Evil Sorcerer

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Abra Ka-dead!

The Evil Sorcerer is the living (or occasionally undead) proof of the maxim that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

He, or sometimes she, is the mage who has delved too deeply into Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and mastered The Dark Arts. He has achieved great power, but at the expense of his soul. He deals in Black Magic and might well have made a Deal with the Devil. Evil Sorcerers are very dangerous foes, as they are creative as well as clever. From them, one can expect anything; hordes of demonic Mooks as the bluntest tool, More Than Mind Control as the subtlest one, and anything between those two and beyond. He will probably be a Sorcerous Overlord, dwelling in an Evil Tower of Ominousness and ruling the land with an iron - but also magical - fist, though he may also show up as an Evil Chancellor, using his powers to subvert the throne more subtly.

The Evil Sorcerer nearly always gets top billing as a villain, as one of his most common traits is Pride. Where he is a second-stringer, he's likely to only be one-upped by a demonic bargain gone wrong—probably because he cheated. This makes him prone to learning the painful lesson that Evil Is Not a Toy. He might also be upstaged by a God of Evil- but then, the most powerful Evil Sorcerers often have ambitions on godhood themselves. In a villainous hierarchy, he'll most likely be the Big Bad, The Dragon, or the Evil Genius (though he could also be The Man Behind the Man or, if he has little loyalty to any particular faction, the Wild Card). Killing the Evil Sorcerer is one way to stop his Keystone Army.

The Evil Sorcerer can be at several levels of the Super Weight scale (depending on how strong magic is in a given setting) but he'll almost always be far more powerful than the heroes (unless they manage to get physical with him), and will probably be at least superficially stronger than his good counterparts (owing to possessing powers that they can't or won't use). If he's an Evil Archmage, everybody should watch out.

It's likely that every sorcerer will be this if Magic Is Evil. Compare the Wicked Witch and (for the more modern descendant) Mad Scientist. An undead Evil Sorcerer will probably be called a Lich.

Examples of Evil Sorcerer include:

Anime and Manga

• Wagnard from Record of Lodoss War. He starts off as a normal man who's just a little too eager to gain arcane knowledge, but decades of dealing with the forces of darkness eventually turn him into a fiendish figure with pointed ears and claws. The wizard Groder edges on this trope since he ostensibly serves Wagnard, but he's more of a sympathetic Anti-Villain due to his loyalty to Ashram. Two minor characters, the evil cleric Gaberra and dark elf shaman Astar, also fit the bill.
• Babidi and his late father Bibidi from Dragonball Z
• The Mage of Beginnings from Mahou Sensei Negima, the resident Big Bad during the days of Nagi's Ala Rubra.
  • In-story, most mages think Evangeline is like this, but those who have actually met her know that she's really not so bad.
• Precia Testarossa of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, who also has Mad Scientist leanings thanks to the Magitek setting.
• The first movie to Cardcaptor Sakura had Clow Reed's former student Madoushi, particularly in the dub (where she was also his girlfriend at one point).

