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"Nietzsche said we all wear masks; I want mine to be a Nietzsche mask."
—Anonymous
"In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history"—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die."
A nihilist who rants about how the Universe is cold and meaningless, we're just a bunch of filthy apes crawling around on an equally insignificant ball of mud, there is no Heaven and we're all going to be eaten by worms, so we might as well just start killing each other right now.
Almost every Ontological Mystery has a Nietzsche Wannabe, because their rants are perfect tools for playing mind games with the audience. Sometimes they serve as Mr Exposition, while other times, everything they say is a Red Herring, or they're a mix of both. They may be part of the secret, or just ordinary people who found out the truth and went mad.
In more straightforward Science Fiction, they're always plotting destruction, and can get really corny if the writer isn't careful.
So called because a lot of their dialog sounds like somebody doing a bad job of ripping off the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. To be fair, Nietzsche may have been a pessimist, but he was never a nihilist himself; that honor might belong to his inspiration, Arthur Schopenhauer. In fact, Nietzsche did his best to prevent complete loss of ideals by advocating the destruction of old morals and the creation of new ones. Oddly (and perhaps sadly as well), he is mostly remembered for the former and not the latter today.
Compare Darwinist and The Fatalist, contrast with Ubermensch. May be a target of Death By Pragmatism.
Examples
- Schwarzwald from The Big O is the perfect example, always plotting to destroy Paradigm City and always gloating about how only he knows what a cosmic fraud we all live in.
- Even after he dies, he still manages to show up and narrate all the real big Mind Screw episodes. It turns out that he was right, though. Everyone is living in a crappy play that's full of plotholes.
- "Shadow" from Gate Keepers is another Nietzsche Wannabe, who's in league with the bad guys because he's digusted with humanity's evils.
- Sensui, the rogue Spirit Detective from Yu Yu Hakusho, is yet another anime Nietzsche Wannabe.
- Kefka from the video game Final Fantasy VI evolved from a Monster Clown with nihilistic tendencies into a fully fledged Nietzsche Wannabe upon essentially becoming God halfway through the game.
- Seymour from Final Fantasy X, unloved and alone since his mother's death, wants to harness Sin and annihilate all life on Spira to put an end to pointless suffering. Two years later Shuyin from Final Fantasy X-2, eternally enraged and bitter at the world that let his one true love die, wants to harness Vegnagun and annihilate all life on Spira to end the existence of a world that he now sees as a pointless mockery. Clearly a lot of baddies on Spira didn't get enough hugs.
- The Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke turned the Joker into a Nietzsche Wannabe who will do anything to prove to Batman that life is one big joke.
- And in The Dark Knight he's taken this up to 11 with a distinctly anarchist take.
- Harvey Dent aka Two-Face becomes one of these during the course of the movie, believing that Chance is the only truly fair law.
- Miss Bitters from Invader Zim is a Double Subversion. She's played totally for laughs — but given what happens in a typical episode of the show, she looks like an optimist.
- The backstory of Dark Matter, a (thankfully defeatable) Cosmic Horror that serves as the perennial antagonist of the Kirby games, makes it clear that its actions are meant to turn the universe into a place where no one can be happy, so that everyone can share in its sorrow and loneliness. Guess it's kind of hard to make friends when you're a sentient force of pure Black Magic.
- In a rare Detective Drama version, look for the Silent Witness episode "The Meaning of Death".
- The film Dark City has a Nietzsche Wannabe who appears for only about two minutes: just long enough to give his rant and throw himself in front of a train.
- Sociopathic and deadly assassin Vincent (played by Tom Cruise) in Collateral shoves cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) out of a self-deceptive rut as he forces Max to drive him to various "jobs" one night in L.A. Near the end Max snaps, admits that Vincent was right and fights back, eventually killing his captor.
- Albedo from the Xenosaga series is a particularly horrifying and sadistic Nietzsche Wannabe, gleefully traumatizing MOMO for no apparent reason and strewing his throne room with the corpses of other little girls.
- Tony, the vaguely sociopathic lead in British drama Skins is a rare comedy example. He is seen on multiple occasions to be reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra one of Nietzsche's seminal works. This is reflected in how he manipulates his friends in increasingly cruel ways for his own personal amusement. He's stated in his tie-in blog and videos that the only purpose of anyone is to entertain him.
