Omnicidal Maniac Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sci Vo: Good choice. This works for me.

Large Blunt Object: @Uknown Troper: As discussed in the YKTTW, this page isn't about who can cause the Earth Shattering Kaboom, it's about who can and wants to wipe out everything. Daemon Princes barely qualify; Necrons and Tyranids manifestly do. Why do you keep removing them?

Uknown Troper: Because they're mindless. I'll give the C'tan their due and the necrons may count despite being mindless robots (because they had a hatred for other living things while they had brains), but the Tyranids are the Horde Of Alien Locusts who act purely on biological imperatives. And many Daemon Princes can and will exterminate civilizations and planets for fun, even if they don't necessarily seek the undoing of everything — not all of the trope's examples do.

In fact, most of them don't, because that's more of a Nietzsche Wannabe trait. Even the C'tan don't expressively seek the eradication of everything, because that would destroy their food source.

Large Blunt Object: "Clearly defined reasons for destroying worlds". They're hungry. That is a clearly defined, terribly obvious reason, and the results are the same. Nids and Necrons are also borne out better by other examples already in this trope: Imperiex is basically the same as the Necrons (doing it because they're programmed to) and the Tyranids as Galactus (do it to live and grow). And as I understand it, the C'tan see eliminating all life (and certainly eliminating the Warp) as the final step in their victory over the Old Ones, and will go back to munching on stars (/each other) once their vengeance is complete. Our disagreement here is probably the result of an ambiguous trope name and summary. My solution is adding, for clarity, something like "The Omnicidal Maniac isn't satisfied with the Depopulation Bomb, the Colony Drop or even the Earth Shattering Kaboom; its aim is, for whatever reason, to cause death and destruction on a mind-bogglingly massive scale." Possibly contrasting it further with Earth Shattering Kaboom and The End Of The World As We Know It would help. Any objections?

Uknown Troper: My problem with this is that the Omnicidal Maniac is, at least in my mind, the trope of the villain (and usually the main one) who destroys worlds. And not in a Marvin the Martian "It blocks my view of Venus" way (that's Mike Nelson Destroyer Of Worlds), but the guy who'll make the cities run red with the blood of the innocent, reduce that Throw Away Country to rubble and even destroy the world... Because he can. If you go by Luca Blight, Lobo, Kefka, Marduk, Nihilus — they're all sentient single beings who can and will let worlds burn in their wake by flexing their muscles. And while they may have other ulterior motives, it's ultimately because they can. That's what makes them villains. The scale, here, is actually less important than the motive.

Galactus, to me, isn't even a good example because he isn't actively malevolent (he needs to eat worlds to live), and the tyranids are an even worse one because, on top of that, they're not even properly sentient.

Large Blunt Object: So we have a split between the "villain who causes insane amounts of damage because they want to", which probably fits the "Maniac" part better (as well as having a whole slew of 40k examples in its own right) and the "thing that wipes out everything for whatever reason", which probably fits the "Omnicidal" better. Should we split this into two different tropes?

(And the jury's still out on whether the Nids are sapient, IMO.)

Uknown Troper: I know. They just lack the... Personality to be a proper example to me. They're prime, nay, great examples of the Horde Of Alien Locusts, but that's about it. They're not... Maniacal enough in my mind. I mean, the Daleks are an example that a species can be omnicidal maniacs, but they do it because they're, as far as I know, insanely xenophobic and want to wantonly destroy All That Is Not Dalek. If I can visualize it: This◊ is an omnicidal maniac.

I don't think we need to split this into two tropes, though, because frankly, I think that if we're going to make a trope for 'thing that wipes everything it comes across without malice or reason', it's probably going to be a short list. And if we're going to make it 'for any reason'... I dunno if it will be any longer. You could try ykttw — perhaps you'll get some examples there. But this, to me, is the trope of the villain who does mass destruction primarily out of malice. And tyranids aren't malicious.

Large Blunt Object: That one doesn’t seem to have a particularly clearly defined reason, and anyway seems a little more Genocidal than Omnicidal to me, and puts far more emphasis on the “Maniac”... There are already scores of villain archetypes who do horrible things straight out of malice. To me this trope is about the effect rather than the cause, since we don't seem to have a trope for larger-scale destruction than the specific Earth Shattering Kaboom, apart from the much more vague The End Of The World As We Know It. I propose all characters, races, devices and other things which do insane, galaxy-toasting amounts of destruction, with or without a motive, to "Omnicidal Horror" (or Galaxy Shattering Kaboom, or some less ambiguous, less fun name like "Destroyer Of Everything"), which includes the Planet Eater, some The End Of The World As We Know It and the Horde Of Alien Locusts, as well as multiple-Earth Shattering Kaboom devices. Villainous types who have the means as well as the motivation for this - your kind of Maniac - are included but are not the only thing... I'm certain there must be one just for that type of villain in Villains somewhere.

Uknown Troper: ...Or you could add them to the bottom of Apocalypse How, which is a trope about degrees of destruction, cause nonwithstanding, the bottom category of which should serve.

Large Blunt Object: Oops. Missed that one. Do what you want with this page, then.