Comic Books

• In The DCU:
  • The Wizard, arch-foe of the Justice Society of America.
  • The Warlock of Ys and Myrwhydden, enemies of Green Lantern.
  • Wotan, arch-foe of Doctor Fate.
  • Dr Gotham, enemy of the Shadowpact.
  • Felix Faust, enemy of the Justice League of America, who also appeared in the animated Justice League and Justice League Unlimited series.
  • Tala and Tannarak, foes of The Phantom Stranger; Tala also appeared in Justice League Unlimited.
  • Blackbriar Thorn (actually an evil druid), a minor Batman foe from the '80s.
  • Deimos, arch-enemy of The Warlord.
  • Mordru—arch-foe variable (but originally The Legion of Super Heroes). He and Blackbriar Thorn both became enemies of the Justice Society of America.
• In the Marvel Universe:
  • Baron Mordo, arch-rival of Doctor Strange.
    • His daughter Astrid Mordo, who tried to kill both her father and Strange.
    • Dormammu, Strange's archenemy and Mordo's sometime master, is a demon who is also an evil sorceror.
  • Belasco, foe of Ka-Zar and the X-Men.
  • Master Pandemonium, enemy of The Avengers.
  • Master Khan, enemy of Iron Fist and Namor.
  • Kaluu, another foe/occasional ally of Doctor Strange (as Sorcerer Supreme he tends to attract these).
  • Nicholas Scratch, enemy of the Fantastic Four.
    • And, arguably, their other enemy Diablo, who is an evil immortal alchemist.
  • Gravemoss, foe of Excalibur.
  • Doctor Doom. A rare example of one who is also a Mad Scientist.
  • Loki, God of Mischief and archenemy of his brother The Mighty Thor, is perhaps the most powerful sorceror in all of Asgard, rivalled only by an evil sorceress Karnilla and her sister Amora the Enchantress.
• Boneyard from the Mantra series in the Malibu Universe.
• Kulan Gath, foe of Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja.
• Magica de Spell from the Uncle Scrooge comics, who also appeared in DuckTales.
  • Magica is also an interesting case as, at least in early appearance, she depended on magical artifacts and theatrics, having no real innate powers of her own.
• Sulimon Canto from Ironwood.
• Natch from the XXXenophile story "Heart of Stone".
• The Phantom Blot takes on this role in Wizards of Mickey
• Matthew Patel has this role among the 7 Evil Exes in Scott Pilgrim
• Rasputin in Hellboy.
• Mr. Gone started off as this in The Maxx, but later claimed that his magic powers were limited to knowing a few "loopholes". And then later it turned out that he had no power at all and was just an ordinary dude who everyone else consensually hallucinated was an evil sorcerer. Or something.
• Darkhell and his rival Skroa from Légendaires. Interestingly, Skroa is also a demon.

Fan Fiction

• In Keepers of the Elements, Radcliffe is one of these.

Film

• Disney
  • The (unnamed) evil Queen from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.
  • Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
  • The Horned King from the film version of The Black Cauldron (where he takes on the role filled by Arawn in the novel).
  • Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
  • Jafar from Aladdin.
  • Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog.
• Queen Bavmorda from Willow.
• Profion from the Dungeons and Dragons movie.
• The title character from the Warlock series of movies.
• Rasputin (in a rather Egregious Historical Villain Upgrade) in Anastasia. Doubles as a Lich, though he's never explicitly referred to as such.
  • Rasputin again in the film adaptation of Hellboy.
• Given that the movies are Heroic Fantasy in a Space Opera setting, The Emperor of Star Wars could be described as one of these.
  • This is a major temptation for Anakin Skywalker as well.
  • Essentially, the Sith come in two flavors: those who are the Evil Counterpart of the Jedi, with an emphasis on lightsaber fighting and visceral use of the force, and those who are Evil Sorcerers, who tend more to the "create horrible twisted mockeries of nature" end of the Dark Side spectrum.
• Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child.
• Subverted in the new Sherlock Holmes film- Lord Blackwood is a practicing occultist, highly ranked member of an Ancient Conspiracy, and has designs on the British crown, but all his "powers" are just smoke and mirrors.
• Gallian in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Blackbeard is one of these, presented as a master practitioner of Hollywood Voodoo capable ofcreating zombies, exercising Mind Over Matter power over ships, shrinking captured ships to keep in bottles as trophies, and creating voodoo dolls.
• While his powers are all based around technology, Martin of The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue certainly seems to enjoy the trappings of this trope. Complete with robe and staff.

