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]]''}}

* Freeza of ''[[Dragon Ball (Manga)|Dragon Ball]] Z'' only cares about staying in power as "The Strongest Being in the Universe" and will commit the genocide of entire races who threaten his power. That's why he seeks out immortality, so he can stay that way forever.

* ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'': Light wants more to be the [[A God Am I|God of the New World]] than he wants to [[Utopia Justifies the Means|make the world a better place]].

* [[Complete Monster|Madara]] [[Magnificent Bastard|Uchiha]], the current [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Naruto (Manga)|Naruto]]'', will occasionally try to say that his [[Instrumentality|goal]] is for [[Utopia Justifies the Means|the greater good of the world]], but he freely admits that his actions are for an entirely selfish [[A God Am I|cause]] to anyone that he isn't trying to [[More Than Mind Control|manipulate]]. {{spoiler|Since he was exposed as not actually being Madara, he has started to claim that [[Utopia Justifies the Means]] really is his goal after all. Presumably, the selfish reasons belonged to the ''real'' Madara, who came up with the [[Evil Plan]] originally.}}

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Father decides that his final evil master plan to {{spoiler|bring a god and his power into his body}} is a fine trade for {{spoiler|the 50 million+ souls of Amestris civilians.}}<ref>Basically the equivalent of killing off all Canadians and Australians or Californians and New Yorkers and then some (as of 2009).</ref>

* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam (Anime)|Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', Gihren Zabi fully believes this. He's a [[Social Darwinist]] and [[Adolf Hitler]]-wannabe, but his own personal power comes first and foremost. His sister, Kycilia, is more ideological than he is, but given her [[The Starscream|treacherous nature]] and desire for power, it's likely that she too subscribes to this.

** Gihren's clone, {{spoiler|Glemmy Toto}} of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (Anime)|Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ]]'' also subscribes to this trope, nearly destroying Neo-Zeon in his attempts to take it over and reinstate the Zabi dictatorship.

* ''[[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)|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.

* ''[[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.

* 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."

* ''[[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 1]]'', 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 Shock 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.

* 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]].