Damn I love this website.
Future Edits/Posts:
- Foil: Each member of Team Cap and Team Iron Man serves as one to a member on the other side.
- Captain America/Iron Man:
- Falcon/War Machine:
- Winter Soldier/Black Panther:
- Scarlet Witch/Vision:
- Hawkeye/Black Widow:
- Ant-Man/Spider-Man:
Total War: Warhammer - The High Elves
- Planet of Hats: For the Asur as a whole, Smug Super, but Ulthuan is also subdivided into 10 elven kingdoms with very distinct cultures of their own, something that is reflected in their unit roster, Landmark buildings around Ulthuan and the special campaign events that require the player to accumulate Gold and Influence to get the best outcomes for. The ten kingdoms are as follows:
- The five Inner Kingdoms within the protective mountain range of Ulthuan:
- Avelorn: Closer to Earth.
- Caledor: Arrogance.
- Eataine: Commerce.
- Ellyrion: Horseriding.
- Saphery: Scholarship.
- The five Outer Kingdoms around the outer coastline of Ulthuan:
- Chrace: Huntsmanship.
- Cothique: Seamanship.
- Nagarythe: Dark Is Not Evil.
- Tiranoc: Chariots.
- Yvresse: Endurance.
- The five Inner Kingdoms within the protective mountain range of Ulthuan:
Total War: Warhammer - The Wood Elves
- Story Arc: In Mortal Empires post-rework, each Magical Forest has a storyline attached to it, starting with the method of taking it, then a Forest Encounter concerning the local race around it, the gradual process of raising the Forest Health of said forest then a Ritual of Awakening to restore its power and sentience while fighting off three enemy armies and finally a special landmark building unlocked by completing the Ritual that has massive boosts for the entire faction.
- The Oak of Ages: Increases Growth by up to 50 in all provinces, reduces upkeep for all units by up to 20% and reduces the cooldown for Deeproots teleportation by up to 4. Natural decline increases at each tier by up to 8. Unlocks the fifth tier, which grants a 10% Ward Save and Vanguard Deployment to all units during forest battles, among other perks.
- Oreon's Camp: Grants units experience of up to 200 each turn. Unlocks the Temple of Kurnous, which grants immunity to attrition in Desert and Barren Wasteland attrition, raises the Weapon Strength of all units by 10%, raises the recruit rank for Glade Captains by 2 in all provinces, provides a garrison of four units of Wild Riders with Shields, four units of Wildwood Rangers and one unit of Waywatchers and unlocks the recruitment of Wild Riders and Great Stag Knights.
- Laurelorn Forest: Increases income from all building by up to 12%. Unlocks the Verdant Heart of Laurelorn, which produce trade resources (20 bundles of Medicinal Herbs and 20 logs of Timber), increases income from trade by 30%, raises the recruit rank for Waystalkers by 3 in all provinces, provides a garrison of two units of Glade Riders, two units of Tree Kin and two units of Waywatchers and unlocks the recruitment of Deepwood Scouts and Waywatchers.
- The Witchwood: Increases the faction's Research Rate by up to 20%. Unlocks the Temple of Anath Raema, which grants immunity to Mountain and Snow attrition, increases Missile Strength for all units by 10%, raises the recruit rank for Lore of Beasts casters by 3 in all provinces and provides a Garrison of two units of Hawk Riders, one Forest Dragon and two units of Dryads.
- The Gaean Vale: In the Vortex Campaign it raises the recruit rank for Lords and Heroes by up to 4, while in the Mortal Empires campaign it raises the Winds of Magic Power Reserve of all armies by up to 40. Unlocks the Temple of Isha, which increases the starting amount of Winds of Magic by 5 for all armies, provides a 5% increase to Physical Resistance for all units in all armies, grants immunity to Chaos attrition, provide a garrison of two units of Sisters of the Thorn, four units of Tree Kin and one Treeman and unlocks the recruitment of Dryads, Tree Kin and Treemen.
- The Forest of Gloom: Increases campaign Movement Range for all characters by up to 20%. Unlocks the Shadow-Groves of Loec, which increases Hero action success chance by 10%, raises the recruit rank for Lore of Shadows casters by up to 3 in all provinces, raises the recruit rank for units of Wardancers and Bladesingers by 3 factionwide, provides a garrison of four units of Wardancers and four units of Wardancers with Asrai Spears and unlocks the recruitment of Wardancers, Wardancers with Asrai Spears and Bladesingers.
- The Gryphon Wood: Reduces the recruitment cost for all units by up to 20%. Unlocks the Temple of Ereth-Khial, Which grants immunity to Vampiric attrition, reduces the Public Order penalty from the presence of Corruption by 30%, increases the recruit rank for Branchwraiths by 3 in all provinces, provides a garrison of four units of Eternal Guard with shields, four units of Wildwood Rangers and two units of Waywatchers and unlocks recruitment of Wildwood Rangers.
- The Sacred Pools: Increases the casuality replenishment rate for all armies by up to 12%. Unlocks the Sacred Pools of Isha, which grants immunity to Skaven Plague and swamp attrition, reduces wound recovery time for all characters by 2 turns, increases the recruit rank for Lore of Life casters by 3 in all provinces, provides a garrison of four units of Sisters of the Thorn, two units of Tree Kin and two Treemen and allows the recruitment of Sisters of the Thorn and Zoats.
What is the Work? Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) is a movie set in the MonsterVerse cinematic Shared Universe. Set five years after the events of the 2014 Godzilla movie, it centers on a single Driving Question: should mankind destroy the increasing number of discovered kaiju (dubbed "Titans" in this continuity) slumbering around the world, or find a way to co-exist with them? Regardless of where you stand on that issue, this guy is generally bad for arguments about cohabitation.
