Orcus on His Throne: Difference between revisions

[[File:TN8218 lichKing 2.jpg|link=Warcraft|frame|Not Orcus, but far too [[Slouch of Villainy|comfy]] to get up. ]]

 

 

Deep in [[Mordor]], at the top of the [[Evil Tower of Ominousness]], the [[Evil Overlord]] awaits. He has his [[Legion of Doom]], the [[Artifact of Doom]] and any other [[Doomy Dooms of Doom]] you can think of. His power is vast, nearly limitless, and he is poised to strike and destroy all we hold dear at any moment.

This is the very reason games like ''[[Super Mario]]'' even exist. If the [[Big Bad]] is coming, why not just wait and prepare yourself? But if the [[Big Bad]] is sitting by his Lava Pit of Doom, for whatever reason, just [[Convection, Schmonvection|comfortably waiting]] for the Hero to arrive, then of course the Hero has to make his way all the way there. [[Stupidity Is the Only Option|That is all there is to it.]]

 

 

 

Possibly justified, since [[Dystopia Is Hard|maintaining order in one's domain can be a really time consuming task]], what with all [[You Rebel Scum|those Rebel Scum]], [[Surrounded by Idiots|stupid henchmen]], [[The Starscream|backstabbing lieutenants]], and the other daily tasks an [[Evil Overlord]] has to face everyday. Not to mention that any tactician will endorse the benefits of a fortified position surrounded by your most powerful servants. Then again, what kind of [[Evil Overlord]] doesn't take the time to smell the roses, pillage a village, and give a hero a good [[Final Boss Preview]] every once in a while? They deserve a little "me" time, too!

 

{{examples}}

* Lordgenome in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''. Of course, once Simon reaches him, [[Authority Equals Asskicking|it's all too clear why he gets to lounge around]].

** And why he ''has'' to, since {{spoiler|the very Spiral Power he possesses is exactly what he was trying to protect the Earth from by forcing humans to live underground.}}

* ''[[Digimon Xros Wars]]'' gives us Bagramon, [[Big Bad|leader of the Bagra army]]. He hasn't done much for the past 50 episodes except sit in a chair, looking menacing. In the last 2 episodes he finally takes matters in his own hands, literally.

* [[Justified]] on ''[[Akazukin Chacha]]'', the reason [[Big Bad]] Daimaoh is always inside his castle is because the [[Sealed Good in a Can]] set a spirit barrier around it that damages him if he tries to leave, thus only [[The Dragon|Sorges]] and other minions can go out.

 

* [[Darkseid]] from [[The DCU]], despite being a major [[Big Bad]] who ruled an [[Mordor|entire planet]] with an iron fist, had access to [[Magitek|incredibly advanced technology]], and possessed [[A God Am I|divine powers]] that could smite just about anything in the universe, didn't get around to committing much actual villainy (outside of the original New Gods series anyway). Justified by his obsession with the "Anti-life Equation"; a formula that removes the free will of anyone that hears it. Note that {{spoiler|in ''[[Final Crisis]]'', when he finally has a chance to use the Equation, he immediately enslaves the population of Earth, has his son Orion killed, launches a campaign to subdue the Earth's heroes, and nearly conquers the entire Multiverse. Oh, and he also subjects [[Batman]] to a [[Fate Worse Than Death]], closely followed by [[Killed Off for Real|actual death]].}}

** {{spoiler|Hell he basically does all this ''while sitting in a chair''.}}

* In ''[[Fables]]'', Mr. Dark originally comes to Earth to wreak revenge on the Fables who he thinks have abused his power. But after he discovers they have fled their New York place of residence, he decides to build his domain there and wait for the Fables to come looking for him. However, this trope is subverted in {{spoiler|issue #100. After Frau Totenkinder has learned [[Sealed Evil in a Can|how to Box him]], she comes to New York to face Mr. Dark, and almost defeats him — but not quite. This near-defeat makes Mr. Dark finally abandon his throne and come after the Fables, who are forced to flee Earth altogether.}}

 

 

* Played with in Tarantino's ''[[Kill Bill]]''. Evil supervillain assassin kung-fu samurai guy Bill sits in his plush Californian villa, waiting for The Bride to work her way through his subordinates and seek him out for a personal duel. Of course, Bill has an ace up his sleeve for her when she arrives.

