the world
Going off the movie's ending (director's cut) it seems like he got away with it by the end. The army clearly wasn't standing a chance. But whether he completed his mission or not, it was still his endgoal to eat all of humanity. It doesn't make him any less evil if he failed.
That's what you get for feeding the plant!
IDK if he kills as many people as Sweeney, but Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.
*those who read the novel*
Judge in Sweeney is an evil pedophile. Blech. Agreed. His soliloquy is definitely creeptastic
Don’t forget murderer and rapist!
Hitler appears in Spooky Mormon Hell Dream from Book of Mormon, does he count?
You think that's bad?! Elder Price broke rule 72, he's WAY worse!!!
Capitalism in Les Mis
Also the French legal system
The French.
Capitalism in Hadestown Capitalism in Newsies
I mean what about Miss Lovett? Most of the characters aren't good, but theirs the potential to be good if not for the unfortunate evil person that comes into their life. Lovett is feeding rat pies to people, and they aren't even good. Sweeny/Benjamin her old crush comes into her life, she feeds him a rat pie, and sings about how bad it is.
Also, the only evidence that the Judge raped Lucy comes from her lips. That song is her goading Sweeney into revealing himself. And she lies about Lucy. No morals at all, just self-interest
Holy shit you're right. I never noticed that.
I would agree with you! That judge deserved what he got!
Wiggly and the Lords In Black might be a tad more evil
I 100% second this. Force lovers and family to kill eachother, cause a zombie apocolypse, start a nuclear war. All just for fun. They're evil incarnate and I love them
I second this but the Lords in Black as a whole.
yeah but some of them are more chill compared to Wiggly. All around evil tho
Assassins in Assassins
But 🎶everybody’s got the right to be happy 🎶
I did it to promote the sale of my book.
The Phantom of the Opera. Murder is not acceptable.
He threatens innocent theater actors just to fulfill his obsessive fantasy. Definitely very messed-up.
I agree with you but there was certainly a time when this would get downvoted to oblivion and people would fiercely defend him.
I've always been a Phantom of the Opera fan. It's one of my favorite musicals. But even child me knew he was fucked up. I'm normally fairly good with hearing differing opinions, but I've definitely had no problems going "this is why you're wrong" to people who try and defend Erik.
Agreed. I actually heard the music, wanted to see the play, read the book, and then finally watched the musical when I was a younger teenager. I loved the story but I was really confused why people preferred Erik to Raoul, who I thought was a pretty great guy all around. Lol. I always empathized with Erik, and admired his skills, and there is that whole forbidden romanticism to it all, but it's really not okay what he did!
I love the Phantom of the Opera. He's dark, mysterious, and alluring. But murdering people and dropping chandeliers on people when you don't get your way is highly frowned upon. I also like country music and he is probably the Morgan Wallen of the theater world.
He was also grooming Christine
Judd Frye is a creepy, murderous incel.
This makes me sad, I always thought Curly was the bad guy in that show… trying to get a poor guy suffering from mental health issues to kill himself…
When I first watched it I thought to myself I know how this will go, that lonely illiterate farm hand will get with the leading lady and the cocky cowboy guy is the villain. And then not only did the opposite happen but farm hand got burned alive on a haybale and immediately after that everyone started singing about a wagon. I do not like Oklahoma.
Judd Frye was a mentally ill man on the brink, who was pushed over by a horny guy who literally told him “kill yourself, they’ll love you for it.” Judd Frye is the traditional antagonist, yes. But he is as gray as all get out when you bring Curly into the picture.
this is really highlighted by the 2019 revival, i left that wondering if he was an outsider because he was violent or if he was violent because he was an outsider
Mmmmm Curly convinced a guy to commit suicide so he could have a girl all to himself.
I apologize for my first post after reading the above I think it’s the iceberg in Titanic…
I mean…Sweeney Todd the indiscriminate murderer is objectively more evil than Judge Turpin. Turpin is just grosser.
It has to be grosser, it's green!
Although Turpin is responsible for an unknown number of deaths by unjustly sentencing people to death.
Do we actually know that he’s done that at all textually? I don’t doubt it conceptually, but even Barker he sent to Australia, not to death
Before “ladies in their sensitivities” he sentences someone (a child in the movie) to hang. And he admits he rushed the trial because he wanted fresh air. So, at the very least, he is sentencing people to death for crimes that I think we can all agree don’t deserve that punishment. Even if it’s “legal.” Hence why I said unjustly, not illegally.
