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What are some of the worst ancient villains?

What do Dark Lords and super-villains actually want?

  • Fantasy series like LOTR and Harry Potter are usually very vague about what exactly the various "Dark Lord" type figures would do if they actually won, or why they want to rule the world at all.  Comic book super villains are the same. The only exception seems to be the Joker in Batman, who admits he's just in it for the chaos and that like a dog chasing a mail truck, he'd have no idea what to do if he actually caught one. So what do you think Dark Lords etc. ACTUALLY want? Looking for reasoned speculation here. Bonus points if you can answer without referencing Hitler or Nazism (i.e. break Godwin's law if you can).

  • Answer:

    Finding the goals of a villain is easy. Just look at the philosophy and goals of the hero they strive against and make a little tweak somewhere. It's no mistake that superheroes each have a coterie of enemies who are indelibly "theirs". You mentioned The Joker, but if you think about the rogues gallery of Batman's traditional foes you'll see that every one of them is deeply affected by madness, and that their supervillain persona is a reflection of some severe past trauma. This madness and lack of self-control contrasts directly with Batman, whose entire existence is a reaction to his own trauma and an attempt to defeat madness, both inside himself and in the world around him. Other examples of this principle are easy to find. Here are a few: The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, despite their over-the-top name, is in effect a reaction to a society that treats mutants with racism and fear. They're a revolutionary terrorist organization determined to enforce mutant rights at the point of a sword. In opposition to them, the X-Men try to work nonviolently with the existing system by helping people and trying to change political and public opinion. This opposition stems from the original split between Charles Xavier and Magneto, who used to be close friends. The entire saga of the X-Men can be viewed as an examination of the ways a society can try to affect change and the different paths a single man can take. It's no mistake that X-Men #1 was released in 1963. Spiderman is almost totemic, as he has been imbued with a piece of nature's primal power. He has learned through personal tragedy that "with great power comes great responsibility" and has dedicated his life to not allowing the same tragedy to happen again. His enemies, unsurprisingly, are also totemic, representing animals (The Vulture, Doc Oc), forces of nature (Sandman), or sometimes even emotions (such as the Hobgoblin's representation of fear). Each of these villains has experienced some sort of severe personal tragedy and has made the opposite decision from that of Peter Parker: that the world must be made to pay for the pain inflicted on them. The Fantastic Four represent the power of science and the human intellect to better the human condition when guided by a moral compass and human connection. They're a tight-knit family who backstop one another's decisions and act more righteously as a whole than they would as individuals. Dr. Doom is another brilliant scientist, but one who is stands alone and who uses the power of his intellect and science to enslave an entire country and from there attempts to enforce his will through the corruption of science and a (literal) iron fist. Superman is a stranger in a strange land, one whose vast power makes him superior in many ways to those around him. Rather than holding himself apart he attempts to learn about humans, to help them, and to make himself a part of society. Lex Luthor is brilliant, but has no superpowers. He's much less "special" than Superman. His arrogance rages against the power of Superman's inherent goodness. I won't bore you with too many more examples, but they continue. Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk...each one is opposed by villains who act as reflections. They either have the same goals as heroes but a very different concept of how to achieve those goals, or they have parted ways at some point in the past, or they have chosen different ways that a person might react to similar traumas or challenges. While there are certainly exceptions in the world most comics exist as the examination of these fractured archetypes. The villain can be viewed as an explicit counterpoint to the hero's experience and argument. This is very easy to demonstrate in comics, but I think it also holds true in most of the literature you're asking about. Voldemort was a lonely, outcast boy who learned that he held great power, just like Harry Potter. How they then approached the challenges in their lives, and the consequences of those decisions, are what the series of books is all about. Gandalf and Sauron are both Maia created at the beginning of the world, but Sauron was tempted and corrupted, while Gandalf remained pure.

