Sinister Minister: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Men of the cloth serve a plethora of roles in all branches of media, both modern and ancient. They may be wise counselors, corrupt bureaucrats or confused and bumbling but generally well-intentioned old duffers. But every once in a while, a preacher crops up who is intimidating, charismatic and completely devoid of morality. These archetypal villains typically serve as the [[Big Bad]] in their respective worlds, controlling vast hordes of starry-eyed True Believers or manipulating the inner workings of their Church. He is often a [[White Anglo Saxon Protestant]] clergyman, but there's nothing saying he can't not be a white Anglo-Saxon and there's definitely nothing saying he can't be a Catholic (''especially'' if the setting is in the Middle Ages), and is clean-cut and perpetually smiling while delivering sermons that alternate between gentle reminders of the importance of virtue and scalding fire-and-brimstone rants commanding their followers to rise and smite heathens in the name of the Lord, amen.

The '''Sinister Minister''' is a one-man [[Corrupt Church]] (and it's usually a man in this role, though female examples are not unheard of) in that all power typically ends up resting firmly in his hands and his hands alone as opposed to being shared out within an organization. He seldom employs [[Sidekick]]s or advisors, preferring to rely instead on his own usually very devious brain for scheming while entrusting the main grunt work to the hordes of unwashed and sanctimonious [[Mooks]] who make up the bulk of his followers.

 

 

 

 

 

Not to be confused with high level government officials in [[British Political System|Westminster-style]] governments—if they're a villain, they'd fall under [[Evil Chancellor]].

 

Also a song by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Contrast [[Good Shepherd]], [[Badass Preacher]].

 

 

* Father Cornello from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''.

* Bishop and High Inquisitor Mozgus of ''[[Berserk]]'' is very much one of these.

* Father Enrico Maxwell from ''[[Hellsing]]'' definitely qualifies, being both self-serving hypocrite and a ruthless [[Knight Templar]]. He thankfully never gets contact with regular churchgoers, though.

** {{spoiler|Alexander Anderson, a Knight Templar [[Up to Eleven]], puts him down. That has to say something.}}

* The Cardinal {{spoiler|Rolo vi Britannia}} in ''[[Code Geass]]: [[Nightmare of Nunnally]]'' has shades of this. While the Geass Directorate/Cult was not explicitly religious in the original series, it was much more so in the manga, with Emperor Charles declaring a religious state at the climax. The Cardinal serves as the mouthpiece for the religion throughout, and plans to kill Nunnally, Charles, and Lelouch to become the Demon King.

* Ali Al-Saachez of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' adopts the identity of a Muslim imam in order to seduce children into his child army.

 

* Bishop Antony Lilliman in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' was a child molester, as well as a cheerleader for the fascist regime.

** While Jesse Custer is used as the page image, he is not, in fact, this trope, and is more of a [[Badass Preacher]].

* Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark from ''[[Sin City]]'', the most nefarious member of the city's [[Corrupt Church]] and just one member of the series resident powerful [[Big Screwed-Up Family]].

* The Reverend William Stryker, an ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' villain. He and his [[Corrupt Church]] believe that mutants are demons from Hell, and has an army of mercenaries to carry out his will. He first appeared in the graphic novel ''God Loves, Man Kills'', and became a recurring villain after the success of the movies, as ''X2'' was loosely based on said graphic novel (though Stryker was a [[Adaptation Decay|rather generic military general]] instead of a reverend).

* One the new characters created during the ''Bloodlines'' [[Crisis Crossover]] event in [[The DCU]] was Cardinal Sin; a disillusioned priest who gained superpowers and became a villain after being bitten by an alien space parasite. He has no reappeared since the original event.

 

* Harry Powell the preacher/serial killer from ''[[The Night of the Hunter]]'' might just be the trope codifier

* In ''[[The Lawnmower Man]]'', the priest who regularly beats Job with a rod. His brother confronts him, calling him a "pious asshole".

* Not to mention the Bishop of Hereford from ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]'', who accused Robin's father of being a devil worshipper and is actually a devil worshipper himself.

* To some extent, ''[[There Will Be Blood]]'''s Eli Sunday.

* Father Lucci in ''[[The Seventh Sign]]''.

* Reverend Crane, father of the main protagonist of ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]''.

* Father Jonas from ''[[Prom Night]] IV: Deliver us from Evil''.

* Zachary Malius from ''[[Happy Hell Night]]''.

 

* The title character from ''[[The Monk]]'' is quite possibly the [[Trope Maker]]. Ambrosio's [[Start of Darkness]] was to break his vow of chastity with a [[Sweet Polly Oliver|woman who disguised herself as a monk]]. He later spirals into kidnapping, rape, incest, murder, and selling his soul.

* ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (novel)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'''s sexually frustrated Archdeacon, Claude Frollo. He is, however, less evil than just lustful, confused and militant.

