I got permission from Complete Monster to make this removal back in February but never got around to doing it while the show was airing. Better late than never I guess, I'm hoping the fandom for it is still somewhat active so there's fair voting.
What is the Work?
Cobra Kai is a Netflix spin-off/sequel to the karate kid that takes place in the present day when the main characters of the franchise have grown up. Daniel and Johnny's rivalry restarted after Johnny reopened Cobra Kai, leading to Daniel taking on Johnny's son as a student in response. This eventually led to Johnny's old teacher John Kreese returning, alongside karate obsessed billionaire Terry Silver. Rivalries continued.
Who Are the Characters?
John Kreese
He is a Vietnam war vet who learned karate from his captain in the war. However, after losing his girlfriend in a car crash while on duty, and seeing his comrades murdered after attempting to show mercy to one of them, he grows cold hearted and subscribes to the "no mercy" outlook religiously. This leads to him murdering his captain and starting a dojo while getting better at karate himself and corrupts Johnny Lawrence into the bully we see in the first movie.
Following the events of the first karate kid movie where his students abandon him after he attacks Johnny for losing to Daniel, then in the third movie where he tries and fails to get revenge on Daniel with Terry Silver's help, he becomes homeless. This changes when a, now adult, Johnny restarts Cobra Kai. Giving his former teacher a second chance, he brings him into the fold. However, Kreese corrupts Johnny's students like he did with Johnny as a child, leading to them becoming violent and Kreese eventually taking the dojo from Johnny.
After much karate warring and a stint in prison, Kreese returns to lead Cobra Kai in the Sekai Taikai. Then, he indirectly causes one of his students to die, both by pushing his "no mercy" philosophy, and because he died by a weapon Kreese brought in. This eventually leads to him finally seeing the error in his worldview and he redeems himself.
Terry Silver
Silver is Kreese's former best friend from the war who has an equal obsession with karate. Unlike Kreese, he is also a millionaire willing to use his finances in the karate wars. In KK3, he was the main antagonist who manipulated Daniel into joining Cobra Kai with the intention of hurting and humiliating him in the next tournament. However, Daniel is able to overcome his demons and win in that movie, sending Silver down to rock bottom.
In Cobra Kai, it's revealed Silver had changed and reformed from his former attitude. However, it doesn't take much prompting from Kreese to get him back into the game. Now enthralled in the karate war, Silver is back to his old ways and actually ends up betraying Kreese, framing him for the assault of Stingray and having him arrested. Now the main antagonist again, he makes Cobra Kai a household name in the valley, but it blows up in his face after Tory reveals he cheated in a tournament and Daniel beats him in front of his students.
To top it off, Silver finds out a terminal illness he had returned, giving him little time left. His final attempt at revenge was to team up with the Iron Dragons as a means to humiliating Miyagi Do in the Sekai Taikai. However, when it looks like the Dragons might lose, he tells an underling to threaten Johnny's family, which is prevented by Kreese. The two of them fight on a boat which Kreese blows up, killing them both.
Why Don't They Count?
While they're certainly more heinous than you'd expect from the karate kid world, neither of them do enough to escape bog standard territory. I'll start with Kreese since he should be the simplest case.
John Kreese
Kreese has two attempted murders to his name (kill the hero villainy) and two actual murders, one of which was treated as a heroic act. In terms of numbers, he isn't doing himself any favors. You could say his abuse of children in the dojo's and facilitation of brutal violence has him pass the baseline, but these actions are really not treated as the sort of torment that gets characters on this wiki. The worst of his own abuse doesn't go beyond attacking some children in bog-standard ways like giving Demetri a nosebleed or choke holding Johnny. Not to mention, it's made pretty clear that Kim Son Young abuses his students far worse than Kreese does, even if his own abuse wasn't bog-standard. He also doesn't stand out through facilitating violence as it's made clear he is not soleley responsible in this, rather just being one part of the problem.
The scene that seems to get pointed to as proof he passes the baseline is when he plants several snakes in Daniel's car dealership. However, that entirely relies on Fridge Logic. We have nothing that indicates the snakes are actually dangerous, and the narrative of the scene leans a lot more into it just being a scare tactic. If there were actually poisonous snakes there, I feel like it would be treated as a far bigger thing, especially considering operations apparently continued even though the last one was never found.
Terry Silver
Silver is certainly worse than his war buddy, but not enough to move past the baseline. His worst actions include torching Mike Barnes's furniture store, beating Daniel until he's left out of commission, forcing Tory to break stone (leading to her knuckles bleeding), attempting to kill Johnny, Chozen and Kreese, and intending to threaten Johnny's family including his infant daughter. I'll go through these one by one and try to explain why they're either bog-standard or fail the standards of the work.
While Silver burned down Mike's store, leading to his life falling apart and him to become an alcoholic/drug addict, this was not Silver's intention. He was totally indifferent to it, but his main goal was just to send a message to both Mike himself and Daniel about interfering in his plans. There's also no indication he endangered any employees in that fire, which is unlikely considering Dennis's comments about Silver threatening Johnny's family being a new low compared to torching the store. It would be fridge horror either way though.
His actions of violence and abuse, such as beating up Daniel and forcing Tory to punch stone until her knuckles bled are also pretty standard from this show. Again, Kim Son Young was far worse in this regard considering he had his students test techniques that are supposed to be deadly on each other, then intended to use them in the Sekai Takai to kill at least one on the Iron Dragon students.
He does not do enough in regard to attempted murders to pass the baseline as he only has three victims. What is arguably his worst act (threatening Johnny's family), is also entirely fridge horror reliant. His goal was to force Johnny into throwing his match as a means of protecting his family, indicating that he only intended to use them as a bargaining chip as opposed to actually killing them. He also never even confirms murder is what he's threatening as he only talks about the family coming into harms way, which could indicate he was actually just going to threaten to injure them. This is once again all just fridge horror.
Verdict
Overall, I think both of these are great villains and are incredibly menacing, but I don't believe either of them pass the baseline standards, or even the heinous standards of their own show. Cut for both.