Now the storm is coming for real.
Important note: Large sections of this proposal are copypasted from my NPE Removal for her. I have been told that using text from your own proposals doesn't count as plagiarism so I will use this approach. If this is wrong, let me know ASAP.
What Is the work?
Psychonauts is a platform videogame series developed and published by Double Fine Productions. It follows the exploits of this kid, Razputin "Raz" Aquato, who has psychic powers and escaped his family's circus to join the titular Psychonauts, a group of psychic warriors that have the duty of entering the minds of troubled people to help them with their mental issues. The first game focuses on Raz taking on a conspiracy that involves a grand theft of brains from the Psychonauts, and its more recent second game on the newly joined Raz unraveling the plans of a mole inside the organization, while also expanding the world building of the series. There is also a VR game which serves as an introduction to the second game. Out of all psychic threats faced here, our candidate for today is easily one of, if not the most ruthless:
Who is the candidate?
Maligula Galocchio is the main antagonist of the whole series, being the unseen overarching antagonist of the first game and the VR one and the main antagonist of the second. She is the malevolent alter-ego of Lucrecia Mux being the "fight" response in her "fight or flight" mechanism that went out of control after a series of awful events. While the Psychonauts' mole is the one that drives the plot in the second game, Maligula is the one who has the highest amount of influence over the story, being the reason that the events in the series began. Being used as a weapon by the oppressive Gzar of Grulovia, Maligula would establish herself as a dreaded psychic mass murderer (and that doesn't fall under Fridge Horror considering we have images of that through the Memory Vault, in top of having an impact over the lore). This forced the Psychonauts to send its best warriors, the Psychic Seven, to defeat her before any further damage was created. They were able to contain her but at a harsh cost, with the vast majority of them having their minds destroyed from this battle (one of them being presumed deceased, in top of that). It took Razputin's intervention, various years later, to help them recover. This also forced Ford Cruller, one of the most Psychic Seven, to put Lucrecia inside the Aquato family without them being aware of that while also cursing them to always die while in water as a way to prevent Maligula's return.
However, the mole inside the Psychonauts, later revealed to be a certain Gristol Malik (who I would like to see a PE proposal for him one day), the last descendent to the throne of Grulovia, who wants to free Maligula again to restore his tyranny over Grulovia and return to his privileged lifestyle, eventually frees her. That backfires and Maligula attempts to destroy the Psychonauts once again, only for Razputin to stop her once and for all and seal her inside Lucrecia's mind.
What makes her Heinous?
As said earlier, Maligula is easily one of the most destructive villains in the entire series, being described as a psychic mass-murderer, and for good reasons, who acted as Gzar Theodore Malik's primary enforcer for his regime, even flooding all of Grulovia and killing his habitants. We can also mention the psychological damage she caused to not just Lucrecia but also to the Psychic Seven, leaving them with long lasting trauma. And when Gristol Malik frees her, she tries to massacre and flood all of the Psychonauts once and for all.
So, long story short, she is easily sets the Heinous Standard of the series, not just in body count but also for influence and brutality.
What makes her Inconsistent?
In primis, Maligula as a character is too tragic to be anything above, considering she is ultimately the product of an innocent woman's trauma and mistreatment at the hands of a despotic regime. While said woman, Lucrecia, is the one directly played for sympathy through the game, Maligula is nothing more than an extension of her, the "fight" response in her "fight or flight" mechanism that went out of control, a normal part of the human brain, as Raz described it.
Speaking of, this also gives her moral agency issues, considering she is a normal mechanism of the brain that went out of control of its normal functions.
Verdict?
Easy Yes to me.