Literature

• Thulsa Doom from the Kull The Conqueror stories by Robert E. Howard.
  • Thulsa Doom was also used as the villain of the Conan the Barbarian movie.
• Thugra Khotan in the Conan story "Black Colossus," who also goes by the name of Natohk.
  • Tsotha-Lanti from "The Scarlet Citadel" and Yara from "The Tower of the Elephant" also qualify. Conan's dealt with his share of sorcerers in his career. Nabonidus from "Rogues in the House", however, is more a clockwork-technology using Mad Scientist.
  • The most dangerous and powerful probably being Thoth-Amon. He turns up by name and fearsome reputation in several Conan tales, and although Conan faces several of his dooms by chance and the character himself is met in "The Phoenix on the Sword," the very first Conan story, he and Conan never directly encounter one another in Howard's stories, although he is a common antagonist in later derived works.
  • Salome from "A Witch Shall Be Born".
  • In The Hour of the Dragon, Xaltotun. He scares even his own allies into stealing his Artifact of Doom. There's a reason why Robert E. Howard was the Trope Maker for Sword and Sorcery—and why "sorcery" got put in the title.
• Azrael de Gray.
• All literal sorcerers in the Dresden Files, as the term means a spellcaster whose magical abilities are limited to mostly destructive uses, lacking the subtlety of a true wizard. Most of their abilities also involve breaking one or more of the Laws of Wizardry, each of which carries a death penalty. Most notably Victor Sells from the first book, and Kravos from the third. Two full wizards who also fit this trope are Harry's former mentor Justin DuMorne and Cowl, a recurring enemy.
• Saruman from The Lord of the Rings. He's actually The Mole, attempting to subvert the White Council of good wizards and sages while simultaneously making deals with the Dark Lord Sauron.
  • In the movies, he makes deals. In the books, he thinks that he can be the Dark Lord himself. Gandalf even points out that Saruman had turned Orthanc into a Poor-man's Barad-dur.
    • Oh, he thinks he can be the Dark Lord in the films, too. He just tries (and arguably fails) to be craftier about it.
  • In The Hobbit, we're led to believe that the vile Necromancer is an Evil Sorcerer. In The Lord of the Rings, it's revealed that it's actually Sauron himself.
  • Though he's actually a Physical God, Sauron is called a sorcerer in The Silmarillion as well, probably due to the largely mystical/spiritual nature of his particular power set. The Nazgul all are also called sorcerers, though it's unclear whether they had their powers before getting their rings.
• Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter novels. Bellatrix Lestrange also counts. Or basically anyone who regularly uses the Dark Arts.
• Pryrates from the Memory Sorrow and Thorn books, who gets to be a trifecta: evil priest, Evil Sorcerer, and Evil Chancellor.
• Theleb K'aarna, Yyrkoon and Jagreen Lern in Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné stories.
• Raistlin of the Dragonlance series (after his Face Heel Turn), as well as Fistandantilus.
• Clark Ashton Smith had lots of these in his short stories. They include Eibon, Malygris, Namirrha, Dwerulas, Ossaru, Azédarac, Mmatmuor and Sodosma, Abnon-Tha, Vacharn and his sons, Sarcand, and Maal Dweb. Some of them are Villain Protagonists.
• Kasreyn of the Gyre in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
• Arawn Deathlord and Queen Achren from The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander.
  • Morda in Taran Wanderer also fits the trope clearly.
• Loraan in the Dragaera series.
  • In-series, Sethra Lavode is considered by many to be an Evil Sorceress. On the one hand, everything we've seen of her from Vlad's first-person Point of View indicates she's not that bad a person. On the other hand, every once in a while a member of the House of Dzur will go off to slay her, and none of these people are ever heard from again...
• Joseph Curwen from H.P. Lovecraft's The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and Old Man Whateley from The Dunwich Horror.