*** Given the official title of the french minister of justice in the middle ages, this makes him a literal [[Evil Chancellor]]

* The title character of ''[[Elmer Gantry]]'', although he's portrayed more as merely slick and self-deluded than as "pure evil."

* Annias in ''[[The Elenium]]'' by David & Leigh Eddings' is a high-ranking clergyman who loudly proclaims his virtue while using bribes, threats, and outright murder in his attempt to seize the throne of the Archprelate (AKA the Pope). Later, it turns out that he's actually working for an ancient, evil god, too.

* Reverend Sunlight Gardner, who runs an [[Orphanage of Fear]] in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Talisman]]''.

* Arguably, the Reverend [[Dr Syn]], a "mild mannered clergyman from Kent", also known as the vicious criminal "the Scarecrow", and the feared pirate Captain Clegg.

** The [[Hammer Horror]] version plays him as a good-guy, but calls him "Blyss" as Walt Disney had the rights to the name "Syn".

* The 'helpful' clergyman of the John Dickson Carr mystery ''Hag'''s Nook''.

* The [[Evil Jesuit]] Father Rodin in Eugene Sue's ''THE WANDERING JEW—and to a lesser extent his rival Father d'Aigrigny—is a magnificently drawn example of this. The Jesuits here are a Corrupt Order rather than a [[Corrupt Church]].

** In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[Operation Chaos]]'', the secretly demon-controlled Johannine Church uses Diotrephes' name as a bogeyman label. Chants of "Down with Diotrephes!" are a [[Berserk Button]].

** Also, Ciaphas, the guy who ''got Jesus executed'' was a high priest...

** And the fact that his religion explicitly states that good intentions based in religion justify ''any'' kind of extremism makes him even ''worse''.

* Subverted in the ''[[Illuminatus]]!''-trilogy, where Padre Pederastia (a nickname, obviously) is a [[Camp Gay]] Roman Catholic priest who runs a Satanic sect in his spare time, and routinely steals the sacramental bread from his church to be used in the Satanic rituals. The sect is completely harmless, Padre himself doesn't even believe in God ''or'' Satan, and he is indeed one of the good guys.

* Peter Mathews of Enigma Babylon One World Faith and Leon Fortunato of Carpathianism are ''[[Left Behind]]'''s examples of this trope.

* Katherine Langrish's novel ''Dark Angels'' has Brother Thomas, an over-religious and abusive priest who is cruel to the boys at the abbey. [[Dragged Off to Hell|He suffers a horrible fate]] in the end.

 

* Distilled to its most utterly villainous and despicable essence in the person of Caleb from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', a psychotic misogynist and serial killer who used his sermons to lure impressionable young women to him and then brutally murder them. This was ''before'' he became [[The Dragon]] for the [[Ultimate Evil]] in the universe, who granted him super-strength and an army and tasked him with massacring the Slayer Potentials and the Watchers. He took to his mission with sadistic glee, reciting twisted prayers and Biblical references as he casually broke arms, [[Neck Snap|snapped necks]], and [[Eye Scream|put out eyes]]. Caleb was, bar none, the single vilest villain in ''Buffy'' canon, even surpassing [[Complete Monster|Angelus himself]] in depravity and pure hatred.

** He also qualifies as a [[Sexy Priest]]. No, that doesn't make him [[Draco in Leather Pants|less disturbing]].

* ''[[Haven]]'''s Reverend Driscoll is the town's leading agitator for [[Fantastic Racism]] against the "[[Blessed with Suck|Troubled]]". Apparently believing them to be cursed, he's been working to establish enough influence for he and his followers to one day wipe the Troubled out.

* The Canon on the medieval planet in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' made use of ''creative'' interpretations of [[The Bible]], the fear engendered by the Goa'uld System Lord Sokar's raids for hosts, and a [[Applied Phlebotinum|lightning-summoning ring]] in order to maintain control over his village. When SG-1 arrived, he accused Teal'c of consorting with demons.

 

 

* The Genesis song (and video) "Jesus He Knows Me" is about a televangelist who enjoys a decadent, corrupt lifestyle funded by the contributions of his viewers.

* "Holy Roller Novocaine" by the Kings of Leon (and possibly about the Followill brothers' grandfather) is sung from the point of view of a itinerant preacher trying to seduce a woman he meets on his travels.

* The priest mentioned in a few songs from [[Queensrÿche]]'s ''Operation: Mindcrime'' is one of these; he is a corrupt televangelist who sleeps with nuns.

* [[Ozzy Osbourne]]'s "Miracle Man", a [[Take That]] toward [[Real Life]] Sinister Minister, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, with whom Ozzy had a feud in the eighties.

 

* [[ECW]] wrestling manager ''The Sinister Minister'': It's his friggin' '''name'''!

** The man behind this gimmick did much the same act in [[TNA]] as Minister/Father James Mitchell.

* Brother Love, the stereotypical evil preacher and wrestling manager.