** He ''did'' try to offer his brother assistance at least. Bud just wanted to do things his own way, and that was surprisingly effective.

** Amusingly, {{spoiler|he fights the final battle, and technically dies in his chair as well.}}

** Of course like Lordgenome above, he shows to Luke just how much more powerful he is than Vader.

* In ''[[Legend]]'', one wonders why it took the Lord of Darkness so long to sit there plotting before thinking of hatching his unicorn scheme.

** The unicorn turned up on his villain radar and he wanted it dead. The absolute power was just a side benefit of not having to put up with psychic goodness pollution. Plus his mother does a lot of his thinking for him.

 

* Galbatorix from ''[[The Inheritance Trilogy]]''. Galbatorix spends a good forty years preoccupied with his [[Soul Jar|Eldunarya]], which he has to break and control to use the full power of. His unwillingness to fight the Varden directly is [[Lampshaded]] in the second book, when [[La Résistance]] leader Nasuada reflects that "Galbatorix's pride" is the best defense that she has against him. Also it is suggested in the third book that Galbatorix is inactive because of his obsession to find the name of the [[Language of Magic|Ancient Language]] which would grant him near omnipotence.

** But this is rendered moot when it is discovered that Galby {{spoiler|already knew the name}}, and makes his laziness a sign of bad writing.

** Morgoth and Sauron poured their power into other things/beings, which is why they had to stay on their thrones and, in Morgoth's case at least, could be defeated physically (this is the point of "Morgoth's Ring").

** It's also the case for Sauron that his real power lies in his [[The Chessmaster|ability to manipulate events and people long-term]]- physically, he's about as close as a [[Physical God]] can be to a [[Squishy Wizard]], and prefers not to risk himself unless his power is actually needed.

** The book actually implies that Sauron ''does'' have some sort of body- Gollum, who has ''met'' the guy fairly recently, remarks on his hand and fingers in present tense, and the orcs in the Tower of Cirith Ungol are under orders to detain any prisoners unharmed until Sauron sends for them ''or comes himself''. However, the movieverse is indeed explicit that he has no body during the present timeline.

* In Simon Spurrier's ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' [[Night Lords]] novel ''Lord of the Night'', Sahaal remembers his primarch, the Night Haunter on his throne, and has his followers build him a throne where he sits while they search the hive for information he wants.

** "...Start kicking ass in..." More like {{spoiler|getting his ass kicked: in that fight it became clear why Voldemort was so afraid of Dumbledore}} (not so much in the movie)

* [[Evil Overlord|Supreme Overlord Shimrra]] from the [[New Jedi Order]] is like this, though it doesn't stop him from playing politics in his court and having an impact on the plot in that matter. {{spoiler|Probably also justified in that [[The Man Behind the Man|Onimi]] couldn't let Shimrra get too far away from him for long without risking his [[Mind Control]] slipping}}.

** Perfect reconstruction, actually. Shimrra actually does a leader's job. He just doesn't show in first line, but that's what political leaders do — he has a general-in-chief for military command. But before confronting him, Luke is warned that the Overlord is actually the last resort weapon. The Overlord being both a badass and Orcus on His Throne is what prevented the throne from being vacant in millennia.

* Otha of ''[[The Elenium]]'' is a literal and justified example—he's a [[The Caligula|Caligula]] who lives for excess and has been around for milennia (and was never terribly bright on top of that). The end result is that while he's the most powerful sorcerer who's ever lived and [[The Emperor]] of half the continent, he's physically too fat to even stand up and ''has'' to rely on minions if he wants to accomplish anything. Of course, the real main villains of that series are the [[God of Evil]] who Otha worships and the [[Magnificent Bastard]] who acts as [[The Dragon]] anyway.

* Justified in the ''[[Belgariad]]'' and subverted in the sequel series, the ''Mallorean''. Torak, the [[Big Bad]] of the ''Belgariad'', was critically wounded in the backstory, and literally cannot rise until the appointed time. In the ''Mallorean'', Zandramas keeps ''very'' busy, continually attempting to sabotage the Child of Light's efforts. The heroic B-team even unknowingly runs into her at one point, whereupon they watch her eat one of her rivals for Big Bad status alive.

* In ''[[Septimus Heap]]'', DomDaniel spends his day sleeping on a throne on the ''Vengeance'' while Jenna and Boy 412 are stealthily going around on his ship.