Who is King Ghidorah?
The only Titan not to start the movie with a pre-assigned catchy name, simply being dubbed "Monster Zero". Later dubbed Ghidorah, "The One Who is Many", and later in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment King Ghidorah. Among the Titans he's a very recent discobery, meaning the good guys have little to no information about him. Apart from that, if you've seen any movie about his previous outings, you’ll know who he is. If not, read on and find out more.
What has he done?
Note: Sorry if there’s a lot of things other people do talked about, but it’s necessary to put his actions in context.
The first time we see everyone’s favourite three-headed, planet-killing space dragon is shortly into the first act of the movie. First we meet Alan Jonah (Charles Dance), who I will hereafter refer to as "Tywin" because the fact he has Two First Names means I'm never sure which to use, as he kidnaps Dr. Emma Russell and her daughter Madison to take advantage of a device Emma created called the Orca, which is capable of recreating the bio-acoustics by which the Titans communicate with each other. They go to Antarctica, where Monarch (think of them as S.H.I.E.L.D. but for giant monsters) agents have been studying a monster frozen in the cold Antarctic ice at Outpost 32; they kill the Monarch agents and scientists and go to see the monster in question. That monster turns out to be Ghidorah. "Mother of God..." mutters one of Tywin's mercs. "She had nothing to do with this," snarks Tywin. Tywin's mercs get to work drilling holes in the ice while the Orca is used to analyse Ghidorah's bio-acoustics.
Once the good guys arrive at Antarctica, having followed Godzilla there after determining he must be looking for ol' Monster Zero, the holes have been filled with armed explosives. Along the way, it's explained that Ghidorah is a rival Alpha to Godzilla, and that their beef with each other is personal and goes way back. In a surprise twist, not only does Emma stop her daughter from running over to her father (Kyle Chandler), who has joined the assault on the attacked Monarch to get his family back, but she actually grabs the detonator for the explosives, tells the good guys to run and activates the detonator.
Between that and Emma activating the Orca, Ghidorah is awoken and emerges from the ice in dramatic fashion. Several of the Monarch soldiers start shooting at him, which apparently he takes such major offense to that he blasts them with his Gravity Beams. Then Godzilla shows up, and he and Ghidorah have a staring contest for a few moments before roaring and charging at each other. They fight for a bit and Ghidorah ends up getting the upper hand; he flies off, Godzilla roars and the next thing we see is Kyle Chandler waking up in a hospital bed.
Ghidorah kind of disappears for a bit then, Monarch saying they lost him in a tropical storm. Emma Russell sends them a video message to explain things, ranting about how humanity is destroying the planet and the Titans should be awoken one by one to fix things like she did with Mothra and Ghidorah earlier in the movie, which Monarch don't agree with at all, saying she's toying with forces beyond humanity’s comprehension or ability to control. After the message ends they realise she plans to awaken another Titan, one contained at Monarch Outpost 56 on Isla de Mara, which they were en route to anyway and from which Monarch has been evacuating people in preparation of something bad happening. Sure enough, the Titan is released, and it's the MonsterVerse version of Rodan.
The aforementioned tropical storm suddenly turns and starts making a beeline for Isla de Mara, which sounds impossible... until they realise: Ghidorah didn’t get lost in the storm, Ghidorah IS the storm! Mark points out to Dr. Serizawa that Ghidorah’s reacting to Rodan’s bird-like screeching, which means "He's either coming for food, a fight or... something more intimate." They decide to get Rodan's attention and guide him directly to Ghidorah, and hope they fight each other instead of killing anyone.
Things don't exactly go according to plan (for starters, Rodan takes out an entire squadron of fighter pilots), but they do get them into contact with each other... and Ghidorah kicks Rodan's tail. But just as Ghidorah is about to let the humans have it, Godzilla appears and drags him down into the water. Don't celebrate yet, though. The military has decided to do what they always do in Godzilla movies: make a bloody nuisance of themselves. They send a missile designed to destroy all the oxygen in a wide radius, which they helpfully inform our heroes of dangerously close to the missile's arrival. Just as Godzilla bites off Ghidorah's leftmost head, the missile strikes. Godzilla seemingly dies, along with a whole lot of sea life, but Ghidorah walks away completely unharmed. He caps off his victory by growing his left head back and enslaving the Titans of Earth, commanding them to awaken en masse and attack human cities.
The good guys muse that Ghidorah's survival and healing abilities defy explanation, that they aren't natural. And as it turns out, that's because Ghidorah himself is not natural. Not for us anyway. He's an alien who came to Earth in the distant past, and the reason he and Godzilla fought wasn't for dominance, it was for the survival of the Earth. As the military reports that Titans are attacking all over the world, they note that the bait-them-with-nuclear-materials trick from the first movie isn't working for some reason, and determine that Ghidorah is not concerned with saving the planet but rather trampling all existing life on Earth so he can take over.
To cut a long story short, they realize that Godzilla is not dead, just severely weakened, and hatch a plan to rescue him that gives him a power boost as well. During this time, the military have to fight Ghidorah, who's made a "nest" for himself in Washington DC, until the Orca's signal is broadcast from Fenway Park in Boston by Madison, who snuck away from her mother with the device in question earlier in the movie. This breaks Ghidorah's control over all the Titans except Godzilla and Mothra (who weren't affected in the first place) and Rodan (who was helping him in DC and I guess was still affected enough by his power to not be freed), leading him to make a beeline for Boston with Godzilla and Mothra heading there too. At Kyle Chandler's suggestion, the military joins this fight as well.