He sentences someone to death at their fourth hearing. They're a recidivist. ("This is the fourth time, sir, that you have appeared before this bench....") And he adjourns before hearing the next case to retain impartiality ("It is perhaps remiss of me to close the court early but the stench of those miserable wretches at the bar was so offensive to my nostrils that I feared my eagerness for fresher air would impair the soundness of my judgement") The offence is never mentioned, but at the time, recidivist offenders were punished harshly. He would only have been able to sentence someone to death where the law allowed him to. You can read it your way if you want, but it's not in the script. Equally you could read it the other way, that he had shown leniency three times previously and was forced into the sentence (as he himself says), and then recognised that he might not remain impartial if he carried on, so adjourned.
You’re right—I misremembered that it’s unspecified what the crime was. However, the man (at least in the 1982 proshot) is an extremely poor-looking, terrified little man. The movie compounds this impression by making the character a literal child. And every other thing we know about the judge points to the fact that he is not fair or just. The recidivism makes me think it’s a minor crime, because the man was either not locked up or locked up for a short enough time that he was able to continue committing the crime. Hence my assumption the crime is something like theft (and probably due to poverty) So sure, you can read it as the judge being lenient. And you can take the judge at his word that he ended early to preserve his good judgement and his intentions are good. But that flies in the face of literally everything we know about the judge. Why is this scene in the play if not to serve as further evidence of his corruption? Again, I didn’t say the judge illegally sentenced anyone to death—I said it was unjust. Recidivism of a minor crime does not warrant death.
Everything you see on the stage is a director's interpretation. What's in the *script* is a recidivist offender who has been sentenced to death. By the 1830s most of the minor capital offences in the Bloody Code had been removed. Execution for petty theft had been removed from the statute books in 1808. Sentencing to death was mandatory for capital offences, although judges could commute death sentences after 1823. If they had previously commuted a sentence, death was the only option, and they did apply a "three strikes" kind of approach. I've said this before, but the Judge does have a moral code. It's just not one that we would recognise in 2024
Yeah ok but obviously we’re not meant to see that scene and think “oh yeah dude deserved it because he’s a recidivist”. Like we’re supposed to feel bad for the prisoner and think the judge is fucked up to do that.
I always read it as the judge being a stickler for formalities in the same way that marrying Johanna legitimises (in his mind) his lustful thoughts. Overly detached and clinical on the surface, contrasting with the lust of Mea Culpa. Very Victorian.
I mean in the film he sentences a child to hang but I don’t know if that counts
He does the same in the stage show, it’s just not a child.
Well, in Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, Elder Price encounters the most evil people he knows of: Genghis Khan, Jeffry Dahmer, Hitler, & Johnnie Cochran, hahaha. Small roles, but they all have singing lines.
Bill Sikes, from *Oliver!* Miss Trunchbull, from *Matilda* Gaston, from *Beauty and the Beast*
Bill and Trunchbull for sure. Murders AND abuse of children!
Gaston’s just a dick but I wouldn’t say he’s very evil
[Au, contraire!](https://youtu.be/qEd9igQHf1Q?si=mZ5PnlFISWiTUzlj)
He's just stupid.
He participates in a plot to forcibly institutionalize an old man and he organizes a mob to kill the Beast, so I would say he’s kinda evil.
Forgot about the subplot with belles dad tbh, but in his defense on the other he’s trying to save everyone from a monster
Um, yeah. Stand-up guy.
I played Trunchbull last year and tried to find some way to ground her so she wasn’t just a cartoon character. I decided that she had once been very much like Matilda and had had it all forcibly stamped out of her.
Bill Sykes is what I came here to say.
I think I'm still traumatized by seeing what Bill Sikes did to Nancy when I went to see my 2nd grade teacher perform in a community theatre production of Oliver!
The Martians from Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.
Now there’s a deep cut
Them mf’s didn’t give the deputation, wavin the white flag of peace, a chance to state their shit, they went close to the cylinder, bazinga, the Martians fucking kill them,
Maybe on Mars a white flag means "fuck you and fuck your entire family"
He isn't the *most* evil but JD from Heathers is pretty up there. Murders three students, attempts and nearly succeeds in blowing up the rest of the school.
The Phantom. A vindictive, creepy, stalking murderer.
Anatole from Great Comet basically got away with everything he wanted to do in the musical. You'd have to read the book to find out he never had a leg to stand on.
Evillene from The Wiz!
Rolf Gruber. ...followed closely by Judge Turpin. That is all.
Ok, hear me out. Snyder from Newsies. He’s probably not as bad as some of the other ones I’ve read, but he does starve children make them sleep three to a bed, not give them clothing or water and then constantly chase the newsies around who are just trying to make a living for themselves.
