Fire Emblem is a popular and influential series. Once exclusive to Japanese consoles, it is now so widely known it is even being studied at an American university. The series is rooted in conflict, with wars spanning across kingdoms and sometimes even entire continents. But with every war comes profiteers, who tend to make up our antagonists. However, many major villains in the series tend to have their villainy rooted in tragedy. Before becoming the evil king who wishes to enact genocide on the human race in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Zephiel was a kind prince who wished to impress his father. However, his father's repeated attempts to assassinate him eventually solidified his descent into villainy.

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While the human angle doesn't absolve the character of his crimes, it presents a caveat; this character was a person before they became a villain. Some characters prove to be a bit less multifaceted. From the information we're given, certain characters seem significantly more evil than others. Whether defined by their singular devotion to an evil cause or lack of even a Freudian excuse to motivate them, this series has produced some truly heinous antagonists.

5 Manfroy

The Archbishop Was The Architect Of A Continental War

Archbishop Manfroy is a unique villain in the greater context of the series; he is one of the few to be successful against a main character. In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, he seeks to revive the Dark Dragon Loptous. To this end, he oversees the assassination of many key political figures. Most notably, he manipulated Arvis, the Duke of Velthomer, into assassinating Sigurd, the hero of the game's first generation. This was one of many tasks Manfroy made use of the Duke for, blackmailing him with the knowledge of his dark dragon blood. He installed him as emperor and crafted an incestuous union between Arvis and his half-sister (and also Sigurd's wife) to create a vessel with sufficient dark dragon blood to reawaken Loptous, which became the future emperor, Julius.

Beyond success and political power, Manfroy's single-minded devotion to evil secures him a spot on this list. Efforts he leads, such as the hunting of children to sacrifice them to his dark lord, are opposed by even those once in alignment with him, such as Arvis himself. He is shown not to even grant mercy for his family's sake, assassinating his son-in-law due to disapproving of him, which earned the ire of his granddaughter Sara, who aids in the effort against his church in the game's midquel Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.

4 Gharnef

Threw Away His Humanity For More Power

A frequent theme in Fire Emblem is the corruption of once decent people, whether by dark magic or more conventional means like the promise of power. Gharnef was directly captivated by both. Once a disciple of the Divine Dragon, Gotoh, Gharnef became enraged when he was not granted the Aura tome, due to a lack of compassion. As a result, he immersed himself in darkness and never quite came out of it. He used the darksphere to craft the Imhullu tome, which embedded his soul in the darksphere, but granted him vast power. From there, he seeks to destroy the world by reawakening the vengeful earth dragon, Medeus.

Gharnef used his brainwashing powers to force a bishop who once saved war orphans to instead raise them into assassins. He was also responsible for driving key figures in both Book 1 and 2 of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem to rally their own nations into battle. He corrupted Marth's former comrade, Hardin with the darksphere, giving him a pale ghastly appearance and deteriorating his moral faculties. Beyond his crimes, Gharnef's evil is cemented by both his willingness to gain power and his incorrigibility. While many other "corrupted" antagonists, including Hardin, spend their last moments filled with remorse, Gharnef merely laughs, reveling in his belief that he doomed the world.

3 Grima

A Cult Leader To End All Cult Leaders

The Fell Dragon is perhaps one of the most widely known Fire Emblem villains. He sets into motion the events of Awakening and is confirmed to have achieved his goal in an alternate timeline, murdering the majority of the human race.

His religious sect, The Grimleal, is shown to control the nation of Plegia, with the highest-ranking members often pledging some sort of fealty to the dragon. He is shown to be a strategist capable of rivaling Robin, his chosen vessel, and shows no remorse for his actions. Grima's only backstory confirms he was a former experiment who became too evil and too powerful, giving players little to sympathize with.

2 Loptous

The Bigger Bad

If this list measured villains by power, dragons would likely fulfill the entirety of the list. That said, few are as outwardly vindictive as Loptous. The dark dragon formed the Loptr Church, setting into motion the numerous political assassinations carried out in the first half of Genealogy of the Holy War as well as the child sacrifices in the second half.

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His actions pair well with his M.O.: killing humans. Like Medeus, he was originally an Earth Dragon. Unlike Medeus, he did not attempt to give the human race a chance. He formed a blood pact with a human, in an effort to undo the human race when he gained enough power. While most other evil dragons in the greater Fire Emblem series detest humans, they are often characterized outside that sole prejudice. Medeus saw the persecution his kind suffered from humans, which spurred him towards evil. Sombron lost his family, home, and companion, which cemented his destructive desires. Loptous has no such backstory, he merely always viewed humans as inferior and sought to survive for the sake of making them miserable.

1 Lekain

Proof That Sinners And Saints Are Not Mutually Exclusive

The majority of this list is mired in users of dark magic. However, the Tellius duology presented a villain whose use of divine magic did nothing to mask his evil. The Vice Minister of the Begnion Empire and the Duke of Gaddos, Lekain is a powerful man, often attempting to subvert the will of even his superiors while claiming to act on behalf of them. He orchestrated an effort to assassinate the former queen and apostle of Begnion, Misaha, who sought to form positive relations between the beorc and laguz, the two races of Tellius. Misaha belonged to the branded, a subset of beorc with laguz ancestry, and desired to share this fact with her people. Lekain also managed to scapegoat the herons, a non-combative subset of laguz, which led to nearly the entire race being wiped out in a genocide. He also planned to assassinate the current apostle, Sanaki, and once again blame the laguz.

Despite all his clearly evil and self-serving actions, he still believes himself to be chosen by the goddess until his dying breath. Fire Emblem:Radiant Dawn doesn't even respect him enough to make him the penultimate or final antagonist. Instead, he dies early on, supplanted by far more powerful, yet still less evil foes. However, as a testament to his evil, many characters have special conversations with him before they duel, with beorc, laguz, his former fiancée, and even past subordinates all united in their hatred of him.

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