So I came upon this image the other day…
And I couldn’t help but recall my Ranking the Disney Villains series. When I started, I was having a lot of trouble figuring out how to rank these characters. What criteria was I supposed to use? How do you evaluate who is a good villain? How do you tell who’s “good” at being “bad”?
So now I get to go through those pages and add some “measurements of evil”. Also, it’s worth noting that these rap sheets don’t seem to include the “counts” of each crime. Just severity in relation to other crimes. And there are no victimless crimes here, like jaywalking. Which is fine, who wants to dibble with all those nuances?
What most interested me was the rubric itself and the ranking of crimes. The worst, with fifty points, is genocide/mass murder, after that, other kinds of murder, like child and familial. The least evil crimes are trespassing, conspiracy, and gambling, and I’d be willing to say this isn’t a crime at all. You want to be an idiot and waste your money on nothing, go ahead. Casinos are legal. They clearly state their odds and gameplay options. The only time it wouldn’t be legal is if they’re hiding/obscuring something, but that’s fraud, and that’s worth five points.
It’s also interesting that the rubric treats animals as first-class citizens. Some might argue this is the way it should be, or that, because it’s Disney, and most animals talk or are sentient, it makes sense. But this means that Edgar from The Aristocrats is more evil than the Evil Queen from Snow White. Take of that what you will. But I guess you would have to treat aliens the same, even though there are no laws on the books for how to deal with civilized sentient non-humans.
As you’d imagine, lots of murder, lots of psychological abuse and kidnapping. I’m not sure how they’re interpreting “plagiarism”, but I left it on because I’m a writer. It seems like there are a few really really high ones, then it peters out where most of them are down to 150 or lower. Which goes to show, being a good villain isn’t just about what crimes you commit. There’s more to it than that.