• And then there is what might be the ultimate example of this trope, the Warlock Lord, Brona, from Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara and its prequel First King of Shannara. He is actually described by Bremen to be things like "no longer a man" and "a dark creature." He is said to no longer have human thoughts, but to act completely on instinct. He has given himself to the darkness so completely, when he's in his tent, Risca tries to sneak inside and finish him off only to realize that... he's not there. He's literally become the darkness around him, and it gets to the point that it seems that even taking the form of a vague cloaked figure is somewhat of an annoyance to him and not actually necessary. He IS sorcery.
  • Given that a recurring theme in Brooks' writing is that the abuse of magic twists and warps the user, it isn't surprising that he uses this one a lot. The Dagda Mor from The Elfstones Of Shannara, The Mord Wraiths in Wishsong, the Shadowen from The Heritage of Shannara, and The Morgawr from The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara are all prime examples. Then there's Meeks from his Magic Kingdom of Landover series.
• All hail the Crimson King, who orders his servants to drink rat poison so he can watch them die. And could just as easily force them to.
• The sinister and power-hungry Euron Greyjoy in A Song of Ice and Fire, whose secret arcane knowledge and ominous presence frighten his enemies and subjects alike. The priestess Melisandre, who assassinates her enemies with spirit children that live inside her womb, is another, possibly more frightening example.
• The Death Gate Cycle is full of magic-using characters, but while several of them are villains, most are given sympathetic backstories and motivation. There are, however, two definite examples of this trope- Sinistrad and Kleitus.
• Vadim Maur from the Tairen Soul series is a standard example of this trope, and manages to be quite frightening despite (or rather because) he is such an Obviously Evil Card-Carrying Villain.
• Parodied in Discworld with Dr Hix of the Unseen University's Department of Post-Mortem Communication (and certainly not necromancy), who is officially the University's Bad Person, and is therefore permitted to perform mild acts of "evil", such as practical jokes or saying what everyone else is thinking. The thinking is that, PMC being what it is, it's better to have someone sensible playing a role than run the risk of an actual Evil Sorcerer taking the position.
• Several villains from The Saga of the Noble Dead practice sorcery, notably Chane, a vampiric Psycho for Hire and Magic Knight, and his partner Welstiel, who specializes in crafting magical items. The character from the series who most fits the stereotypes, though, is Ubad- Necromancer, old, Black Cloak, pact with the dark forces, etc. Not a guy to cross.
• In Lord Dunsany's The Charwomans Shadow, the magician does not tell the hero what taking his shadow entails and describes, elegantly, how honored great magicians are in Hell.
• Ucteberi in Shadows of the Apt.
• Too many villains in The Wheel of Time to name. All thirteen Forsaken, and plenty of others.
• The Belgariad has Zedar, Ctuchik, Urvon, Zandramas, Asharak, and every single Morindim magician.
• In The Dragon Hoard the appropriately named Awful. There's also Stamp-Weed, several unnamed-sorcerers and plenty of evil sorceresses.
• In Heart's Blood Nechtan, Anluan’s great-grandfather, summons The Host (an army of spirits from purgatory)
• Many of the Canim Ritualists from the Codex Alera, most notably Sarl. The Ritualists as a whole are considered to be this (even by most of their own people) until they get fleshed out more in the last book, which reveals how they were once incredibly respected before gradually becoming corrupt over several generations; Master Marok, a sympathetic old-school Ritualist, is also introduced.
• Berys/Malior is one of these, a powerful demon master.

