18. Asajj Ventress
Ventress is a very hard character to place. There’s a lot to like about what she brings to the series, but there’s also some reasons to not be as big on her as a main villain.
Her character arc is epic and jumpy. She was trained by a former Jedi who was killed by warlords, betrayed by the Sith, and saw her clan of Nightsisters murdered by the Confederacy. Just like most every other villain, her turn id guided by an inability to deal with personal tragedy.
She also does suffer from the same failure complex as Grievous. Every plan starts with Dooku saying something intimidating about not failing, then her ultimate failure. This ties into her personality. She is just so blindly angry and reckless that it takes away a little of her intimidation factor. She’s obviously going to get in over her head and fight more Jedi than she can handle.
Now, one can argue that that’s a part of her character. She’s young and anxious to prove herself. That’s fair, but honestly, does she have to just rush headlong into a challenge every time? Even young Ahsoka can square up against her. Jeez.
That all being said, she does have a lot more to her than just “I am evil because I say I am evil”. There is a lot of good development in her character, because she does eventually turn towards more of an anti-hero role. She even saves Obi-Wan at one point. Having a character who really weighs morals in an adult way is one thing that elevates the Clone Wars to another level.
She may be really foolhardy, but she’s also really interesting and fun to hate. For this list, that’s more than sufficient.