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There are subjectives, and then there are these. While you may believe a work fits here, and you might be right, people tend to have rather vocal, differing opinions about this subject.
Please keep these off of the work's page.

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Lawful Evil

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Character Alignment
Lawful Good | Neutral Good | Chaotic Good
Lawful Neutral | True Neutral | Chaotic Neutral
Lawful Evil | Neutral Evil | Chaotic Evil

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lawful_evil_upgrade.png
Bringing order to the galaxy,
even if we have to choke it to death.

"Peace through tyranny."
— Megatron, Transformers

The Dungeons & Dragons Character Alignment system originally defined characters' moral dispositions only on a Law/Chaos axis, with Law seen as usually involving moral goodness, and Chaos, evil. Eventually, Good/Evil was introduced as a separate parameter. One reason for this was the slightly odd but not all that rare case of characters who are clearly evil, but nevertheless organised, consistent, rule-abiding, or maybe even trustworthy and reasonable in their own limited way — in other words, Lawful Evil.

A Lawful Evil character is an evil character who either tries to impose or uphold a lawful system on others without regard for their wishes, and/or adheres to a particular code. They believe in order, but mostly because they believe it is the best way of realizing their evil wishes. They will obey the letter of the law, but not the spirit, and are usually very careful about giving their word. However, there is also the Knight Templar variant, who believes their rules actually make them the good guy — when they and their rules have in truth ended up at the lower end of the slippery slope to evil and tyranny.

Though Lawful Evil characters are often found in charge, these characters also make good henchmen or mooks. Though they lack any moral scruples that may impair their work, a cautious villain will find they respond well to concepts like "loyalty", "duty" and "honour". The caution, however, should be remembered, as these characters also respond poorly to Bad Bosses and Dirty Cowards,note  as well as simple incompetence that could lead them to deciding to either find a more worthy master, or take over "for the good of the cause".

Lawful Evil allows for a wide spectrum of character types to work with. Neutral Evil characters tend towards It's All About Me and Lack of Empathy for anyone else being willing to do anything to achieve, what will usually be, completely personal or selfish ends that at best would only incidentally benefit others. Chaotic Evil is even harder to portray as anything remotely sympathetic because even if they have a Freudian Excuse, they usually go so far off the deep end straight into the Moral Event Horizon territory that Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse. Lawful Evil on the other hand allows for many more facets with some interesting types being the Noble Demon who will fight honorably, Affably Evil characters who believe that doing bad things will lead to a better outcome, an Anti-Villain who believes that the cost of their morally questionable actions is worth the benefits to others with all of these types usually believing Even Evil Has Standards.

Lawful Evil tends to be the hardest type of evil to get rid of, especially when it's working within an established system. If the system itself is evil, then it's Inherent in the System, and thus the evil parts can't be changed without major upheaval or the complete destruction of the system. If the system is being used by evil individuals, that's even worse, as these types often perpetrate Loophole Abuse combined with Rules Lawyering to make it impossible to separate where the legal parts end and the illegal parts begin. If legally challenged, the Lawful Evil types will employ the most finely-tuned and detailed legal arguments you've ever heard to counter your loopholes, or even create Legalized Evil to specifically permit their brand of evil by law. Lastly, if the evil isn't part of a large system but rather as a group, it's still difficult to stop; those that are part of the group are generally doing it by following an ideal, and You Cannot Kill An Idea. So even if the current version of the group is stopped, it may not prevent a new version following the same ideals from emerging later on down the road.

Lawful Evil usually comes in at least three types:

