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During the ancient times, there were many villains forged with the pen.
A mighty dragon for fairy tails.
For science fiction there were evil aliens.
Crime dramas had serial killers.
With each of the villains was the power to provide a worthy antagonist for our main characters
to overcome.
Yet all of them were deceived.
For another kind of villain was forged.
Deep in the author’s creative bankruptcy a new villain was slapped together.
Darkness spread over the land, but a last alliance of fans and writers created the Evil
Overlord List to stop lazy authors once and for all.
Victory was near.
Destroy it, JP!
It’s an overused archetype!
No.
One villain to rule them all.
Or at least one villain that requires no thought!
Dark Lords are perfect because their evil is so great that it fills the void where a
writer’s creativity should have gone!
If you can’t pull off substance then at least pull off style and Dark Lords are all
about style.
So let our Dark Lord’s reign of terror begin.
Unlike a lot of villains, our Dark Lord needs a backstory.
The audience should preferably be bludgeoned with this backstory in the prologue or at
least in a massive info-dump a few chapters in.
His rise to power should be near instantaneous.
Unlike a lot evil regimes in the real world, the Dark Lord doesn't have to rely on things
like political maneuvering, wealth, or infrastructure to build up his power base.
Nope.
All of those things are just handed to him.
1000 years of slumber?
The Dark Lord should just wake up and need no refresher on the world’s political landscape
or need to know who his greatest rivals or allies could be.
Diplomacy?
Ha.
Dark Lords don’t need that.
Having our dark lord take a dynamic approach in his grab for power might require actual
effort on the writer’s part and that will just get in the way of what’s really important
for the story and that’s designing the Dark Lord’s wardrobe!
Our Dark Lord should always wear heavy armor for maximum intimidation.
When in doubt, dress in black.
Add some red in there for a splash of color or maybe some glowing orange for a fire and
brimstone theme.
Don’t forget the shoulder spikes that somehow never get caught on anything.
Our Dark Lord needs either a face concealing helmet that permanently casts his visage in
shadow or a deformed ugly face purchased directly from the uncanny valley.
The Dark Lord’s exposed skin should be pale white like the color of a corpse.
Death and darkness motifs are a must.
Don’t forget to introduce his character by having him either kill one of his own loyal
minions or have him commit a terrible atrocity.
We want to make sure the audience knows he’s a bad guy just in case his outfit and deathly
complexion are too subtle a clue.
Once we’ve dressed up the Dark Lord and established that he’s evil, we are basically
done.
Good job, writer.
Pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
So long as he is sufficiently menacing and has a bunch of magic powers and minions to
do his bidding, a writer has all of the resources needed to challenge the heroes indefinitely.
Evil, menace, and minions, that’s what makes a good villain right?
It can’t be characterization.
Our Dark Lord may have escaped his 1000 year prison into an unfamiliar world so his first
goal should be to conquer, enslave, and/or destroy it.
It’s not like he’s had a 1000 years to be introspective and ask himself why exactly
does he want to take over the world?
I mean ruling the world is a big pain because you have to deal with everyone’s problems.
Also destroying the world presents its own problems.
But who cares?
The only character trait he needs is that he loves power because he... loves power.
Oh and he’s also evil.
Did I establish that earlier?
Better have the Dark Lord throw a couple more kittens into his morning omelette.
Wait.
What even is evil?
Oh no.
We can’t go there.
Philosophy is the mortal enemy of shallow power fantasy and wish fulfillment.
If we start exploring the very concept of evil, we might accidentally make the audience
think and then they’ll start having actual expectations for our story.
No.
Our Dark Lord is evil because he is pure evil and probably made of evil, because evil is
a substance now apparently.
No other attempts should be made to characterize the Dark Lord.
The last thing we want is to use the Dark Lord as a foil for the hero, using their differences
to highlight character traits.
Nor would you want to use their similarities to cast the hero into self doubt.
Even worse, use their similarities to make the Dark Lord doubt himself by having him
see the hero as someone he might have become if only he made a few different choices.
That small difference in choices could nag at him, driving him to envy, jealousy, and
ultimately regret that he found himself on such a dark path.
These conflicting emotions could lead to his hyper focus on the hero to the point where
he misses something essential that causes his ultimate downfall.
Nope.
That would never work.
Our Dark Lord can’t be killed by weapons, magic, starvation, disease, or any other conventional
method.
Only our heroes can defeat the Dark Lord with… um…
Whoops!
We accidentally made our dark lord invincible.
Oh crap!
Better make up some macguffins for the heroes to find.
The forces of good may have had a 1000 years to prepare for the Dark Lord’s return so
they will naturally make it as difficult as possible for the good guys to collect the
magical artifacts needed to stop the Dark Lord once and for all.
In fact, why didn’t they just use those artifacts to permanently stop the Dark Lord
the first time?
Eh, who cares.
If all else fails, just have the Dark Lord’s only weakness be a special magic sword that
only the chosen one can wield.
Keeping our Dark Lord’s weakness as vague as his personality is a must!
It’s not like a well written villain is all that important or that a hero is only
as good as the villain they overcome.
Villains that truly challenge the heroes and cast their very ideals into doubt, forcing
both internal and external conflict, are not nearly as interesting as bad guys who just
hang out in their fortress for 10 books occasionally sending out progressively stronger minions
to power level the heroes.
Even Dark Lords presented more like forces of nature can never be used as a seemingly
insurmountable obstacle, casting the heroes past the point of despair before they overcome
their doubts and fight on against hopeless odds.
Having a nuanced, powerful, competent, and charismatic Dark Lord who can only be defeated
through a combination of cunning and heroic determination will never be as awesome as
a Dark Lord the chosen one vaporizes in one blast from his super sword of evil smiting.
Well after destroying the macguffin that was keeping the Dark Lord Immortal, of course.
Many methods have been used over the centuries to combat evil; prayer, altruism, charity,
piety.
As it turns out, defeating the ultimate evil only requires breaking the right kind of jewelry.
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