Board 8 > Most Evil Fictional Character: Ramsay Bolton vs. Yawgmoth

(+) 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.

-

The following write-ups will contain untagged SPOILERS for Game of Thrones and Magic: The Gathering.

RAMSAY BOLTON

Ramsay Bolton is a major antagonist in the Game of Thrones novels and television series.

Lord Ramsay Bolton, born Ramsay Snow, was the legitimized bastard son of Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort, and the unidentified wife of a miller. Following the successful capture of Winterfell from the Ironborn, Ramsay holds Theon Greyjoy captive and utilizes extreme torture to break him into loyal submission; renaming him "Reek." Some time later, Ramsay hunts a girl named Tansy in the woods with his hounds, Myranda, and Reek. With bows in hand, he and Myranda gleefully pursue Tansy, firing arrows at her as they go. Ramsay explains that Tansy had made Myranda jealous, so she has to go because she causes too many problems otherwise. Myranda manages to strike Tansy with an arrow in the leg before Ramsay happily releases his dogs on her, killing her. Through an arrangement orchestrated by Petyr Baelish, Ramsay is wed to Sansa Stark, who escapes from Winterfell along with Theon. Their escape drives Ramsay to murder his entire family on threat of being disinherited, he then becomes the new Warden of the North and Lord of Winterfell, replacing his father. Ramsay is a vicious, savage and thoroughly unpredictable psychopath who enjoys rape, necrophilia and torture. Ramsay is a genuine sociopath. He practises the sadistic Bolton custom of flaying his captives alive, he names his dogs after women he has killed and brings back their skin as a gruesome trophy. He is dishonorable, manipulative, ruthless, extremely sadistic, sexually depraved, wild, and completely capable of committing unspeakable atrocities without remorse, simply for pure amusement. Ramsay fully admitsand indeed revels in the factthat he tortures and kills innocent people for no reason whatsoever, and that they did not deserve what he did to them. He simply enjoys inflicting horrific torture on people.

vs.

YAWGMOTH

Yawgmoth is a major antagonist in the Magic: The Gathering franchise.

Yawgmoth was the god and perfector of the Phyrexian race. Originally human, in his early life, he was a medical genius of the ancient Thran Empire known for his highly controversial solutions to medical ailments. Yawgmoth was born in the last century of the ancient Thran Empire, during a highly politicized conflict between the artificer-aligned elite imperialists and the eugenicist-aligned republican rabble. Due to his fascination with the human body and his view that it was a marvelous machine, Yawgmoth became a champion of the eugenicist faction. During his exile , Yawgmoth journeyed the globe, visiting many different civilizations in his ruthless, cold-hearted pursuit of knowledge. During this time, he committed many atrocities, of which the following are known: he set the Black Cough upon the dwarves of Oryn Deeps, inciting a workers' rebellion that nearly killed the dwarven king and ended 1,000 years of dwarven rule, he turned the Creeping Mold of Argoth into a virulent plague that ate away the elves there, he also kidnapped their priest Elyssendril Lademmdrith and her healers, ordering the elves to pay ransom for their leader and the cure she had developed for the plague. When the elves paid, he delivered to them only sweetened water and 12 dead healers. He set the White Death upon the minotaurs of Talruum, just to study its effects, he infected the leaders of the cat people nations with rabies, after which they tore each other to pieces, he poisoned the human tribes of Gulatto Meisha, and he pithed and vivisected the Bey of the Shivan Viashino. Yawgmoth's exile would be revoked and he returned to Thran, which started a massive war between Thran and the civilizations Yawgmoth had experimented on during his exile. He would eventually trick a planeswalker named Dyfed into creating a portal to Phyrexia for him, and would bind himself to the plane, ruling it as its god and taking sick patients there in order to mutate them into his own personal army. When Dyfed was stunned at the horror Phyrexia had become, he stabbed her in the back of the head with a powerstone dagger, disabling the planeswalker, hoping to dissect her and learn what she had that enabled her to planeswalk. Rebbec removed the powerstone however, mercy-killing Dyfed. Yawgmoth would come to be trapped within Phyrexia, but thousands of years later, he would launch an invasion of Dominaria, attempting to conquer the plane for his own vile purposes and causing the deaths of many in the process.

Yawgmoth and it's not close.

I usually don't like to put a ton of value on scale in this contest, but Yawgmoth literally turned a perfectly nice world into biomechanical hell so he could be a multiversal god. All of this after being Fantasy Josef Mengele for the sheer reason of "scientific research" - not for a greater good but for personal satisfaction.

One of the worst things is that Yawgmoth doesn't just kill innocents -- he compleats them, forcing them to become biomechanical minions of his against their will and turning them into loyal evangels for the Filigree Scriptures. The Phyrexians have the same compulsion to convert all they cross as the Borg do, but with religious fanaticism that has been indoctrinated into them.

