Everything Everywhere All At Once Villain Explained: Origin, Powers & Plan

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Everything Everywhere All at Once.Everything Everywhere All at Once dives right into the multiverse and, with Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) being chosen to save it, she must defeat the villain first. That is easier said than done, however, since the film’s antagonist has quite a lot of power and a plan to go along with it. Like every villain, Everything Everywhere All at Once’s Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu) has her own origin story and reason for existing. Written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known collectively as the Daniels), Everything Everywhere All at Once sets up Jobu Tupaki, the Alpha-Verse iteration of Joy Wang, as the central villain who is supposedly ready to destroy the multiverse.

However, Jobu Tupaki is somewhat of a misunderstood antagonist, whose initial plans aren’t exactly what they seem, and whose real goal is revealed only near the Everything Everywhere All At Once ending. It’s what makes her a layered character and an intriguing nemesis to Evelyn throughout the film. In fact, for their respective roles as Evelyn and Joy Wang, Michelle Yeoh won her first Golden Globe Award, and both Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu are nominated for Oscars in 2023. As reflected in the Oscar buzz surrounding the movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once gives the character a very metaphysical but still grounded story. But what exactly are her abilities, and why did she create the black bagel at all? We break down the villain’s story, Joy’s rise to becoming Jobu Tupaki, the extent of her abilities, and how Evelyn saved the multiverse.

Related: Why Everything Everywhere All At Once Has Great Reviews & So Much Hype

How Joy Became Jobu Tupaki In Everything Everywhere All At Once

Jobu Tupaki grew up a bit differently from Joy. Because the Alpha-Verse has access to technology that allows people to jump from one universe to another by way of entering a doppelganger’s consciousness, Stephanie Hsu’s character in Everything Everywhere, Jobu Tupaki, was pushed to further her verse-jumping experimentation by the Alpha-Verse version of Evelyn. The dangers of verse-jumping so often, however, meant that she wasn’t allowed the time to heal between each run. It’s a great risk because the power to enter into another’s consciousness can pull someone out of their own grounded reality if they’re not careful.

Suffice it to say that the constant verse-jumping led Jobu Tupaki to split her consciousness across the multiverse. Alpha-Verse Joy became Jobu Tupaki because of her mother’s unrealistic expectations of her. Alpha-Verse Evelyn wanted her daughter to be the best at verse-jumping and the pressure got to be too much, changing Joy into Jobu Tupaki. She went from someone who was trying to please her mother and felt she had no control over her own life, to someone that controls the entirety of Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s multiverse.

Jobu Tupaki’s Powers Explained

Jobu Tupaki’s powers are vast. Because she’s been untethered from the grounding points of the multiverse and verse-jumping, Jobu Tupaki is able to tap into the consciousnesses of every version of herself from across the multiverse at will. She can bend reality how she pleases and doesn’t need any Alpha-Verse technology to do so. Jobu Tupaki can also see all of the vastness of the multiverse, which is why she believes that nothing in the world really matters.

She has a hold over the whole multiverse, controlling it in a way that no one has before with just the strength of her mind. Her mental split allowed her to gain access to parts previously unknown, and Jobu Tupaki now wields her abilities with such ease, going wherever she pleases and harming anyone who gets in her way or annoys her. Central to the absurdist symbolism in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Jobu Tupaki’s powers are so great that she is able to create something in the multiverse that was previously unimaginable: the everything bagel. Jobu Tupaki can also tap into others’ consciousness in the multiverse to cause chaos in their lives.

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Everything Everywhere All At Once Villain Plan: The Black Bagel Explained

At the center of the chaos is Everything Everywhere All at Once’s black bagel. It’s the key to Jobu Tupaki’s plans for the multiverse, as well as the reason why Alpha-Verse Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) recruits Evelyn to stop her daughter’s doppelgänger from doing something catastrophic. With Jobu Tupaki’s unlimited power, she decided to do the unthinkable. She put everything that she knew in the multiverse — every idea, thought, and thing she could think of — onto the bagel in a bid to see what would happen. Being able to see and jump across the multiverse wasn’t enough. The real meaning of Everything Everywhere All At Once is that life has no answer, but Jobu Tapaki wanted the answer to everything, especially the meaning of life. What she discovered is a black hole that would destroy anyone within its vicinity.

The black bagel, with everything on it, led Jobu Tupaki to realize that nothing actually matters in this world. But rather than destroy the multiverse, Jobu Tupaki was in search of someone who could understand her and the everything bagel’s existence. She didn’t want to wreck the balance of the multiverse; Jobu Tupaki wanted to succumb to the black bagel, to be sucked into its black hole because of the realization that absolutely nothing was worth fighting for because nothing mattered. Things were just going to happen, but they held no meaning in the world – not for her nor for anyone else in the Everything Everywhere All At Once cast. Jobu Tupaki wanted Evelyn to understand that in full before giving in to the bagel’s force, and hoped that Evelyn would talk her off the ledge somehow once she realized Jobu Tupaki’s intentions.

How Evelyn Defeated Jobu Tupaki & Saved Joy

Evelyn’s own fraught relationship with her daughter allowed her to understand Jobu Tupaki more fully. When presented with the black bagel and the idea that nothing really matters, Evelyn leans into this concept, wreaking havoc across the multiverse because, of course, the multiverse is a void and nothing is important, so why bother? Prior to accepting Jobu Tupaki’s nihilistic ideas, Evelyn — against Alpha-Verse Waymond’s advice — pushes her mind to the brink, splitting her consciousness to the point she was untethered from reality and could also control it. Thanks to every version of Waymond’s encouragement and deep kindness, however, Evelyn is able to realize that there is something worth fighting for after all. Similar to Scarlet Witch’s powers and arc in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Wangs hold the fate of the multiverse in their hands.

During Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s climax, Evelyn gets Jobu Tupaki to share this perspective and essentially calms and saves her from being sucked into the everything bagel’s black hole — through the love she has for her daughter, as well as certain conclusions she came to. Evelyn’s fight comes with the realization that she has also caused Joy a lot of pain. Her high expectations, the pressure to be one way and not another, and the need for perfection have eroded her relationship with Joy. But Evelyn overcomes all of this, learning that her daughter is worth fighting for and that her family is all that matters. Undoubtedly, Evelyn and Joy/Jobu Tupaki’s relationship is one of the reasons for the overwhelmingly positive reviews of Everything Everywhere All At Once. With love and an open heart, Evelyn bested Jobu Tupaki and brought Joy back from the brink of destruction, proving that at the heart of this absurd, high-concept sci-fi comedy is the love for one’s family.

Related: Everything Everywhere All At Once Proves The MCU Wastes The Multiverse

Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Villain Is Oscar-Nominated

Stephanie Hsu’s performance as Joy Wang/Jobu Tupaki in Everything Everywhere All At Once has led to her being nominated for the Oscar award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, while Michelle Yeoh is in contention for the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. For both Yeoh and Hsu — and most of the other recipients of Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s 11 Oscar nominations -— this is the first time for them to be nominated for an Academy Award. This includes Shirley Kurata, who crafted Jobu Tupaki’s outfits and is nominated for the 2023 Oscar Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design. Combined with Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s box office earnings, the highest out of any A24 movie, these potential Oscars show that audiences and critics alike are ready for highly complex villains like Joy Tupaki.

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