Ghidorah finds the source of the signal and chomps it, but then realises Madison is inside the building in the stadium and decides to kill her even though, as a girl who's a teenager at most, she poses pretty much no threat to him. Through a long and complicated battle sequence that follows, he kills a bunch of fighter pilots, kills Mothra, kills an atoning Emma Russell, and is finally killed by Godzilla, who burns the last of his body away with his Atomic Breath. As the heroes look on in weary relief, a repentant Rodan and three other Titans kneel respectfully before Godzilla, who is now free to take his rightful place as, sure enough, King of the Monsters.
...But Godzilla may not be rid of his nemesis after all, because The Stinger reveals Tywin has gone to Isla de Mara and and plans to buy the severed left head of Ghidorah that Godzilla bit off earlier in the movie off a group of now-unemployed fishermen. Uh oh.
Does he have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
HA HA HA—No. We don't know much of anything about Ghidorah's backstory other than that he's... not from around here. The three heads of Ghidorah do have individual personalities, but none of them seem to be benevolent in any fashion; the left head is somewhat docile and curious, the right head is grumpy and irritable and the middle head is in charge, bullying the other two into cooperation if it has to. No compromised morality, no people he's actually attached to, no nothing.
Does he meet the Heinousness Standard?
Let's do this by bullet point for brevity's sake.
- Ghidorah's part of a Big Bad Ensemble with Tywin and/or Emma Russell, depending on how much you consider her a villain of the piece as well. Regardless he's the biggest and baddest among them, which means that he sets the Heinous Standard for this movie.
- As for the general Heinous Standard? He kills at least a score of people on screen despite knowing full well they pose no threat to him, commands the Titans to kill millions more offscreen, is often shown with a Slasher Smile and notably, tries to kill Godzilla slowly and painfully in the final act despite having him on the ropes. It's fairly clear he's a Sadist on top of being an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Something emphasised about the 17 or so terrestrial Titans in both this movie and past MonsterVerse entries is that each of them is, to a man, a Non-Malicious Monster; they are animals who act according to their instincts. They're smart, to be sure, but still animalistic. Godzilla doesn't go out of his way to kill people, and after Serizawa sacrifices himself to save him he does seem grateful, enough to keep the rest of the Titans away from human civilization centers. Kong is violently protective of his kingdom, but is genuinely protective of Skull Island's natives and does come to the rescue of the Skull Island Expedition against the Skullcrawlers. The behaviour of the Titans in this movie is even more explicit. When Ghidorah dominates them, they go on rampages and ignore their normal instincts; when his control over them is broken, they become peaceful and attempt to return to their natural habitats. Some might say Rodan is pretty destructive too, but Rodan fights against Ghidorah, and only joins him after falling under his control. Compared to the MUTOs and the Skullcrawlers, Ghidorah's bodycount is much larger, and it's clear he kills because he chooses to rather than as part of his life cycle or to protect younglings. Oh, that's another thing: the MUTOs genuinely loved each other and their children, while Ghidorah doesn't love ANYONE.
- Tywin is the only other character in the movie who seems like a viable candidate, and he doesn't really do enough to justify an effortpost, unless you guys consider "Not being willing to do anything about Ghidorah" to be a CM-worthy act. I feel like his backstory of being a disillusioned soldier who's lost his faith in humanity after witnessing the worst of human nature in wartime may disqualify him — may being the operative word. I guess we should keep an eye on him for now — he may do something CM-worthy in a sequel.
Final Verdict
Like Brainiac and Ultron, Ghidorah is one of those characters who can't help but be this trope no matter what; the only versions I know of who don't count are the robot one and the GMK Ghidorah, who's a good guy. Either way, here's to another CM-worthy Ghidorah. Who's with me?
https://youtu.be/uOTv9xJMdxA?t=175
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMd-OLzHSJgu9sUg_Kf5Up3oLWc3i4F0y
Overlord Effort Posts & Drafts
What's the work?
Part 1 of the Overlord series, Overlord I is a third-person action-adventure game in which you control the titular Overlord, a Sauron lookalike backed up by an army of Minions, little goblin-like creatures who follow him around and kill/carry/smash things on command. Its story and setting are a parody of Dark Fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons, with an ex-adventuring party serving as the main antagonists and the Overlord himself having the option of being a Noble Demon who rules fairly if pragmatically or The Caligula who kills and destroys everything around him because he likes it. The gameplay meanwhile is a grim & gritty riff on Pikmin of all things, with the Overlord commanding four tribes of minions (the Browns, the tough but thuggish ones who are only good at beating things up and carrying; the Reds, who are fragile but immune to fire and can throw fire at enemies from a distance; the Greens, who turn invisible when standing still and can do a lot of damage when jumping on an enemy's back — and who smell bad — and the Blues, who can breathe underwater, revive dead Minions and compensate for their weak attacks with magic) and needing to shuffle, micromanage and split up his horde of minions to solve puzzles, fight off hordes of enemies and retrieve personal upgrades and powerful magic to be stored in his Evil Tower of Ominousness.
The series is written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of Terry. If you play it, you'll certainly recognise the same loving but irreverent tone and quirky sensibilities her father brought to high fantasy, science fiction and religion in his own works.
Anyway, time to talk more about the first game and the candidate I've left hanging long enough.
