Kefka from Final Fantasy VI. After ruining the world he could have wiped out all of humanity but he chose to let the smaller cities live so they could repopulate the world so that he could kill more people. If he killed everyone all at once there would be no one left to kill. There's no sympathetic gray area here. He's just pure evil.

I've been a part of many discussions about survival horror games for decades and I've never once seen anyone say survival horror can't be linear.

I remember the dream sequence in Exorcist 3 feeling like an actual dream in how everyone behaves weird but at the time you don't think it's weird until after you wake up.

"Ain't gonna be no crumpets and tea!"