 

* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' in general has [[Big Bad]]s who subscribe to this trope. Sometimes they have a reason for this; other times, however, they're content sit around and berate their underlings continual failures until the final five episodes or so.

** ''[[Power Rangers Operation Overdrive]]'' had Flurious, the smartest and arguably most powerful of the four competing factions of enemies attacking the Rangers that season. After being a major threat in the first three episodes, he spends the next 27 lazying around in his arctic base, letting the other villains do all the work. It isn't until the finale that he swoops in and attempts to make a grab for victory.

** An excellent example of this trope done ''right'' is Lothor from ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'', he is indeed ''very'' powerful, just not quite powerful ''enough'' to carry out his ultimate plan, so he deliberately plays up this trope {{spoiler|and sending monsters and generals to their deaths just to fill up the abyss of evil so he can absorb that power once it overflows.}}

*** However Master Xandred became more vicious and had a more active role in later episodes. He attacked Deker for meddling in his affairs and defeated him, his moogers attacks became more vicious and he brutally punisher Arachnitor by turning him into a mindless slave for attemtping to overthrow him and in the eyes of Dayu, crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]] when he ruined her harmonium and attempted to erase her memory.

* This applies to almost half of all the [[Big Bad]]s in ''[[Power Rangers]]''' parent show ''[[Super Sentai]]''; they spend most of their screen time in the show in their throne, sitting like a living furniture, and only get off their asses in the [[Grand Finale]] to fight the heroes in giant form.

** You know we said about Master Xandred above? His ''[[Samurai Sentai Shinkenger]]'' counterpart, Chimatsuri Dokoku, is the same, only he's not taking medicine - that's ''sake'' and he spends all his time [[Drowning My Sorrows|drinking himself into a stupor]].

*** Though it's important to remember that Dokoku (And by extension Master Xandred) has a pretty damn good reason for not leading the charge against the human world himself; The remnants of the seal used on him by the previous Shinken Red/Red Ranger causes him to dry out exponentially faster than any other resident of the Sanzu River.

** He's got a pretty good defense: he thought he already had everything he needed for his master plan. When he found out that he was lacking the last component of the formula for the [[Super Serum]] he wanted to make...he and the rest of the cast were [[Brought Down to Normal]] that same episode, so he couldn't use his powers to get it.

* Glory was like this in the fifth season of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. She was powerful enough to kill Buffy easily, but she spent most of the season hanging around her penthouse and sending ineffective minions out to do her work for her. It was implied that she couldn't afford to kill Buffy because she knew where the Key was, but this didn't really help - if anything, this should spur her to capture Buffy and force the information out of her. If she talks, excellent. If not, just kill her and at least she can keep searching for the Key without the Slayer getting in the way. That being said, Glory was established as not being mentally all that stable.

 

* [[Trope Namer|Orcus]] from ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', of course, through most of his history. Somewhat [[Justified Trope]], in that not only is he in [[Enemy Civil War]] with various other Demon Lords, but also with the Fallen Devils as well.

** That said, back in Second Edition, he was a real terror. First he died, then he came back from the dead, terrorized the planes, killed a bunch of gods [[C-List Fodder|nobody cares about]], and died again. He hasn't been the same since his second resurrection. Appropriately, he accomplished much more as an undead god than he ever did as god of the undead.

** Somewhat averted for Demons - any demon can meet Lucifer. You just have to ask him for a Word.

 

* Ganondorf in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time]]''. Sure, [[Capital City|Hyrule Castle Town]] is deserted apart from ReDeads and the castle is transformed into his evil lair, but the rest is relatively safe from him. Okay, he has his minions spreading terror, Zora's Fountain has been frozen solid, but he's just sitting in the castle waiting for Zelda to show up. You'd think he'd go after Link when he starts gathering the [[Plot Coupons]], but no, he doesn't. He makes just one appearance after you take down Phantom Ganon, but that's just to get rid of him in a [[You Have Failed Me...]] moment and taunt Link about how "the real me won't be so easy" before returning to the castle. He's mainly an "act through his minions" style of [[Evil Overlord]].

** He actually states toward the end that he believed Zelda would come out into the open if he left Link alone, and that he could then capture her and lure Link to his castle, bringing the three pieces of the Triforce together. [[Batman Gambit|It works]].

