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alt title(s): The Dark Lord; Dark Lord "All hail Megatron!"
The archetypal Heroic Fantasy villain. Usually lurks in an intimidating fortress in a near-inhospitable landscape, plotting to Take Over The World (if he doesn't already rule it), with hordes of Faceless Goons (who are usually none too bright) and a sinister second-in-command at his beck and call. Additional options include a Quirky Miniboss Squad, a black wardrobe with lots of leather, and command over dark magic or some powerful but vulnerable Mac Guffin. They probably have a Zero Percent Approval Rating. Will be a dangerous opponent, even in a straight fight, since Authority Equals Asskicking.
There's not much else to say that's not covered in the Evil Overlord List.
See also Diabolical Mastermind for the step below and Galactic Conqueror and Dimension Lord for the steps above.
Examples
Anime
- Many of the 'big bads' from Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT fall into this category, including Commander Red of the Red Ribbon Army and Frieza.
- Il Palazzo from Excel Saga is a notable parody.
- Various Digimon villains, including most of the Adventure bad guys and the Digimon Kaiser.
- Emperor Beld and Wagnard from Record Of Lodoss War.
- Gakuto/Gackto/Gaito (and those are just the official spellings) from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch.
- Sosuke Aizen from Bleach is a sociopath manipulator who betrays literally everyone who trusts him and doesn't hesitate to leave even his closest associates Not Quite Dead on the floor.
- Naraku from Inuyasha. The entire show revolves around him and his diabolically evil ambition.
- Orochimaru from Naruto.
- Talpa from Ronin Warriors.
- Lelouch and Schneizel from Code Geass R2 are fighting for this position. Slightly subverted in that Lelouch appears to be one but pulls a Milliardo Peacecraft maneuver like in Gundam Wing by dying a villain but uniting the world, while Schneizel acts all nice when it's been indicated he's the real deal. Of course, having a father who promoted Social Darwinism means they may need something more to overshoot him...or not.
Comic Books
- Doctor Doom holds a lock on this position in the Marvel Universe.
- Superman's Lex Luthor, in some incarnations, resembles a modern Evil Overlord.
- The DCU villain Darkseid embodies virtually every aspect of this trope, on a cosmic scale.
- Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon, and the associated serials, film, and TV shows.
- A standard type of of foe for Conan The Barbarian and Red Sonja. Major evil overlords included Thulsa Doom and Kulan Gath.
Film
Literature
- Sauron from The Lord Of The Rings. In The Silmarillion, Sauron was merely The Dragon to Morgoth, the Big Bad.
- Although the Evil Overlord is usually both male and associated with black (hence, Dark Lord), C. S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe presented a female associated with whiteness, the White Witch, as Narnia's evil ruler. The Magician's Nephew revealed that she had been Empress of Charn and destroyed all the life in the world rather than lose. And in The Silver Chair, the Lady of the Green Kirtle is queen of the Underworld and out to conquer Narnia. Others including the Tisroc of Calormen and Caspian's Uncle Miraz.
- Innumerable examples from Dungeons And Dragons fiction, including the evil gods Takhisis, Bane, and Hextor. Possibly the ultimate example from the RPG is Asmodeus, the King of Hell — the game's equivalent to Satan.
- In the Forgotten Realms setting, Bane is the clearest example, though mortal overlords turn up here and there, including the evil wizard Manshoon. The conqueror Yamun Khahan, a pastiche of Genghis Khan, was a subversion; he was a ravenous warlord bent on subjugating the entire known world through endless war, but was also a Benevolent Boss adored by his people (not unlike the real-world Khan, it could be argued).
- Likewise Magic The Gathering, including Volrath, Crovax, and The Man Behind The Man for both of these, Yawgmoth. Various other examples from M:TG include Baron Sengir, Lim-Dul the Necromancer, and Memnarch.
- The Evil Lord Harry Dread from the Discworld book The Last Hero parodies many tropes of the Evil Overlord: He got started with a Shed of Evil, hires guards so stupid they have trouble remembering their names, and ends up briefly allying with the Silver Horde, but then betrays them because, hey, Harry's the bad guy, it's what he does.
- Also, he hires his guards to be stupid so that the heroes can escape from his dungeons, and leaves chests full of armour, health potions and weapons about his Lairs because that's how the game is played.
- Lord Vetinari from the same series has all the trappings of an Evil Overlord, except that he happens to be a Reasonable Authority Figure who is Genre Savvy enough to know that evil doesn't pay.
- Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series.
- Ardavan of The Assassins Of Tamurin is one Evil Overlord who is not the Big Bad. Indeed, The Chessmaster had it in for him had the heroine not killed him first.
- The Shadow Lord from Emily Rodda's series Deltora.
- Arawn the Death Lord of Annuvin from the Prydain Chronicles. He actually started out in the series backstory as the right-hand man to the previous Dark Lord, Queen Achren, but deposed her.Much of the series' plot revolves around her attempts at revenge.
- Capricorn from The Inkworld Trilogy is a cookie-cutter example of this trope.
- He's also something of a capricious ganglord punk. Depends what you take from it.
- In the internet story: Tales of Lokaria (http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=750856
 ) Has the Black Master: A man who has lived nearly a thousand years and rules over much of the known world. Did I mention that he has hidden mind-rape powers? His castle is constantly upgraded with the latest technology and upgrades. He then purposefully leaves openings to let rebels and heroes in to kill them. He does have a 0% approval rating, but his legion of terror (mooks) are very well trained and loyal. And he's kinder than the elfin Kingdom, Led by Tidal, despite what people say. He also is extremely dangerously genre savvy.
- His team is as follows. His Dragon, Dracon (no less!) is an ancient half-elf who is immortal and extremely powerful, and his best friend. The Dark Chick was mind-raped into submission. The Brute (the mook Captain) is entirely loyal and very intelligent. The Mad scientist has yet to be introduced, but can produce technology to warp reality and use magic.
- Rugaard from E. E. Knight's Age of fire series is a partial subversion of this trope. While he's pretty much an Evil Overlord, he's a dragon, carries a good approval rating from most of his underlings, even his personal slaves Rayg, Rhea and Fourfang with him intervening to save them more than once, practices Equal Opportunity Evil, shows most of the traits we'd expect of a fantasy hero, and oh, plans to subjugate all the hominids in the world. But it's all justified, you see, because not a single free homonid he's encountered has ever been vaguely nice to him.
Tabletop Games
- Commonplace in Warhammer 40000, with every Chaos Lord, Dark Eldar Archon and Ork warboss, and half or more of the Imperium's governors.
Video Games
- Dr. Robotnik in some incarnations.
- Ganondorf from (particularly) The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
- The main character in the game Overlord is a archetypical Evil Overlord who wields hordes of gremlin-like creatures, a possible mistress and armor that leaves glowing eyes the only visible part of the character. The game lets you decide just how evil the Overlord can be, either a destructive tyrant to a leader beloved by the peasants.
- Although at the end it turns out that your're pretty much just a patsy for the real one.
- Bowser from the Super Mario Bros series fits this to a T in almost every game, from ominous castles/lairs, plans for world/universe domination, and infinite hordes of largely incompetent goons.
- In Heroes Of Might And Magic 3, the Warlocks and Overlords of Nighon fit this trope perfectly.
- Zetta, Makai Kingdom's Bad Ass Freakin' Overlord of the entire Netherworld...until he blew it up. Damn you, Zetta! Damn you to...oh, wait.
- The titular character from the Legacy Of Kain series spends a lot of time as this. He does take breaks to save the world, but he actually just wants to keep it alive so he can keep lording over it.
- In the City Of Villains, Lord Recluse is king. Well more like dictator, but he has all the features- Five Bad Band, Redshirt Army, island domains that vary between Vice City and urbanised Mordor.
- Legionlord Kil'Jaeden, the current leader of the Burning Legion. His co-leader Archimonde was one aswell, untill he got killed in Warcraft III. Since the Legion has destroyed several worlds and threathens to exterminate all life, he probably counts as a Galactic Conqueror or even a Dimension Lord, too.
Webcomics
- Lord Tedd in El Goonish Shive, but his girlfriend/henchwoman/viser (it's not entirely clear what position she holds, but it's important) swears he's a good guy, and is just being corrupted.
- I think Nioi's title is "artificer".
- Xykon from Order of the Stick is in many ways a parody of the Evil Overlord stereotype, though he's as genuinely evil as any other.
- Stanley the Plaid/Stanley the Tool of Erfworld is described as an Evil Overlord by Parson because of his use of generic evil creatures and the fact that he has united just about everybody else into an alliance against him. Stanley is highly offended by this, believing himself to be divinely favored.
- And it should be noted that a divine artifact backs him up on this point.
Western Animation
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