Discussion Evil rulers in fantasy worlds

Some novels depict particularly twisted worlds, where most people in power are backstabbing immoral villains with no bottom line.

I've always felt somewhat uncomfortable when reading novels like that. I'm not complaining about the behaviour of such bastards, we all know that power corrupts people and humans have all kinds of twisted desires, so it's somewhat understandable and not surprising, but I don't think that world can be working this way.

A world with supernatural powers, can you even rule it if your faction is evil?

How can you actually sleep peacefully at night knowing that there are tons of guys with strange powers holding grudge against you or that even most of your relatives can backstab you given the opportunity?

It's usually described as 'ruling with power', but is it possible for such organisations/clans to survive for more than 2 generations without actually self-destructing? How can they fill the world this way?

Even if you yourself is stupidly powerful, enough to overwhelm and bully all others, can you guarantee that there will be no incidents in near future where you can suffer some loss of power or your condition/health will not suddenly deteriorate?

And even if you can, it's not like others can't take revenge on you in any other ways.

Can you protect your huge domain and your loved ones? It's not like you're a guard or a nanny who always follows others, right?

To think that you can completely uproot all opposition is incredibly naive. Sooner or later somebody will escape one way or another and then he will haunt you like a ghost. And even if you killed everyone who is against you, in such twisted world others will attack you even without a reason.

Take note that those filled with hate will not really hesitate to use suicide methods in order to achieve at least some kind of revenge. Nobody will care how 'rational' it is.

Such things are true to even most powerful people, what can a small fry village chief even rule over in such circumstances?

Novels like that are not rare, and even some parody-based comedy novels often laugh at how cliché it is for some random bullied village boy to suddenly be filled with 'protagonist energy', level-up against all odds and achieve revenge.

So what do you think?
Is it possible for evil factions to be a majority and rule the world?

I personally think that for such a world it's impossible to exist. Any culture will be destroyed sooner rather than later and most sentient beings will go extinct. Some barbaric demon world where all beings are born insanely powerful and simply hitting each other with a club is the only possible example I can think of.

 

Imagine an organization that sells public influence, therefore the rulers will keep them on their good side
If they provide money laundry services the rich will protect them
With this kind of backing you could openly rape kids and no one would do anything, thats the catholic church
If we have IRL examples i dont see why not a fantasy version, as long as people have something to gain they will protect the system

 

The short answer is that you aren't evil to everybody and try to control those close to you as much as possible.

The long answer is that it's just like any other dictatorship. CGPGrey has some great videos about it.
Video 1: Rules for Rulers
Video 2: Death and Dynasties

 

Evil and/or unscrupulous people that have power can more easily obtain a position of power and with that build up a strong foundation for their descendants. Also, keep in mind that most likely there is a balance in the region. Powers will scheme and fight each other to grow their power but they will always have to share thatpower with equally powerful parties. And if the balance collapses, chaos ensues for a while until a new set of evil/unscrupulous/powerful factions emerge and defacto restore the status quo.

Also, "good" or "noble" organisations are a common trope, but how many of them are actually fully through and through 100% positive karma good? You really can't have (absolute) power together with absolute goodness.

Aha, but what about those that seek power to do good? Well, the other side of the coin is that they probably inflict as much (or more) harm as they give out.

 

There is a saying in Chinese novels, "There are no eternal allies and enemies, only eternal interests." It's based on a speech by former Prime Minister Henry Palmerstone in the British Parliament in 1848, the full quote is as follows: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

This is what most Asian government/faction fiction is themed around, be it CH, KR, or JP. Even in the families/clans where your own father could stab you in the heart, you're expected to put the interests of the family ahead of yourself. This is carried over to the businesses and organizations, then on up to the countries.

A true Evil faction would operate off of this concept. You pay and provide resources, you'll get loyalty. If someone provides a more reliable, stable, and better option then they'll go after it. As a ruler, you'd be the ultimate CEO and doing cost-benefit analysis to ensure that your pay and benefits trump everyone.

In addition to that, you'd of course need to be the strongest. Power comes in many forms, but fame, personal, and wealth would be your main sources since lended/given power in the form of employees/allies are less reliable if interests don't align. Your reputation would solve most issues if you're fair and solve all dissenters quietly, along with the occasional public skin-peeling torture before death to the heinous ones that no one would really care to miss. Wealth is covered above.

Personal power is where your main safety as a ruler lies. If you're able to live through poisonings during meals and stabbings in the chest or back during the night, your reign will likely go far. Your paid guard can handle most everything else during the day, and you only need to survive long enough for one to hear the commotion during the night. However, if you are durable enough, fast enough, or strong enough to handle all comers that don't care about benefiting from common interests then that's a major bonus.