* Kefka in ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]''. After [[A God Am I|becoming a god]], ruining the world and wiping out many cities, he doesn't exactly do much afterwards, at least nothing the player is made aware of. It is implied by talking to NPCs though that Kefka spent the year Celes was in a coma randomly firing the [[Death From Above|Light of Judgment]] at anyone who irritated him, just because he could. Then the Returners stormed his tower and he decided pissing on the ashes of the world wasn't fun anymore. There's also the theory that he was so bored for that year he actively waited for the heroes to band back together and fight them one last time because really, when you become an all-powered God of Magic who rules a dead world, what else is there to do but smack down anyone who opposes your rule?

* In ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'', Chaos does remarkably little for being the God of Discord and the [[Big Bad]] of, possibly, the entire series. Sure, he {{spoiler|nukes Cosmos}} that one time, but aside from that one moment, he spends the game doing an impressive [[Slouch of Villainy]] on his throne until someone finally shows up to fight him. {{spoiler|It's mostly because the endless repeating cycles of his war with Cosmos have burned him out to the point that he just doesn't ''care'' any more.}}

* Bowser's tendency to wait around doing nothing while [[Mario]] comes for him is [[Lampshaded]] in the ''[[Paper Mario]]'' games, where his minions are shown to do things like host game shows and go on field trips to while away the boring hours of sitting around being evil.

** Justified in ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]'', where Bowser is on vacation and his son is the one causing all the trouble. When Mario finally catches up to him, he's lounging in a giant hot tub.

*** Bowser Jr. seems to put his dad to shame in the active villain department. Whereas his pop practically invented the practice of game villains sitting in their castles waiting for the hero, Junior is constantly wreaking havoc throughout the course of the game. This happens in ''[[New Super Mario Bros. Wii]]'' as well: Junior shows up to taunt you at the end of each level and occasionally attacks in his airship. Meanwhile, Bowser doesn't appear in the game at all until the very last stage.

* And ''massively'' averted in ''[[Ultima V]]'', in which you spend the first half of the game on the run from the Shadowlords and dodging [[Les Collaborateurs]].

* Pretty much every ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' villain strategy, starting with Dr. Wily, has been "wait for Mega Man to fight his way to each Robot Master who themselves are waiting for him in a airlocked room, beat them, go through one more level and possibly fight all the copies of the Robot Masters in a row before fighting the main villain of that game.

** The implication, of course, is that Wily is controlling his various Robot Masters to take over the world. When Mega Man inevitably defeats them, he barricades himself in his massive, well-defended fortress, hoping it will be enough to keep the Blue Bomber away. Through the magic of video game protagonist determinism, it never is.

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', nearly every villain is found within their lair, or in some cases prison. From Onyxia in her lair, to the Lich King on his Frozen Throne, Illidan in his Black Temple. Subverted in the recent Dragon Soul raid, where Deathwing's forces are actually on the offensive, and the players must break the siege of Wyrmrest and turn the tide against the attackers.

* For that matter, Dracula seems to be waiting in his throne room in most ''[[Castlevania]]'' games. He'd have a much better chance if he were to attack the intruding Belmont the instant they enter the Castle; with his Bosses helping out. It's not like Belmonts use stealth.

** Given a possible explanation hilariously in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrze-nKw9zQ this], Dracula doesn't have any time to get out of his throne room after he wakes.

** In truth, all of them are trapped and one of them is actually dead, when you encounter them. Which means they couldn't seek Raziel out if they wanted to. So this game Averts this trope.

** Dumah is really sitting on the throne, but is also incapable of moving, since he is, as mentioned, nailed down. Zephon is fused with the wall and literally cannot move from his "throne room". Rahab can only move underwater and is extremely vulnerable to sunlight, while Raziel cannot enter the waters, and mostly roams well-enough lit areas, for Rahab to be uncomfortable tracking him down. As for Melchiah...it is possible he hadn't known for long enough, since Raziel had showed up quite recently.

* The various evil villains in ''[[RuneScape]]'' don't seem to do very much between quests, and the bosses like the King Black Dragon pretty much just sit around and wait for the players to try and kill them.

* They're not really evil (at least not in the games) but just what do the Gym Leaders, Elite Four members and the Champion in ''[[Pokémon]]'' get up to when you're not there challenging them?

