Here's my third proposal, and also my first one from a completely official work. I saw this guy pop up on the Proposal Needed page, and I was skeptical about it at first, but now that I've got everything cleared up, I'm ready to propose him.
What's the work?[]
The Loud House is an animated sitcom created by Chris Savino for Nickelodeon. It first aired on the network on May 2, 2016 and is currently renewed up to nine seasons. It follows the day-to-day life of Lincoln Loud, an eleven- (now twelve-)year-old boy who is the middle-aged child and only son among his ten sisters.
Who's the candidate?[]
Chip Micro is the main antagonist of the Season 6 episode "Lights, Camera, Nuclear Reaction". Though originally created as the villain of Lincoln and Clyde's fan-made David Steele movie, the actor portraying him, Todd (who is a robot), assumes "Chip Micro" as his alias and becomes bent on doing the exact thing that his character plans to do in the movie: completely annihilating Royal Woods.
What makes him heinous?[]
After filming for the big scene in Lincoln and Clyde's movie where Agent Steele defeats Chip Micro, Todd moved the nuclear reactor (which was a real nuclear reactor) used on set to a warehouse so he could initiate Chip's plan from the movie to annihilate the town of Royal Woods. Todd's creator, Lisa, later discovered that the nuclear reactor was missing and tried to track it down because if it fell into the wrong hands, it could completely annihilate the town. Unfortunately, Todd had put a lock on the reactor that denied her access to finding it. He then called her, Lincoln, and Clyde to view some of the footage they filmed, and what he pointed out was some footage of Flip (the local gas station owner and the movie's sponsor) with a sneaky expression on his face right next to the reactor. This led them to believe that Flip had stolen the nuclear reactor; it was later revealed that Todd had framed him by using a hologram, which was one of the movie version of Chip's abilities.
After finding out that Flip had no involvement, Lisa reviewed the footage again and discovered that she forgot to switch off Todd's villain mode (used on set to make his acting more authentic), meaning that Todd was brainwashed into believing he really was Chip Micro. Now realizing that Todd was responsible for the theft of the nuclear reactor, Lincoln, Clyde, and Lisa started to track him down. However, one of Lisa's other robots that Todd recruited as a minion, FriendBot 1000, filled him in, and he sabotaged them by taking control of the Steele Mobile and driving it into a lake at Tall Timbers Park. This didn't deter them, however, as they still found his warehouse on foot, and in order to get in, they disguised themselves as robots. However, their cover got blown when Mr. Reinforced Titanium Alloy Arms, another one of Lisa's robots that Todd recruited, caught them whistling, pointing out that robots can't whistle because they don't have lips.
After taking out the robot guards, the three of them arrived in the room where the nuclear reactor was housed. They tried to revert Todd back to normal, but he trapped them in a net, and to make matters worse, he removed his Villain Switch so he could remain evil forever. It was around this time that the reactor's countdown began, which put the entire town in peril. However, when Todd played a video recording he took of that exact moment to show Lincoln, Clyde, and Lisa the looks they had on their faces when they screamed in terror, Lincoln got the idea to make him play video footage from some heartwarming times the family had in the past. Todd obeyed, and unfortunately for him, he felt sentiment from the memories, which managed to snap him out of villain mode for good. He then released the three, and Lincoln terminated the countdown, saving the town from total annihilation.
What makes him inconsistent?[]
I'll only discuss Todd's alter-ego as Chip here, as the movie version doesn't have any mitigating factors and is therefore fit to qualify as PE.
First of all, his moral agency is impaired. Todd is only inclined to believe that he is Chip Micro and do evil things because of the Villain Switch that Lisa installed onto him to make his acting more authentic. He is, however, shown to be aware of the switch's effects because he removed it just to ensure that his evil mode couldn't be turned off, and he also didn't enjoy it when he felt sentiment from the memories he was playing (he explicitly told himself to cut it out and remain evil), so his agency is bounded at worst, and he cannot be a Villain by Proxy because they never wish to be evil.
Second of all, there is a running gag throughout the episode where he'll say, "You should have seen the look on your face!" before playing a video recording to show the people he's addressing exactly what happened. This is detracting the first time he does it, but arguably not the second because he did it for sadistic pleasure.
Third and finally, the biggest reason he can't be any worse than IH is that he redeemed himself at the end of the episode. Lincoln's trick that made him play footage of heartwarming memories worked on him, which eventually overrode his villain mode and snapped him out of it, despite his switch having been removed while he was still evil. I know I said he was brainwashed earlier, but "brainwashed" shouldn't be the right term because Todd knew full well what he had done as Chip Micro (that is, he remembered everything he did and what he was thinking at the time), and he felt remorse for it.
Heinous standards[]
At first, I thought he couldn't qualify as IH because he fails the show's heinous standards. However, I got some clarification on why he was chosen for the list, so I'm now certain he could qualify and ready to explain why he stands out.
For a show where most of the antagonists are bog-standards jerks or bullies, the heinous standards are surprisingly high. Destroying a city isn't anything new to The Loud House. There are two other villains within the show's continuity that attempted to destroy a city with lower resources than Chip, and I'll explain why he stands out relative to them.
- First of all, there's Morag, who is approved as NPE. She tried to destroy the town of Loch Loud with only a mind-controlling dragon stone at her disposal. The reason Chip stands out relative to her is because Royal Woods has a confirmed population of about 20,000, while Loch Loud is heavily implied to have had a lower population to the point where it could be considered a reasonable fraction of Royal Woods' population, given that it's ocean-bound, primarily confined to an island, and only has old-fashioned Scottish architecture, rather than the modern building structure of most big cities.
- Then, there's Joyce Crandall. She also attempted to destroy Royal Woods by flooding it, thereby turning it into the sixth Great Lake. She had a dam and an all-human demolition team, and that's it. However, she has been deemed to rely on Fridge Horror because she allotted the citizens plenty of time to evacuate the town, meaning that she didn't intend to hurt anybody. Although she did try to bust the dam and flood the town herself while there were people in front of it after her demolition team refused, that amounts to unintentional villainy committed more out of stupidity than malice because had she succeeded, she herself would have gotten killed in the flood, preventing her from reaching her ultimate goal of becoming Oversecretary of Water Leisure. Chip, on the other hand, fully intended to endanger human lives by igniting the nuclear reactor, so he stands out relative to her.
So, yes, Chip has higher resources than both of them because he had a nuclear reactor and a handful of robot minions. Those two may have had lower resources, but they are ultimately unfair comparisons because their heinousness is not as serious as what Chip did.
(There is also Ucumu, who tried to destroy Mexico, but I will not compare Chip to him because he is a literal god and therefore a completely unfair comparison.)
Verdict[]
I'd give him a yes.