Who is the Second Overlord? The Second Overlord was the incumbent ruler of the Dark Tower and master of the Minion race prior to the start of the game. He was defeated by a party of seven adventurers led by a grumpy old curmudgeon known only as the Wizard (No, I don't think he was a Time Lord) and Killed Offscreen. The adventurers went home and were celebrated as heroes. Some were even Offered the Crown! But the world will have to wait on its happy ending. Firstly because the heroes have become decadent and lost to the Seven Deadly Sins. (Yep, here they are again.) And secondly, because the Minions have picked out a hapless shmuck they found in the ruins of the tower (that would be you) to be their new Overlord. It's at this point that the game begins.
What Happens Next?
Yeah, before we talk any more about the Second Overlord, we gotta talk about the Seven Heroes. Why? Because the fact that he's been behind everything all along is held way back for an eleventh hour twist after they spend a lot of time hinting that it's the Wizard who's been the mastermind of the game's events. Anyway, here are the Seven Heroes and their respective sins, in roughly the order you fight them in.
- Melvin Underbelly, formerly Melvin the Small: Halfling bard (?), represents the sin of Gluttony. He's the Starter Villain, a once small halfling who became obsessed with eating everything he could get his hands on. This led to him ballooning into a semi-literal ball of lard and spreading the same level of gluttony to his subjects, who are so consumed with gluttony that they emit Evil Energy when they die. (We'll circle back to that.) At the start of the game, Melvin's halflings are menacing the small human village of Spree near their hometown in Mellow Hills. They constantly steal food & livestock and kidnap people to enslave or feed to Melvin. After you defeat him, Melvin explodes — again, literally — and leaves behind a substantial amount of Evil Energy, suggesting this has been going on for a while.
- Oberon Greenhaze: Elf ranger, represents the sin of Sloth. After beating the old Overlord, he apparently suffered Heroic Fatigue and took to napping. Then the dwarves invaded the elven homeland of Evernight Forest... and he was still napping at that point, denying his people the hero they needed in a time of crisis. As a desperation play, he ended up merging with a magic tree to block off the dwarves' access to Evernight, but in the process he became a Botanical Abomination and started filling the forest with his own worst nightmares who guard against intruders but also make the wildlife violently aggressive and cause the forest to spread out of control. The Overlord kills him to stop the forest consuming Spree and the tower nearby, and also to get access to the dwarf lands of Golden Hills. After he begs for death, you grant it and he explodes.
- Sir William the Black, formerly the Noble: Human paladin, represents the sin of Lust. He was once a noble and Chaste Hero, but decided to abandon his oath and duties in order to shag beautiful women and prostitutes in the Halfway to Heaven Inn. More recently, he founded a cult of pleasure and summoned a succubus queen to pleasure him, who summoned her daughters and is spreading a zombie plague around the city of Heaven's Peak and its surrounding hills that he was sworn to protect, which Sir William ignores to continue indulging himself. He was also engaged to marry Velvet, who is the younger sister of the Overlord's Dark Mistress Rose, but jilted her to summon the Succubus Queen. You defeat him and his succubus lover to stop the spread of the plague. His cult fights with him, but he is beaten and explodes.
- Goldo Golderson: Dwarf warrior, represents the sin of Greed. After becoming king of the dwarves, he developed an insatiable Gold Fever and invaded the elves of Evernight to plunder their lands of gold, steal their statue dedicated to the Mother Goddess and scores of elves to serve as slaves in his kingdom, mining gold, building a temple to the Mother Goddess (whom they will be forced to worship as a dwarf goddess rather than an elfen one) and in the women's case, serving as his Sex Slaves. Notable for having no voice actor, having a simple crown, armour and weapon coated in gold and fighting you atop his massive steam tank, Rollie, which he used in his invasion of Evernight as evidenced by prominent treadmarks in the soil leading away from the entrance to Golden Hills. Once you kill him, he explodes. (Noticing a pattern yet?)
- Jewel: Human thief, represents the sin of Envy. She and fellow hero Kahn lead a Bandit Clan based out of the desert region of Ruboria. Jewel is shown to take jobs to steal stuff, including the Elves' Mother Goddess statue, and also just steals on her own, not because she wants things or to sell them, but because they have value to other people, and she enjoys taking their stuff away from them. You don't technically fight her, as she's too cowardly to fight you directly. Instead she's a Puzzle Boss you have to trick into running onto a platform that teleports back to your Dark Tower for interrogation. Does not die or explode, instead apparently staying a prisoner at the tower.
- Kahn: Human warrior, represents the sin of Wrath. (I already hear the Star Trek jokes coming...) Jewel's lover and partner in crime. He has quite a temper on him, getting angry at the slightest inconvenience, and only Jewel can calm him down. Once you capture her, he goes rampaging through the streets of Spree and Heaven's Peak in search of revenge, bringing his bandit underlings and their Beholder minions (yes, those things) which can transport people and objects in their stomachs with him. (Yep, get your Wrath of Khan jokes out of your system...) He destroys large parts of each settlement before you finally defeat him... whereupon he explodes. (And yes, all the death explosions release a lot of Evil Energy. Why do you ask?)
- The Wizard: Human spellcaster, represents the sin of Pride. He's Rose and Velvet's father, and was by all accounts a well-meaning but arrogant git even before what happened to him. Several of the heroes mention that the Wizard is watching them, encouraged or hired them to do what they did; he can be very briefly seen in a cutscene in Golden Hills too. This reflects Pride being the facilitator of the other Deadly Sins. But, and there's a big BUT here, the Wizard is not really the mastermind of what's happening. That "honour" goes to...
What has the Second Overlord done?
So after you beat Kahn you head back to the Dark Tower. Since you killed or captured all the others, the Second Overlord has the power to return to power and retake control of the Dark Tower from you. It's at this point that he makes a series of startling revelations:
- 1. The Wizard was Dead All Along. The Second Overlord transferred his spirit into his body, killing his spirit but leaving him severely weakened.