Live Action TV

• Mayor Richard Wilkins III and Ethan Rayne from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • And there are several hints that Giles used to be one as well. Ethan frequently remarks that he never got even close to his old friend in both power and depravity.
• Turok and Rumina from The Adventures of Sinbad.
• Maldis from Farscape.
• Andre Linoge in the Stephen King miniseries Storm of the Century is either one of these, or an actual devil.
• Pacha Camac in Blood Ties is an Incan priest who has himself mummified so that he can be resurrected in the future.
• Vern and Omen in Dark Oracle. Subverted by Doyle; he's creepy and neurotic, and it is repeatedly suggested that he is the real cause of all the twins' problems. He remains one of the good guys until the end though, becoming a semi-Mentor to the main cast.
  • Blaze and Violet are borderline cases. They definitely have magic of some sort, and ally with Omen and Vern at various points, but said magic is rarely shown.
• A few from Power Rangers: Lord Zedd, his father-in-law Master Vile, and his son Thrax.
• Baron de Belleme from Robin of Sherwood.

Myth and Legend

• Morgan le Fey is portrayed this way in most versions of the King Arthur legend.
• Koschei the Deathless in Russian folklore.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons and Dragons loves this trope. By campaign setting:
  • Dragonlance: As mentioned above, Raistlin and Fistandantilus.
    • And Dalamar, Maladar, Galan Dracos, most Renegades, and the entire Order of the Black Robes (though the latter are admittedly often Affably Evil Anti Villains or Anti Heroes, as most are more self-serving and amoral than Complete Monsters).
  • Forgotten Realms: Halaster Blackcloak, Manshoon(s), the ruling council of the city of Shade, Szass Tam and the rest of the Red Wizards of Thay. And these are just the most notable/infamous. There's probably hundreds of 'em.
  • Greyhawk: Vecna (who eventually ascends to godhood), Rary the Traitor, the infamous Acererak.
    • There is also Iggwilv the Witch Queen, who is considered to be the greatest expert on demons who ever lived. One of her sons is the child of a powerful demon lord and accended to divinity. Even though she's hundreds of years old, she looks not a day older than 40 at most.
  • Mystara: Bargle the Infamous.
  • Ravenloft: Azalin Rex, a Tragic Hero example.
    • As well as almost every lich ever - the terrible things the ritual requires to be done makes it a prerequisite.
  • Eberron kind of subverts the trope (like it does with about every other trope) with Vol, who is not only half elf and half dragon, but also undead. And some people believe she was turned into an undead creature as a child.
• ...and Magic: The Gathering loves it almost as much. The most prominent is Lim-Dul, the Necromancer, whose hordes of undead and demons plagued the continent of Terisiare during the Ice Age; Lim-Dul is later revealed to be another Evil Sorcerer, Mairsil the Pretender, whose soul had been trapped and possessed an innocent man years later. Lim-Dul was followed shortly after by Heidar of Rimewind, a mad ice wizard who wanted to return the world to a second Ice Age. There's also Lord Dralnu, the Lich-Lord of Urborg, a zombie wizard with whom the forces of good were forced to ally against the invading Phyrexians; Memnarch, an evil artificial being with powerful magical abilities; and Virot Maglan, the Cabal Patriarch, who runs a sorcerous mafia.
  • Big Bad Nicol Bolas takes it Up to Eleven, being an Evil Sorcerer Dragon. He is the oldest and the last of the Elder Dragons in a setting where dragons become more powerful and dangerous with age. While he was originally represented in-game as an "ordinary" legend type creature card (with a special ability that has him Mind Rape the opponent instead of dealing damage), he is now a planeswalker. As in a Physical God.
• Iuchiban in Legend of the Five Rings.
  • Daigotsu was literally raised from birth to be the embodiment of this trope. I mean, the guy serves an evil god willingly...
• Drachenfells, Nagash and Ergrimm Von Horstmann from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Also, pretty much all Chaos sorcerers, necromancers, Vampire lords, Dark Elf warlocks, Tomb King liche priests and Skaven grey seers also count. No, it's not a happy place; whoever gave you THAT idea?
• Feng Shui's 69 juncture is ruled by the Eaters of the Lotus, a sinister cabal of evil eunuch sorcerers and their human and demonic servants. The Four Monarchs, banished to the Netherworld, are another example, except for the smartest one of the lot who's not so bad anymore for someone who ruled 1/4th of the world for centuries with absolute power.
• Lots of people in Warhammer 40000, since all the factions are mostly evil, and most of them use sorcery to some extent. Chaos Space Marine sorcerers are the most glaring example, being seven foot tall genetically engineered warriors in power armour, AND having the protection of evil gods, and they hate everybody and want unlimited power. However, they pay a price, suffering ever-increasing madness and horrible mutations such as extra limbs, heads, eyes inside their mouths, etc.
  • The best part about the price they pay? They either don't care or they think it's awesome.
• The Spirit of the Century supplement Spirit Of The Season brings magic more fully into the game, and naturally has a couple of magical villains, including Salomon Mizrahi, a evil kabbalist who is convinced he is a Tzadikim Nistarim, one of the 36 Righteous People whose existence supports that of the world. Interestingly, he's actually better at Science! than he is at magic, making him particularly dangerous.
  • And of course, his mentor, (and general Big Bad of Sot C) Dr. Methusala may be considered to fall under this trope with his mastery of the 10 equations and ability to radically alter reality, and blur the line between science and magic (then again, Sot C treats magic as being answerable to science, just not till it's properly studied).

Theatre

• Klingsor from Richard Wagner's Parsifal.

Toys

• One of the earliest LEGO minifigures was actually called Evil Wizard.

