How Evil Is Shego?
Shego is one of the main antagonists of the Kim Possible series along with her employer, Dr. Drakken. Drakken and Shego serve, in a literary sense, as the dark reflection of Ron and Kim respectively. While Kim is a competent, smart, and capable crime fighting hero, Ron is a lovable but bumbling sidekick. Shego serves as the flip side of Kim. She's just as competent, smart, and capable as Kim both physically and mentally and also has to deal with a lovable yet bumbling partner in the form of Drakken. The difference, of course, is that Drakken and Shego are evil.
Or are they? The question is whether or not the reflection of Kim continues in an absolute sense. In other words, is Shego just as evil as Kim is good? After all, Kim is seen as being very much good, although she does have her flaws and failings from time to time. Is Shego very much evil? I have my doubts.
Let us examine the evidence for Shego's level of evil. This evidence comes in three parts:
The evil measuring device
Shego's time as dictator of the world
Shego's treatment of Kim and Ron
When Shego and Drakken use a device that claims to measure how evil the user is in the episode "Bad Boy", it is revealed that the machine believes Drakken to be only mildly evil, while Shego is much more evil. Drakken finds this embarrassing, but Shego doesn't seem to care much. However, it is my belief that this machine was poorly named. The machine was not measuring how evil Drakken or Shego were, but how competent they were.
The reasoning for believing this is that the show repeatedly portrays Shego as being far more competent than any of the other villians Kim Possible faces, whether it be her partner, Dr. Drakken, or any of the other many antagonists that Kim and Ron face throughout the series. The show does not, however, show her to be the most evil. For example, in one episode "Motor Ed" Drakken plots to steal a disabled person's wheelchair in order to gain access to its technology. Shego opposes this plan, considering it to be going too far. If Shego was more evil than Drakken, surely the roles would be reversed here. Furthermore, regardless of her level of relative evil to Drakken, doesn't a refusal to steal a wheelchair show that she can only be but so evil?
When it comes to the issue of Shego's time as the "Supreme One" the title that she assumed once she took over the world in the episode "A Sitch in Time", we are on much more solid ground to say that Shego is evil. Her time as Supreme One was seen to include mass propaganda, tight state control of all aspects of society, re-education camps, and even shock collars that would shock anyone who disobeyed Shego and her state. This is clearly evil and fascistic but it is important to point out that, despite her totalitarian rule, there is no evidence that Shego killed or disfigured anyone either in her effort to gain power or while she had it. Her society was totalitarian and oppressive for sure, but there still seemed to he a basic respect for human life, which can't be said for the majority of states in human history. Regardless, this clearly puts her in the evil camp.
The most interesting part of the question regards Shego's treatment of other people on a personal level. Her treatment of Drakken, for example, while often full of mockery and scorn, is one of mutual respect, loyalty, and, eventually, love. Shego also notably never kills anyone throughout the series, though you could argue that she tried. The only person that you could say that Shego tried to kill was Kim, but even here I doubt that she really was trying to kill her.
In several episodes Shego is seen fighting kim hand to hand and in some episodes, such as "Two to Tutor" is shown using devices or engaging in actions that genuinely put Kim in danger. In the previously mentioned episode, Shego turns on a giant mixing machine while Kim in inside it, forcing Kim to use her wits to escape. In another instance, in the episode "Kimitation Nation" Shego takes Kim's jetpack off of her while she is in mid air, which would have caused her to fall from a very high height, were it not for Kim's ability to hang on to Shego's blimp.
However, before we say that Shego tried to kill Kim and is therefore clearly evil, I believe a few facts should be examined. In the episode "Go Team Go" where Shego ultimately is able to gain control of the superpowers of all of her brothers as well as her own powers, she quickly has the powers taken away by a fairly normal kick to the staff Shego was holding. Drakken later let's Shego know that he believes that Kim easily was able to return her brothers powers to them… too easily. Shego doesn't deny this at first, but when Drakken persists, she nearly throws Drakken out of his ship. This shows that it is possible that Shego could be allowing some things to happen because she knows that nothing bad will come of it or because she doesn't have it in her to betray her family or kill someone, as Drakken alludes to. This is further evidenced by the fact that Drakken and Shego capture Kim numerous times throughout the series, such as in the episode "Bueno Nacho", and have her tied up or otherwise put in an indefensible position only to leave her there unharmed. Is it possible Shego only did things to Kim that she knew she could overcome? If Shego were really a murderer, surely she would have taken the opportunity to kill Kim right then and there no? Especially seeing how she had multiple opportunities to easily kill her and she never does.
Another piece of evidence to consider is that Shego seems to get less and less evil as the series goes on. Shego is shown to develop a mutual level of respect and even affection for Kim (and Drakken). In the episode "Stop Team Go" Shego becomes friends with Kim while she is under the control of mood changing device but, does tell Kim near the end of the episode that "She couldn't tell her this while she was evil but…" and is cut off when Ron accidentally hits her with a machine that reverts her back to "normal". While one could excuse this as Shego being under the influence of a device, the fact that Shego mentions that she had these feelings when she was evil does seem to suggest that she has felt some level of good will towards Kim for quite a while by Season 2. Shego is also seen in the same episode looking longingly at pictures of her and Kim while they were friends, suggesting that she still feels mutual affection for Kim even while "evil".
Shego also is shown to genuinely wish to protect Kim. In the episode "Aliens and Mad Dogs" Drakken replaces Shego with a powerful alien who puts Shego in chains. After the alien defeats Kim and appears to be preparing to kill her, Shego breaks out of her chains and blasts the alien with her powers, likely saving Kims life. Shego also contacts Kims friends and brothers who eventually allow Kim to defeat the alien. In the final episode of the series "Graduation" Shego and Drakken team up with Kim and Ron after Kim and Drakken are captured by aliens. Shego saves Ron and Kim's dad from an alien machine and flies her and Ron to the alien ship where they rescue Drakken and Kim. While Shego implies that she was only there for Drakken (whom she is revealed to have developed romantic feelings for) there is a scene where the alien ship is about to explode and Shego and Kim are left alone with only Shego having a jetpack. A jetpack is necessary to escape in this situation and Shego reaches out her hand to Kim to save her. Kim smiles and responds "See, you do care". Shego doesn't deny it.
In summary, while Shego is shown to commit evil deeds repeatedly, she is also shown to have respect for human life and is capable of genuinely caring about and even loving others. She saves Kim multiple times and refuses to kill her, even though it would have likely allowed her to accomplish her evil plans. Shego is not all that evil. She is, at most, moderately evil with a significant amount of good within her.