 

* This is a common characterisation of the Rev Green from ''[[Clue (game)|Cluedo]]''.

* High Cardinal Krozen from ''[[Eberron]]'', senior cardinal of the Silver Flame and the most powerful individual in Thrane.

* In ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', Elesh Norn, Praetor of the white-aligned faction of New Phyrexia, leads her faction as Grand Cenobite (which is equivalent to the position of Pope) of the [[Religion of Evil]] called the Machine Orthodoxy.

* Any cleric, inquisitor, or antipaladin in service to one of the setting's [[Religion of Evil|Religions of Evil]] is liable to be this in ''[[Pathfinder]]''. Grundmoch from ''Legacy of Fire'' is an interesting example in that he's a [[Chaotic Evil]] [[Lizard Folk|troglodyte]] [[Church Militant|cleric]] of [[Omnicidal Maniac|Rovagug]], yet will actually ally with the PC's against the Adventure Path's greater antagonist, Zayifid.

 

* Zoser, the high priest in ''[[Aida]]'', and his [[Mooks]] are slowly using arsenic to kill their pharaoh.

* ''[[Henry VI]]'' has the Bishop of Winchester, later Cardinal of Winchester, who orders his half-brother's death in an attempt to secure the crown and is noted by all other characters to be a depraved and power-hungry man.

* ''[[The Duchess Of Malfi]]'' by John Webster has The Cardinal, the Duchess' brother (Webster was more into plots than names, it seems). He conspires to have his sister killed and her kids murdered, partly in order to preserve the family honor and partly to get his hands on her wealth. He also pulls strings to have ill-gotten lands deeded to his married girlfriend.

 

* The bishop from ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]''.

* [[The Pope]] of the church of Martel in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]''.

* Kotomine Kirei of ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', whose appearance and [[Joji Nakata|voice actor]] practically screams 'sinister' despite being the overseer of the Grail War and Rin's guardian -- {{spoiler|and sure enough, he ends up as the [[Big Bad]] of the first route, the one responsible for much of the grief in the second, as well as being the [[Final Boss]] in the third, even though in this route he is not as evil as the previous routes}}. In ''[[Fate/Zero]]'', {{spoiler|he also usurps several stronger villains and ends up as the [[Big Bad]] yet again}}.

* Bishop Mandible of ''Loom''.

* The preacher you chase through Evarai in ''Breath of Fire 2''.

* Bishop Stone/Stein in ''[[Xenogears]]''.

** The Tellius games (Gamecube & Wii) have the Begnion senators, who are also religious figures.

** However, the series also has a tendency (at least since Fuuin no Tsurugi) for the highest-ranking religious figure in the game to be benevolent, and in a couple of games, ''playable''.

* Girolamo Savonarola in ''[[Assassin's Creed II]]'' who not only is an extremist preacher like his real-life counterpart, but also is willing to {{spoiler|use the Apple of Eden to subjugate Florence and spread his agenda.}} However he's portrayed more as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] rather than pure evil like the Templars (who he technically opposes).

** There's also Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, and his son Cesare, a cardinal, both given a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]] (which isn't to say the real ones were ''good''.)

* Father Karras, the extremely hypocritical and [[A God Am I|self-centric]] founder and leader of the [[Machine Worship|Mechanists]], from ''[[Thief]] II : The Metal Age'', is both a Sinister Minister ''and'' a [[Mad Scientist]].

* Sister (later Mother) Petrice from ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' is a total [[Smug Snake]] who outright admits to pulling a number of half-assed machinations to rile the people of Kirkwall up against the Qunari. {{spoiler|She succeeds, but will only live to see it if you help her, which she...doesn't exactly encourage.}}

* The Reverend from ''[[The Witcher]]''

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', there was the {{spoiler| Archbishop Benedictus, once the leader of the Church of the Holy Light, who turned traitor and sided with Deathwing.}}

* Pick a member of the Begnion Senate in ''[[Fire Emblem]]'': ''Path of Radiance'' or ''Radiant Dawn''. They're high-ranking members of the Begnion clergy, and they are at best corrupt, at worst, totally evil. [[Laughably Evil|Oliver]] and [[Big Bad Wannabe|Lekain]] are probably the worst of them, with Lekain being behind almost every bad thing in the series.

* Selene and Pope Zera from ''[[Grandia II|Grandia 2]]''

* {{spoiler|Ghetsis}} from [[Pokémon Black and White]]

 

 

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Brother Blood]] from ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' (a cult leader) is the [[Big Bad]] of season 3. He's teaching supervillains how to take over the world. When he sees a potential new recruit he tries to seduce them by promising to make their wildest dreams come true. And when that doesn't work, it's time for [[Mind Control]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Dead Horse Trope]]

[[Category:Religion Tropes]]

[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]

[[Category:Villains]]