- In the webcomic Kid Radd, GI Guy, rather accurately observing that video game sprites like himself are created for the purpose of killing each other, tries to destroy the entire sprite world, and humanity with it.
- Dr. Gregory House of House acts this way, and it is implied that the only reason he saves lives is because he likes solving mysteries, not because he cares if the patient lives or dies. He suspects everybody of hiding something or lying to him.
- In the Marvel Universe, The "Mad Titan" Thanos usually pulls this archetype off with a spectacular amount of wit and style.
- Agent Smith in The Matrix sequels. In Revolutions he goes into a long rant about why Neo bothers to continue fighting him and that "Only a human mind could come up with something as insipid as love!" and "Why, Mr. Anderson!? Why!? Why do you persist!?"
- Let us not forget his speech to Morpheus in the original Matrix:
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague and we are the cure.
- Although since he's not a human himself this may not count, since he clearly doesn't have any sense of self-deprecation.
- Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire has Celesto Morgan, who is determined to "cleanse the world" by killing a lot of people he thinks deserve to die, as exemplified in these
 strips. Dominic hinges on being one for a while in the same story arc, until he is shown a group of people who willingly sacrificed themselves to protect their friends; this shakes him out of the "The world is horrific" viewpoint he was holding.
- It is worth noting that he isn't evil — in more recent strips he negotiates with Deegan and tries to make a peace offering. He still tries to kill people. The fact that one is a psychopath and the other is a crime lord about to get away with it are points in his favor though... more of a Knight Templar now.
- Friday Monday, the chief antagonist in Madlax
- Rau Le Creuset, the chief antagonist in Gundam SEED
- The various antagonists in Ragnarok The Animation display Nietzsche Wannabe tendencies.
- Neji Hyuuga from Naruto is a good example: he constantly talks about how pointless everyone is any how anyone who tries to fight his own fate is doomed to fail. Even more notable, he says this while trying to fight his own fate, as Naruto points out. This trait disappeared following his Heel Face Turn. Apparently, Naruto beat it out of him.
- Adam, leader of the Delphi cult in Trauma Center, who spread the GUILT plague to give humans the "blessing" of death they "deserve". He may or may not have included himself.
- Played for laughs in The Big Lebowski with the three evil German nihilists, and their amusing Catch Phrase "We believe in nothing!" often applied free of any particular context. They're very enthusiastic about their nihilism, and love to bring it up. Their nihilism, however, doesn't stop them from whining about how "It's not fair!" when it turns out their attempt to extort money out of the heroes by pretending they've kidnapped a woman when she hasn't even been kidnapped has been rumbled.
- Darth Nihilus, an aptly named Sith Lord from Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II, pursues the destruction of all life because "all life exists to feed his hunger". At least this is how Visas describes him.
- Kimblee, and to a certain extent Dante, from Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Not to mention the always sarcastic Ed, of course.
- Legato Bluesummers from Trigun is a personification of this concept.
- Tyler Durden from the film Fight Club.
- In the book as well, though a slightly different flavor.
- Luca Blight from Suikoden 2.
- Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd gives a rousing number, "Epiphany," devoted to the worthlessness of the human race and how we all deserve to die. From which point on he cuts a bloody swath in accordance with those precepts. Accompanied by dramatic chorus about moralizers and hypocrites.
- The 'Satan' sequence in The Adventures of Mark Twain (adapted from Twain's novella The Mysterious Stranger) is one of the most frightening and disturbing examples. What's worse is that this was put in a family film.
- Otto from A Fish Called Wanda is a humorous example combined with The Clavin, as the German philosopher seems to be the only work he can refer to accurately.
- Real Life example: Clarence Darrow's successful effort to save Leopold and Loeb from execution was essentially based on the premise that Nietzsche was evil and the casual murder they committed was due to following his philosophy.
- Also, while this idea is now discredited, it used to be widely stated that Adolf Hitler was heavily inspired by Nietzsche.
