Board 8 > Most Evil Fictional Character: Hannibal Lecter vs. Bill Cipher

(+) Yeah! (+)

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.

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The following write-ups will contain untagged SPOILERS for Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal, and other works based on Hannibal Lecter, as well as Gravity Falls. Proceed at your own risk!

HANNIBAL LECTER

Hannibal Lecter is the protagonist/antagonist of various films, novels, and television series, most notably The Silence Of The Lambs.

Hannibal Lecter is a child of Lithuanian nobility and of the Visconti and Sforza families of Italy, and he is also a cannibalistic serial killer. He is highly intelligent and cultured, with refined tastes and impeccable manners. He is deeply offended by rudeness, and often kills people who exhibit bad manners; according to the novel Hannibal, he "prefers to eat the rude". In the novel Red Dragon, protagonist Will Graham says that psychologists refer to Lecter as a sociopath "because they don't know what else to call him". Graham claims that "he has no remorse or guilt at all", and tortured animals as a child, but he does not exhibit any of the other criteria traditionally associated with sociopathy. All media in which Lecter appears portray him as intellectually brilliant, cultured and sophisticated, with refined tastes in art, music and cuisine. He is frequently depicted preparing gourmet meals from his victims' flesh, the most famous example being his admission that he once ate a census taker's liver "with some fava beans and a nice Chianti" (a "big Amarone" in the novel). Lecter becomes a prominent psychiatrist and part of Baltimore's high society. In the 1970s he commits a series of cannibalistic murders. Lecter kills at least nine people and attempts to kill three others. His ninth known victim, Benjamin Raspail, is found dead in a church pew, with his heart pierced and missing his thymus and pancreas. Lecter serves these organs to the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra. Other known victims in this series include a census taker, a Princeton student and a bow hunter. While he does enjoy killing his victims, usually in elaborate ways, many of the victims die almost instantly, or at the very least painlessly. Further evidence is when he attacked the nurse, his pulse did not exceed 85 bpm, rising from 72 bpm. Whilst beating a police officer to death, his heartbeat rose to a mere 100 bpm, but soon dropped. The treatment of his victims may lie in his love of chaos and destruction of a universe heading towards high entropy.

vs.

BILL CIPHER

Bill Cipher is the primary antagonist of Gravity Falls.

An immensely powerful dream demon from the Second Dimension who rules over the Nightmare Realm, Bill desires to bring chaos across the rest of known existence by achieving a physical form and opening a rift between the Nightmare Realm and Earth. Because of his harmless appearance and charismatic nature, he often enjoyed playing games with people, either to make himself more trustworthy or because he likes manipulating people, regarding how easily they fall into his traps. It also gives whoever doesn't know his true nature the false impression that he isn't evil when in actuality, Bill is a completely heartless monster. When he got mad, Bill became full of rage, attacking without mercy and for the most part, stops fooling around. He is also very masochistic, as he enjoys hurting himself, as shown when he tortured Dipper's body while possessing it, even exclaiming that pain is hilarious. He also has no problem killing or hurting children like Dipper and Mabel, as shown when he purposefully harmed Dipper's body while possessing it and nearly killed one of the twins to force Stanford to surrender to him. An expert manipulator and a masterful liar, he is clearly capable of fooling others into trusting him long enough for him to betray them in a heartbeat and is falsely affable enough to influence others into becoming one of his many pawns or making deals with him (which he will almost always double-cross to his advantage). Bill also wasn't above using people's personal issues and feelings to manipulate them, such as when he manipulated Dipper into making a deal with him by simply reminding him of everything the latter had sacrificed for Mabel's sake, particularly highlighting the fact that she had done nothing for him in return. Overall, Bill Cipher is a cunning, malevolent, sinister, blasphemous, charismatic, egotistical, deceptive, highly manipulative, self-centered, chaotic, ruthless, omniscient, and sadomasochistic con artist who has absolutely no regard or remorse whatsoever for the crimes he's committed; as far as he's concerned, billions of people (including children, infants, and animals) can die for all he cares as long as he gets what he wants and achieves his goals in the end.

Hmm overall feelings wise Lecter miiight take it as Bill regrets causing the destruction of his home dimension and people while I don't think Lecter regrets anything he does. Bill also invoked Axolotl for redemption for his crime(s) though you could argue that was more due to cowardice.