  • Lawful over Evil — This type uses Evil means to achieve Lawful ends. Essentially, any villain who would consider their goals to be Lawful Neutral or Lawful Good, but who is in practice too ruthless or extreme to qualify. They may honestly believe that an orderly society or way of living is the best, but they are ruthless or cruel enough to take a Necessarily Evil approach to enforcing them. This type can be found in- and sometimes even be sincerely loyal to- any kind of society, including Neutral and Good aligned ones; the problem is, they are prepared to commit evil actions for it, and are prone to invoke Moral Myopia or A Million Is a Statistic to justify their deeds.
  • Evil Over Lawful — This type uses Lawful means to achieve Evil ends. A monster with a rigid Code of Honour, or a Card-Carrying Villain who follows a strict set of rules. This is the kind of villain who follows an orderly way of living because they think that this is the best way to achieve their evil desires or goals — For the Evulz with discipline. Some are merely selfish, while others are vengeful, cruel, power-hungry or outright sadistic, with Lawful variants of Dystopia Justifies the Means often falling into this type, but they all prefer to go about their villainy in an orderly manner or with some sort of excuse. They differ from Neutral Evil in that the latter might obey some rules out of convenience or pragmatism, while this type does so out of genuine, if self-serving commitment.
  • Balance Seeker — This type seeks a balance between Lawful and Evil, usually an Evil character who uses "Lawful" as a substitute for "Good". This type likes to dissociate their Evil motives and deeds from the other aspects of their life, using Lawful codes of conduct or honour to achieve this. This category usually covers the more Lawful examples of the Professional Killer, Just Following Orders, the family values and churchgoing villains, Evil Parents Want Good Kids etc. Organised crime tends to default as this category (unless they enjoy being evil too much), as do most who follow a Lawful Evil religion or god (and sometimes those gods themselves), and are often villains who (sincerely) use Nothing Personal as an excuse for their behaviour. They usually do not see themselves as "good" or "evil", except perhaps in the technical sense, but may use Even Evil Has Standards as an excuse for their various misdeeds.

All variants are likely to take advantage of Questionable Consent, pushing people into "agreements" and then pushing them to uphold their end of the "bargain".

Lawful Evil characters may not be motivated by anything but a paycheck. Many soldiers and henchmen working for an evil government or ruler fall into the "lawful evil" category by default. Being a genuinely committed member of a military organization makes one lawful by default, and if the government or ruler one works for is evil, then one naturally falls into the category of "lawful evil."

If you have a difficulty deciding which alignment an evil-aligned character belongs to, the main difference between Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil is not their devotion to their evil wishes, but the methods they believe are best to realize it:

  • Even though there are some situations where they can't always use this method, Lawful Evil characters believe the best way is to have a specific, strict code of conduct, whether self-imposed or codified as a law. Their first impulse when making a moral decision is to refer back to this code; those with externally imposed systems (codes of laws, hierarchies, etc.) will try to work within the system when those systems go wrong. Depending on whether they are more Lawful or more Evil, they will either refuse to break the code even though it would hurt their evil objectives, or else break it only very reluctantly, and only when it would hurt their evil objectives if they kept their code.
  • Neutral Evil characters are indifferent to Order Versus Chaos, and their only interest is in realizing their evil wishes. They will use whatever means will help in realizing their evil wishes, whether that means tearing down a code of laws, following a code of laws, creating an orderly society, causing the breakdown of justice, or staying away from society altogether. Their only goal is to realize their evil wishes, full stop.
  • Most Chaotic Evil characters don't constantly break the law, but they cannot see much value in laws that do not function solely to their depraved objectives. They believe that their own evil impulses are their best guides, and that tying themselves to any given code of conduct would be limiting their own ability to realize their depraved wishes. They do not get along with anyone who tries to instill any kind of order over the Chaotic Evil character, believing these people to be restricting their freedom; Chaotic Evil characters often focus very strongly on their own individual rights and freedoms, and will strongly resist any form of oppression of themselves.

In a nutshell, these are a variety of evil characters who don't care if what they do is "heinous" or "horrible", but who will always follow certain rules.

Such characters are, for example:

A warlord who would kill anyone who threatens him — and, let's say, would always spare the enemies that can serve him; or someone who believes in playing by the story conventions; or a villain whose word is absolutely binding but would still kill a pregnant woman; or any kind of evil character that might commit mass genocide but for some reason Will Not Tell a Lie. Or a character who does, without flinching, anything their master orders them to do, anything, because their one rule is absolute obedience. A Lawful Evil character can also be an Omnicidal Maniac just as easily as Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil can be; in such cases, they usually either hold Fantastic Racism towards all other living beings or they wish to impose a new order by annihilating everything and starting from scratch.