- Sephiran, from the Fire Emblem games Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, manipulated events in both games in order to prove to his patron goddess that the two races of Tellius were unable to live in peace, and thus should be destroyed. Sephiran had attempted to bring the two races to live in harmony for over several centuries, since a previous war between the two was the reason the goddess nearly destroyed the world in a flood. But a nearly genocidal massacre of the Heron branch of the Laguz race and the resulting reprisals decades previous to the game's start convinced him that the situation was unsalvagable, and that he should wake up his goddess so she could pass judgment.
- Sephiran may be a partial subversion, as battle conversations with him imply that he regrets his actions somewhat, and that he wants to die (at the time, he's guarding the entrance to Ashera). If you satisfy certain conditions after beating the game once, Sephiran will actually renounce his old views and join your party for the final battle.
- From the 6th game, there's the Big Bad Zephiel, who started out as a Well Done Son Guy, trying to appease his father and is generally a nice boy. But his father is such a Jerkass that attempted his life so many times, Zephiel finally snapped, killed his father, starts to conclude that humans are evil, since they also bring out the emotions that made his father jealous to him. Thus, he began a campaign of conquering Elibe, and when he does, he planned to surrender the land and the human race to the Dragon race. Of course he failed in the end.
- In a strip of Calvin And Hobbes, Calvin says, "The problem with people is that they don't look at the big picture. Eventually, we're each going to die, our species will go extinct, the Sun will explode, and the Universe will collapse. Existence isn't only temporary, it's pointless! We're all doomed, and worse, nothing matters!" This troper dares anyone to find a speech more Nietzsche Wannabe-ish than that. From The Mouths Of Babes indeed.
- Of course, he's using this as an excuse to not do his homework.
- True. Plus to be fair again, Calvin's pretty much a negative Nellie in general.
- Real Life example: The perp in a recent school shooting in Finland quoted Nietzsche as an influence, and was apparently "cleansing the lesser humans".
- Including himself, apparently.
- Zé do Caixão, or "Coffin Joe" as he is called in the English subtitles, Anti Hero of a series of Brazilian horror movies.
- Video Game Example: All of the human villains of Persona 3 fit into this trope. One -does- admit to being in it for the power he'll supposedly be given over the world if he brings about the Fall, but ultimately, because the Fall is the Fall...
- Anton Chigurh, the villain of the film No Country For Old Men is one of the most nightmarishly frightening examples of this trope. He is portrayed in the film as evil incarnate, ruthlessly devoting his entire existence towards killing, not for the sake of revenge or deep-seeted mysanthropy, but simply to adhere to his own utterly psychopathic and nihilistic code of morals. An example of his nihilism is when he asks one of his victims before killing said victim, "If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule?"
- Hamlet, despite predating Nietzsche, preaches nihilism with the best of them.
- In his Hamlet speech at the end of the film Withnail And I, it's debatable whether Withnail is talking about his sexuality or confirming an absolute nihilism.
- Fyodor Dostoevsky loves this type of character:
- Ivan Karamazov and Smerdyakov both fit the trope in The Brothers Karamazov. One could make the case that Fyodor Karamazov is also a Nietzsche Wannabe, but he's more of a libertine than a nihilist.
- The famous novella Notes from the Underground features a protagonist who rants against the Nihilists, the Nietzsche Wannabes of the time, yet fits the trope pretty well himself.
- And of course, Rodya Raskolnikov from Crime And Punishment.
- The famous quote "If God is dead, then all things are permitted" is actually Dostoevsky, making Nietzsche a Dostoevsky Wannabe.
- Shar, the goddess of bitterness and oblivion in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons, is the very manifestation of this troupe.
- Gig from Soul Nomad And The World Eaters has this attitude towards humans. And with him being a Grim Reaper, it goes without saying that the world he was responsible for was not having a good time until he got retired.
- Connor from Angel reached his peak of Nietzsche Wannabe-ness in the Season 4 finale, and gave a rant that still sends chills down this editor's spine.
"There's only one thing that ever changes anything. And that's death. Everything else is just a lie. You can't be saved by a lie... you can't be saved at all."
- HP Lovecraft wrote somewhere that "all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large", which fits the trope very well. (Source.)