That Other 1 Dude: Disputed:

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Big Bad Evil Overlord Fire Lord Ozai wants to Take Over The World, but finds that it's a lot more work than he anticipated. So, in the series finale, he decides to just destroy the rest of the world, so that only his own country is left.

Like it says, he's not trying to destroy the entire world out of nihilism, he's destroying everything outside of his country so he can take over.

Kerrah: Anyone else feel we should remove all the Flanderized examples ("this guy can destroy a planet so he qualifies")?

Uknown Troper: I did. Took out:

Most of the DBZ examples.
The DCU's Anti Hero parody Lobo is one of these. In his Superman The Animated Series appearance, he describes his status as Last Of His Kind:
Lobo: "I fragged the rest of the planet for my high school science project. Gave myself an A."
In Star Wars, both Grand Moff Tarkin and Emperor Palpatine thought that a space station with a planet-destroying superlaser was a good way to enforce the Empire's rule over the galaxy. So much so that Palpatine built a second one. And that's just the start (see Literature)...
In Life, The Universe And Everything, we learn of a galactic war of really, really big proportions, started by the inhabitants of Krikkit, a planet with a dense outer atmosphere and a very bright sun, leaving the Krikkiters completely unable to comprehend the possibility that something exists outside their own world. When a spaceship crash-landed on their planet, it took them a single year to build one of their own, and to fly it into space. The second they see there's a whole universe out there, they decide "It'll have to go", and they set about plotting the destruction of life as we know it while singing jolly little ditties. Not quite evil, just ultra-xenophobic. In fact, they're actually really nice guys, if you can get past the whole omnicidal maniac ultra-xenophobe thing.
- In truth, the people of Krikkit have been set up by Hactar, an immensely powerful and sentient computer that was destroyed by the Silastic Armorfiends when it refused to build the ultimate weapon they demanded. Reduced to dust but still conscious, it gathered itself around the planet Krikkit and made plans to rectify its mistake of not producing the ultimate, universe-destroying weapon the Armorfiends wanted by breeding a race that would have need of it. It's strongly implied, in fact, that much of the Krikkiters' omnicidal xenophobia is the result of Hactar mind-controlling them.
The Lone Power in the Young Wizards series can easily destroy planets and snuff out stars, but usually only does so when It is really pissed off. If all life everywhere was killed off there'd be nothing left for It to torment, and where would be the fun in that?
- Technically, the Lone One created entropy and death. He can just sit and wait, really.
  - In fact, the Lone Power has technically already won, seeing as this makes It responsible for the murder of everything in the entire universe, including the universe itself. Granted, there's the whole business with Timeheart, but that's practically a consolation prize rather than a true victory.
In the Star Wars novels...
- It is stated that General Grievous has ordered the decimation of entire planets via orbital bombardments. The fluff for the universe also says that while they are powerful enough to fill multiple roles inefficiently, the Star Destroyers were designed as orbital bombardment platforms, and a single one can reduce the surface of an inhabited world to rubble within a day.
- Palaptine didn't stop with the Death Stars. He also set loose an automated ship called the Eye of Palpatine that was designed to further enforce the extinction of the Jedi and commissioned several more monstrous war machines, such as the Sun Crusher (which would cause a star to supernova) and the World Devastators (semi-sentient factories of war droids that got their raw materials and fuel from being Big Eaters of everything in their path).
Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories have a race of gigantic robot spaceships programmed to kill all life except for their creators. Since their creators are extinct, in practice this means killing all life, period. The Berserkers usually derive no pleasure from their destructive tendencies, so their creators fit this trope more than they do.
The Crystalline Entity in Star Trek is compared to a blue whale, floating serenely through the seas and snorting up tiny krill by the billions... except that the krill in question are every single living thing on the surface of a planet. There's also a planet-eating machine in The Doomsday Machine, which presumably would have gone on to eat half the galaxy had Kirk and crew not stopped it.
In Babylon 5, President Clark, facing defeat, commits suicide — but not before reprogramming Earth's defense satellites to turn their weapons on Earth's surface.
Warhammer 40000:
- And don't forget the Tyranids, though in their case, they just want to eat everything that moves. And drink all the oceans. And suck out all the air. And pull out all the minerals.
The Soul Nomad And The World Eater world eaters.
In KoTOR, Big Bad Malak kicks a planet's worth of dogs early in the game by bombarding the entire surface of the city world Taris from orbit just to kill one person. And he fails.
Reworked Skies Of Arcadia entry.
Order Of The Stick:
- Xykon averts this: He actually likes the world, and wouldn't destroy it unless he got REALLY bored. Otherwise, he fits the trope as killing and hurting people is one of the only things he gets pleasure from, regardless of how practical it is.
  - Of course, since he's a lich whose existence will never end naturally, him getting REALLY bored is only a matter of time...

In order to counteract this. Also rewrote the entry a bit. Feel free to undo it if you feel affronted.

Antheia: Unknown DK: Why did you take out the Davros picture and example? I've got the impression that he is otherwise considered a perfect example of the trope (see for instance Doctor Who (character sheet)).

