Over the years, there were countless villains for the heroes to face off against in ABC's Once Upon a Time's Evil Queen got undeserved redemption arcs despite casting curses to cause devastation to a whole population. There are villains like Mr. Hyde (Sam Witwer), who makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin (Robert Carlyle) for the deed of Storybrooke so it would be easier for him to torment his enemies. However, not a single one is as evil as Cruella de Vil.

There are many reasons that Cruella is the most evil character in Once Upon a Time, ranging from her terrible acts all the way to her troubled backstory. What makes Cruella stand out from the other villains on the show is the fact that she is fully evil, through and through. Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold always said that evil isn't born, it is made, but it's obvious that Cruella is the one exception. Throughout her life, Cruella did not once try to follow the path of good, taking joy in all things evil.

Cruella De Vil Is The Most Evil Character On Once Upon A Time

Cruella Was Pure Evil With No Hope Of Redemption

In of committing evil acts, Cruella isn't in the same league as other villains such as Regina (Lana Parilla), Rumpelstiltskin, or Cora (Barbara Hershey) — but she can't be blamed for not trying. Cruella doesn't have magic like the other villains; her only power is to control and manipulate animals. If she did have access to the full catalog of power and magic, Cruella would have been unstoppable and probably the most difficult villain to defeat. Just take Cruella's strategy in the season 4 episode “Sympathy for the De Vil” as evidence.

Cruella is ready to kidnap and threaten to murder a child to get what she wants, stopping at nothing to get her happy ending. None of Cruella's family is around to temper her, and she doesn't really have any friends. She was completely a loose cannon and that made her more dangerous than any other villain that appeared on the show. Even in death, when she appears in the Underworld in the show's fifth season, she is still trying to get revenge and manipulate the heroes.

Cruella's Backstory Makes Her Stand Out From All The Other OUAT Villains

Most Villains On OUAT Have A Backstory To Make Audiences Pity Them

However, it is Cruella's backstory that makes her stand out and proves her to be more evil than any other character on the show. Her episode shows that as a child she murdered her own father, poisoning him with a toxic flower. She also killed her mother's two later husbands. When the Author gives her the power to control animals, she makes her mother's dogs maul her to death. She even says that she never tried being good because it was boring.

Usually, the villains have a tragic backstory, with something to make the audience understand them on a deeper level and why they are doing the bad things. Cruella's Once Upon a Time backstory was the first to go against this, illustrating her as pure evil with no hope of redemption. If she had been given unlimited power, and if Isaac (Patrick Fischler) hadn't taken away her ability to kill, Cruella de Vil would have been able to wreak untold havoc on the cast of Once Upon a Time.