Hi, following my Herobrine NPE proposal, I thought I'd follow up with the other, more sympathetic, major antagonist from the same series. Let's begin.
What is the Work?
Copy-pasted from my Herobrine proposal because I'm lazy
Minecraft The Movie (not to be confused with 'A Minecraft Movie') is a YouTube series made by creator SeaWattgaming that follows the full story of the Minecraft world, from its creation to the eventual conflicts that plagued it. The Pillager can probably be considered a major cause of these conflicts (beaten out only by the Herobrine), arising as a threat after Herobrine's first defeat.
Who is the Character and What Has He Done?
After Herobrine's imprisonment, the Pillager temporarily becomes the main antagonist of the series. He was once a normal player who developed a deep hatred of players after watching his father get kidnapped by one and taken to a villager farm. This hatred developed into one of the submissive natures of the villager society overall, especially after trying to rescue his father, only to be told that being kidnapped by a player is considered an honor, leading to the pillager killing his own father.
Following this, he forms the pillager faction and conducts raids on villagers, where he would forcibly offer them his "protection" from players, attacking any that enter the property. This leads to the Blacksmith villager creating the first iron golems to repel the pillagers, forcing them to retreat. Following this, the Pillager encounters a scientist player who performed horrific experiments against other players as a way to bring back his deceased brother. After his lab is destroyed, the Pillager captures him, and the two come to an agreement that the Scientist works on improving the Pillager's army in return for his safety. This leads to the creation of a machine that horrifically transforms disloyal villagers into ravagers. While the ravagers do improve the pillagers' odds in battle, the iron golems ultimately repel the attack, but not without two of them being captured.
A year later, the Pillager does the unthinkable and uses an ender pearl stasis chamber to break Herobrine out of his bedrock prison. The two formulate a plan to obtain Herobrine's previously lost command block, which he agrees to use to wipe out all players. First, they need the Witch on their side and hatch a plan to have her join the pillager faction willingly. They kidnap Steve and Herobrine takes his place, with him being the commander of the Blacksmith's villager army. He then kidnaps the Witch, imprisoning and torturing her into joining the Blacksmith's side. When the Blacksmith finds out, he is shocked and disgusted by "Steve's" actions, releasing the Witch and imprisoning Herobrine. As a result of her mistreatment, the Witch breaks her vow of pacifism and joins the pillager faction to take revenge on the side she believes mistreated her. With the Witch on his side, the Pillager has the souls of the Iron Golems used to create totems of undying for his army. Now having a significant power boost, the Pillager's army takes over the Blacksmith's village and releases Herobrine.
A while later, a dog and an ocelot run into the Pillager, begging for help. They recently escaped from the Most Evil Player, and needed assistance in releasing their zombie friend from the player's mob grinder. The Pillager waits until night and travels to save him, discovering the grinder. However, instead of releasing the zombie, he kills it and decides to continue using the grinder to increase his army's strength. The pets immediately grow suspicious of this and explore the Pillager's mansion, discovering Steve imprisoned. After some though, they choose to release him and Steve warns the Blacksmith of the incoming attack. It occurs immediately, and the Blacksmith's forces are completely outmatched, with a creeper (under threat of sodomization from a torture machine) being forced to blow up the wall. Once the pillagers breach it, Herobrine reveals he has Alex as a hostage, immediately ending the conflict, with Steve agreeing to show him the location of the command block.
It was thrown into the end portal, which the Pillager and Herobrine jump to get, only to be followed by Steve, Alex, the Nitwit, and the Blacksmith. However, Herobrine already found the command block and a fight breaks out. While the Pillager is initially on Herobine's side, this changes when Steve reveals Herobrine's intention of using the command block to erase the entire world, villagers included, instead of just the players, causing him to briefly stop fighting in shock. In a noble sacrifice, the Nitwit jumps into the void while dragging Herobrine down with him using a lead, and while Herobrine is temporarily able to resist, in a fit of rage at his former ally's deception, the Pillager tackles Herobrine into the void, ending them both for good.
Heinous Standards
The Pillager's main claim is the fact that he intended to commit genocide against all players in the world. The only character on his level is Herobrine, who intended to erase the world entirely, but I don't think we really need to be comparing an omnicidal character with a genocidal one, both are pretty horrible. Even if were though, the Pillager has a whole host of uniquely vile crimes of his own, including mass FWTD of the disloyal villagers he turned into ravagers, the two iron golems he used the souls of to create totems of undying, and his continued use of the Most Evil Players mob grinder to kill countless sentient zombies. There is no issue with him standing out here.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?
For starters, he is incredibly tragic. As a child, shortly after being told his aspirations were limited to villager professions (meaning he couldn't be an astronaut like he dreamed of being) he witnessed his own father being kidnapped by a greedy player and taken to a villager farm, which was what started his hatred of players. After eventually finding his father and killing the player who kidnapped him, he realized that his father and villager society as a whole facilitated their own mistreatment, and his final words to his father recounted his shattered dreams of being an astronaut, before killing him to start his own villager society. This is something that ties heavily into his motives and is played for huge sympathy, possibly being too much for near pure evil on its own. Speaking of which...
He's also a pretty clear case of a well-intentioned extremist. Nearly all his villainy was done in order to stop villagers from being abused by greedy players, and while he is more than willing to kill and abuse other villagers himself if need be, this extremism remains prevalent until the end of his arc and is referenced frequently (with him treating said acts as "ends justify the means" situations, or alternatively, being against villagers he considers "part of the problem"). It's also shown that his extremism doesn't just extend to other villagers, but also anyone else that has been mistreated by players, as shown when he meets the Dog and the Ocelot, who he lets stay in his mansion, and he initially fully intended on rescuing their zombie friend before realizing how useful the mob grinder would be to his mission.
And finally, his death, while not a redemption considering he felt no remorse for his crimes and would have kept going had he not realized Herobrine betrayed him, still paints him in too much of a redeeming light for him to be Near Pure Evil, and is at the very least a partial redemption for reasons I will get into. Him tackling Herobrine into the void came after discovering Herobrine was intending to use the command block to wipe out both him and the rest of the villagers (which, I've already established, he does care for, even if he has some incredibly messed up moment with them). Since he actively sacrificed his own life to take out Herobrine (abandoning his own villainous goals as a result), and since his intentions for doing so did have some altruism involved (even if he wanted some revenge to), it's too much of a redeeming final moment for him to being Near Pure Evil, even if not a full redemption (similar to Solf J. Kimblee)
Verdict
Yes, I believe he counts.