- 2. He was the one who corrupted the other heroes, driving them deeper and deeper into sin so that they would draw great masses of Evil Energy into their bodies. It's also heavily implied he manipulated Goldo into invading Evernight and stealing the Mother Goddess statue, and then hired Jewel and her thieves to steal it from the dwarves.
- 3. There were not seven members of the Seven Heroes, there were eight. The eighth member seemingly died in the tower and the others left him there. That eighth member was chosen to be the Second Overlord's temporary successor and the Minions were directed to point him directly at the Heroes to kill them all so that the Evil Energy in their bodies would then be released. He would then collect it and recharge his powers with it.
However, your Mistress (be it Rose or Velvet) distracts him before he can kill you, leading to you getting the opening you need to retake control over your spells and bring the Hives, the central living structures of your Minions, back to the central basement chamber of the Tower so you can use the full strength of your army against him. The Second Overlord teleports away to gather his power while you do this.
Once you confront him he gloats about how the Good are predictable in their desire to be heroes, and so are you. During the fight, he constantly repeats the following lines in this order, which he either said directly to the Heroes or said about them to get them on the road to darkness.
"Have another roast pig Melvin...have two...you're a Hero now."
"I think she likes you Sir William, if you want to slip away with her, I won't tell anyone."
"That Jewel had everything, it turned out what she wanted was what other people had."
"Have a rest Oberon, heroes need their rest."
"Hard to see what you love taken away, isn't it Kahn? When reason is gone, nothing is left but madness!"
"Goldo you can have all the gold you've ever wanted, my friend! No one would refuse a hero."
But despite his powerful magic and use of his own Minions, the Second Overlord is defeated. He mumbles a final gripe about how the Good don't know how close to Evil they truly are before you strike him and he explodes in a mass of Evil Energy.
Pride comes before a fall indeed.
Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
No. He's the only Overlord in the series with no established backstory and only sees people around him as tools to be used and expended. He uses Rose or Velvet — the one you didn't keep as a Mistress — as a tool to get into the Dark Tower but he doesn't show any care for them. Rose doesn't think much of her father, but states pretty clearly that the Second Overlord is not him. It seems he really is dead.
Heinousness Standard?
Oh boy, here we go.
There's a lot of Video Game Cruelty Potential in this game series. Like a lot, a lot. And that's the main reason I didn't do an effortpost sooner. The fact is, as both the Third and Fourth Overlord you have many, many times where you can kill, destroy and do evil things to people just because it's funny, or because it's easier than doing things the hard way.
But there's also a fair bit of Video Game Caring Potential in these games as well, and you're generally encouraged to take the Pragmatic Villainy approach of Low Corruption or Domination because overall, it's more sustainable. Case in point, each hero's area has a Moral Dilemma tied into their Deadly Sin that you can increase or lower your Karma Meter with.
- Gluttony
- The Mayor of Spree asks you to retrieve a large pile of their food that was taken from them by the halflings. You can either take the food for yourself, producing a large number of Brown Minions, or return it to them, which makes the sheep in the area (whom you regularly slaughter for Minion lifeforce) flourish and keeps them happy.
- Sloth
- Some Elves ask you to clear out the last part of Evernight Forest that isn't corrupted by Oberon but does have some corrupted Unicorns in it. You can simply set the grass in the grove alight, which is quick safe and easy but destroys the tree at its center, or trek into the grass and kill them in melee with your weapons or Minions, which is slower and riskier but ensures the tree will be preserved.
- Lust
- You meet your first Mistress, Rose, in the ruins of Heaven's Peak's castle early in the game. In the dungeon you fight Sir William in, you find Velvet, his spurned fiancée and Rose's sister. She dresses more sensually than Rose but is an amoral Gold Digger and Spoiled Brat who is only attracted to you because of money and power, while Rose grows to genuinely care for you. You can think with your Mr. Happy and spurn Rose to take Velvet as your new Mistress, which changes the decor options for your Dark Tower extensively, or stay loyal to her, which she'll thank you for. It eventually leads to her having the Third Overlord's child in Raising Hell, more on that in the next two posts.
- Greed
- After you beat Goldo, his fortress starts coming apart. You go into his treasure room and find his hoard and harem of elf women, the last of their kind. Due to being on a time crunch, you can either grab the hoard of 10,000 gold coins at the cost of dooming the elven race to extinction, or abandon it to lead the elf women to safety.
- Envy
- Once you capture Jewel, you can pick up the elven Mother Goddess statue she stole. Two elves then appear near the portal and ask for you to give it back. You can either kill them and take it for yourself to decorate your tower, (it has no actual value or power to give you) or give it back to them.
- Wrath
- Some of the peasants in Spree sell you out to Kahn in order to not be crushed. You can either strike them down in anger for it, or forgive them.
These Pet the Dog moments are part of the series' big Central Theme: Grey-and-Gray Morality, the often thin line between Good and Evil, the ways that Pragmatic Villainy and competent leadership by a tyrant may serve people better than ineffectual good etc. They also clearly establish the Third Overlord as if, not for sure an Anti-Villain, certainly a more nuanced character than the Second Overlord, who for the record I believe shows just enough character and personality in his brief appearance to qualify. It's clear he knows the difference between Good and Evil, and chooses Evil. He's directly responsible for the Seven Heroes becoming Fallen Heroes, indirectly responsible for everything they did as a result and gloats about it gleefully. He has Minions like you, but doesn't use them with any kind of strategy like you have to, instead just using them as Cannon Fodder.
