Michalis is the character that spawned an archetype of bad guys who are usually ambitious rulers that will do bad things in order to preserve either themselves or their people. Travant is the most famous example of this archetype, but he's far from the only one. TV tropes summarized this archetype quite well:
"Michalis is something of a foil to Camus. Whereas Camus is a noble Anti-Villain, Michalis is quite the straight-up villain. These characters are driven by ambition and will do anything to achieve their ends, including dishonorable tactics or being as indecent as possible.
Most of their actions are also driven by the desire to make their people prosper (they couldn't care less about people outside their nation); usually, their people have gone through some sort of suffering and they would gladly do anything to alleviate that, including being hated by the very people they're trying to save. In other words, they are the Noble Demon of the Fire Emblem series. How much it saves them from being unsympathetic varies, but it certainly adds Villainous Valor points that makes them likable as villains, and if lucky, they may even find redemption just as karma catches up to them or become an 11th-Hour Ranger."
(Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FireEmblemAntagonistArchetypes)
Prior to the events of the games, Michalis killed his father, who we're told was a weak ruler. From there, Michalis's goal is to accrue enough power to destroy Dolhr from the inside. Eventually, he lost sight of his goal the longer he worked with his enemy. This dude sends his own sister, Maria, as a hostage in order to blackmail Minerva into cooperating with him. Eventually Marth rescued Maria, and canonically Minerva defeats him in battle. Michalis goes through a redemption arc in the sequel. He feels remorse for what he did to Maria, and eventually gives Marth Starlight. Whether he lives or dies depends on which game you're playing.
When researching Michalis (because my memory of the Archanea games is fuzzy) I came across a reddit post that compared him to Shadow the Hedgehog. Out of curiosity to any Archanea fan reading this: Do you find this comparison accurate? I'd like to hear your thoughts. Moving on, the next villain on this spot is the one and only Rudolf....
While Rudolf isn't a member of the Michalis archetype, it is interesting to note that he too is an example of a villain who works with the bad guys and this time actually got to overthrow them. Prior to the events of the game, Rudolf sends Alm away to Ram Village with Mycen. Rudolf's entire plan was to overthrow the gods Mila and Duma with the intent on having mankind be able to stand on their own two feet without the help of the gods.
It's not hard to see why these two villains are as popular as they are between their respective groups. Neither of them are evil. Sure they do bad things, but they're doing bad things for a just cause. Michalis wanted to overthrow Dolhr and help his country prosper, while Rudolf wanted to overthrow 2 gods that were going insane. Rudolf's plan actually succeeds, and you can make an argument that Valentia is better off without Duma and Mila. This is a theme running throughout most of the villains on this list. Most of the villains (notice that I said most, not all) on this list aren't evil. They may be willing to commit evil acts, but they're usually doing so in order to further a noble goal. It seems like the villains this fandom gravitates towards are the ones who are willing to get their hands dirty for the greater good.
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