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Zero Percent Approval Rating
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Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?
It's a rare and lucky Evil Overlord who manages to get The Empire nice and entrenched, perhaps even managing to Take Over The World. And when they do, life probably seems pretty good, what with being master of all they survey. There's just one little problem they sometimes face. (Well, two if you count those pesky heroes, but they'll be dealt with soon enough...) Everyone hates them.
Everyone.
The reasons vary. Sometimes it's the high taxes (or tribute, if you're particularly old-fashioned) they demand to keep themselves living a life of luxury as the peasants starve. Sometimes it's their little hobby of periodically going out and raining terror, destruction, and death upon the quivering populace to remind everyone who's boss. And sometimes... who knows?
One almost has to pity the Evil Overlord who faces this. Sure, it's expected that a few foolhardy souls would form some sort of heroic rebellion. But it must hurt that, with the exception of the Evil Minions working directly for them, every single human being or other sentient creature in their dominion hates their guts and yearns for the day they're overthrown. The only consolation they've got is that most of the populace are willing to keep their heads down and hope to stay out of trouble. But it's a sure bet that even those people still grumble, and those damn rebels can be pretty confident of getting quiet assistance from just about anyone they meet.
Maybe the Evil Overlord is some sort of incarnation of Ultimate Evil who just doesn't care that he or she has a Zero Percent Approval Rating. Then again, maybe he or she should consider some photo ops.
An Evil Overlord running The Empire doesn't always have this problem, it should be noted. Sometimes they favour a certain segment of the population while keeping another segment down, so they have support in some quarters. Other times, they manage to keep their true nature hidden, becoming a Villain With Good Publicity who just about everyone loves except for the few who find out about the true evil hiding behind the Government Conspiracy. Still other times, it turns out that a lot of people just don't care that the people in charge are openly homicidal demon worshiping alien hybrids who eat souls; as long as the trains run on time and the television's entertaining, life is good and whatever evil stuff's happening is Somebody Elses Problem.
This serves a pragmatic reason for writers in terms of keeping things morally justified for our heros. Because if they were taking out an emperor who was popular with the people or whom had done good work for the country under their control for a (usually) personal vendetta, they wouldn't seem that much like heros at all!
For some reason, a Zero Percent Approval Rating rarely stops an overlord from recruiting hordes of utterly loyal Mooks. Trustworthy lieutenants and advisers are much harder to come by for the hated tyrant, though.
Of course, if a Zero Percent Approval Rating really bothers you, there's always the option of Brainwashing, or to single out a couple of people and turn them into Les Collaborateurs. The Evil Overlord who wants to work at it can try Bread And Circuses.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Played horrifyingly straight in Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix. The king in Yamato is distinctly aware of how much the kingdom hates him, and therefore orders a hundred people to be sacrificed when he dies just to ensure that the country will mourn his death.
- Almost every subordinate (and just about everyone in general) of Naraku from Inuyasha seems to want to kill him for one reason or another, including characters that are incarnations of himself.
- Lelouch seems to be doing this in Code Geass R2: since taking over as Emperor, he's alienated the nobility of Britannia by dismantling the aristocracy, and alienated everyone else by barging his way into the UFN and using his Geass to mind-control everyone, making it seem for all intents and purposes that he's out to Take Over The World. Strangely due to his actions the common Britannia people love him.
- It is. His master plan is to make himself into the enemy of the world, have Suzaku take up the mantle of Zero and be killed by Zero.
- The commoners don't like him very much after he sends wave after human wave of troops into FLEIA blasts (essentially nukes of the Code Geass world) in the final battle. He also did this to be so much more atrocious than Princess Euphemia's actions that the public would forget about her.
- The Zanscare Empire were seen as the most despicable villains by UC Gundam standards.
- How they have managed to top Zeon with its One-Week War (which involved killing about half of the Solar system population by nukes and colony gassings)?
Comic Books
Film
- The film version of Eragon. The villain is so despised, it seems that nobody, from the peasants to the minions to The Dragon (that is, his most powerful ally, not his literal dragon steed) has anything but fear and loathing for him, no matter how much his reign benefits them personally.