Ian Peters-Campbell at Quora Visit the source

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It is unfair to generalize this answer to apply equally to all super villains. At the the lowest end of the spectrum, the villians are driven by a simplistic, petty and selfish goal - often related to money or power. Many of the truths that we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. The absolute best super villains are complex and layered visionaries. They are not after some short term goal, but instead from their point of view, they are changing the world in a way that they want to correct what they see wrong about it, they aren't just tempted or corrupted by power in some simplistic way. They have a cause and a purpose. Conflict, unorthodox thinking and complexity fused together into one person are what I'd consider the key ingredients of the best villains. Note: Honestly, this question would be much better split into separate questions each focused on a specific legendary super villain, but since it isn't, I'll pick an example and run with it. Consider for example Darth Vader. He lost his wife and his family, and from his point of view, he was left for dead by his mentor. At the same time, he survived and kept himself alive. What did he want ? A number of things ( Note a lot of this is not explained in detail in the movies, so I suggest reading [1]) He wanted revenge against the Jedi order who he blamed for his loss. He wanted to keep himself sane, to cope with the pain he was suffering from, after having found love so strong and having lost it. He wanted something that would give what was left of his life purpose, and simultaneously pay his debt to the person who saved him and master the true powers of the dark side from the Emperor. He wanted to survive and live with what was left of his body, thus, pursuant to this, he wanted to fuel his anger to call upon powers of the dark side to let him cope. Other than resting in his meditation chamber, Vader used to destroy a lot of training droids purely for fueling his hatred simply because his hatred was a painkiller for him. After he discovered his son was still alive, things got a bit more complicated for him and changed everything. On one hand, he wanted to keep up the ruse that it was business as usual for him to deal with his son, on the other hand, he was torn between his feelings. What was left of his humanity wanted to have a semblance of a normal parental relationship with his offspring. He wanted his son to become as powerful as him, and from his perspective, turning him to the dark side was the only way to achieve it. The Sith Lord in him wanted to find a new apprentice, and in direct conflict with his humanity, wanted to test if the apprentice was worthy. The self preservationist in him wanted to recruit Luke and overthrow the emperor, because he knew as per the rules of the Sith order, there could be only two, and the Emperor had his eyes on Luke as a potential apprentice as well. The leader in him wanted to wanted to dethrone the Emperor, and lead the empire in his own way, as he realized given the above, there wasn't going to be room for both the Emperor and him. However, despite all these conflicts, he was one person, and came off as someone with a seemingly coherent purely destructive exterior with a singular purpose - and it is this duality of being layered while coming off as a senseless bad guy that made him truly great. [1] "Shadows of the Empire" is a rare glimpse into the internal feelings of Vader between Episodes V and VI.

Kartik Ayyar

LOTR isn't vague about this at all. The whole nature of the dark power in Middle-Earth is that it seeks to pervert and enslave. Sauron and his original (far more scary ) master Morgoth were offended by the harmony (quite literally in Morgoth's case) of creation. They believed they should be first among equals and were willing to destroy everything to meet their need. Had they won, they would have taken the role of God of all creation and satisfied their need for preeminence. Some people satisfy god-complexes by becoming surgeons, I suppose others do it by becoming Dark Lords :)

Kavinay Kishor

Re: Harry Potter, Voldemort's goal is to conquer death i.e. become immortal (and, subsequently, all-powerful). First he uses Horcruxes, then he tries Elixir of Life, then he uses Harry's blood to create his body, then ultimately he searches for the Deathly Hallows.

Jyll Saskin Gales

They want whatever we are unwilling to own wanting. Superheroes are what we want to imagine ourselves as: powerful, admirable, successful. Super villians are what we want to disown: often ambition, always the desire to hurt. Superheroes are paragons of violence who ostensibly love peace, honorable killers. They are celebrities who would really rather be home on the farm, just like all those poor movie stars you read about who would rather be spending time with family than flying in private jets. Superheroes didn't ASK to be so much more powerful and accomplished than everyone else: really, it's a burden, as they will tell you at length. In short, a super villian is someone who kills like a superhero and achieves fame and power like a superhero, but is so depraved as to choose their path.

Sam Penrose

Well, interestingly, this is exactly what was parodied in the movie 'Megamind' - Megamind defeats and kills the superhero Metroman (the stereotypical superhero), only to realize that there is no meaning to life any more. He then goes on to recreate a superhero just so that life gets interesting again. Supervillains, as the movie poked fun at, had no purpose but to try to get the better of superheroes. While this comes across as satirically funny, I don't believe most villains in popular culture have a great philosophical or intellectual aim in life. A lot thus depends on the kind of a comic/movie-universe you are looking at to find what the villain really wants. Most of the stories have shallow good v/s evil story-lines, and only recently have the stories started getting any deeper philosophically and psychologically. Even Joker for example wasn't always into the chaos/social experiment scene - go back to the Batman in the 60s, and it was all simplistic pow-baam-poof good v/s evil drab. In slightly deeper storylines however, villains actually do have some underlying motivations as to why they wish to gain power and rule the world (followed by hysterical laughter - I prefer the way Skeletor laughs). Lex Luthor is arrogant, Joker is scientific,psychotic and philosophical, Voldemort wants to triumph over the final obstacle of death, Cobra Commander is uhmm - never mind. Above all, everybody is a control freak. That's what everybody in real life is anyway - we all want a degree of control over our lives. The degree in their case though, is a bit too obtuse. The idea is to run life the way they want it to run, without anybody impeding on their sense of control. That is in most cases the guiding motivation.

Himanshu Bhandoh

The whole of mankind's mythology is filled with stories about how power corrupts man. The super villains you describe are meant to portray the ultimate end state of total power as total corruption of the soul. Loss of humanity, unending greed, unquenchable desire for more and more power just for the sake of power itself. Due to power having taken there humanity from them they are seldom fleshed out as characters because that would humanize them.

Gary Stein

To crush their enemies, to drive them before them, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

Robert George

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