# Most evil Bastage of all time (Game Thread) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 12, 2011, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649 "2011-05-12T13:46:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/61 "2011-05-27T15:55:42Z")
Erich Ludendorrf - 2 - A real bastage but mostly a covering his ass - ‘I didn’t make stupid mistakes and get my ass kicked really’ type of bastage. Elizabeth Báthory - 2 - most likely truely batshit insane Pizarro - 1 - Just because I can’t get myself to select another on the list. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/62 "2011-05-27T15:56:59Z")
\*\*2 for Dahmer 2 for Mao 1 for Khan\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/63 "2011-05-27T15:58:59Z")
2 for Trujillo for letting the Jews in 2 for Duvalier for his early work as a doctor 1 for Ludendorrf ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/64 "2011-05-27T16:05:40Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > Elizabeth Báthory - 2 - most likely truely batshit insane Are you saying that bathing in virgin’s blood _doesn’t_ make you younger?! I guess there goes my hobby. ☹ My votes: 2 for Empress Wu - some good to go with the bad, competent ruler, mostly hated for ruling in her own name; 2 for Erich Ludendorrf - simply not bad enough 1 for Jeffrey Dahmer - nasty psycho, but those are pretty common. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/65 "2011-05-27T16:18:39Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Are you saying that bathing in virgin’s blood _doesn’t_ make you younger?! Don’t bother…didn’t work for me. Hmmmm…maybe they weren’t virgins…hmmmmm. > [@](#): > > 1 for Khan KKKKKKHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! KKKKKKHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! Sorry…couldn’t help myself. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/66 "2011-05-27T18:53:52Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > … > My votes: > > 2 for Empress Wu - some good to go with the bad, competent ruler, mostly hated for ruling in her own name; > > 2 for Erich Ludendorrf - simply not bad enough > > 1 for Jeffrey Dahmer - nasty psycho, but those are pretty common. Makes sense. Same votes for me. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/67 "2011-05-28T01:23:55Z")
Cortez-2 Trujillo-2 (he was one of the few heads of states to offer his country as a refuge for the Jews during the Holocaust and unlike his Haitian conterpart managed to make his country reasonably ok by now) Ludendorff-1 ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2011, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/68 "2011-05-28T04:55:26Z")
Sticking with: Sargon of Akkade – 2 Adding: Erich Ludendorrf – 2 (many of those he helped bring to power far surpassed him in evil) Arnaud-Amalric of Citeaux – 1 (he’s not going to “win”, so might as well eliminate him) ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/69 "2011-06-01T18:58:24Z")
Round 5: Sorry am late. Work has hit. Mass wipe-out this time! Erich Ludendorrf - 10 Jeffrey Dahmer - 4 Rafael Trujillo - 4 Empress Wu - 4 This leaves: Adolf Hitler - Started WWII which resulted in much death and misery. Also had a thing about Jews. Adolf Eichmann – ‘Banality of evil’ remains evil Alfredo Stroessner – Paraguayan dictator, enslaved a tribe (in 1959) Amon Goeth - Concentration camp guard featured in Schindler’s List. Had to tone down his character in the movie Arnaud-Amalric of Citeaux - Papal legate/inquisitor during the Albigensian crusade, egged on the massacre of Beziers. Caligula – Psychotic Roman emperor Carl Panzram - murderer and all-around brutal guy. Others have killed more, or more gruesomely, but Panzram was something else… Cevdet Bey - Governor in Turkey of Van, carried out some massacres and attempted some more. Hernan Cortes - Overthrew a genocidal, maniacal empire hellbent on mass human sacrifice. Sort of like a Stalin to a Hitler. Delphine LaLaurie - sadistic slave-owning socialite fond of torture and mutilation Elizabeth Báthory - Vlad, not the only player in town François Duvalier – Haitian dictator and “voodoo despot” Genghis Khan – Possibly tops in numbers killed (40 million) Gilles de Rais - Child murdering satanist Heinrich Himmler: Ran Hitler’s death camps H.H. Holmes – Sadist who built a Hotel of death traps [H. H. Holmes - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Holmes) Idi Amin - killed 100,000-500,000 countrymen in 8 years Irma Grese, Bitch of Belsen - Sr Supervisor at Auschwitz; tortured women prisoners with attack dogs, whippings Ivan the Terrible - had thousands tortured and killed in The Massacre of Novgorod; beat his pregnant DIL, causing a miscarriage Jean-Bedel Bokassa – Cannibalistic African dictator Josef Mengele - for the win, good luck topping him Joseph Stalin - Killed millions of his own people and terrorized the rest Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - has that rare combination of long distance mass murderer and up close and personal, hands-on slaughterer. Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) North Korean dictator Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria - Stalin’s butcher Leopold the second of Belgium - cut out the heart of africa and left a 150 years of civil war and genocide Luigi Cadorna – Worst Military Leader (dis)honoree who literally decimated his forces when they lost Mao Zedong- capricious, heartless megalomaniac Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) Led Reign of Terror following French Revolution Mehmed Talat – Initiated the Armenian genocide Nikolai Yezhov-Soviet NKVD head Pizarro - Inca, were mean mofos and happily killed tens of thousands Pol Pot - killed 21% of his people Oskar Dirlewanger, who murdered tens of thousands of civilians commanding an SS unit and horrified his fellow SS officers Robert of Belleme - Anglo-Norman nobleman, notorious for his genuine enjoyment in torturing his opponents to death. Sargon of Akkade - The first imperial conqueror; established the state as an