Remember, being Lawful does not imply at all that you have any moral standards, and any one of these character archetypes have just as much potential as a Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil character to be truly despicable. Being Lawful may involve some kind of ethical values or moral codes, but they're more about abstract rules than actually caring about other people; alternatively, a lawful character may work within and abuse the rules. Lawful Evil is not always the "nicest" of the Evil alignments, though in individual cases the Lawfulness may make for a Noble Demon. It is just the most consistent and orderly. In short, an evil character who feels that the rules is what gives them strength or superiority. This includes upholding Evil as an ideal in and of itself, coupled with a sense of duty to promote it wherever possible and by any means. They're likely to have standards, but they're just as likely to have a warped moral code regardless. Notably, Hextor, the iconic god of Lawful Evil in Dungeons & Dragons is not sympathetic in the slightest. That being said, many, perhaps most evil characters who end up siding with heroes permanently without undergoing a Heel–Face Turn tend to be Lawful Evil, as they are the most likely of the evil alignments to work within the system; type 1s are particularly prone to this, due to their views on order.

Finally, it should be remembered that while many Lawful Evil types may value the law and may obey it in many cases, being Lawful Evil does not necessarily mean that the character will necessarily obey the actual laws of the land — many of them are fully prepared to commit illegal acts or to twist the laws to their own purposes, and even to annihilate entire systems or civilizations. Some may justify this by saying they are trying to create a superior lawful society; others may assume that their own personal code supersedes any loyalty to the authority of mere mortals; others still may think that the only law they obey is that of their own masters. No Lawful alignment is necessarily inclined to obey every law or any law.

See Also: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil

Lawful Evil type typically includes:

Examples

When dealing with the examples of specific characters, remember that assigning an alignment to a character who doesn't come with one is pretty YMMV. If you've got a problem with a character being listed here, it probably belongs on the discussion page. There will be no Real Life examples under any circumstances; it just invites an Edit War. Plus, real people are far too complex and multi-dimensional to really be classified by such a straightforward alignment system.

On works pages: Character Alignment is only to be used in works where it is canonical, and only for characters who have alignments in-story. There is to be no arguing over canonical alignments, and no Real Life examples, ever. noreallife

Several sections have been separated into their own pages due to their size:

