Editing Big Bad Evil Guy (section)

==Big Bad Evil GUY?==

Note the title of "Big Bad Evil GUY", as this character is most often male (note the BBEG's in the list below).  It is uncommon for the BBEGs to be female, a "Big Bad Evil Gal" if you will.  Having the main antagonist be female is actually rarer than antagonists that are genderless (such as A.Is or natural disasters in disaster films) or whatever.  

The reasons for this are... contentious, and not well studied.  [[Skub|Some could say it's sexist against women by assuming that female villains are less effective than male villains, or it could be sexist against men by assuming that men are inherently eviler than women... or something else]].  While not conclusive, leaning towards the latter; 

* A female Big Bad is more likely to be shown mercy or have it offered to her than her male counterpart.
* A female Big Bad is less likely to engage in the worst atrocities or order them done.
* A female Big Bad is more likely to have a sympathetic backstory trotted out to excuse or undermine the seriousness of her crimes.
* A female Big Bad is less likely to die or be made to suffer for her crimes.  
** If she does die, she's less likely to get a gory or painful death.  
*** And then if the female Big Bad ''does'' get a gory death, it's usually less graphically depicted in prose or kept out of frame on screen.
* If the hero is male, it's less likely that he will directly kill a female Big Bad.
** Even less likely to do so without offering mercy first before he strikes the deathblow.
*** If a male hero does directly kill a female Big Bad, it'll most likely be in a quick and clean way than something graphic or gory.

A similar phenomenon has been observed in real-life in cases where women got shorter jail sentences or lower fines than men for the same crimes; they sometimes even get spared from jail time.  While not universal, it is common enough to be colloquially referred to as the "Pussy pass".  Putting aside questions of [[SJW|identity politics]], in fiction, at least, it could also just be cultural: there are no shortages of evil queens and faeries in German fantasy, from the poisoner of ''Sleeping Beauty'' to Xayide in ''Never Ending Story''. But, well... Germans.