- Even in the novels, there's very little justification shown for the ill-will towards the emperor. The three main crimes he's supposedly guilty of are usurpation (which might be heroic depending on the nature of the old king), taxation (but they don't seem to be too awfully heavy), and torture of a member of the rebellion. This has fuelled an Alternate Character Interpretation of the Emperor as a decent ruler dealing with eco-terrorists, who used the Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique.
- Yeah, aren't you forgetting something? He slaved the immortal souls of pratically ALL the dragons in the world, and only wants Sapphira for breeding, since she's the last living female of the species. Imprisioning the souls of an entire sentient species to gather their power and wanting to turn the only living female of said creatures into a baby making machine with no other use seems quite evil to me. Of course, this doesn't explain why all the humans hate him so much, since I doubt most of them care that much about dragons
- Well, there's always the forced conscription into the army all across the country, the slaughtering of villages, the fact everyone is afraid of any sort of dissenting word about him getting back to anyone a part of the government or army... Really, just take one look at what he did to Murtagh, and realize that's pretty typical of his style as a ruler.
- One of the complaints directed against the film adaptation of Alan Moore's V For Vendetta is that everyone already hated and distrusted the government before V came around, and had no fear of saying so. This is definitely not the case in the original comic; one of the most nefarious things about the Norsefire Coalition, as Moore depicted them, was that they were Villains With Good Publicity who actually had valid accomplishments to brag about (e.g., resurrecting the UK economy in the aftermath of a nuclear winter).
- And the fact that if a person in the comic was caught badmouthing Norsefire they'd be put into concentration camps. And anywhere you looked there was a two-way CCTV with audio.
- Don't worry Brits. Just a few more years, and the other direction on the CCTV will be available, along with your computerized ID cards containing all of your personal info in a way that can be hacked in under 12 seconds.
- We know. We just can't seem to make them stop it.
Literature
- Played with in a few of the Discworld novels. In Wyrd Sisters, the Felmets seem annoyed at how long it takes for their tyrannical rule to get to the people of Lancre; at one point Duke Felmet laments "You couldn't oppress a people like that any more than you could oppress a mattress."
- Lord Vetinari is something of a subversion; very few people seem to actually like him or even the patrician system of goverment in general - there seem to be plenty of casual royalists in Ankh-Morpork. However no one wants to get rid of him as he has carefully manipulated the situation to ensure his would-be usurpers hate each other more that they do him. And even if they do get rid of him, what then?
- Lord Hong of InterestingTimes is another good example. When Cohen the Barbarian places his sword to the neck of one of the palace servants and ask them who scares the servant more, Cohen or Hong, the servant actually answers Hong.
- Narnia's Evil Overlords spanned the entire popularity spectrum:
- Jadis the White Witch: absolute zero approval rating from the "good" races (only the "evil" races were her allies).
- Miraz: Zero approval rating from the Old Narnians in hiding, but was approved of by most of the Telmarines.
- The Tisroc of Calomen, during The Horse and his Boy: From what we're shown of the Middle Eastern-esque Calormen, it's impossible to say what his approval rating is. Everyone except the rich provincial Calormene lords have reason to hate him, but it appears that at least some of the peasants revere him - the protagonist Shasta briefly fantasizes about being this guy's son without actually knowing anything about him for example - while the rich lords envy him and plot to rise to his position.
- The Lady of the Green Kirtle: Brainwashed all of the gnomes into serving her, raising the question as to why she couldn't conquer Narnia that way.
- Perhaps the spell only works on goblins/gnomes/whatever?
- The spell had No Ontological Inertia upon her death, so it's likely she has a limit on how many people she can actually dominate at any given time.
- Older Than Feudalism (at the very least), as it is simpler to make, say, the Pharoh of Egypt, King Saul of Israel, or Prince John of England, universally unpopular so as to make Moses, David, and Robin Hood heroic in an uncomplicated way. In the novels of Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe), Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers) and Rafael Sabatini (Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk) the characters are universally liked, or at least accepted, by the populace, who favor them over their legal rulers. The hundreds of Hollywood movies made from or imitating these novels follow that lead and usually exaggerate it.