I should also mention that the Minions themselves, including Gnarl who serves as your and his advisor, are an Always Chaotic Evil Henchmen Race with Blue-and-Orange Morality. They love nothing more than to fight, kill, destroy and die in service to a worthy master. This means that none of them can count as candidates but also may affect the Heinous Standard a little, so best to mention it here.
The other two candidates are the Forgotten God from Raising Hell and Emperor Solarius aka Florian Greenheart from II. They are all have similar methods but their ultimate goals and resources are quite varied. The Forgotten God, after all, is a literal god in charge of the setting's Fire and Brimstone Hell, and while the Second Overlord and Florian both want to be an Evil Overlord and are Manipulative Bastards who use the player as a pawn, the Second Overlord acts alone, corrupts good people and wants his tower back, while Florian commands the loyalty of a sizeable army, has scores of subjects whom he spreads around the world to colonies, and his ultimate goal is to become a god of magic. So there's not as much overlap as you'd think.
Conclusion
I believe the Second Overlord counts. If you're on the fence or need more information, check out this video to see his screentime in full. Other than that, I'm just glad to finally have this out.
- The Second Overlord is revealed to be responsible for all the chaos and destruction in the game. Seemingly defeated by the Seven Heroes in the past, the Second Overlord transferred his consciousness into the body of the Wizard to survive, destroying his soul in the process. He then tempted and goaded the other heroes into sin and corruption, leading to widespread death and destruction as they invade, pillage and plunder the lands they once protected. Meanwhile, he orders his Minions to follow the Third Overlord in his place and ensure that each of the heroes dies, releasing substantial amounts of Evil Energy within their bodies that he uses to regain his powers. Finally revealing himself after the death of the warrior Kahn, the Second Overlord gloats extensively about how he tricked and fooled everyone while plotting to end the Third Overlord's life and retake his place as master of the Dark Tower.
What's the work?
Overlord: Raising Hell is an expansion pack sequel to Overlord I. It doesn't have any tangible impact on the story of the original campaign except that your Jester, an annoying Hate Sink Brown Minion, is removed from the Dark Tower after you beat our old friend the Second Overlord. It features new items, new levels and a new Final Boss to fight. Said final boss is the subject of this effort post.
Who is the Forgotten God?
The Big Bad of the expansion pack is the Forgotten God, a deity of mysterious origins who looks like the unholy offspring of an Eastern dragon and a Western one. He was once the consort/lover of the Mother Goddess. He was powerful, hated and feared. But then he was caught cheating on her, so she got very angry and cast him down into the Abyss, then struck all memory of him and his name from history and the minds of mortals. He was not happy with that, because even in this universe Gods Need Prayer Badly. So recently, he hatched a plan...
What has he done?
He lures inhabitants of the world into four portions of the Abyss. They think they're going to Heaven, or to see a lovely play, or to break free of their cheating husbands, or to get all the gold they could possibly want... but no, not even close. Instead, the Abyss will torment them relentlessly to spark the memory of the Forgotten God anew in their hearts and those still on the mortal plane.
Also, remember those Seven Heroes I told you about before? Well, they're here too, being tormented in their own Ironic Hells as an extension of all this.
The Abyss portions are as follows:
- Mellow Hills Abyss
- Peasants from Spree are lured into here. They're either chained up on the walls throughout the place or forced to toil away working in what look like fields, and are killed and resurrected endlessly by wraiths, the restless souls of sinful dead. Melvin and his halflings are here in a perverse recreation of their village filled with sentient and homicidal pumpkins and exploding sheep, and Melvin is forced to eat endlessly and explode, only to reincarnate and repeat the process. You have to exploit this to solve the puzzles in the area.
- Evernight Abyss
- The elves of Evernight, along with Oberon, are Forced to Watch a (poorly-written and terribly-acted) play about their suffering at the hands of the dwarves, with wraiths standing in for the latter. Due to a prop based on Rollie, Goldo's steamroller, being broken in the back, it just keeps going and going over the first two acts, so you have to repair it and use it to finish the play. It's here that you first hear the voice of the Forgotten God, who is overseeing the play and clearly wrote it in part to make digs at the Mother Goddess.
- Heaven's Peak Abyss
- The women of Heaven's Peak, bitter over being scorned for the succubi that Sir William and the Succubus Queen summoned by their husbands, go into this Abyss and gain supernatural powers. They use those powers to turn the place into a Lady Land, with the men forced to do menial labour while Sir William and his cultists burn on the fires of a nearby fire/lava pit. To advance, you have to kill beasties and strap Sir William into a giant broom or weedwhacker to clean the place up. Then you beat up the women once they hint at being influenced by a higher power and take them back to the surface.
- Golden Hills Abyss
- The dwarves of Golden Hills are lured into here. Don't know what they want, but they're dwarves so money says gold and booze. They're driven mad with Gold Fever upon entry and the wraiths take advantage of this to lure them into death traps over and over again with sacks of gold. Old King Goldo is here too, transformed into a statue of gold but still alive and feeling. You have to kill the wraiths and use the sacks of gold to lure the dwarves to Goldo's position, whereupon they'll become furious with him and hack him to pieces. The Forgotten God talks to you here too and whines that you're ruining his attempts to punish the Seven Heroes while griping about the fame riches and adulation they got as heroes.
- Infernal Abyss
- The last one, which crops up in Ruboria, this one can only be accessed once you finish all the other four and take control of them. This has dozens of your peasants hung up on the walls, and you have to attack those peasants with Red Minions to navigate a long and winding maze. Kahn is here, forcibly merged into a wall that you have to trick a rampaging wraith into knocking down. After one more tough puzzle, you get to face off with the Forgotten God directly.
