Despotism Justifies the Means: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."''|'''{{spoiler|O'Brien}}''', |''[[Nineteen Eighty Four (Literature)|Nineteen Eighty -Four]]''}}

Whether it is to eliminate the competition or to dissuade any future rebellion, you find that [[Take Over the World|World Domination]] is hard to achieve without crossing the [[Moral Event Horizon]], sometimes just because [[Evil Is Easy]]. Now, the world might turn out to be a better place with you running the show, but just to be clear -- thatclear—that's not why you are trying to do it. Nope -- youNope—you sacrificed your friends and family, your fellow countrymen (and theirs), and perhaps most of humanity in the name of social advancement. It might turn out to be a [[Crapsack World]] -- but—but hey, ''c'est la vie''.

Total global domination is the most common of all villainous goals. But with this trope, the [[Big Bad]] takes it too far.

* ''[[Superman (Franchise)|Superman]]'': [[Lex Luthor]] has occasionally tried to conquer the world, and unlike [[Doctor Doom]], he usually doesn't care quite so much that the world might be better off under him anyway.

* ''[[The Lion King (Disney)|The Lion King]]''. Scar isn't interested in anything but being King, and he was quite happy to murder his brother, try to murder his nephew, and turn the Pride Lands into [[Mordor]] to do it, although its implied in the musical that he regrets the last part, especially when its actually going to cost him his kingship.

** Most Disney villains are like this, actually. [[The Little Mermaid (Disney)|Ursula/Morgana]] and [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Jafar]], for example, care nothing less than becoming ruler, and have absolutely no qualms of backstabbing their current ruler, murdering people (or [[Fate Worse Than Death|worse]], in the case of Ursula), or killing anyone in their way.

* The only thing Prince Charming did with Far Far Away once conquering it in ''[[Shrek (Animation)|Shrek]] the Third'' was force everybody to watch a musical he wrote and starred in about what a great person he thought he was. Perhaps if his mother was still around he would have been able to come up with some kind of government policy.

* In ''[[The Prince of Egypt]]'' Ramsees is portrayed as a more [[Anti-Villain|sympathetic]] version of this, refusing to be the "weak link" that would destroy their dynasty.

* ''[[You Only Live Twice (Film)|You Only Live Twice]]'' features a plot to start [[World War III]] so SPECTRE (or their shady foreign backers) can rule the post-apocalyptic aftermath.

* Palpatine from ''[[Star Wars]]'' orchestrates a civil war (between two armies of "disposable" soldiers with plenty of civilians caught in the crossfire) and commits genocide on his way to becoming the evil Emperor. Darth Vader was never in command but he did some bad things for power too. Vader wanted "to bring order to the galaxy", though, and once naively talked about trying to stop people from dying. Palpatine got him on board by convincing him that this will lead to peace, and he had to convince himself that the Jedi and the Republic were corrupt (not totally unjustified, even though Palpatine was the architect of much of this anyway). He is a very dark example of [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], and he did not want power for powers sake.

* [[The Lord of the Rings|Sauron]] started out motivated by [[Utopia Justifies the Means]], but while his goal was always to create order, by the time the novel takes place he's suffered [[Motive Decay]] so that his fundamental goal was to perpetuate his own power. He did not, however, fall as far as the ''original'' Dark Lord, Morgoth, who went completely into [[Dystopia Justifies the Means]]- while cruelty was a tool for Sauron, it became an end itself for his master.

* In ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', the first part of a season finale, ''The Sound of Drums'', ends with The Master taking over the world. His first order of business? "Remove one-tenth of the population."

** His main motivation here was never actually power, though--backthough—back when he had truly selfish motives, he usually focused on true immortality, to replace the limited Time Lord kind. He messes with Earth like that partly because it's fun, but mostly because ''it will hurt the Doctor.'' 'Look, Theta! I can break your toys! Cry!'

* ''[[Mage: The Awakening (Tabletop Game)|Mage: The Awakening]]'' has the [[Ancient Conspiracy|Seers of the Throne]] work to keep the population from achieving enlightenment, because that means mages out of their control.

* In ''[[Bio Shock 1 (Video Game)|Bio Shock 1BioShock]]'', for all Andrew Ryan's rhetoric about freedom, he certainly ended up resorting to a lot of totalitarian tactics. Up to and including political murder, kidnapping and slavery, and [[Mind Control]]. It's a pretty serious case of in-story [[Motive Decay]].

** In ''[[Bio Shock 2 (Video Game)|Bio ShockBioShock 2]]'' we discover that he was also quite willing to subvert his economic views just as willingly to keep his powerbase from crumbling.

* The ''[[Shin Megami Tensei (Franchise)|Shin Megami Tensei]]'' series has [[God Is Evil|YHVH]], who maintains the [[Crapsack World|crapsack status]] of the SMT universe at large by involving everyone on his side, be it angel, Messian or ''whoever'', in a [[Forever War]] with Lucifer out of an all-consuming desire to create a "perfect world" - [[World of Silence|a world where people can't do wrong]]. Not a world where they won't... [[Empty Shell|they simply]] ''[[The Evils of Free Will|can't]]''. A world where he can rule, forever and ever...

* [[Super Mario Bros.|Bowser]] ultimate goal is to rule over everyone. In most games, he aims to rule the Mushroom Kingdom by forcing Princess Peach to marry him, but in the ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' series and ''[[Yoshis Island DS]]'', he aims to rule the entire universe.

* [[StarcraftStarCraft|Arcturus Mengsk]] let the Zerg kill an entire planet's poulation so he could create his ''Terran Dominion''.

* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20130806043626/http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2281 Monique declares she will do this.]

* This is the motivation of [[Big Bad|Fire Lord Ozai]] of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', in contrast to his [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] grandfather Sozin. To drive the point home, he relinquishes the title of Fire Lord to his daughter [[The Dragon|Azula]] and declares himself the [[God-Emperor|Phoenix King]].

** [[T He]]The Fire Lord between, Azulon, who presided over the chronological bulk of the century war, is never given any motivations. His role in the story is to be cold and unpleasant and to die, and ''that's'' in a flashback. Mind, Sozin suffered pretty stiff [[Motive Decay]], but it was still from "unite the world and share the blessings of our Golden Age with everyone" to "conquer the fucking world whether my abandoning turncoat of a superpowered best friend likes it or not, no matter what it takes."

*** The actual ruling part was never the issue for him, and anything besides conquering may have gotten a little vague by the time he was actually free to make his ultimate move.

* Salvatore Riina reportedly killed at least 1,000 people to become head of the Sicilian mafia.

* Fascism has often been accused of being all about this trope, turning it into a political philosophy. While there is more to it than that, opportunism, self-aggrandizement, contempt for the masses and [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]] are all Fascist hallmarks.