Video Games

• Most of the Society of the Black Cloak from King's Quest.
• The Summoner from Diablo 2.
• Many, many examples in The Elder Scrolls series. Jagar Tharn from the first game, being the most cliche example.
  • In Morrowind, there is an entire Great House designed to appeal specifically to Evil Sorcerers. Strangely enough, not very many of its upper echelon members seem to be outright evil, though most of them do own slaves.
• Ganon, especially in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, his chronologically first appearance.
  • Also Agahnim in The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past (the guy in the picture), if he weren't already someone else.
  • Vaati, the Big Bad of the Four Swords trilogy at least until The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures gets Hijacked by Ganon, has the title of Wind Mage.
• The final villain in the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy, simply called "The Sorceress."
  • Arguably, ALL of the absolutely major Spyro Villains are variations on this except, ironically, the very first one, Gnasty Gnorc. He did know a couple of spells, to be fair.
• Nasira from Disney's Aladdin in Nasira's Revenge.
• Xemnas & his Heartless counterpart from Kingdom Hearts seem to be this.
• In Knights of the Old Republic it's suggested that falling victim to this trope was the underlying cause of Revan's fall to the dark side. In the sequel, Atris embodies it, and in somewhat more rounded fashion, Darth Traya does as well.
• Shang Tsung and Quan Chi of Mortal Kombat embody this trope veeerrry well. Shao Kahn and Shinnok overlap with God of Evil.
  • Raiden became a bit of a God of Evil at one point.
• Sorceress Ultimecia from Final Fantasy VIII is very much an evil sorceress. Her goal is to compress time so that all creation would be centered around her, thus making her a goddess to reshape reality as she sees fit.
  • Adel is also one as well. We don't get to know much about it and in the fight against it, it says nothing. But from the small bits of info you do find out about it, it was probably a Complete Monster.
• Golbez from Final Fantasy IV, who also doubles as a Tin Tyrant. In the sequel, he goes the other way, picking up a BFS and becoming a Big Damn Hero.
• Exdeath in Final Fantasy V is first made to be one of these when the player doesn't know him very well. Then, he's hinted to be a Humanoid Abomination. Finally, he's revealed to be... an evil tree.
• Several in the Warcraft universe. Examples include Kel'thuzad, Medivh (after being possessed by Sargeras), prince Kael'thas (after joining forces with the Legion), and archmage Arugal. The playable warlock class has this vibe going on, too.
• Baldur's Gate: Jon Irenicus. Evil by reason of literally having no soul and a resultant fascination with playing around with innards. Although at one point he was just your regular "driven by overpassionate love and misplaced pride" sort of evil. You could have some understanding for his situation, if he wasn't so smug about his superiority. You WILL hate him.
• Malkil from Wizards and Warriors.
• Windy of Suikoden I, one of the more Obviously Evil villains in the series.
• Kefka Palazzo starts as this, but ends up becoming something much, much worse.
• Rashidi of Ogre Battle and his apprentices.
• ADOM: Keethrax, the Black Druid; Nonnak the necromancer; Yulgash, the Master Summoner; Nuurag Vaarn, the Chaos Archmage; Gaab'Bay, the old crone.
  • Oh, and if you live long enough to see them all, you'll also meet lichs, necromancers, dark sages, black wizards, chaos wizards, the skeletal king, a variety of wyrms (which can cast spells), and possibly an evil god. Also, depending on your choices, you.
• Many Super Mario Bros. villains. Foremost being Kamek, but to an extent King Boo and even Bowser himself (original NES game had him using Black Magic to take over). As well as quite a few RPG villains that have traces of this (Fawful, Grodus and Smithy are pretty much Technopath variants, The Shadow Queen in Paper Mario 2 is this kind of thing played straight).
• Several Fire Emblem antagonists such as Gharnef and Nergal. Some may overlap with Sinister Minister.
• The Dragonlord from Dragon Quest, Hargon from Dragon Quest II, Dhoulmagus from Dragon Quest VIII (though for him it's mostly a case of Demonic Possession by the true Big Bad).
• First Evil Sorcerer in the Final Fantasy series is The Emperor of Final Fantasy II.
• World of Mana
  • Final Fantasy Adventure: Julius
  • Secret of Mana: Thanatos
  • Seiken Densetsu 3: Koren, The Masked Mage
• The Archmage from Grim Grimoire.
• The Lotus Clan from Battle Realms is ruled by a cabal of immortal Warlocks. In-game the Warlock (which consist of lesser members of the cabal) is one of their higher-tier units and the leaders of the cabal are their hero units.
• The Tevinter Magisters of Dragon Age, which is much more pronounced in the sequel. In fact, according to the lore the Tevinter Imperium was responsible for creating the Darkspawn after using magic to try and reach the equivalent of heaven, only for it to go horribly horribly wrong. They're still around, mostly seen as slavers or maniacal and powerhungry blood mages.
• Ba Rouryuu, the Big Bad of the Girls Love Visual Novel Aoi Shiro. If no one stops him, a tsunami of unbelievable magnitude will hit all of Japan in no time.
• Druaga in The Tower of Druaga.
• The Nihilist Priesthood in Lusternia is a whole church full of Evil Sorcerers. They worship extradimensional Demon Lords, practice Necromancy and wage a veritable war against the Three Fates (since the Nihilists regard predestination as slavery, and undead immortality as the path to freedom from it).
• Seath the Scaleless in Dark Souls is a dragon credited with inventing sorcery. He's an insane wreck in the present after vainly trying to solve the mystery of the scales of immortality that every dragon but him possessed.
• At one point in his campaign, Gauldoth Half-Dead of Heroes IV lampshades the tendency for necromancers to become the evil Take Over the World overreaching villain. That said, it's not that common an affliction: over the course of the six games taking place on Enroth, a grand total of one character (Sandro) fitting this trope shows up, and even he survives the ordeal and aims for more modest goals after that.
• Werdna from the Wizardry series.