BritBllt: Re-added Life, The Universe, and Everything, but with the emphasis on Hactar rather than Krikkit's inhabitants. While they're unwitting pawns to some extent, Hactar itself definitely falls into the category of "a villain who actively seeks the destruction of whatever world the setting is based in to the exclusion of everything else, and is both aware of what he's doing and fully motivated to do so."

BritBllt: Removing some examples that seem to be Flanderizing the article...

Doomsday is almost the definition of this trope. Created by being literally killed thousands (if not millions) of times, once sentient, he decides to destroy everything. Initially, he just goes after anything that's a threat to him... before deciding that EVERYTHING is a threat. The only thing stopping him from succeeding is that he does it all by hand, minimizing the destruction.

Doomsday's just a big, rampaging Kill All Humans sorta monster. It can't destroy the entire DC setting and has no plan to do so. Listing characters strictly by their destructive intentions is a dangerous slippery slope: everybody from the Incredible Hulk to Jason Vorhees would count.

Nero from Star Trek doesn't want to destroy everything...just everything but Romulus.

Nero's definitely not an Omnicidal Maniac, as explained by the entry itself. He only wants to destroy his enemies' planets. He has an entry in Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds, which is the best fit for him.

I would say that he is in addition to being a Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds, since the 'destroying whole planets' is certainly his goal—hell, he wants to wipe out the whole Federation. It's a case of Your Mileage May Vary, I think.

Quinn Dexter, the antagonist in Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, fits this trope to a T. It's made all the worse, in a universe populated by Bee People, Corrupt Corporate Executives, and Al Capone's Space Mafia, in that he's just a teenage kid from Canada. Not only is he a card-carrying Satanist who would sooner rape you to death than look at you, he also terrifies the ghost who's possessing him into submission. Could very well be the poster child for Chaotic Evil alignment.

I haven't read the books, so he might be one, but the way that entry's written really makes it sound like he was shoehorned in due to scariness and badassery rather than being a threat to all of existence. If he actually is an Omnicidal Maniac, it'd be better to rewrite the entry to emphasize how he's a threat to existence.

A place manages to be this in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Deathgate Cycle. The Labyrinth is not a nice place. It has kept an entire race imprisoned inside for millenia, doing its best to kill the prisoners it keeps inside. It has long since gotten out of the control of its creators and forgetten its original purpose, and cruelly twists the rules magically programs into it to kill as many people as possible. The main character, Haplo, often goest through horrific situation with barely a shrug, simply saying to himself:
Haplo: "The Labyrinth was worse."

Unless the Labyrinth is actively seeking to destroy the universe at large, it wouldn't count. It's not enough just to perpetually torment a particular group of people, even if they're an entire race of people. If it is rampaging through the universe and killing everything, that's a different matter.

Nyarlathotep from the Cthulhu Mythos probably counts for this. While just about every Eldritch Abomination in Lovecraft's works can and will end the world if given a chance, Nyarly is the only one who seems to have it as his goal (the rest are pretty much mindless or completely alien, and the end of the world is not their goal but rather something that just happens if they wake up or are summoned on Earth). It's not quite clear why exactly he wants to do it, other than the fact that getting mankind to nuke itself to oblivion seems to amuse him.

I really don't understand all the love Nyarlathotep gets: he was barely even mentioned in Lovecraft's stories (maybe he figures in other mythos stories, I dunno). At any rate, he doesn't seem a particularly better example than the other beings in Lovecraft, and all the entities in Lovecraft are tricky: since the setting spans universes and eons, and most of them are just out to destroy Earth and modern humans, it's hard to say if any of them entirely qualify as Omnicidal Maniacs. At any rate, if Lovecraft needs a mention, it'd probably be best to make it a vague one that mentions the whole mythos.

Gnarly has style and a humanly comprehensible, if extremely cruel, sense of humor. Also, it's not really the case that in the Mythos, the Great Old Ones are evil beings who want to exterminate humans or destroy the Earth, though it's something they might bring about inadvertently, without caring, just as you might walk across your yard and step on an anthill without even noticing it. They're not good or evil in any humanly understandable way. They are utterly, incomprehensibly, alien, and not all of them are even sentient in the way we understand that word (hello, Azathoth. Yes, I'm talking about you). They don't care about humans. They don't care about the Earth. If they think of us at all, they perceive us as something akin to bacteria. Only Nyarlathotep—and the Mi-Go, but we're talking about the Great Old Ones, not bit players—finds humanity (or any other sentient life) sufficiently interesting to be worth communicating with. The Elder Gods—Nodens and his pals—don't really care about humans either.
Dr. Wily in MegaMan Battle Network wants to destroy the net because the Net Navi project was chosen over his robot one. He deserves to be here because Everything is Online. Civilization will crumble. People will die.

It's another slippery slope. Wiping out modern civilization isn't really the same thing as an Omnicidal Maniac, and allowing people who are just trying to usurp or destroy the modern world would open the door to lots of people who don't come anywhere near this trope... for instance, Tyler Durden from Fight Club would qualify.

Doom Tay: What if the Lampshading question of "why do you want to kill everything" is answered with "So I can create it anew, and how I want it to be"? Is that a subversion or aversion, or a different trope or what?

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