How Can We Be A Good Evil Overlord?
If you’re an evil overlord, the least you can do: destroy everyone. But if you’re a good evil overlord, you wouldn’t fly into a rage and destroy a messenger who brings you bad news simply to illustrate how evil you are. Good messengers are hard to come by. Also, you’ll need to know if people fear you, and you need people to know that they should fear you. Often, fear in of itself is the perfect weapon for mass destruction. As the supreme evil overlord, there is no need for you to constantly exert strength in setting foot on yet another town and breathe fire into them. Do it once or twice and get the messenger to spread the word.
Before you know it, you’ve successfully instilled fear of how mighty you are.
This is the power of a great story. A great story is true. Even though it may not be factual to a large extent, it is relentlessly consistent and authentic. As the evil overlord, you don’t need to clear out most or all parts of the world, you simply need to eradicate some. You may miss out bits and pieces here and there, but the constant needs to remain. The constant points at how resolute and aggressive you are as an evil overlord. This way, the story makes a promise. It is the promise of how bold and audacious you are in conquering not one town or a couple of them, but the entire world.
The promise needs to be exceptional if not you’re just gonna be a minion not worth listening to.
Ironically, there is a need for people to trust that you’re the mighty evil overlord too. You need to earn the credibility to tell the story. It doesn’t matter how evil or vile you may be if people are simply gonna diss you off as a fake n00b, mythlike evil overlord. But you don’t want to spell out all details of your story, because there is a tendency for the villagers to learn your moves and potentially counter you. You want to be subtle with your story. The fewer details you spell out, the more powerful your story becomes. Allow the villagers to draw their own conclusions with the hearsay of the messenger.
It doesn’t matter whether it is word on the street or on a book as long as it accurately depicts how ruthless you are as an evil overlord.
As much as possible, if you intend to trash talk before annihilating the entire town, be considerate especially in the usage of analogies. Even though analogies are often used to teach abstract concepts to prospects (or poor villagers in this case), please bear in mind that some people aren’t wired that way. Sure, your newly gained level 100 revolutionary fire-breathing technique may be as fiery as the Mala Xiang Guo store across my home, but I don’t eat Mala. So, I’ll never have a taste of how it feels like to burn in what you loosely term as hell. Whatever comes out from your mouth (and hopefully from your heart too if you have one) needs to be compatible with my world view. Your story needs to agree with what I already believe in so that I can feel secure and actually know/be reminded of how intimidating of an evil overlord you are.
You will send chills down my spine if you were to tell me that your new fire-breathing technique is as repulsing as pearls on pizza. I will shun you to the ends of the world.
Don’t be a normal evil overlord. In a world filled with many evil overlords, it is difficult to differentiate you among others. Try mattress shopping (if evil overlords actually sleep on a mattress or sleep at all) and you’ll understand what I mean. It is an entire room filled with virtually identically objects that vary in price by as much as three times. While we can lie on any of them, there is a distinct difference between lying down on a mattress for a couple of minutes in comparison to sleeping on one over a decade. How are you gonna convince me that I’m gonna sleep for a very, very long time, my dear good evil overlord?