The Forgotten God rants that he hates being forgotten and is done with it. He'll kill us and continue his torments to make people remember exactly who he is and why they feared him before. It's All for Nothing though, as you defeat and kill him. With his dying breath he curses you and gripes that if you want the Infernal Abyss so much, you can have it, and it will be your tomb. You make a mad dash for the exit but while your Minions get away, the Jester I mentioned (who is implied to have betrayed you and sided with the Forgotten God and may even have summoned him) seals the portal before you can enter it, trapping you in the Abyss. The wraiths all bow to the Third Overlord, who is now ruler of the Abyss. Silver lining?
Outside, Gnarl grouses about how he liked you and they need to find a new Overlord. Mistress Rose is revealed to be pregnant, and the camera pans meaningfully towards her round belly. Yeah, a child of the Third Overlord would have a lot of potential. Wonder whatever happened to them?
Mitigating Factors?
No. The fact he cheated on the Mother Goddess suggests he wasn't that in love with her and the play he puts on makes it clear he blames her for his current state. He doesn't have any lieutenants or underlings he talks or relates to either.
Heinous Standard?
Okay, so in terms of resources and heinousness, I would put this guy above both Second Overlord and Florian, despite the fact that his expansion being set on another plane means the tangible damage of his actions isn't as bad for the world as a whole. Why? Because he's a god. Not a small-g god, an actual GOD, with the inexhaustible powers and forces of the Abyss on his side. They're both lesser compared to that. The God's existence doesn't mitigate their actions, though. He doesn't corrupt anyone, he's not trying to reach apotheosis, he doesn't carry out genocide or form an empire in his own name. (I mean, he might have if he'd won, but it never comes to that so no point speculating.) In that sense, I argue that they stay distinct from each other despite all being Manipulative Bastards.
On a related note, he is clearly not tormenting the Seven Heroes or any other sinners/prisoners because they deserve it, and pretty much tells you that. His personality demonstrates a lot of pride, envy, sadism, Lack of Empathy and a sick sense of humour.
Now, some parts of each Abyss are played for laughs, but the fact he's tormenting and killing people is not. In that way I'd call him similar to the Joker and Xykon, where you laugh at the action, but fear the actor. When you fight him, the game plays a pretty metal rock music track that wouldn't be out of place in a Doom game. That alone suggests he's meant to be taken very seriously.
Conclusion
I believe he counts. Thoughts?
- Once the consort of the Mother Goddess, the Forgotten God was punished for spurning her by being cast down into the Abyss and having his name and memory wiped from the memory of all the sapient races. Having assumed control of the Abyss, the God hatches a plan to lure mortals from all over the world into his realm and torments them in dark and creative ways to force them and all the living to remember him and the reasons they hated and feared him. After the Third Overlord defeats him, the Forgotten God angrily curses the Overlord's name and traps him in the depths of the Abyss.
What's the work?
Overlord II is the sequel to Overlord I and Raising Hell. It's a darker and more complex game all around, with revised mechanics, new mounts for Minions to ride, new spells to cast and and a new evil lair to explore and expand, this one deep in the bowels of the earth. The protagonist this time around is the Fourth Overlord, son of the Third Overlord and his Mistress, Rose. Unlike his (potentially) more noble and well-meaning father, this Overlord must choose not between being (sort of) Good or Evil, but between Domination or Destruction. He does this using a spell called Evil Presence, a lightning spell best described as Force Lightning if it was also the Jedi Mind Trick. With this and other spells, he leads his horde of minions against another another force of Evil, the Glorious Empire, which can be described as the Roman Empire if they were aggressively hateful towards magic and fantasy creatures.
But this isn't about him. Yes, he's not Mr. Nice Guy, but he can't count because he has a Childhood Friend Romance with his first Mistress (Kelda) and potentially loving relationships with his other Mistresses, Juno and Queen Fay, and a fairly airtight Freudian Excuse of growing up without his parents and being abused and picked on by the inhabitants of the town of Nordberg where he grew up. No, today I want to re-introduce you all to...
Who is Florian Greenheart, a.k.a. Emperor Solarius?
Oh, boy. Where to start with Florian? Well, although we actually meet him near the start of the game, his villainy isn't revealed until near the end and it turns out his part in this game goes way back to a short time after the Third Overlord was trapped in the Abyss at the end of Raising Hell. After a heavily pregnant Rose left the tower to find a place for her baby and the Minions migrated elsewhere when no-one worthy stepped up to replace him, Florian went to the tower to steal the magical energy of the Tower Heart, the Dark Tower's source of power.
You see, Florian was born without any magical powers despite being an elf, who have inherent magic potential. So desperate was he to have magic of his own that he went to the Tower and tried to steal the Heart. His efforts proved futile as the Tower Heart became unstable, resulting in a massive explosion that devastated the surrounding lands, filled them with volatile magical goop and spread a magical plague that killed many and turned many of the survivors into mana-infused zombies.
The explosion, known as the Cataclysm, led to a lot of hatred and fear of magic among ordinary citizens. Florian did not get any magic powers from the Heart, but he was able to tap into people's prejudice against magic and rise to power as The Emperor of the Glorious Empire. Acting as the human Solarius and his pre-existing identity as Florian, who dressed like a New-Age Retro Hippie, Florian began a campaign of Genocide from the Inside on all magical creatures, posing as a leader figure to the elves and fairies working to safeguard wildlife and innocent magic critters while guiding his legions (and later, the Fourth Overlord indirectly) to invade the sanctums they form and kill or enslave anyone who gets in their way.