    open/close all folders 

    Comic Books 
  • Apocalypse, one of the X-Men's more dangerous foes, is this, although he does not seem to be bound by anything approaching the morality of mortals. His envisioned victory involves endless direct Social Darwinist competition between the strongest creatures on Earth, with himself as the projected ultimate victor. It's telling that in many future dystopias, his only servants are beings who have been forcibly transmuted into his slaves or robots.
  • Doctor Doom seeks to Take Over the World to bring it order and peace, rules his home country as either a benevolent but iron-fisted despot or a crazed megalomaniac Depending on the Writer, and is generally loyal to the letter of his oaths and his personal code. His need for domination over others is so all-consuming it makes him Immune to Mind Control because he will not accept any position but absolute superiority.
  • Elseworld Kryptonian Gar-El arrived on Earth in the 18th century and allied himself with the British king, aiding him in stopping The American Revolution and then taking over the world with all the powers of Superman. He claimed that he "brought peace, imposed order", and wasn't above executing his own half-human progeny for treasonous thoughts against his rule.
  • Magneto, when he's written as a villain, is a classic example, seeking world domination to feed his own ego but also and more importantly to safeguard the future of the mutant race, and protecting it from the very real threat of genocidal anti-mutant prejudice. His principal foes are the X-Men but he generally regards them and most other superheroes as worthy of respect, even non-mutant ones, and (Grant Morrison aside) there are several lines he absolutely will not even think of crossing. His Ultimate incarnation is also this, though he evidently doesn't consider humans or anyone in his way to matter much in his personal, amoral ethical code.
  • Iron Man villain the Mandarin is an Evil Overlord through and through. On one occasion, he destroyed one of his martial arts students for cheating by trying to drug him in a training session.
  • The DCU's uber-Big Bad Darkseid is Lawful Evil in its purest form. His goal is to rule the entire universe by finding the Anti-Life Equation, which would destroy the free will of everyone except him. One blogger called him "the god of fascism," and although it's not mentioned in the comics very often, he is the god of tyranny.
  • Dimension Lord Dread Dormammu, despite his title of Lord of Chaos, has a twisted sense of fair play and honor, and displays consistent behavior in attempting to conquer Earth's dimension. As Doctor Strange mentions "Spontaneity is something Dormammu cannot fathom. Like all tyrants, his mind is rigid...he follows set formulas."
  • Zarda from Supreme Power is the team Sociopathic Hero. She kills those in her way without hesitation, but she is committed to the goal of world domination. But for that to happen, she needs Hyperion to realize it, so she stays with the Squadron and goes on missions where her powers and brutality are best served: warzones. It was during one of these incidents that she approved of a Pay Evil unto Evil incident involving an abused girl taking revenge on her tormentors.
  • Likewise, The Punisher often slides into this alignment, Depending on the Writer. He is sometimes depicted as a guy who simply enjoys killing, and targets criminals simply to give himself a twisted form of self-justification. He is always depicted as a guy driven by a desire for personal revenge, and frequently tortures the perp in various especially brutal ways. The fact that most of the criminals he does this to are usually portrayed as worse (or just as bad) is the only thing that might get him off of this.
  • Green Lantern:
    • Former Green Lantern Sinestro seeks to bring order to the universe. And what better way to do that than through fear?
    • The Guardians of the Universe have been on a gradual slide to this in recent issues. Finally culminating in bringing order to the universe by just replacing everyone in it with their Third Army in an Assimilation Plot.
  • Spider-Man villain Knight of the super-villain duo, Knight and Fog, is certainly this. He is a contract killer, but never kills unless he is specifically ordered to. Unlike his Chaotic Evil partner, Fog, he never gains any pleasure from torturing his victims before dispatching them.
  • The Adversary, also known as Gepetto from Fables. He truly believes that his Empire is for the good of all, citing the necessity of murdering millions to provide prosperity to billions.
  • The One Sith from Star Wars: Legacy. Their goal is galactic peace and order- as enforced by a galaxy-spanning totalitarian dictatorship. They do seem to genuinely believe their rhetoric and are loyal to each other, the one betrayal done because they became a liability to their greater goal. But don't think for a minute they won't commit as many atrocities as previous Sith Orders in pursuit of their goal.
  • Korvac during The Korvac Saga of The Avengers appears to be Lawful Evil. Before taking godhood, he sought to build a paradise planet. But after having taken godhood, he carefully and methodically planned to take over the universe to make it one of a perfect order. He also killed anyone who found out the truth about him, but stated that it is necessary and that he regrets doing it. Moondragon mistook him for Lawful Good during a mindscan, but his evil showed itself in a What If? comic.
  • Ultimate Thanos is certainly this. His mission is stated as being "To make life a little more like death, Ordered. Perfect. Predictable."
  • The Beast from Transmetropolitan. A true bastard, but he nevertheless plays by the rules. He's ever so slightly preferable to The Chaotic Evil Smiler.
  • Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Scrooge McDuck, especially in the Italian comics. Depending on the Writer, he can be surprisingly nasty. Often ruthless, unscrupulous and uncaring, he routinely threatens, even beats his nephew Donald Duck to do his bidding. He pays below minimum wage (if anything) and is OK with firing thousands of employees just to save a buck.
  • Adam Susan from V for Vendetta believes that order and stability take precedence over anything else and will commit a second holocaust to eliminate those he believes would destabilize it.
  • The "Mutants" gang members in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. They have a quota system for committing crimes!
  • Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges, a group of superpowered undead Judges from another dimension where they already killed every living thing. Their basic mission, formulated by their leader Judge Death, is to create a universe free of crime. Since only the living commit crimes, they decide to pre-emptively murder all potential offenders. They take their fanatical belief in the supremacy of law to the point where they became the worst evil in the whole setting. A prequel story shows that Death actually annihilated most of the other Dark Judges because they adhered too much to Chaotic Evil behavior.
  • Black Adam fits, as he was the wizard's original champion, before suffering a tragedy caused him to go the fascistic route. Of course, like a lot of DC villains, he has been known to veer into Lawful Neutral.