 

All your objections also apply to a good ruler though. Kings and queens all have powerful enemies, whether good or bad. Besides, in most fantasy worlds weak people that the evil ruler opresses don't suddenly get stronger. It's usually only the MC who gets some convenient power up and strike back.

 

Doesn't all this entirely depend on the specific magic system used?
Sure, superpowers could present a constant source of danger, but it could just as well be used for security.
That said a lot of stories focus too much on absolutely incompetent villains, to the point that you wonder how they could ever gain/maintain a position of power.
That happens both in fantasy and non-fantasy though, I don't think the presence of magic necessarily changes much in terms of power dynamics.

 

A lot depends on the nature of the evil empire. These have existed in all sorts of variation in human history so I don't see why it'd be hard for them to exist in fictional stories. The paranoid dictator is almost a cliche at this point because it's common for them to have to be wary of all the potential enemies around them. Also a nation being potentially unstable has been a part of human society for eons. One good example of this is Rome where there would be periods when the emperor would only last a year or two. Through all this the Roman Empire would still survive and be strong(-ish) for hundreds of years.

 

Yep, there's a big difference between being evil and being stupid. If you don't want to get stabbed in the back, you have to know who to be an asshat to and who to rope in with benefits (or at least with the carrot and the stick).

Either way, there's no escaping the threat of retaliation. If you're going to make people suffer, you always have to be prepared for the possibility that they will try and potentially manage to return the favour. There's a reason why cruel rulers throughout history have a tendency to meet cruel fates.

 

Not even a year in some cases, in 69 AD Rome had 4 emperors in succession, and that is before the empire had even reached it's peak.

 

notion of nation aka culture and how to handle it
dictator
the church during dark ages and before renaissance
manipulate population by fear and stuff~ may involve hocus pocus stuff hmm superstition or something like that~ or charismatic leader that really good talker plus short term solution~
the raise of nazi party, germany before ww 2
emperor of japan after meiji restoration, during ww 2
raise of napoleon bonarte
oh almost forget North Korea

see? it fall to manipulation of masses~
on fiction that quite interesting is Demon King that rule da demon, not the kind of demon is tribe just like other race but one that have concept demon king born from negative emotion~

 

North Korea seems pretty much in the Kim family hands. Whether it can go to a 4th generation is to be seen.

 

No offense but this kind of thinking is so naive lol. A supernatural world with superpowered creatures gives you all the more reason to become evil. It's a eat-or-be-eaten world out there.
If it already happens in real life then what difference would a parallel world could be? Unless the people living in that fantasy world have no emotions, no desires, no intelligience, etc, how can you be so sure that greed won't manifest in a person?
You probably think the world is black and white. With "good" guys being truly 'good' and "evil"guys being truly 'evil'. No. It doesn't work that way. Even the most "good" rulers can do evil deeds sometimes, no matter if the reason was justifiable or not.

 

Reality suggests that the answer to this question is, "Yes".

 

Well, it depends on how absolutely overpowered the evil ruler is, like...

If the ruler can live pretty much eternally, has a skin tough enough that even the sharpest blade can't even scratch, is strong enough to topple a castle with their bare hands, is almost immune to any form of offensive magic, and has enough magical firepower to destroy a whole country by themselves... Then I'd say that ruler can be as evil as they want and nobody will be able to do anything about it.

Like, at the end of the day, their power is just so so so sooooooo high above when compared to everyone else, that the world just has to bow down to the evil villain, there is just no way around it, the guy is just waaaaaaaay too OP, to the point nobody can hope to put a fight against him.

I'm reminded of Eragon for one, which isn't exactly a super evil dictatorship, but... In any case, after a big rebellion, war, fight against generals and what not, they finally reach Galbatorix, the big bad, they get ready for the final battle and... Just find out that the guy is pretty much invincible. Like... It was easy to feel the despair of the characters. That basically everything they had done in the past 4 books had been basically worthless because they never had any chance against Galbatorix to begin with.
... Though of course, they still end up winning, but not through their power, but by making use of the sorrow of the dragons and what not, which was basically a stroke of pure luck that pretty much nobody could have seen coming.

Another example is Shaman King, where Hao is like... The super duper big bad... And like... He doesn't rule the world yet, but he'll soon rule it, and he is totally invincible... Even after the Main Characters used their Saiyan-like powers to grow stronger over and over again by reviving, their power still didn't get even close to Hao's... He was just too strong. Nobody could beat him. If he wanted to dominate the world, he would, and nobody would be able to do a thing about it... At that point, it doesn't really matter how he rules, really. He can just do whatever he wants.
... Well, they won by convincing Hao to stop being evil, since they knew they had no way of winning in an actual fight.

So like... Well, if you make your big bad strong enough... Then they can totally rule by being as evil as they want, they don't need to care about outside threats because they are the very definition of OPness and stuff~