Many villains need to cover up their terrible deeds or plans. They have crazy ideas to take over the world and have to keep their ideas under wraps to make them more loved by the populace. Sometimes, a villain needs to come up with a cover story to justify why he wiped out that village or murdered all those innocent people. This trope is not about those kinds of villains though — it is about the ones who do terrible things without trying to justify it, get caught red-handed doing something bad, or commit awful crimes — but they are still in charge.
What is unique in this case is that the villain doesn't necessarily have to try to justify their crimes. The villain in this case can end someone's life simply because they 'felt like it' or because someone was a loose end & reveal this information to the public without it having much of an effect on them being in charge. This can happen in stories where the villain is in a democratic society or place where people can vote them out but due to apathy or people not caring, this revelation does not seem to have much effect on the bad guy's approval rating.
This trope though is probably most common in works where the villain is part of an authoritarian regime as the ruthless dictator or tyrannical king and here can be somewhat true. This is because many dictatorships and kingdoms in real life ran on a Cult of Personality where leaders could stay in charge even if a decent number of people disliked them as long as enough members of the cult were okay with their actions — and in many cases, the 'cult' was quite literal! In this case, the idea is that the people responsible for keeping the autocrat in charge generally still support them despite the terrible action and the lack of any attempt at justification.
That being said, it is best to have No Real Life Examples, Please!, since there are probably plenty of examples someone can find of politicians, leaders, and people in positions of power doing things that were considered immoral by their cultural standards without trying to justify it & still staying in charge.
Can be a Mean Boss or Bad Boss but not necessarily. In fact, their being a good boss in spite of being a terrible person who does not try to hide their bad deeds might be how they still convince enough people to defend their continued leadership. This trope is also not the Well-Intentioned Extremist or Blue-and-Orange Morality or Above Good and Evil or Insane Troll Logic since the villain provides no moral reason for what they have done and is okay with stating what they did was immoral or amoral. Compare/contrast Villain with Good Publicity since they can be well-liked, but their power may not come from good publicity with the general public but through power plays and systems of control that make it so they stay in power even if they are mostly disdained. Might be related to Vetinari Job Security if the person has the job since no one else can do the job or wants to do it. Often also crosses over with Bread and Circuses, if the leader keeps the populace satisfied enough that they accept his leadership.
Examples:
- In Psycho-Pass: The Movie, the tyrannical Sybil System hive mind is convinced to let their puppet Chairman Han resign and let people decide their leader through elections. Despite all the terrible things Puppet Han has done in his own country as a dictator and puppet of Sybil, he is still elected back into power.
- Marvel Comics: Doctor Doom, though it depends on the writing. Some stories have him being a borderline Anti-Hero who only does what is best for his country while others have him forcing members of his country to randomly fight to the death for his amusement!
- At the end of Eternals (2021), the notoriously treacherous Druig achieves the role of Eternal Prime thanks to having defeated Thanos and to being seen as a weak character who will be an tolerable candidate to all the powerful and hostile factions. Oceanus muses that he is the "smallest" Eternal of all. The result is the Judgment Day (Marvel Comics) Crisis Crossover, which leads to the near-destruction of Earth. Oops.
- New Gods – Darkseid is the permanent ruler of the planet Apokolips, mainly because he has many loyal followers who are just as evil as he is, and because no one there is powerful enough to even think of attempting to overthrow him.
- In Discworld, everyone knows that Vetinari, the patrician, is evil (or at least morally ambiguous), yet he keeps his job since all the other prospective patricians are even worse. Indeed, at one point he tells another character that as a tyrant he could do whatever he wanted, but if he wanted to stay in charge of the city, then it might be a good idea to not abuse his power too often. It's called Vetinari Job Security for a reason. Despite, or maybe because of his ruthlessness, Vetinari is very competent at running things.
- In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Severus Snape, who had killed Dumbledore in the previous book, is named the new director of Hogwarts to the shock of Hermione.
- Lord of the Rings: It is said that at the end of the day, the orcs, trolls, and various other "evil" creatures that make up Sauron's army hate him, but they still obey him because he's really really scary and can have them slaughtered or tortured on a whim. That said, they hate humans, elves, and dwarves even more, so the idea of teaming up against Sauron isn't really an option.
- The titular villain of Steelheart rules Newcago while actively trying to ensure that his subjects are terrified of him. It doesn't hurt that he seems to be literally invulnerable. He even has a media network dedicated to publicizing and inventing terrible things he's done. It turns out this is because his invulnerability doesn't work against people who don't fear him.
