The Henchman Was the Real Threat All Along: Ranking Video Game Villain Sidekicks Who Accidentally Clowned Their Own Boss
Photo: Álvaro Fernández González, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Every great villain needs a crew. That's just Supervillainy 101. You've got your brooding monologues, your suspiciously fragile death machines, your army of goons who couldn't hit a parked car — and then, buried somewhere in that chaos, you've got the sidekick. The one who actually keeps the lights on. The one who's funnier, scarier, or somehow more competent than the person supposedly running the show.
We've all been there. You're deep in a final act boss battle, the big bad is giving their tenth speech about destiny and darkness, and all you can think about is that one henchman from three hours ago who cracked a genuinely good joke and then got body-slammed into a wall. That guy deserved better. That guy was the villain's whole operation.
This is their tier list. Buckle up.
S-Tier: The Sidekick WHO Actually Had a Plan
Fawful (Mario & Luigi series)
Let's start with the most egregious case of sidekick superiority in all of gaming. Fawful began his career as Cackletta's assistant in Superstar Saga, delivering chaotic, grammatically unhinged speeches about fury and chortles while his boss executed a plan to steal Princess Peaach's voice. Fine. Whatever. Cackletta had the title. Fawful had the energy.
But here's the thing — Fawful didn't just outlive his boss. He came back in Bowser's Inside Story and ran his own whole takeover of the Mushroom Kingdom. He opened a chain of stores. He took over Bowser's castle. He turned Bowser into a vacuum cleaner. Cackletta was out here scheming while Fawful was building a brand. He didn't outshine the villain. He became the villain and then lapped everyone. Absolute S-Tier behavior.
Wheatley (Portal 2)
Wheatley was literally designed to be stupid. That was his whole deal — an intelligence-dampening sphere created specifically to make GLaDOS worse at being evil. And then Aperture Science handed him a facility and watched what happened. What followed was one of the funniest, most chaotic villain arcs in gaming history. Every plan he made was a disaster. Every threat he issued backfired spectacularly. But his execution — the bumbling confidence, the accidental cruelty, the complete lack of self-awareness — made him infinitely more memorable than the clean, clinical menace of GLaDOS. He wasn't supposed to be the villain. He became the most talked-about one.
A-Tier: Legitimately More Threatening Than Their Boss, Accidentally
Seymour Guado (Final Fantasy X)
Sin is the big bad of FFX. Sin is a massive, world-destroying whale monster that has haunted civilization for a thousand years. And yet Seymour, a Maester with great hair and a messiah complex, somehow managed to be more personally menacing in every single cutscene he appeared in. He kept dying and coming back. He had a motivation that was twisted but at least coherent. Sin just kind of... floated around and wrecked cities. Seymour looked Tidus in the eyes and made it uncomfortable. That's villain craft. Sin could never.
Zant (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)
For about 80% of Twilight Princess, Zant is genuinely unsettling. His design is eerie, his power is overwhelming, and his takeover of the Twilight Realm is legitimately dark for a Zelda game. Players were bracing for an all-timer final confrontation. And then the game revealed Ganondorf was pulling the strings the whole time, and Zant — in his boss fight — had a complete meltdown that involved him throwing a tantrum like a toddler who got the wrong flavor juice box. Iconic? Yes. Accidentally funnier than anything Ganondorf did? Absolutely. The sidekick reveal broke the whole dramatic structure and we're still talking about it.
B-Tier: Charismatic Enough to Expose the Plot Holes
Starscream (Various Transformers games)
Starscream has spent decades being the most entertaining character in every Transformers property he's ever touched, and the games are no exception. His entire deal is betraying Megatron at the worst possible moment, failing spectacularly, and then somehow talking his way back into the inner circle. The thing is, every time Starscream attempts a coup, it works for like fifteen minutes — which raises a pretty uncomfortable question about how competent Megatron actually is. Starscream doesn't just overshadow the villain. He audits the villain's security protocols and finds critical vulnerabilities.
Handsome Jack's Loaders (Borderlands 2)
Handsome Jack is one of gaming's greatest villains, no debate. But his Loader Bots — especially the ones with the dry, deadpan combat lines — routinely got bigger laughs than anything Jack himself said. There's something deeply funny about a giant murderous robot announcing "THREAT ASSESSMENT: COMPLETE" before trying to cave your skull in. They made Jack's operation feel lived-in and weird in the best way. They also made it very clear that his army of robots was the only reason his plan was even semi-functional.
C-Tier: Memorable for All the Wrong Reasons
The Sorceress's Edea Situation (Final Fantasy VIII)
Edea was being controlled. She was technically a puppet. But she delivered some of the game's most striking villain moments — the parade, the assassination attempt, the general presence — while the actual main villain behind the curtain was doing... less. Edea didn't even know she was upstaging her own boss. She just had better posture.
Kamek (Various Mario titles)
Kamek has been running Bowser's logistics since Bowser was a literal baby. He does the paperwork. He handles the kidnappings. He buffs the final boss when necessary. He has never been thanked for any of this. Kamek is the COO of an evil empire who watches his CEO get dunked into lava by a plumber every few years and just quietly starts rebuilding. Respect.
Final Verdict: The Sidekick Tax Is Real
Here's the uncomfortable truth that this tier list keeps circling back to: a villain is only as good as the people they surround themselves with. The bosses who look the most intimidating are usually the ones with sidekicks competent enough to keep the whole operation from collapsing. And when those sidekicks are too competent, too funny, or too weirdly sympathetic, they accidentally write a performance review that tanks their boss's credibility.
Fawful built a franchise. Wheatley became a meme. Zant had a breakdown for the ages. These characters didn't just steal scenes — they made us question why we were supposed to be afraid of the person standing behind them.
Next time a villain monologues at you, look to their left. That's where the real threat is.