Now why would he do that? Well apart from wanting revenge against the elves because they teased and picked on him for not having magic, he wants to take the magical essence of all those creatures, use them on his citizens to keep them in line and ultimately take all the remaining power into himself to become a god of magic. And for good measure, anyone suspected of magic was exiled to the wastelands that were once Mellow Hills and the Tower from Game 1, usually motivated by "this person is inconvenient and must be disposed of in a plausible deniability kind of way".
As the game progresses, he opposes you a few times including during your initial boss fight against a Yeti you used to be friends with, and once you strike an Enemy Mine with the benevolent Queen Fay whom Florian serves under, he helps you gather the shards of the Tower Heart to use as a weapon against the Empire. He feigns being captured by Imperial troops to get away without rousing suspicion, and once the Overlord attacks his palace, using a recharged Tower Heart to break the anti-magic field his forces erected, he reveals himself to you again, pretending to be Florian only long enough to exposit his role in the Tower Heart's destruction the first time before outing himself as the true identity of Solarius, gloating about his actions and trying to ascend as a god...
It doesn't work. The magic rejects him and forms the body of a horrific Eldritch Abomination called the Magic Devourer around him. He then goes on a rampage, consuming his own citizens while his Dragon Marius screams his praises and shouts for people to be happy at what he's doing. After you do enough damage to him, Florian/the Devourer swallows Marius up. Eventually Florian's body starts getting vomited up by the Devourer, before the Overlord uses his Evil Presence spell to drain him of his stolen magic and Florian and the Devourer finally explode into a massive pile of luminescent blue goop. Puny god.
Mitigating Factors?
From what he claims, he wants magic power at any cost because he was bullied for being a Muggle Born of Mages. To that, I say what I said about the High Priestess from Samurai Jack Season 5 in response to a Draco in Leather Pants entry for her that said some fans think she has a tragic backstory of her own/is a Troubled Abuser: if it's true, it's tragic, but it doesn't excuse what he did. The game itself agrees with me. For all his claims of, "Eugh they all picked on me because I didn't have magic!" he was not only a respected leader among the elven activists we see in the present day but also Queen Fay's Number Two, and she genuinely cared about him as indicated by her care for his safety after his fake capture. Meanwhile, he very smugly gloats about killing all the magic creatures he wanted just so he could take their power from them for himself. Even while talking about the Tower Heart exploding he sounds like a whiny teenager complaining about how things didn't go his way, rather than showing any care for all the people who lost their lives or worse because of him.
He's not a Well-Intentioned Extremist either, the most obvious case of that being that he leads massacres against his own people and only ever talking about how his actions benefit him, and not anyone else. Even when he's cast out of the Devourer, he doesn't care that he just discovered Evil Is Not a Toy, only that he finally has some magical energy inside him now and may be about to reach apotheosis. So yeah, a Tragic Villain he is not.
Heinousness?
I said before he was the Overlord villain with the worst track record of damage caused to the world and I stand by it. Causing the Cataclysm and all that it entails. Annexing the elven island of Everlight as a colony for the Glorious Empire, turning his own people into slaves for the human invaders. Putting the overweight simpleton Borius in charge of Nordberg, which he managed so horribly that the people of the town actually accept you as their ruler just so they don't have to put up with the Empire's crap anymore. Massacring the already diminished magical creatures of the world just to increase his own power. The tangible damage he inflicts is catastrophic.
In terms of resources he has more than the Second Overlord, but less than the Forgotten God, being that he acts through his soldiers and snivelling toady governors like Borius, but he's still a Muggle and definitely not on the level of a god who rules literal Hell.
As ever, the only thing that feels like it could even come close to disqualifying him and the others is the actions of the Fourth Overlord, who does indeed have a nasty bodycount and can't be a true humanitarian like dear old Dad. However, I feel the need to stress that the time the game spends forcing you to be purely destructive is limited and mostly consigned to the Last Sanctuary level where you have to kill the magical creatures there to power up the Tower Heart, and even that is done with Queen Fay's blessing as a Godzilla Threshold move since there simply isn't enough magical energy left to do so otherwise. Every other situation, you're either fighting enemy soldiers or Evil Poachers, sneaking around to avoid detection or have the choice to force people to Kneel Before Zod with your Evil Presence spell instead of killing them. Again, you really only get the Overlord being as destructive as Florian if you choose to. The option to choose Pragmatic Villainy over Stupid Evil is almost always in your hands. I for one think he's sufficiently Eviler than Thou in actions, though not competence, to outclass you in this regard.
Conclusion
If no-one else from this series counts, Florian counts. At least that's how I feel.
And with this, the Overlord series is done. Glad I've finally got all the posts done.
- Florian Greenheart is a magically-inept elf determined to accrue magic power for himself without regard for the consequences. His first attempt to steal the magic of the Tower Heart following the disappearance of the Third Overlord causes a massive explosion and fallout that scars the land and leads to widespread fear and hatred of magic. Florian takes advantage of both to rise to power under the guise of Emperor Solarius, leader of the Glorious Empire, whilst continuing to feign loyalty to his own people and the benevolent Queen Fay. Florian orchestrates a Genocide from the Inside on his people and all magical creatures in the land, using his legions and even the Fourth Overlord as mere tools to gather the magical energies of all fay creatures in his palace before ultimately revealing his plans to the Overlord just in time to absorb all the collected magic his forces gathered and transform into the hideous Devourer. Even in this form Florian shows no care for his subjects or remorse for his actions, concerned only with fulfilling his deluded dreams of godhood.