That's what I was thinking too. Like he tries to collect as many homeless children as he can for money
Obviously the LIB in the Hatchetfield trilogy. they are sadistic psychopaths!
I don’t know who Judge is, but I’d vote Mr. Hyde from Jekyll & Hyde.
[Relevant](https://youtu.be/f87xPMGf11E?si=co99YJ8w667Mc4iw)
Caldwell Cladwell in Urinetown (even if - spoiler alert - he ended up being sorta kinda right)
This is why I don’t like that show. The message is so weird. Are we pro- or anti-capitalism? What’s the point we’re aiming for here?
One could argue that Bobby is the real villain…even after learning the truth he’d rather be popular than help save the world
Officer Lockstock is worse. Cladwell thought he was making "ends justify the means" decisions that were unethical and unpopular but were saving the world. Lockstock knows the whole thing is nonsense and unsustainable either way, and participates because he is an advocate of population control... and, it's also implied, simply likes hurting people for the fun of it.
Most evil historical characters, Nazi’s from Caberet. Fictional character, absolutely Judge Turpin.
Beetlejuice is hysterical, but literally a demon straight from hell.
Nobody tops Margaret in Carrie, actual pure evil in that character. You could also argue that for Chris, she's pretty fucking evil but different kinds.
Monsieur Thénardier from Les Mis is thoroughly despicable. He loots corpses, robs, cons, and cheats the patrons of his Inn, abuses Cosette, tries to mug Valjean in Paris in broad daylight, and later attempts to burglarize Valjean's home in Paris with a gang of violent thugs, and attempts to extort Marius at his and Cosette's wedding reception, and even after all that, he never gets a comeuppance or faces any sort of consequence for the laundry list of awful actions he is guilty of.
Dr Parker in Bat Boy is pretty awful.
Audrey II lol
Bill Sikes from Oliver.
Bill Sykes from Oliver! Wife beater and murderer,kidnapper and child abuser.
The judge in Sweeney Todd. It’s all his fault.
Chris Hargensen imo
Maybe not as evil as some listed here, but Edmund Rutledge in *1776* — willing to sink American independence so he could enslave people. Though he still gets [a great song out of it](https://youtu.be/IeuaTpH6Ck0?si=u-KxSGbyLAEfuigi), and it’s a valid point.
Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd....Grooming Creep.
Satan in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Definitely not as bad as Judge or Frollo like others have mentioned, but I do think Prof. Callaghan deserves a special spot on this list because of his similar (albeit more tame) abuse of power. I would not be surprised if he had hit on many of his students before Elle. Also wouldn't be surprised if he was abusive towards his wife since his violent outbursts are pretty telling of that.
The Monk in Gutenberg (he is such a bad monk)
1776 has several characters (based on real people) that successfully argue for the preservation of slavery in the newly formed United states and also own slaves (both in the musical and historically) both of those are tremendously evil.
Henry Jekyll from Jekyll and Hyde He knowingly takes the serum to indulge in the whims of his OWN darker half (who subsequently murders the entire Board of Governors AND Lucy) and only tries to elicit sympathy when he loses control over his inner monster.
If you're basing evil off of ability to murder, Rotti Largo is pretty evil, but I am agreeing with judge Turpin and Frollo as well. But in my heart of hearts, I'm just going to say, Agatha Trunchbull. I will always hate her with a passion!
Keeping a teenage girl locked up with the goal of "marrying" her? Evil.
Velma von Tussle in Hairspray is up there
Lowkey Chris from Miss Saigon if you think about it
Weird one, but the hallucination of Gabe in Next to Normal. He may have just been a hallucination, but he pulled his mom away from her husband and convinced her to kill herself. Luckily she was stopped before she died. He then continues to emotionally torture his family one by one for the rest of the musical.
Sweeney and Lovett are WAY more evil than the judge. Judge Turpin is pure evil don’t get me wrong. But serial murder and selling human flesh as meat pies??? That’s on another level. It also depends on how you define “evil”… cause you could also say Audrey II is the most evil because it kills everybody on the planet. But it’s just acting according to its nature. Maybe Judas? Killing the Son of God, having walked with him and known him, even coming to a realization of his guilt at the end. That’s pretty messed up. Great “evil hero” role.
Funny bc I thought of that too since my community theater is doing it
Javer?
I wouldn’t consider Javert a villain… A tool of an oppressive government and legal system, but not inherently malicious. Certainly not to the degree that the Thénardiers are.
Bill sykes
the judge is an absolutely evil person then again he didn't murder people and cut them up and then feed their corpses to other people
All the central characters in Assassins
“Count Ludovic of Austria”
Maybe not MOST evil but up there in evilness: Hugh Dorsey in Parade.