aggressor. Shiro Ishii - WWII Japanese that was really into ‘experimentation’ on people. Tamerlane - Truly pointless butcher; made ruins of cities and towers of skulls Tani Hisao - commander of the division most involved in the Rape of Nanking. Torquemada – greatly expanded the Inquisition; his name became a byword for torture and fanaticism Vasili Blokhin: Personally killed thousands for Stalin Vlad the Impaler - Estimates are he killed 30 percent of his own people. He was a nasty. Zhang Xianzhong-Warlord of Sichuan in the 1640s. Reduced the province’s population by ninety-nine percent Eliminated: Joseph McCarthy: Destroyed the careers of many by falsely accusing them of being Communists. Lied like a Persian rug. Rasputin: Helped bring down the Russian Empire by continually tellling a dimbulb he was the only legitimate authority in Russia Trofim Lysenko - Scientific crackpot used Stalin to strongarm opponents John Chrysostom - influential early exponent of Christian antisemitism Charles Manson: Evil occultist led a group that killed at least eight people, maybe more. Most notorious serial killer in American history. Tojo - Helped bring Japan into World War 2 Attila the Hun - Led rapacious, murderous hordes Isabella of Castile - helped create and oversee the Spanish Inquisition Ibn Taymiyyah - intellectual founder of radical Islam. Francisco Solano Lopez: Almost destroyed his “beloved” Paraguay Robert Berdella-Carrot Fucker Ilse Koch, Bitch of Buchenwald - wife of commandant at concentration camps; took money from inmates; made lampshades etc. from their tattooed skin Erich Ludendorrf: German general who started the rumor of “Stabbed in the Back,” helping prepare the way for Nazism Jeffrey Dahmer: Odious, cannibalistic serial killer Rafael Trujillo – bloody Dominican strongman and personality cult center Empress Wu - the single cruellest ruler China ever had, no loyalty whatsoever, and coldly using everyone and everything Round 6 will be due End of day Sunday. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/70 "2011-06-01T19:57:12Z")
Sargon of Akkade, 2 - A lot better than some other megalomaniacal rulers Josef Mengele, 2 - A monster, but relatively small-scale compared to others on this list Elizabeth Báthory, 1 - Ditto ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/71 "2011-06-02T17:05:26Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > But he was under orders to do so. Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich et al. told him to do it. Not that this excuses him _in any way_, but he wasn’t doing all that under his own initiative. A lot of the tinpot dictators and warlords did the evil they did because they wanted to, and could, and gave the orders which led to it. Hold on, though - couldn’t Eichmann have resigned? Or, heck, even requested another assignment? Yes, the Nazis were profoundly evil, and often deeply stupid - but they had enough common sense, I should think, to realize that you don’t conscript someone against his will to perform complicated administrative or planning work. If Eichmann had declined the gig, would he have been shot? If not, then I think it’s fair to say he “wanted” to do his evil deeds at least as badly as the other tinpot tyrants did. He had a choice, and chose genocide. He can stick around this list a while. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/72 "2011-06-02T17:18:08Z")
Fair enough. On a list of very, _very_ evil people such as this, though, I just don’t see him as being at quite the same level in terms of scope or discretion. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/73 "2011-06-03T15:19:26Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Fair enough. On a list of very, _very_ evil people such as this, though, I just don’t see him as being at quite the same level in terms of scope or discretion. I understand your point, but I respectfully disagree. Eichmann has millions of deaths on his hands, and worked very hard to make those deaths happen. If you want to say that Hitler was more evil - okay, fine, I’ll grant you that. But I would submit that Eichmann is at least as evil as any other Nazi on this list short of Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/74 "2011-06-03T21:53:47Z")
Sticking with: Sargon of Akkade – 2 Arnaud-Amalric of Citeaux – 2 Adding: Irma Grese – 1 (Bitch of Belsen just too minor a figure to advance much further) ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2011, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/75 "2011-06-08T05:10:54Z")
Cortez-2 Pizarro-2 Ivan the Terrible-1 ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/76 "2011-06-27T16:22:15Z")
Talk about the banality of evil. Looks like this petered out. I’ve been checking the front page of the games forum for it periodically , and finally decided to do a search using the Necromantic Arts. I know I wasn’t participating as much as I had hoped…been pretty distracted lately…but didn’t expect it to vanish. To mis-quote Burke: “All that is needed for no Evil Bastage to triumph is for good men, women, and Internet trolls to do nothing.” Any interest in keeping this going? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/77 "2011-06-27T18:07:01Z")
I’m game, but maybe we should just let it die. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/78 "2011-06-27T18:10:47Z")
Honestly, I don’t have much of an appetite for reviewing the histories of the various serial killers & genocides to determine which is the least awful. May be worth bringing the concept back with another topic in a month or two, but I really didn’t miss this thread when it disappeared. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649/79 "2011-06-27T19:19:02Z")
> [@Tom\_Scud](#): > > Honestly, I don’t have much of an appetite for reviewing the histories of the various serial killers & genocides to determine which is the least awful. It’s true that this topic makes for queasy lunchtime reading. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-evil-bastage-of-all-time-game-thread/581649.md?page=3)