- The Winkies feel this way about the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. Likewise the Munchkins about Wicked Witch of the East. The Wizard is just Villain With Good Publicity.
- Machiavelli's The Prince advises against this. It suggests ruling by being both loved and feared; however, it acknowledges instilling both in the populace is difficult. Love is a good choice, but fear is the safer bet of the two, because love is given at will, while fear is involuntary. However, above all, a ruler must avoid being hated.
- Vlad Dracul subverts this trope as though he was very... active in his tyranty, most and all of it was directed at people trying to conquer his country and the people who had functionally sold his country's freedoms for security (such as betraying him or his father to allow said outsiders control the throne or use the country as war resources). So while he's usually seen as a Complete Monster outside of his home country, he's regarded as a national hero within.
- As one of my professors once said, "Historians have estimated that Vlad Tepes killed 30,000 of his own people over the course of his reigns. Contemporary chronicles only praise him for solving the unemployement problem."
- In Astrid Lindgren's novel "Mio, my son" (or "Mio, my Mio" in some translations), the antagonist, sir Kato the knight, suffers from a particularly bad case of this trope. Literally everyone and everything the protagonist runs into during his quest hates him, including his own servants and nature itself. Just saying Kato’s name causes the sky to darken, moonlight to fade, flowers to wither and birdsong to fall silent. Oh, and his heart is literally made of stone. Everything the protagonist meets during his journey enthusiastically tries to help him defeat Kato, not only people, but even rocks and trees actively helps him to hide from Kato’s men since they despise the knight just as much as everyone else. In the end, when the hero finally manages to defeat him in a duel, even Kato starts begging the protagonist to kill him which makes the hero realize that probably no one hates Kato as much as Kato himself.
- In the Black Company novels, the Dominator is so thoroughly hated by everyone, even his own inner circle, that many of his former lieutenants conspire with the Black Company to keep him bound in his grave. His successor, the Lady, goes out of her way to avoid this trope, but still ends up fighting disaffected rebels. For example, her big black fortress of Evil is named 'Charm'.
Live Action TV
- In Flash Gordon, Ming the Merciless seems to be hated by everybody - but their hatred of him is exceeded by their fear of him, as his name would suggest. That, and most of Mongo's races are too busy hating each other to focus in Ming himself. (By contrast, in the recent Sci Fi Channel series, he's charismatic and actually has a pretty good PR thing going.)
Theater
Video Games
- In the Starcraft expansion pack, Brood War, Kerrigan almost lampshades this when she says she is 'the Queen bitch of the Universe'. The Protoss also describe her as the 'enemy of all who live'.
- Subverted by Baten Kaitos, where the ruler everyone hates (except the people in his capital city, who adore him) is actually being puppeteered by a lesser noble that everyone loves and who is actually The Man Behind The Man.
- Luca Blight from Suikoden II holds this title due to fact that he is a genocidal bloodthirsty psychopath while the people in his country...are not.
- IIRC, Luca Blight is actually very popular among his own soldiers. During the final battle Luca Blight, his soldiers will leap into the path of arrows fired against him and make enthused declarations of their loyalty to him. Contrast with later scenes involving the Highland soldiers, where their enthusiasm is notably reduced.
- Orochi in Okami. Granted, being a monsterous armored multi-headed dragon probably killed any thoughts of resistance against him.
- Although Tony Montana from Scarface: The World Is Yours is usually a Villain With Good Publicity (or, more accurately, an Anti Hero), raising his Cop Heat and Gang Heat too high can cause him to suffer detriments that include gangsters attacking unprovoked and police responding with amazing speed to minor transgressions.
- In Half Life 2, everyone you meet (even those who aren't members of La Resistance) seems to be fed up with the Combine's reign. Then again, this editor guesses the constant relocations, disappearances, warrantless investigations, and oh yeah, impotence field don't help matters.