Web Comics

• Order of the Stick. Xykon. 'Nough said.
  • It should be noted that he's also a literal sorcerer; a spellcaster who was born with his powers rather than learning magic through study.
  • Vaarsuvius were also in danger of becoming this, thanks to their obsession with ultimate power. Whether or whether not they will eventually succumb remains to be seen.
  • Technically Nale is this as well, but as it's not his only character class (and he's much weaker than either of the above) it's not played up as much as his being Elan's brother and leader of the Linear Guild.
• Lord Dragos from The Beast Legion is probably one of it not the most sadistic , Evil sorcerers around.
• Wanda, the croakamancer from Erfworld.
• Black Mage is this mixed with The Chew Toy and Villain Protagonist. Sarda is a straighter example.

Web Original

• The Necromancer, in the Whateley Universe.

Western Animation

• Mozenrath, Caliph Kapok and Khartoum from the Aladdin television series.
• Eli Pandarus from American Dragon: Jake Long.
• Warlock from The New Adventures of Superman.
• As mentioned above, Felix Faust and Tala from Justice League.
• Malsquando, Princess Irmoplotz and Queen Zonthara from Dave the Barbarian.
• Gargamel from The Smurfs is called an evil wizard but he comes across as more of a crazy hermit, down on his luck alchemist.
• Skeletor in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is a borderline sympathetic variant on this.
  • Also Evil-Lyn.
  • He's somewhat more competent, dangerous and evil in the recent remake series; we also get to see two other Big Bads who fit the bill: King Hiss and Hordak. Unfortunately, the new series was cancelled before we could get to see Hordak really strut his stuff outside of the Backstory and flash backs, as he gave every indication of being far more Badass than his She Ra incarnation.
• Hex from Ben 10.
• Mr Crocker becomes one of these in the Fairly Oddparents episode "Timmy the Barbarian".
• Carl the Evil Cockroach Wizard from Yin Yang Yo.
• Thundercats has Mumm-Ra, THE EVER-LIVING!!!
• The Archmage from Gargoyles.
• Wrath-Amon and Ram-Amon from Conan the Adventurer, the latter being an obvious Expy of the Conan books' Thoth-Amon.
• Both Big Bads from WITCH - Prince Phobos is a Sorcerous Overlord, while Nerissa augments her innate Guardian powers with learned (or stolen) magic. In a series full of powerfully magical characters, they sit near the top.
• Blackwolf in Ralph Bakshi's Wizards. He's the Evil Twin of Avatar.
• No Heart from Care Bears.
• The evil magician who created Rubik the Amazing Cube.
• Any wizard from Thundarr the Barbarian, though some of them tend to cross over into Mad Scientist territory.