Yet the malevolent flightless bird with a chip on his plumage isn’t the sole antagonist of “Vengeance Most Fowl.”

Finally, the Espionage Act is a strict liability law, meaning that a defendant’s intentions — whether salutary, malevolent, purely selfish or some combination thereof — are entirely irrelevant.

If you book that room, the motel warns, you may be awakened by a mysterious “malevolent entity.”

The malevolent among us will surely take heed.

Behind the stage set of reality is a secret cabal of malevolent actors whose evil motives drive the world's seemingly random or explainable events.