Add in authors, too.

1. Wearing all black, red or purple. (too many to count.)

2. Hissing, being scaly, or any reptilian features. (Paolini's Razac)

3. Laughing maniacally. (Again, too many to count.)

4. Indiscriminate torture, killing and rape of people, especially women and children in a bid to emotionally manipulate the reader. (Terry Goodkind's Draken Rahl.)

5. Having an evil-sounding name like the Forsaken. (Robert Jordan, if I remember correctly.)

6. Being ugly. (Too many hordes of orcs, trolls, goblins and the such to count.)

7. Being described as "souless". (Carol Berg's Zhad.)

8. Unable to breed because they "stand for death". (Carol Berg's Zhad, again.)

9. Having pupiless eyes. (Carol Berg's Zhad yet AGAIN.)

10. Gloating over the protagonist's demise, claiming "what is the point of capture if you don't get to gloat over the prisoner?", which is arguably one of the stupidest things any antagonist can do. (Chrisopher Paolini's Shades.)

11. Riding a Black Dragon. (Paolini's Gallbatorix.)

12. Mindlessly wanting to take over the world with no proper motivation. (Too many to count.)

13. Openly revelling in the evil that they're going to do, longingly thinking of destroying all good in the world, again with no plausible motivation. (Too many to count.)

14. Living in a wasteland with an appropriately evvvvvil name like "Land of the Red Death." (Far, Far too many, but the case in particular is Oumadon in "Flight of Dragons".)

C'mon. I'm sure you've seen them before. Bring them to me, so I can parody them and KILL THEM DEAD.

Go to eviloverlord.com and start reading. It lists all the things an Evil Overlord should do, and makes fun of all of the most grievious cliches on the way.

Girlbrainiac

Such an awesome, awesome list...

Randomly burning down villages for no good reason other than the hero used to live there (Common RPG starter)

Red eyes (too many to count)

Drinking blood (Ok, this is more common in videogames, but it applies to cliché villians too)

Enjoying killing things (Eragon, The Cleric Quintent, and several other books)

Talking to/mingling with/having tea parties with demons (The Outstreached Shadow, and the tea parties is just me being silly)

An odd urge to burn down forests that elves and other druidic things live in for no good reason (Eragon’s shades)

A bad tendancy of having mazes as houses (RPG’s only again)

When it comes to killing, if the villian either shows no mercy or has some kind of random orgasmic experience from it, they're definately super evil (Kazuo Kiriyama and Mitsuko Souma from Batle Royale)

Red pupils or no pupils (Why do they have those, I mean how many people could possibly have access to contact lenses in a world where people fight on horseback with swords?)

This isn't a sign of a villian per se bit it does kinda fit here. If the main character is male, the villian will almost always have some sort of relationhip with him (As seen in Star wars and Power rangers: wild force (Don't ask how I know that)

Anyways... wow, I seem to be over-using that word a LOT. Those kinds of things are nice to do to show that your character is a villian. However... if you do it in excess, and if you have ENOUGH plot info to show that your character is evil, mean, whatever, even WITHOUT those super-easy hints, then it's way overdone.

Don't overdo it! -coughcougheragoncoughcough-

Yar. I particularly think the eye thing is overused among many authors, but assuming they have a proper explanation - and most do - it's easy to deal with.

Cheap tricks rule! You can also use cheap tricks to show that your character's a super-hardcore Gary-stu/Mary-sue!

For example:

- A whole bunch of really thick, hard muscles! The women don't tend to have this, but they still oddly manage to kick butt.

- Some really big, enchanted weapon, like a huge, glowing blue sword!

- Perfect bodies!

- Several scars on their face, preferably the eyes or something to give them that ragged-and-friggin' cool look!

- And the list goes on....

Yeah I love the Evil Overlord list, always makes me laugh.

~Marie Silver~

Vastly stupid enough to confront the hero alone. (Too many to count)

Alienates his people with random murders.

Appropriately dark and EVIL name. (Shadow Lord from Deltora Quest)

Doesn't actually appear in the story until the end. (Eragon, I'm guessing)

Recruits the EVILLEST possible minions, just to show how collectively evil he is. (Paolini...yet again)

Despite superior resources, troops, training, and experience, is overthrown by wild men eating bugs and fighting with spears.

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