Still, regardless of some docking of evil points, Bill is basically an immature dickhead kid with godly powers who goes bigger and messes with people more. Someone more familiar with Lecter can correct me if I am wrong, but based on the description he at least doesn't try to make his victims suffer. I also don't see Lecter doing over the top evil shit if given Bill's powers. At most he'd probably teleport snap some random people or even an alien for his latest culinary idea and maybe sneak it upon some people to unwittingly eat too. Meanwhile, Bill will go rearrange someone's face literally (granted the guy he does that to was an asshole but still) and cause more mass chaos with his bad crowd posse to look cool as he views the local denizens as if they were ants.

Leaning Bill Cipher for the moment.

lmao i just finished rewatching gravity falls last night and i swear i completely forgot about this match being a thing -

even if i wasn't biased, i would still vote for bill cipher though. lecter is more realistic but i honestly don't think he'd do much worse with bill's powers if he had them.

Toughie. Lecter does have the Freudian excuse backstory of watching his sister get disemboweled and eaten before his eyes (and possibly being fed her too). I always got the sense that Bill was a troll more than anything, but so is Lecter sort of? Lecter doesn't seem to operate under any sort of malice, it's more like a game to him, a game he's convinced he's too intelligent to lose, so he's just having fun.

Meanwhile Bill is sort of a malevolent trickster god. He's evil for sure (and he knows it) and he likes to make people suffer, all to cause chaos and disruption. Bill has a huge temper, which IIRC Lecter never demonstrates.

Hmm.

Does Lecter ever hurt children? Bill very obviously does.

Bill Cipher

Hannibal is a serial killer, and a murderer. But he has standards. Also keeping in mind that he was fed his sister (whom he loved) by the Nazis and yeah... understandable why he's a bit fucked up. Also why he detests Nazis and Pedophiles. He also cares in his own way for Clarice. Actually would have put Mason Verger in instead of Hannibal.

Dancedreamer posted...

He also cares in his own way for Clarice

Good point, I think this tips it for me. Lecter has shown some attachment to at least two people (his sister and Clarice). Bill has a posse of underlings but IIRC he doesn't care about them at all beyond how they can provide him with mayhem. Everyone is disposable to him.

So I guess that's a vote for Bill.

Just as a general point of discussion - does anyone think you can be pure evil and still care for someone? I think so. Sometimes caring for someone makes you do some of the most despicable things of all.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Just as a general point of discussion - does anyone think you can be pure evil and still care for someone? I think so. Sometimes caring for someone makes you do some of the most despicable things of all.

I think so because this was literally one of my D&D villains, and my players agreed she was one of the most appalling monsters they've ever fought

Bill

Lecter shows too many positive traits to compete in this field. Like yes he's evil but even among a field of serial killers he arguably wouldn't get out of the first round.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Just as a general point of discussion - does anyone think you can be pure evil and still care for someone?

On this point yes though. Doubly so if you end up betraying them at some point

Snake5555555555 posted...

Just as a general point of discussion - does anyone think you can be pure evil and still care for someone? I think so. Sometimes caring for someone makes you do some of the most despicable things of all.

Genuinely caring for someone? No. I don't think you can be pure evil and genuinely care for someone. You can still be evil, but not pure evil. And I think you can do heinous things, while still not being totally evil. By having someone you care about other than yourself, you have, perhaps a small, sliver of good in you. You can be near pure evil. (in fact there's a wiki just for that! Which I've used on occasions, though sometimes I don't agree with their assessment) There's also the inconsistently heinous wiki, which Hannibal is in.

Bill Cipher

Snake5555555555 posted...

Just as a general point of discussion - does anyone think you can be pure evil and still care for someone? I think so. Sometimes caring for someone makes you do some of the most despicable things of all.

Depends on if they are also willing to sell out/kill/whatever that one they care about as well without much issue. If not, then no.

There might also be other caveats like if the one they care about is similarly an evil monster where they have a mutual understanding that they'd screw each other over and like that, or if the nature of why they care and how they go about it is messed up/evil to begin with.

Bill Cipher

I prefer Hannibal as a character but I think over the top maniacally evil and nothing else wins out here over gentlemanly evil with complex emotions and warped standards