    Fan Works 
  • Most of the villains in Child of the Storm:
    • Lucius Malfoy, Baron Strucker, and Baron Zemo all qualify in the first book, the former two as leaders of HYDRA bent on taking over the world, the latter working as The Dragon to ensure it. That said, Lucius is initially more interested in self-preservation, he comes around to the idea of imposing HYDRA's order, his order, on the world. Doctor Zola, meanwhile, is on the Lawful side, but mostly just For Science!, and has an Odd Friendship with Gravemoss, HYDRA's ally, who's on the Neutral Evil end - he aspires to rule a universe of the undead, and even he baulks at the pure Chaotic Evil Chthon, but one of his primary concerns is being as big of a dick as he can.
    • In the sequel:
      • General Lukin as leader of the Red Room, being intent on re-establishing Russia's empire with himself at the head and enforcing a military structure of command. Sinister, as his ally, vacillates between this and True Neutral (an unusual combination, explained by his dedication to proper scientific procedure and absolute control of his subjects, combined with the fact that he'll work for anyone who provides him with suitable test subjects).
      • Dracula, Vampire Monarch of the Grey Court, is an Affably Evil Noble Demon who upholds his word (and is enraged by the idea that he wouldn't) to the letter - even, sometimes, to the spirit too.
      • Surtur, the original Dark Phoenix, who has become obsessed with the concept that creation is inherently flawed and that he must fix it by burning it all down and starting again, creating a neater and more orderly universe - even before he ended up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, he was engineering his people to make them 'better'. This is even evident in a glimpse of Muspelheim, which is perfectly engineered, and more like a machine than an actual world full of living beings.
  • Rarity from The Killer Rarityverse falls under this alignment after becoming an Element of Harmony. At first, she would qualify as Chaotic Evil because her killings would often be random and whenever it was possible to do so. However, afterwards, she feels that doesn't deserve to be the Element of Generosity unless she limited her kills only to those that she sees as "deserving". From then on, she follows a code that involves not killing foals or those who are innocent.
  • In the Pony POV Series, Grogar has been referred as this by Word of God. Whereas Discord is absolute Chaotic Evil, Grogar is absolute Lawful Evil, being obsessed with order to the same extreme.
  • The two main villains of Kintsukuroi fall into this alignment. Colonel Sharon Hillridge and Dr. Elias Dreschner lead the massacre of hundreds of mutants for two well-defined goals: Hillridge aims at the creation of supersoldiers for the supremacy of her country while Drescher searches for a cure for cancer.

    Music 
  • Doctor Wily from the Mega Man Rock Opera Father of Death by The Protomen. Ever wonder how a conversation about to improve society would go if a Lawful Good and Lawful Evil character were the ones talking? Just listen to "The Good Doctor": Doctor Light talks about how the robots they will make will improve the lives of the poor miners, while Doctor Wily talks about how the robots will deliver him the power he thinks that he has earned. Both want the same thing for society, but for the opposite reasons.

    Newspaper Comics 
  • In the Dilbert strips, Catbert is the evil director of human resources who helps make the lives of Dilbert and his co-workers miserable by creating ethically questionable policies, never providing useful help, and downsizing workers.
  • Ming the Merciless, ruler of Mongo in Flash Gordon.

    Professional Wrestling 

    Radio 
  • Satan in Old Harry's Game his demons to a certain standard of evilness. He's very cruel towards those who aren't evil enough, but has absolutely no tolerance for those who are too evil for his liking. He's also got a few personal rules that he follows at all times; contrary to popular belief, he doesn't possess people (albeit not so much on moral grounds as that he simply considers it a bit Squicky), nor does he ever directly kill people. However, he's quick to remind anyone who would doubt his evilness because of this that while he may be more affable than most would expect, he is still the Devil, and he has no qualms about torturing people or convincing people to kill each other.

    Religion & Mythology 
  • Satan is often portrayed as this, especially when dealing with contracts. There are many popular embodiments of this trope, especially with those referencing The Devil and Daniel Webster. This has much to do with works like The Divine Comedy, but it is one of the few things about Satan that popular culture gets right. Those who study The Bible will note that Satan may have started in this alignment (basically wanting to be openly worshipped while God was more the invisible creator), but after becoming a fallen angel, his desire is to be Chaotic Evil. However, he is forced to remain Lawful because God forces it on him. Still, Satan's goal is to twist or pervert nearly everything God has created, and he tries to sow chaos whenever possible. So, to simplify, he's forced to be Lawful Evil, but wants to be Chaotic Evil.
  • Dullahans from Celtic Mythology are spirits that are better known for removing their heads, with perhaps the most famous example being The Headless Horseman. They are tasked to collect the souls of the dead/dying. It is impossible to delay them this job, and spying on them may gain you a harsh punishment, from having blood poured on you to getting your own eyes lashed out. In other words, don't get in their way.
  • Across Alpine European folklore, Krampus fulfills this role during the holiday season. Yes, he is a horrid, black-furred, long-tongued cloven-hooves demon that terrorizes the populace, but he has a system that he upholds. To nice children, he gives them modest gifts like dried fruit and chocolate; to the naughty ones, he whips them with birch rods and sometimes takes them away in a sack on his back. Despite being an openly malevolent creature, he is an enforcer of a system rather than an exception to it.

