Insufficiently Heinous

Villainous Benchmarks whose worst crimes fail to go beyond the heinous standards of the work that they're in, preventing them from being Inconsistently Heinous, Pure Evil, or (in some cases) Near Pure Evil. An example would be a serial killer from a franchise full of terrorists, warlords, genocidal maniacs, and dictators, or even world destroyers and gods.

There could be several reasons why they are they are Insufficiently Heinous:

1. Van Zant Syndrome: The heinous standards of their works are absurdly high to the point due to much worse crimes being the norm where their lower resources don't matter anymore regardless. Examples include:
   • Van Zant: The name of this trope. Despite his kill count of 42 with only a shotgun due to omnicide being so commonplace in the Dragon Ball series, he fails to stand out hence the name of the Van Zant Syndrome.
   • Shogo Taguchi: Although he did kill 30 mages and Kirara Mizutani, planned on raping Shion and Shuna with low resources, genocidal acts are common in the That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime series with kill counts in the tens of thousands to millions being the norm. This makes his kill count of 31 way too standard regardless of his low resources and his role in Falmuth's attack on Tempest while pragmatic was still under Razen's orders making his attempted kill count too shared to count.
   • Clementine: Despite her lower resources, since torture, pedicide, and mass killings are the norm, she is unable to standout regardless.
2. Fridge Horror: Their worst crime(s) relies too much on fridge-horror to be Minor Insufficient Near Pure Evil for those who are not Flawed-Embraced. Such as:
   • Jafar: His reign and slavery are too vague and not detailed enough, making him fail the heinous standards too much to Mozenrath and Mirage as a result.
3. System Standards: Sharing the same crimes with other villains and/or crimes that too common within their work with nothing special to stand out:
   • Aria: Her acts of corruptions aren't unique when more heinous villains like Esdeath done them on a higher level.
   • The Bishop: His acts of trying to kill heretics are commonplace due to the historical setting of the series and other villains such as Abbot Emmanuel also try to kill heretics.
   • Commander Brutus: Though he planned to wipe out organic life on Mobius through pollution, many other villains tried to destroy the planet as well.
4. Under One's Orders: Their crimes are under a more heinous villain's orders meaning they can't be fully held accountable:
   • Soundwave: Due to his loyalty, all of his actions are under Megatron/Galvatron's orders making them all to him.
   • Klint van Zieks: He was blackmailed by Mael Stronghart into committing acts of serial murder and vigilantism, making him fall behind the latter in terms of heinousness.
5. Severe Incapacitation: The villain is too hindered by being incapacitated for most of the story through outside events that prevent them from doing villainous acts and fail to do enough harm to make up for lost time:
   • Mariko Kurama: Because she was detained in the Diclonius Research Intuition for most of her appearances she fails to do enough harm to stand out from Lucy because of it.
6. Unintentionally Heinous: Their worst crimes are too accidental to count while their other crimes aren't enough:
   • Ivor: Although he was involved in the creation of the Wither Storm, he didn't intend for it to become a destructive being that nearly destroyed the Overworld.
   • Tomoo: Although him traumatizing Lucy and turning her into a murderous misanthrope did enough harm to pass Elfen Lied's heinous standards due him being responsible for her decent into villainy, he did not anticipate she would get thousands killed in the future.

Minor Insufficiently Heinous characters don't go on here as they can qualify as Near Pure Evil, due to only slightly failing the heinous standards or if they are Flawed Embraced, in some cases they go under Almost Heinous instead, as that would still allow them to be sufficiently heinous enough to qualify as Near Pure Evil, but are considered Villainous Benchmarks due to having too many redeeming qualities and/or mitigating factors.

They are the villainous counterpart of Insufficiently Admirable Heroic Benchmarks and the polar opposite of (though, villains who fall in that category can still be insufficiently heinous so if they are not flawed embraced).