- Star Wars Legends: Any place the Sith Empire runs is very much this. The Sith Lord theocracy is made up of Ax-Crazy Sorcerous Overlord types whose qualifications for leadership usually are "I stabbed this guy before he stabbed me." They can murder, maim, rape, and otherwise terrorize muggles and their governments are highly unstable. The only thing they are good for is waging war, but without an enemy to fight or one Sith to be a God-Emperor and terrify the rest into submission, they quickly implode into infighting. This extends to even the Empire's muggle officers and intelligence agents, like Grand Admiral Thrawn and Grand Moff Tarkin. You have to be something of a nasty piece of work to succeed in the cutthroat Empire. The non-Sith administrators and officers might even be nastier than Sith because Sith are Drunk on the Dark Side but the muggle officer is stone cold sober and still every bit as ruthless.
- In Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister blows up the Sept of Baelor with hundreds of people in it. However, there are no mentions of any unrest in King's Landing following the event, and Cersei's enemies treat her as a formidable enemy, even though earlier, she and her son had faced riots for less terrible acts.
- In Queen of the South, everyone in Sinaloa knows that Epifanio Vargas got rich from the cocaine business, but he still manages to get elected Governor.
- The Wire: After the death of Prop Joe, Marlo takes power in the New Day Co-op and announces that no more meetings will be held and raises the price of the drug shipment to everyone else, many of the members speculate correctly that he's the one responsible for killing Joe, but none have any power to go against him.
- In Vampire: The Masquerade, this is the case of most Princes of the Camarilla, the Kindred in charge of cities (or districts). They are typically widely disliked by every other Vampire in their domain, aside from their personal retainers and sycophants, but stay in charge because they're either physically or politically powerful enough to make those who don't like them obey The Masquerade and all of the Camarilla's other traditions anyway — and those who don't obey the traditions typically have the Sheriff or, worse, the Scourge, sent after them.
- Richard III: Shakespeare's iconic Villain Protagonist schemes, murders, and manipulates himself onto the throne, and while it doesn't last long, he's still the most interesting and competent character in the play. It may be a Historical Villain Upgrade, but it has inspired a great deal of interest in the not nearly as villainous but pretty competent real king.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has the Consuls/Moebius, who rule over Aionios and the colonies there. They make for horrible rulers, as they intentionally risk the lives of their people, constantly making them fight and kill purely to give Moebius more power for themselves. Nobody ever tries to stand up to them because they are all raised not to, and even if they did, their power is unmatched, making the Ouroboros the only ones who can stop them. Once the Ouroboros awaken, the colonies try to enlist their help, and together, they all rebel against the Moebius and live more peaceful lives with them dead.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Dexter DeShawn is a fixer well-known in the underworld for plucking young hopefuls from the street, using them for a single job, then letting them take the fall for when it goes south while he skips town to lay low for a while. Despite knowing this, Jackie and V still let themselves be swayed by Dex's larger-than-life persona and promises of a huge score, going along with his Arasaka heist plan — until it inevitably goes pear-shaped in the worst way possible (namely, by Saburo Arasaka, the head of Arasaka, getting killed by his own son with the blame falling on Jackie and V, and Jackie being killed himself during the escape) and Dex shoots V in an attempt to save his own hide (which doesn't work as Takemura tracks him down and puts a bullet in his head).
- Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: Klubba seems to imply that the leader of the Kremlings is an example of this trope.
"Kap'n K. Rool treats us rotten. I hope yer scupper his plans!"
- The antagonists of Persona 5 typically fall under Villain with Good Publicity, but a few stand out as this trope:
- Kunikazu Okumura already had a reputation as a Corrupt Corporate Executive, even before the Phantom Thieves targeted him. The Thieves are almost surprised when his Palace confirms he's exactly as bad as the public says, given their earlier targets were much better at hiding their abuses. They were right to be suspicious, as The Conspiracy Okumura works for was manipulating public opinion so the Thieves would target him next, letting them dispose of him and frame the Thieves for it.
- The Heavy of the story, Corrupt Politician Masayoshi Shido, is defeated by the party and confesses on live television to running a nation-wide conspiracy responsible for several murders. Despite this, the Japanese public is so apathetic they still want him as Prime Minster. This prompts the final dungeon, where the only way to wake up the public is to fight the living embodiment of their apathy, which has become a god.
- Parodied by The Spoony One in his Final Fantasy VIII review, when he was incredulous about the sorceress Edea taking public office and proceeding to make a speech calling her subjects "lowly wretches". He did a skit where Dr. Insano was elected President of the United States, despite being obviously and unapologetically evil during his campaign.
- In Alice in Wonderland, the Red Queen kills people for the pettiest of reasons and faces no consequences or rebuttal, though makes more sense in this context considering the trippy dreamworld quality of Wonderland.