    Theatre 
  • Antigone: Creon is a tyrant who rules Thebes with an iron fist and sees no problem with doling out the death penalty for minor crimes. However, he makes a point of keeping his word and won't go so far as to punish the outright innocent. In some ways, he is shown to be more willing to listen to reason than his Good Counterpart in Oedipus Rex.
  • The Crucible: Abigail Williams exploits Salem's religious fervour to cause literal witch hunts out of spite for being rejected.
  • Doctor Faustus: Mephistopheles, in contrast to Faustus himself, who personifies Chaotic Evil. Mephistopheles is blindly obedient to Lucifer, and fulfills his contract with Faustus fully to the letter and spirit. He even tries to talk Faust out of it, pointing out that if he, a demon, exists, then wouldn't it stand to reason that God also exists, and that Faust, by implication, would be making a horrible mistake by taking Mephistopheles up on his offer? Faust replies that that doesn't follow at all, since just because one part of a story turns out to be true, it doesn't prove that the whole story is true. Mephistopheles concedes the point.
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Judge Turpin, who framed Sweeney and had him sent to a penal colony so he could rape Sweeney's wife and marry his daughter Johanna when she turned 16.
  • Urinetown: Mr. Cladwell's evil goals are mainly about keeping order through complete and utter control and imposing strict regulations.

    Web Animation 
  • James Ironwood of RWBY starts out as a Four-Star Badass on the heroes' side who's convinced that overwhelming force is the way to combat the Grimm, but doesn't realize that his warlike ways of handling problems only serve to foster the fear that attracts Grimm. Following the disaster at Beacon in Volume 3, Ironwood becomes more and more fearful and extremistic in his outlook, ultimately becoming a dictatorial fanatic willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of his efforts to do things his way.