- Watchmen Chapter VI: The Abyss Gazes Also, skirts around this trope. The chapter title is lifted from a Nietzsche quote (quoted in full at chapter’s end) and Rorschach includes a nihilist diatribe in his Hannibal Lecture. However, Rorschach is clearly not a wannabe, but a Nietzschian ubermensch, “free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world,” as he puts it.
- Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid might count as one. He joined Liquid's revolution not because he believed in their goal, but because he hates humanity and wanted to kill as many as he could before dying himself.
- Don't forget Fortune. After losing her parents, husband, and her unborn child of three months, she joins the military, only to find that bullets and bombs can't hurt her. Fortune then goes on with the mission of using Arsenal Gear to use its hydrogen bomb just to kill as many people as possible since no one can kill her.
- The sci-fi series Andromeda has an entire race of folks called Nietzscheans. They were originally humans who decided to live by Nietzsche's writings. They left Human territory to found their own colonies, genetically enhanced themselves, separated in to clans (called "Prides"), and generally don't like anybody but themselves. I haven't read Nietzsche, so I don't know how close they are to his actual philosophies.
- Archoan, Chosen of Chaos from Warhammer fits the actual Nietzsche mold fairly closely, believing that human society is unredeemably corrupt, and that a new form of society most be built. Of course, he thinks this should be done by killing everyone and turning the world over to Cosmic Horrors. He also held to the unrelenting pessimism, calling all human gods lies/liars, and believing this to such an extent that he was horrified to discover a Physical God had reincarnated to stop him - despite the fact that he had just won the fight.
- Ohm from One Piece constantly laments about the pointlessness of life and seeks to "save" people from suffering and desire by ending their lives.
- Sargeras the dark Titan, creator of the Burning Legion in Warcraft universe, was driven insane by the depthless evil of the demons he fought, and because of this he began to believe that the Titans mission of creating new worlds was utterly pointless. Naturally he decided to raise an army of demons to set flame to all creation.
- Daphne Rudko from Survival Of The Fittest has a viewpoint that can best be described as this, viewing humanity as nothing but parasites that must be destroyed and life as bleak and torturous, causing her to play not as much out of wanting to live (though that was a big part of it) as wanting everyone else to die. Then again, she's probably one of the few justified Nietzsche Wannabes out there.
- The Bleak Cabal from the Planescape campaign setting of Dn D is a subversion, as they are generally nice fellows despite their belief that the universe makes absolutely no sense.
- The Big Bad from the movie Sunshine uses this as an excuse to kill the astronauts going to recharge the dying sun (which they plan to do by shooting a nuke into it).
- Video Game Example: In Tales Of The Abyss there's Sync. He's a failed Clone of a Creepy Child (according to the manga: Sync's original likes keeping people as pets) that was thrown alive into a volcano. He Lived. His response? Essentially, he wants to die, and take the whole, meaningless world with him.
- Kerghan from Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura: At the end, he tells the party that the dead prefer their eternal peace to the chaos and pain of life, thus he wishes to fuck the world and kill everyone. A nice twist is that The player can agree and help him destroy the world.
- Subverted in the DCU where nihilist Kid Amazo (whose intro features him talking to a Nietzsche Bust that talks back to him, just to give you an idea that this is a guy with the combined powers of the Justice League and is completely off his rocker) is preparing to fight the League after a Face Heel Turn and begins a Nietzsche Wannabe speech to the Bust. The Bust points out that Kid Amazo is doing things that go against what Nietzsche believed. It was promptly smashed.
- The famous-within-the-fandom 'Death And Dust' speech from Stephen Colbert. Even better because the character is (usually) a diehard Catholic. Shortly after the 2000 Florida recount, having decided that all the debate and argument is irrelevant and who's President doesn't even matter:
Stephen: You see, nothing means anything. Mankind is just a random collection of self-replicating protoplasm, floating in a godless universe where the stars blindly run and however frantically we may try to deny it, all our efforts amount to nothing more than death... and dust.
[long pause]
Stephen: [cheerful] Oh, and I'm having a Christmas cocktail party...
- No mention of Little Miss Sunshine's Dwayne? Come on!
- Jack from Antihero For Hire, as shown here.
- Used in an interesting fashion in Warhammer 40000, where these guys are the unbelievably naive and idealistic ones.
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