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alt title(s): World Domination
World Domination™! Ambitious and more logical than destroying the world, as Evil Plans go. They want to be in charge of everything and everyone. This could be just to feed their massive egos, or else they've got somewhat twisted ideals that they want everyone else to adhere to. Either way, it puts them in direct conflict with the heroes, whether professional or "I just want everything to go back to normal" types. Usually said villain fixates on the hero or someone/thing close to them as being part of their master plan. See Evil Plan. If it involves both destroying the world to rule it, it's because Utopia Justifies The Means.
Villains who want this will occasionally combat other villains who want to destroy the world, and sometimes, just sometimes, team up with the heroes to do it. Afterall, you can't conquer the world if it's destroyed, right? Whether or not the villain attempts to stab the heroes in the back the instant the world is safe, or they nod and civilly go back to their Secret Lairs in a gentleman's agreement to face each other tomorrow depends on the villain.
This trope is sometimes subverted when the villain actually succeeds, and it turns out that ruling the world isn't nearly as gratifying as they thought it would be — exactly what does one do with the world once one has it, after all? Plus, once you're ruling the world, you literally have to be in charge of everyone, and that's like herding cats. Seven billion cats, as a matter of fact.
The more fleshed-out villain will have some specific perception of what is wrong with the world and believe that a strong central authority with vision and strength of purpose can set it right.
For more information, check out the Evil Overlord List, a detailed guide on what should an evil overlord do and not do.
Examples:
- Samurai Jack actually opens with Aku taking over the world. The entire thrust of the series was Jack trying to go back in time to stop it from happening.
- Video game example: At the end of the first half of Final Fantasy VI, Kefka conquers the world. The goal of the second half is to dethrone him.
- He does destroy most of it in the process, however.
- Most of the villains (especially the recurring ones) in Kim Possible. To quote Shego: "Every villain needs an evil plot. Take Drakken. His plot? Yeah, always 'taking over the world.' Always."
- Ironicly, the only villain that conquers the world is Shego...
- Need we mention The Brain of Animaniacs and Pinky And The Brain?
- Nathan Stark of Eureka admits in one episode that he has dreams about world domination. "But not all the time!"
- Note that those were actual dreams, not aspirations. Make of it what you will.
- On Sabrina The Teenage Witch , the Spellman family cat Salem was actually a former warlock sentenced to a century of felinehood for his plotting to rule the world. He is later denied parole when he lets it slip to the interviewer he still dreams of overlordship.
- Doctor Who: In "Tomb of the Cybermen", Kleig, a human helping the Cybermen for power, goes on a rant about how the world is a disorganized mess of conflicting ideals, and only his superior intellect could bring it together to solve all its problems. A few seasons later, in "The Invasion", Tobias Vaughn, also helping the Cybermen, would make almost word-for-word the same rant.
- In the new series The Master takes over the world. It gets undone. He does however seem to enjoy it, playing music, torturing his prisoners and planning to take over the universe for all time.
- Avatar The Last Airbender: The Fire Nation. This isn't entirely due to being ruled by a dynasty of Evil Overlords, however. It is stated in the DVD commentary that the initial drive for their attempts for expansion was industrializing and having a greater need for resources, in itself a staple of imperialism. The population of the Fire Nation itself is apparently told they are "spreading their gifts", and also deny that they killed all of the Air Nomads, who didn't even have an army, by ambush.
- Literary example: Sauron already controlled the greater part of the world by the time The Lord Of The Rings opens.
- Two ages before that, his boss — a fallen angel Satan type, name of Morgoth — had similar ambitions before the gods dethroned him.
- Lampshaded in an episode of the Spiderman cartoon: When the Kingpin announces he is planning to take over the world, Spidey retorts that he sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.
- Also lampshaded in an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: A Wonderful Life episode ("Shredderville") shows an Alternate Universe where Big Bad Shredder succeeded in taking over the world, only to find the actual job of ruling so difficult and boring that he begs the Turtles to relieve him of this responsibility.
- The ultimate goal of every single villain in Stargate SG-1 is the conquest of the Milky Way galaxy. Every. Single. One.
- Even in Atlantis, the Wraith want to capture Atlantis so they have a way to the endless food source that is... the Milky Way galaxy. Somewhat justified in their case, since their cullings have created something of a food shortage in Pegasus.
- Played straight in Mark Waid's Empire limited comic series. Golgoth, a supervillain in the mold of Doctor Doom, actually conquers the world. All opposition is crushed, all superheroes are defeated, and Golgoth is still victorious at the end of the tale. Needless to say, it's a VERY dark story.
- Tadase's goal in Shugo Chara (or at least his would-be self's goal) is pretty clearly spelled out as World Domination.
- This is the (repeatedly) stated goal of Murray, the mighty demonic skull in the Monkey Island series. Exactly how he is planning to do this, being a talking disembodied skull with a superiority complex, is slightly less apparent.
- The generally-assumed goal of the Legion of Doom on Challenge of the Superfriends, albeit it got a bit problematic in the execution. As has been pointed out elsewhere, when you've snagged literally all the money in the world, exactly what do you spend it on?
- General Zod in Superman II planned to take over
Houston Earth after defeating the pesky son of Jor-El.
- Dogbert (of the Dilbert comic strip, of course) has taken over the world a few times (this troper remembers one arc where he does so through hypnosis, but abdicates after he gets bored.) He's also taken over the company frequently, usually becoming obscenely wealthy and retiring within a matter of days. (Oddly enough, his newfound piles of money are never used or referenced after the current arc.)