    Webcomics 
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • Redcloak is a textbook example of having a Lawful Evil attitude and proud of it. A Visionary Villain who believes the goblinoid races were screwed over by the gods and seeks to build a goblin nation to rival those of any of those ruled by humanoids. Even if he has to destroy the world so his god might have a hand in creating the next one.
      Redcloak: Do they think crushing an entire civilization beneath our heels "just happens?" It's all fun and games for them, but I'm the one who has to make the magical lightning-powered trains run on time.
    • Elan's Evil Twin brother Nale is also LE, all the better to contrast with the Chaotic Good Elan. Notably, despite having the same alignment, Nale and Redcloak aren't all that similar. Redcloak values order, logic, and knowledge, makes simple, effective plans based off those things, and is motivated by a (misplaced) sense of how to further the general good for his people. Nale is a self-aggrandizing ego maniac fueled by his personal desires, has a Complexity Addiction (for example, his class build is a Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer hybrid, which is a less optimized Bard in practice because Bards are not allowed to have a Lawful alignment), holds vicious personal grudges due to small (or imagined) slights, and wants power and control mostly to please his own ego and be the guy that everyone else has to bow down to. Alignment not being a straitjacket is one of the comic's major themes.
      • Before Nale died, it was implied that while he thought he was Lawful Evil, he was actually Chaotic Evil. There are Lawful Evil villains that are not like Redcloak, though: see below.
    • General Tarquin's version of Lawful Evil comes through Genre Savvy: Tarquin treats his life as an ongoing narrative arc in a Heroic Fantasy (in which he is the Evil Overlord fated to one day fall in an epic battle against a worthy hero), making him Genre Savvy because he knows the tropes and clichés and can act appropriately to shape it to his liking in accordance with the Theory of Narrative Causality. On the flip side, it means he judges people according to their story role (or, at least, what he thinks is their role) and has little to no understanding of them as people. He's quick to get rid of (or, in the rare cases where they matter to him for some reason, correct) people who don't stick to his vision of the script, all while refusing to ever acknowledge the possibility that he may not have the right view of the script to begin with.
      Tarquin: As I've said before, procedure matters. [The Safety of the world] is meaningless if everyone is going to run around doing whatever they feel like, without regard for proper story structure. There must be some sense of order — personal, political, or dramatic — and if no one else is going to bring it to this world, I will.
    • Tarquin's best friend and longtime adventuring companion Malack is yet another take on the alignment. Malack is devoutly religious and believes that everyone in the world has to answer to other, greater, beings, and the proper response is to embrace the control of those greater beings and serve them with pleasure, essentially a Happiness in Slavery mentality. Any rise in standing or power is accomplished through that service.
      Malack: Living or dead, we are all of us marching to our orders — you no less than I, Durkon. It does not matter from whence these orders come, be it man or god. Our place is as an obedient slave to those who command us. Through service, we are rewarded. That is the true natural order.
  • The particular hat of elves in 8-Bit Theater, from main character Thief to villain Astos. This accurately sums up the "easier to become ruler of the world by exploiting the existing system" flavour of their Always Lawful Evil tendencies.
  • The Elite Guard from Goblins are almost explicitly Lawful Evil — they're confirmed Evil, and it's hard to imagine a guard could be anything but Lawful.
  • Gordon Frohman of Concerned is a fanatical follower of The Combine and is a self-proclaimed enemy of the Human Resistance and Gordon Freeman due to a genuine and incredibly idiotic love of tyranny.
  • Brian and Angelo, from Our Little Adventure. They run a tyrannical empire together but seem hung up on professionalism and try their best to be friendly with the staff. Even Angelo said he would make amends to the employee he killed by resurrecting her and giving her a raise.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • Psyk the demon is the organiser and voice of reason among the generally more chaotic inhabitants of the Dimension of Pain. Towards his fellow demons, he is Lawful Neutral, almost a Nice Guy. That doesn't keep him from slaughtering and conquering humans along with the others when they get a chance, though.
    • Binky and Clyde are initially two mooks working for various supervillainish crime-lords. They identify themselves as evil minions first and foremost, so that when they end up in a random dimension, they gladly take orders from Dambdulf the wizard just after meeting him once they interpret his order to Shoot the Dog as evil. They go on to decide to become heroes instead and save the town of Dumbblefolk from dragons... only to switch sides again as soon as they are asked to defend it from an evil wizard because he gives them a chance to be evil minions again, and that's just what they do. And they live happily ever after.
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: The Iron Sociopath is a "superhero" who fights crime because he figured out he gets to commit violence more freely if he obeys the law while doing so. He's also a politician. This could be seen as a case of someone with a Neutral Evil disposition deciding to be Lawful Evil.
  • Tower of God: "Kaiser" is the merciless ruler of the Name Hunt Station, a place built around peculiar rules of slavery and human trafficking. Really, though, she's herself in willing slavery to her family, who profit from her work there, and whose forgiveness she still hopes for, even though it's already been a thousand years. So she's not only a tyrant but a servant motivated by a strong sense of duty of sorts.
  • The Adventures of Dr. McNinja:
    • Donald McBonald is a ruthless businessman willing to branch out into outright villainy, at least against a Chaotic Good protagonist who physically attacked him before. He prefers to have the law on his side but has no real moral scruples. In the last story, he says he's not the villain in the conflict between himself and the protagonist, but when McNinja says he has a point and asks whether McBonald would have been willing to take his complaint into account at the start if he had asked nicely, McBonald says "No, I would have ruined you in court."
    • The dinosaur president from "Futures Trading" puts on a civil facade and pretends to care about the rights of his human subjects as well as dinosaur ones. But really the humans are treated very badly, and only the divided public opinion among dinosaurs is stopping the president from launching a human genocide.
  • Solomon David from Kill Six Billion Demons: A dictator "regarded as just, even-handed, and incredibly brutal by most of his subjects." (From Word of God here.) He simultaneously both fails at basic human decency and sets moral standards so high nobody else can meet them.
  • Most of those aligned with the Knights of Jove and Fifty Families from Girl Genius. The Fifty Familes are the old royal and noble houses of Europa, and the Knights of Jove is a secret society comprising many of them. The main goal of the Knights of Jove is to set up a pan-European monarchy under their rule. Regardless of your opinions on monarchism, they're pretty decidedly in the "evil" camp for the underhanded, treacherous means (including a heavy dose of Rules Lawyering traditional succession laws) they use to attain that goal. The fact that many of them are Mad Scientists, as does the sheer number of them allied with the Other, also makes them look pretty bad.

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The Devil

The Devil may be pure evil, but even pure evil must adhere to a code.

Alternative Title(s): Lawful Selfish

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The Devil

The Devil may be pure evil, but even pure evil must adhere to a code.

How well does it match the trope?

4.93 (14 votes)

Example of:

Main / LawfulEvil

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