Board 8 > Most Evil Fictional Character: Kefka vs. Ted Faro

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Welcome to the 2023 edition of Most Evil Fictional Character, a single-elimination tournament to determine the most evil fictional character of all time!

Here's the bracket:

https://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=477621&tclass=

And here's the discussion topic:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80568652

And here are the rules:

-First and foremost, YOU MUST BOLD YOUR VOTE FOR IT TO COUNT. The reason for this is that these topics encourage a lot of discussion and debate, and it helps me to distinguish a vote from simple discussion if all votes are bolded. So, I state again, ALL VOTES MUST BE BOLDED FOR THEM TO COUNT. I reserve the right to be lenient in early topics if people just aren't getting it, but for the most part, IF YOUR VOTE ISN'T BOLDED, IT WON'T COUNT.

-You must vote for which of the two characters you honestly believe to be the more evil of the two. You can determine this via any method you like, use your own morals and judgement, read all the arguments made to determine your choice, or however you choose to make your pick, but you must only vote for the one you truly believe is the most evil. This isn't a death battle, or a popularity contest. You're voting ONLY for the most evil character out of the two choices presented.

-While on that subject, remember that because this isn't a death battle or a fighting tournament, do your absolute best to consider the two characters as if their power levels were equal (either the weaker character brought up to the level of the strongest, or vice versa, or both if you want to consider both possibilities). Therefore, just because, for example, one of the characters blew up a planet and the other one merely kicked a puppy, doesn't necessarily mean the planet killer is more evil than the puppy kicker. Consider the characters as if they have the exact same capabilities and what they might do in that scenario.

-You can make any arguments, debates, etc. you want in this topic. Discussion is STRONGLY encouraged, a fun debate about which of the two characters is most evil is exactly what these topics are for. Just don't make it personal, no insults or flaming, keep things civil even if you disagree. Also, no vote rallying, if you want to encourage people to vote for your character you need to at least make some semblance of an argument as to why, even if it's just "Character X did (really dastardly thing), I can't believe no one's voting for them!"

-Voting will continue for exactly 24 hours after the post is made. If there's a tie, there will be a new 24 hour topic. This will continue indefinitely until a winner is determined.

-YOU MUST BOLD YOUR VOTE FOR IT TO COUNT.

-

The following write-ups will contain untagged SPOILERS for Final Fantasy VI and the Horizon series of games. Proceed at your own risk!

KEFKA

Kefka is the primary antagonist of Final Fantasy VI.

The court mage of the Gestahlian Empire, Kefka was their first experimental Magitek Knight, giving him the ability to use magic. However, the process was not yet perfected and the infusion damaged Kefka's mind, transforming him into a maniacal harlequin with an unquenchable thirst for blood. When word came that a frozen esper had been dug up in the northern town of Narshe, Kefka used a Slave Crown to take control of Terra. As a test of his control over her, Kefka ordered her to burn fifty Imperial soldiers, which she did. Kefka headed to an Imperial Camp on the outskirts of Doma Castle. General Leo was leading a siege of the castle, but their efforts had been stymied. Kefka intended to usurp Leo's command of the Imperial force and break the stalemate by poisoning Doma's water supply. Edgar's brother, Sabin, was infiltrating the camp with the ninja mercenary Shadow, and when they overheard Kefka's intent they intervened to stop him. The Imperials stalled the two long enough for Kefka to dump the poison and Doma was decimated. Kefka eventually turned on Emperor Gestahl and seized control of the Warring Triad to become the god of magic, and used their power to destroy the known world. Kefka cares nothing about anyone or anything but himself and he finds no greater joy in life than in inflicting suffering and death unto others. He has no long-reaching goal for his destructive actions, destruction itself is the goal. He manipulates the emotions of others and will readily lie without hesitation, but his purpose for doing this is again usually nothing but his own amusement in tormenting them. Kefka's need to inflict suffering drives him to continuously greater heights to satiate his urges, culminating with the ruination of the entire world and the deaths of countless creatures. Confronted by the party at the end of the game, Kefka reveals the ultimate revelation he has achievedthat life is meaningless. All things that live will die, everything people care about will be destroyed, and everything they achieved will be forgotten. Thus Kefka declares that struggling to continue living in the face of death is pointless and stupid, and people should accept their fates and surrender themselves to destruction at his hands. When the party refutes his claims with their personal reasons for living, Kefka flies into a rage and declares that he will destroy those reasons, and the concepts of love and hope are worthless and he will destroy them as well.

vs.

TED FARO

Ted Faro is a major antagonist in the Horizon series of games.

