Villains of the Neutral Evil alignment, also known as the "Malefactor" or “True/Selfish Evil” alignment, are primarily concerned with their own schemes and will employ whatever means are necessary to succeed in them. They do not care much about whether they have to work with or against law in order to do so and will often switch sides if it benefits them.

Neutral Evils are often seen as representing a character who is purely out for themselves and does not feel tied to rules or authority. As such, they are not focused on rules or laws as a Lawful Evil character nor is needlessly violent as a Chaotic Evil character. These villains are basically a shifting, but specifically self oriented mix of the two. Also, these characters are the complete opposite of Neutral Good who are heroes that are mostly neutral in terms of laws and rules, while fighting for their cause.

A good way to determine Neutral versus Lawful or Chaotic Evil is to understand the ultimate end-goal or motives of a character. A Lawful Evil character's ultimate goals and motives are to enforce either social or personal code of conduct, often at the expense of others; they may do so because they value tyrannical systems or they simply hate freedom. A Chaotic Evil character simply does what they find amusing at the time, with no care for how they may harm others. A Neutral Evil character, on the other hand, is basically summed up as being "extremely selfish"; they only truly do things if it benefits them in the long run and thus are seen as the most treacherous and cunning of the alignments (though not nearly as reckless as chaotic).

Many tend to be Egotists, as they are only out for themselves. There can also be some Neutral Evils that have both the qualities of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil.

Neutral Evil can also apply to animalistic villains who by virtue of being animals do not care about law nor chaos, simply self-survival and spreading of influence (good examples as monstrous animals from many natural horror films and some animal-like aliens in sci-fi).

By the character alignment name, one should not be fooled. Neutral Evil characters are not actually "neutral", as such as shown in a grey area or a "good" manner. These villains are purely out for themselves and will do anything to get their way.