As I said last time he came up, Yawgmoth's evil has outlived him centuries later. The New Phyrexians infected the plane of Mirrodin and began to change it into their own replica of Yawgmoth's original Phyrexia, and from there they breached the multiverse in a move bolder than even he did. This brought horrifying wars to countless worlds where people had to face their own compleated kin to save their worlds.

yeah, gotta vote for Yawgmoth even though I love to hate Ramsay immensely.

Yawgmoth

Ramsay Snow based on if was in the other guys position he might do the same or worse

Yawgmoth

Hell bent on genocide/conversion (compleation) against all planes of existence... by the standards of this contest, that's awfully ambitious.

RySenkari posted...

Consider the characters as if they have the exact same capabilities and what they might do in that scenario.

For the record I do think using this rule should be done with some caution

Like yes trying to even scale is good but for characters like Yawgmoth there are certain x factors where it simply isn't fair to just make the characters equal and see what they'd do. Part of why Yawgmoth is so evil is his ambition. He ascended to godhood from mortal by executing a very extensive list of atrocities to get there. He then became such a corrupting influence that he literally blights the world upon death, which is not because it's just an inherent thing he was born with but that he did so much evil that this happened-- most entrants in this bracket, if "put in his position" simply wouldn't do that because they don't have the amount of evil mojo to do it and putting them as "equals" gives them evil cred they frankly never earned in their own canon and it's a lot of speculation to assume they would be able to.

At some point you have to wonder where in the timeline it's fair to stick the other guy. Game of Thrones guy could potentially worse in Yawgmoth's position but what is there to suggest he has the scheming cred and drive that he could reach that level.

I know this is a blowout and this isn't super worth talking about right now but that's my soapbox. (Honestly this is not all this post but also partially the Morgoth match being so stompy that put me on this tirade)

Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth

Solid opponent, but Yawgmoth has to be one of the top tiers of evil.

Lopen posted...

For the record I do think using this rule should be done with some caution

Like yes trying to even scale is good but for characters like Yawgmoth there are certain x factors where it simply isn't fair to just make the characters equal and see what they'd do. Part of why Yawgmoth is so evil is his ambition. He ascended to godhood from mortal by executing a very extensive list of atrocities to get there. He then became such a corrupting influence that he literally blights the world upon death, which is not because it's just an inherent thing he was born with but that he did so much evil that this happened-- most entrants in this bracket, if "put in his position" simply wouldn't do that because they don't have the amount of evil mojo to do it and putting them as "equals" gives them evil cred they frankly never earned in their own canon and it's a lot of speculation to assume they would be able to.

At some point you have to wonder where in the timeline it's fair to stick the other guy. Game of Thrones guy could potentially worse in Yawgmoth's position but what is there to suggest he has the scheming cred and drive that he could reach that level.

I know this is a blowout and this isn't super worth talking about right now but that's my soapbox. (Honestly this is not all this post but also partially the Morgoth match being so stompy that put me on this tirade)

I'm not voting in this one, as I don't know GOT well enough and I don't want to read spoilers cause i want to watch the show... might even do a watchthrough topic

But the idea of evening the scales goes both ways. It's not just "Give Ramsey Bolton the same power as Yawgmoth, and consider what he would do" but also "Bring Yawgmoth down to the level of Ramsey Bolton, and what would he do?" And that's where his ambition would come into play.

I guess my issue is Yawgmoth arguably can just become Yawgmoth from any power scale

Dude just was not very powerful/influential out of the box. The only limit on him would be the world setting itself.

Ramsay had no problem wreaking havoc on the North as a whole in addition to the personal torture. I have no doubt he would absolutely be a Yawgmoth or worse at that scale.

RySenkari posted...

He would eventually trick a planeswalker named Dyfed into creating a portal to Phyrexia for him, and would bind himself to the plane ruling it as its god and taking sick patients there in order to mutate them into his own personal army

Like to me this is a clear lynchpin moment that sets Yawgmoth ahead of most of this bracket (and massively ramps up his power)

When put in this situation how many even think to want to do this? Like this is above and beyond "this dude liked torturing innocent people" this is a guy wanting to enslave and corrupt an entire plane or universe or whatever you want to call it so he could use the sick from that plane and mutate them into his soldiers to spread misery to other planes of existence. At some point you have to think "well what evidence did character X show that they would even think to attempt that if put in a similar situation" and that's why I question whether it makes sense to scale people up to Yawgmoth willy nilly.

There is a special kind of ambition there that very few in this bracket possess. And at that point his power scale isn't really that nuts-- its really after that point he becomes super strong. Everything to that point is in theory doable by fairly low power scale people.

Yawgmoth because ultimatley I don't know that Ramsay has that level of ambition to torture

I mean, we only have one Reek. By all means, if he wanted to, he could've made every servant in his house into a Reek or worse

Nah there were a chain of Reeks before Theon. We dont know how many.

Yawgmoth

These two universes are so different that it's hard to judge, but Ramsay could definitely have been even more evil even within the constraints of his universe's rules. Yawgmoth went above and beyond.

yawgmoth

LightningStrikes posted...

Nah there were a chain of Reeks before Theon. We dont know how many.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's clear in the show, but in the books this is just something he does.

Ramsay