- Not to mention the destroying almost every civilisation on the planet within 11 Hours when they first warped through. No, they're just the Evil Empire.
- Then, in Episode One, they start complaining about how things like the revolution happening never happened when the Combine were still around.
- Weeks of nonstop fighting and the whole "the City is going to blow up" oh and if the Combine ever come back they're going to make the five hour war look like a sissy fight would do that
- Weeks? The entirety of Half-Life 2 and its subsequent episodes take place over the course of about 11 days, 7 of which are skipped by the player thanks to the teleportation accident.
- In Star Control 2, we learn about the Dynarri, a race of evil and incredibly powerful psychics that enslaved the Sentient Milieu (in particular the Ur-Quan) and had them do horrible things for them. When you learn about the backstory of the Ur-Quan, who up until now have been either enslaving or exterminating everything in their path, and what they had to do to bring down the Dynarri, you're almost invited to feel sorry for them.
- After the second American Civil War in Shattered Union, the one faction not composed of former Americans trying to rebuild the country is the armed forces of the European Union. Every other faction sees them for what they really are - Europe's thinly veiled attempt to prop the United States back up (the world economy did collapse as a result of the war, after all), essentially turning it into a puppet state to all of Europe.
- In the Mega Man Zero series, Dr. Weil takes over Neo Arcadia in Zero 3 thanks to a Xanatos Gambit. Sure, Copy X was a total jerk, but at least he was good at taking care of the people he governed. Then in 4, we see humans leaving Neo Arcadia in droves for the greener pastures of Area Zero. Gee, I wonder why? Weil tries to rectify the problem... By forcefully taking them back. This doesn't work, so he tries to destroy Area Zero's environment instead. Not only is he making things worse for himself, but Neo Arcadia is blown up by Weil's own Kill Sat, and his approval rating also seemed to be an indication of his chances of survival...
- Surprisingly averted in Final Fantasy XII. When Vayne takes over as regent of the newly defeated Dalmasca, everyone expects to hate him, but he gives an impassioned speech and many members of Dalmasca begin to grudgingly respect him. At least for a while.
- The New Rubinelle Army in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is practically a Zero Percent Approval Rating Army. The troops are pawns who Commander Greyfield gladly sacrifices to kill one annoying commander from the rebellion. Waylon is a materialistic fighter captain with no respect for the pilots who he flies with, (Previews actually made him look like a good guy) and Davis is a Dirty Coward and Butt Monkey who joins a cult. Even the IDS had some redeemable personalities (Penny and Cyrus.)
Western Animation
- In Superman The Animated Series, Lois Lane visits an alternate reality where Superman and Lex Luthor joined forces to take over Metropolis and seem to have a Zero Percent Approval Rating.
- Subverted, or perhaps parodied, in The Simpsons "Easter Stories", where David (Bart) fights and kills Goliath Jr. (Nelson) who took over his kingdom. David gets arrested for "megacide" because Goliath Jr. was publicly beloved and used his huge size to build roads, libraries, and hospitals.
- "We called him 'Goliath the Consensus-Builder'."
- In The Lion King Scar is such an unpopular ruler that even THE LAND ITSELF seems to hate him; it begins to wither and die as a result of his reign (and once he's overthrown, everything gets pretty again.) The lionesses and Zazu openly criticize his policies, all the animals seem to hate him, and even the Hyenas who helped him come to power have grown so irritated with his rule that at the end of the movie they eat him alive. Yet no one even tries to overthrow the guy until Simba returns from exile to take him down.
- In The Lion King 2 we're introduced to a rogue pride of lions who remained loyal to Scar throughout his rule, to the point of still being loyal to him years after his death. But this group is never seen or mentioned in the original film (and you have to wonder why none of them tried to help Scar out when Simba was kicking his ass.)
- Many fans think that those lionesses were out hunting when Simba came back.
Web Original
- The Dark Overlords from the web fiction serial Dimension Heroes are almost universally hated by the populace of their dimension...that is, unless they manage to brainwash them to see things from their point of view.
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