- Actually, at one point, it is. Turns out Dogbert has a secret underground lair (presumably filled with bathtubs full of money). And a space-defense grid, as this one recalls. And, of course, whatever he needs for his next absurd scheme.
- Parodied in the Baldurs Gate series with Tiax, an utterly unhinged gnome priest of Cyric, who claims his destiny is to rule the world. Appearing as a recruitable NPC in the first game, the sequel places him in an asylum from where Tiax claims that he already has taken over the world and now rules it all from inside his
little padded cell throne room.
- Pretty much all the evil gods in the Forgotten Realms have this goal.
- Bane, god of Tyranny, has this as his main goal and almost all of his followers' failed plots revolve around this to some degree.
- In Crucible: Trial of Cyric the Mad, the main character's goal towards the beginning was to get a book that would make everyone worship his god, Cyric, thereby allowing him to take over not only the world, but the entire pantheon.
- All Shar wants, though, is to destroy the world, not rule it.
- Subverted in Girl Genius, where at the start, the evil mad genius Baron Wulfenbach has already taken over the world with his no-nonsense straighforward plan
- Another video game example: This is the ultimate goal in Evil Genius, a Real Time Strategy game where players take control of a wannabe overlord and set off to conquer the world with various criminal means.
- Beautifully mocked by Shadow Hearts: Covenant. When the Bonus Boss Orobas appears he begins to spout off about his plans for world domination. At that point, however, Anastasia - who by this point has seen a half-dozen different enemies say much the same things - steps foward and asks, "And then what?" When Orobas asks what she means, she demands to know what he's going to do with the world once he conquers it. Orobas stammers for a bit, and then mutters that he'll have to think about it... at which point Anastasia tells the party to just beat him down.
- The person in real life who set the record for most land conquered was Genghis Khan.
- Alexander the Great warrants a mention, as he conquered what was essentially the known world at the time, before he was 25.
- Arguably, any significantly large empire that had a lot of land and a large population could qualify. Especially if they had significant international prestige and influence. The British Empire immediately comes to mind, as does The Roman Empire. America and Soviet Russia would (arguably) be the closest modern examples.
- Lord Voldemort of the Harry Potter series seems to have this as one of his main goals.
- Deconstructed in Soon I Will Be Invincible. As he works on his latest Evil Plan (and afterwards) Doctor Impossible wonders what "taking over the world" even means, having tried everything from Time Travel to an army of fish:
What does it mean to conquer the world? Is there really a way to do it? Do you have to be the richest one, or the smartest one, or to beat everyone in a fight? Or just to know you could? Is it to be invincible? ... Does it just mean to get the girl you really wanted?
- Precisely what the titular Mad Scientist protagonist of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog tries to accomplish: take over the world, change the Status Quo, put power into different hands.... and impress the girl from the laundromat that he has a crush on.
Dr. Horrible: (re: Johnny Snow, his self-proclaimed "nemesis") "Look, I'm just trying to change the world, ok? I don't have time for a grudge match with every poser in a parka!"
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it!"
- Most strategy video games have this as an explicit or implicit victory condition.
- Almost all {{4X}} games give you victory when you conquer the world...or the galaxy.
- The Soviet campaign for Red Alert 2 ends with the Soviet Union ruling the entire world.
- The campaigns from Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Soulstorm fulfill this. They end only when the player faction rules the planet or, in the latter, the solar system.
- Syndicate ended with your Mega Corp conquering the entire world. In the sequel, they control the planet uncontested (until the game starts.)
- This Trope is a running joke for the Nostalgia Critic in his reviews. When the antagonist of any film is revealed to have this goal in mind the review will be interrupted by M. Bison as he was played by Raul Julia in the movie adaptation of Street Fighter. The joke goes like this:
Nostalgia Critic: His goal is, you guessed it, to take over the world
M. Bison: Of course!
- Princess Tutu's Japanese official website listed profiles for most of the major characters—pretty standard stuff, including height, weight, and each character's "likes" and "dislikes". Most of it isn't too much of a surprise, like Ahiru's love for ballet and dislike of food with chicken in it...but then you get to Autor's profile. What he likes? "World Domination". Apparently that's the reason he's so obsessed with Drosselmeyer's story-spinning powers!
- Happens a number of times in Sluggy Freelance. Bun-Bun and K'Z'K have both tried to take over the main Sluggy universe (Bun-Bun actually succeeded, for all of ten minutes). The Dimension of Pain demons apparently took over their home dimension in order to make it "of Pain," and tried to do the same thing to the Dimension of Lame. This is also the long term goal of the Hereti Corporation and the K'Z'K cults that have sprung up following the Demon's death.
- Darkseid, the Lord of Apokolips, wants to rule the entire DC Universe.
- The Purple tentacle in The Day Of The Tentacle wants to do this, and in fact succeds, after drinking some radioactive residuals.
- On Fairly Odd Parents, most villains want to do it. According to Norm the Genie, most (or all) of humanity wants to. However, he does not despite being a villain. Wanda did lie (or guess that) Norm wanted to "enslave you all" during "Gimme the Wand" in Fairy Idol. Saying bad untruths about the opponent. A common political tactic in fact. "Gimme the Wand" was full of those.
- One of the main characters in the webcomic Friendly Hostility, Collin, is a megalomaniac who has dreams of becoming a dictator to politically unstable third world countries. Several arcs have sprung from this desire.
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