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Narrative
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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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