A Game Changer or Knight of Cerebus is a villain who appears in comedic or lighthearted media in which villains are meant to be friendly but creates a stark contrast by being played completely seriously and thus changing the tone of the story. To clarify, when a story portrays usually bumbling, comedic and/or incompetent villains or even villains who despite posing a conceivable and credible threat still have some comedic moments, the Game Changer is actually very competent, really dangerous, sometimes even frightening and has a much bigger impact. Episodes or stories featuring them focus on the seriousness, drama, even horror, and not on humor and comedy.

For a villain to qualify in this category, they must provide situations that are much more serious or threatening than any other villain that has appeared in the same story. The very appearance of only one alone can change the tone of the series for good and/or shatter the status quo. Game Changers are the exact opposite of, and mutually exclusive from Comic Reliefs. They are also extremely rarely stupid, because such villains are very intimidating and dangerous threat. In some cases, they can qualify as Pure Evil if they are not just taken seriously lack redeeming qualities and surpass the heinous standards.

Good examples for this are the Lich from Adventure Time, Isaac Ray Peram Westcott from Date A Live, Ren Sohma from Fruits Basket, Hopper from A Bug's Life, Death from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Dick Hardly from The Powerpuff Girls, King Sombra from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, 0 from Kirby, Eddy's Brother from Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, the Nowhere King from Centaurworld, Slade from Teen Titans, the Singularity from MrSpherical, Dark Danny from Danny Phantom, and Steve Cobs from Inanimate Insanity, who are all seen as darker and more competent than the other villains preceding them.

Note: Just because a villain is taken seriously in-universe in a comical/lighthearted setting and/or lacks comedic traits doesn't automatically mean they are Game Changers because their presence in the story may not clash with the tone enough to qualify as a Game Changer.

Basic Guidelines:

1. They are hardly comedic. Of course, there are rare exceptions, namely if their gimmick is that of a clown or jester in which that is simply part of their gimmick. However, this cannot distract or lighten the mood. In the very, VERY few comedic scenes a Game Changer could be part of, they can't be the butt of the joke and the comedy in the scene will, instead, come from the villain having a morbid sense of humor (i.e. Judge Claude Frollo, Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear and Thrax) or them being baffled/irritated by the other, much wackier characters (i.e. Drake, Agatha Trunchbull, Hopper, Unhinged Fan and Accelerator). However, a Game Changer can still have more prominent comedic moments as long as they're still seen as serious threats in-universe (e.g. Lord Shen, Isaac Ray Peram Westcott, Kurumi Tokisaki, Sentinel Prime, Steve Cobs, and One), but if a villain is capable of darkening the mood of the story but at the same time comes off as too comedic (e.g. HIM, PAL, and Spot) then they don't count as it completely goes against the idea of them being the most seriously treated.
2. This is not simply a dark character. It has to be of an unheard level of villainy, especially for the standards of a specific franchise. If a villain simply heightens the stakes or further darkens the mood in a story that is already serious and/or mature (e.g. Thanos, Jenner, Azula, Shou Tucker, Vicious, Emperor Belos, Gus Fring, Joker, Dimentio, Griffith, Silco, Bon, Brian Irons, Sōsuke Aizen, Bloody Mary, Adam Smasher, William Afton, Hikaru Kamiki, Muzan Kibutsuji, Ryoma Sengoku, and Dogranio Yaboon) then they do not count, even if that serious story is in a light-hearted franchise, and they aren't necessary to make the story serious (e.g. Mephiles the Dark and The Core/King Aldrich). If the villains come from works that mostly rely on dark comedy (e.g Chucky, Bill Cipher, Fliqpy, Junko Enoshima, and Striker), or works that fall under horror or dark fantasy, then they also do not qualify.
3. There are very few, if any of these within a story or said media, and if there is already one before it is much harder to have another one later due to a couple of reasons. After one is introduced, it is harder for another villain to stand out enough to truly count. The other reason is that the audience in general isn't as easily shocked and at times even expect more like them. An example of a villain managing to stand out as a Game Changer despite not being the first one in the story is Trigon, who was preceded by Slade.
4. This villain type must ultimately contrast to the current setting of the story and, by just their very presence darken it as a result. The character's actions must be unwarranted and be previously unheard of within the setting.

This is for villains who appear in a comical/lighthearted setting and are treated seriously in-universe.

See Also[]

Game Changers at the Heroes Wiki