Ted Faro was the founder, owner, and chairman of the robotics and technology corporation Faro Automated Solutions (FAS). His business savvy allowed him to build FAS into the most successful and influential corporation of all time, becoming world famous for its automated platforms ranging from personal servants to military technology. However, his greed, recklessness and lack of foresight led to the extinction of all life on Earth via an advanced military platform, also known as the Faro Plague, whose design and development he personally conceived and oversaw. As he continued his natural life post-Zero Day in his bunker, Faro became obsessed with the coming new world that the Zero Dawn terraforming system would create, particularly its humans. Part of the terraforming system was a vast archive of pre-extinction knowledge, culture, and history, under the control of the GAIA Subordinate Function designated APOLLO. This archive was intended for the new humans. With it, APOLLO would teach them about the human species achievements, disseminate its knowledge to them, and teach them to avoid the mistakes of the old world. Faro became convinced that this knowledge was a danger to the new humans. Driven by his mental breakdown, he devised a plan to ensure the dissemination of this knowledge to those blameless man and women never happened. Faro secretly acquired a security clearance that was above even Sobeck's, and unilaterally deleted the entire archive. He then called a meeting with the Alphas in the GAIA Primes control room, communicating with them via hologram. Resolutely declaring to them that "Sometimes to protect innocents, innocents have to die", he then used his security clearance to vent the room's atmosphere, asphyxiating them and preventing them from restoring APOLLO. Faro's motivation for deleting APOLLO was to annihilate his past along with that of the rest of the world, after which he'd be free to guide the new humanity in a way he envisioned. The guru Grigori Fasbach, another survivor living in his bunker, would later hack into files which showed how Faro had sabotaged Zero Dawn, for which he was killed by use of an "off-switch" that had secretly been inserted into the other survivors living in the bunker on Faro's orders. As Faro's mentality became more erratic, he used the "off-switch" to gradually kill most of the other survivors in the bunker.

OK yeah fuck Ted Faro so, so much

Kefka no question.

Kefka

Faro is awful but he only truly goes over to evil at the end, after he seems to suffer some sort of mental break. Kefka is much more evil for longer. Of course I havent played Forbidden West so let me know if theres anything extra on Faro there.

Ted Faro definitely, not only did he destroy the world and kill all life on earth, then he proceeds to destroy any history of humanity in order get rid of the evidence, creates a bunker so only he and a few close friends can survive, then kills them too, and accidentally turns himself into a massive abomination trying to make himself immortal

And what's the worst is that it honestly doesn't feel all that far off from what some of the worst billionaires that actually exist would do if given the chance

Kefka

Faro is more hateable, but I think Kefka is more evil. I think Faro felt some semblance of guilt. Kefka destroyed the world and reveled in it. Fuck Ted Faro, but Kefka is more evil.

I am not familiar with the Horizon series but from the description and comments so far, it sounds like Ted is more cowardly and incompetent rather than evil. He seems bad in the same vein that Huey Emmerich from Metal Gear Solid is. He's a disgusting cowardly piece of shit rat that you want to beat the shit out of, but not the actually malicious sort who would get a giggle out of fucking stuff up. He also seems to at least genuinely care about people to want to at protect his friends at least initially.

Kefka destroyed the world for the lawlz and out of nihilism

I think Dissidia and certain other FF media has implication that Kefka miiiiight have some form of regret deep down (have to check and I am unsure how much it should affect if we are going by his main / peak evil version), but either way he appears more evil overall. Leaning Kefka for now but watching for more arguments

Ted Faro

LightningStrikes posted...

Faro is awful but he only truly goes over to evil at the end, after he seems to suffer some sort of mental break.

Greed to the extent he showed is a kind of evil

kefka

yeah, i dunno, in some ways faro feels more evil because billionaires are unfortunately tangible beings we have to live with every day, but he doesn't feel like someone who does what he does because of sadism or glee. be willing to sway with more arguments, but for now im going with kefka.

Yeah as horrendous as Ted Faro is, it's all out of selfishness and greed and just doesn't seem as inherently evil as Kefka.

Removing all traces of humanity from the world is awful. Like, one of the worst things. The fact that Ted Faro does it for some petty motive is almost worse than some lofty nihilistic goal like Kefka has. If I was going to have all traces of my existence deleted, I don't know if it would be better to have someone ranting about the meaningless of life, or to have someone wipe me out who's more concerned with something that doesn't even concern me. (Actual answer: neither matters, because I'd be dead.)

I think if you swapped the two, Kefka would twist the terraforming into some horrible mutation that causes mass extinction. Meanwhile, Faro would find a way to kill everyone in the empire and probably go out of his way to cover his tracks about it, even if that meant exterminating the entire world population. I think this is a rare case where they both get worse in the opposing story!

I don't know. I don't think I'm articulating this well at all but either way Ted Faro seems to take the edge. Happy to hear other arguments.

I'll vote for Ted Faro because both of them destroyed the world, but Faro went a step further and went out of his way to ensure it could never be restored to the way it was.

Kefka easy.

Not just because he's one of my top 5 FF characters, but he's about as evil as they come.

I can't believe I'm voting against Kefka in round 1, but Ted Faro

Kefka

GavsEvans123 posted...

I'll vote for Ted Faro because both of them destroyed the world, but Faro went a step further and went out of his way to ensure it could never be restored to the way it was.

I mean, he did also have a reasonable motive for this, believing the past would repeat itself if restored the same way.

Kefka