Here’s a candidate from one of my favorite childhood games.
The work?
EcoQuest is a series of educational computer games by Sierra focused on ecology. The games are about a young boy named Adam who tends to meet talking animals who need his help to save their homes from destruction.
Who is he?
Flesh-Eater is the main antagonist of the first game, The Search for Cetus. He is a manta ray in the underwater kingdom of Eluria who used to be a gentle creature and friend to Cetus, the kingdom’s ruler, but after he swam into toxic waste that was illegally dumped in the ocean he was mutated into a monstrous creature and begins terrorizing the kingdom.
What Makes Him Heinous?
While originally a good friend of Cetus, once the toxic waste began affecting him he began exhibiting sociopathic behavior. In the early stages of his mutation his intelligence remained intact and he became power-hungry, wanting to rule Eluria himself. As his sanity degraded further however he lost his capacity for higher thought and became driven to terrorize and destroy the kingdom. He pretended to be hurt in order to lure Cetus into a trap so that he could be harpooned by pirate whalers, gravely wounding Cetus to the point he would have died if Adam hadn’t saved him. With the kingdom’s protector out of action, Flesh-Eater began terrorizing and eating other Elurians and became addicted to the poison, building his lair near the dump site so he could continue to feed off it.
Toward the end of the game, Flesh-Eater attacks Adam and his dolphin friend Delphineus, chasing them into a drift-net. Adam is able to escape but Flesh-Eater takes Delphineus back to his lair, waiting for him to suffocate before he eats him. Fortunately Adam is able to free Delphineus and Cetus then arrives to challenge Flesh-Eater. As an enraged Flesh-Eater does battle with Cetus, Adam is able to stun him. It’s established however that Flesh—Eater is not dead and will likely return to normal now that Adam has cleaned up the toxic waste spill.
Heinous Standard?
He’s one of the biggest threats in the series as his actions place the entire kingdom in jeopardy, as Cetus is said to be the one who keeps the kingdom safe from man-made hazards and without him many of his subjects are suffering and may have died if Adam hadn’t helped them. While Flesh-Eater didn’t directly cause those problems Cetus would have been able to easily deal with them if he hadn’t been hurt. He’s also confirmed to have eaten other Elurians which makes him one of the only characters in the series to have committed murder, and as he’s an Elurian himself this is basically cannibalism which is a fairly unique crime. He’s eaten humans as well as Adam finds the skeletal remains of the crew who harpooned Cetus in his lair, though given what they did this was deserved.
In terms of how he stacks up to other villains, there are few outright villainous characters in the series with most of the harm caused by humans being the result of ignorance rather than malicious intent, with the exception of an evil poacher in the second game who’s shown to have far more resources than Flesh-Eater, a fish acting on his own, ever could.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?
He’s far too tragic to count as NPE as it’s established in both the game and the manual that he was once a good, innocent creature with no desire to do evil until he was mutated by the toxic waste, which caused his mental state to deteriorate and drove him mad. This gives him moral agency issues since all his evil acts were the result of brain damage which means he wasn’t in control. The game’s manual even says he used to be a strict vegetarian so he doesn’t generally eat meat at all, showing how much the poison changed his behavior. It also says by the time you meet him in the game he’s completely lost his capacity for rational thought along with his power of speech and can only act on base emotions such as fear and hatred.
It’s also said by Cetus that with the toxic waste being cleaned up, Flesh-Eater will likely be cured and return to being a gentle manta which means he’s redeemable and bars him from a higher ranking.
Verdict?
Yes.