** This is actually explored in later games, which have shown gym leaders (and sometimes Elite Four as well) outside of their gyms. In ''Platinum'', the gym leaders, Flint and some other characters will visit the player's villa; in HeartGold/SoulSilver, the gym leaders appear outside of their gyms at certain times where you can take pictures of them and such, and they will also commute to the Fighting Dojo for rematches. ''[[Pokémon Black and White|Black and White]]'' explores it further, depicting all the Gym Leaders as having another job alongside their Gym duties (though generally their Gym and the other job are housed in the same building). Meanwhile, the champion Alder is shown to spend most of his time away from the Pokémon League; the trope is, however, played entirely straight with Grimsley of the Elite Four, who is never seen outside of the League. Interestingly, Grimsley uses the Dark-type... deliberate reference there?

* Draak, the [[Big Bad]] of the PC adventure game ''[[Darkstone]]'', is like this. It's somewhat [[Justified Trope]] in his case, as he's so corrupt he doesn't have a chance of collecting the [[MacGuffin]] pieces the player character is seeking. All he can really do is send out his hordes of evil and hope that they sufficiently screw things up for the Pure of Heart. In one of the randomly-generated quests, he actually does put in an appearance (in human form, as opposed to his usual dragon body), but all he does is make some snarky comments and threats before wandering off and letting a minion fight for him.

* In both ''[[Lightning Warrior Raidy]]'' games, every boss and mid-boss is far too busy raping and fornicating with their prisoners to go stop the protagonist rampaging through the dungeon. On the other hand, the floor design is made so that Raidy has to come to them anyway, so it all works out.

* Averted and sometimes Inverted in [[AliceSoft]] games like ''[[Sengoku Rance]]'' or ''[[Big Bang Age]].'' Attack a region, and they attack back, often with that region's respective [[The Dragon|Dragon]] or [[Big Bad]] in tow. Hang around doing nothing for too long, and they'll attack you because they [[Take Over the World|want your land]]. Or because you did [[Quest for Sex|something bad]] ten turns ago and Karma finally caught up...

** It is also implied that ''not'' sitting on the throne, or at least remaining in the Plane between Planes could weaken the spell. Since he doesn't actually have any ''agents'' in the other planes (the Elementals are being influenced towards a specific course of action), that means he can't really ''do'' anything until you get to him.

* In the first two ''[[F.E.A.R.]]'' games, Alma was an active threat, either directly hindering the player or killing his allies, or even directly attacking him at certain points. In the third game, however, she is {{spoiler|pregnant with her third child}} and can't do much more than randomly appear in the form of ghostly apparitions. On the other hand, her influence is still very strongly felt, considering she's a [[Reality Warper]] whose mere presence has driven most of the people in the city insane, and her {{spoiler|birth contractions}} are powerful enough to knock down skyscrapers.

 

* In ''[[Adventurers!]]!'', Khrima is frequently shown waiting like this. Sometimes he gets impatient when Karn's out [[Level Grinding]] instead of advancing the plot, and wishes he'd brought a Game Boy or something. He's occasionally shown researching lasers or [[Villains Out Shopping|playing Scrabble]] or something.

** Subverting this forms the basis of a short arc: Khrima says he's tired of waiting for the heroes to do stuff, and along with one of his lieutenants, decides to go steal a mini-[[Cosmic Keystone]] to use as a water cooler.

** The few times he ''does'' get involved in a fight he usually [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|stomps a mudhole in his enemies]]. Furthermore, {{spoiler|it's revealed early in the story that one of Xaos' few limitations is that he can't escape the dimension he rules due to a powerful curse. He spends most of his time either sending his minions to "test" the Wotch or hunting down the artifacts that will allow him to circumvent his imprisonment}}.

** In Dorukan's Dungeon, it's justified since he ''needed'' the heroes to reach him for his plan.

** ...aaaaaand goes back to warming the seat on his throne (in a manner of speaking; he's a bone-cold lich) after {{spoiler|conquering Azure City}}. He explicitly states that even crafting magical items takes up only 8 hours of his day, and, for lack of anything else to do, he has taken to offbeat torture of his prisoner, forcing gladiatorial sport on his slaves, and has developed a liking for [[American Gladiators|Zombie Gladiators]].

* ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' has Lord Tedd, an evil alternate-dimensional version of one of the main characters. He first appeared and was established as a threat back in 2003 and has yet to act significantly (although it is later learned that he did {{spoiler|create the Goo Monster that the first story arc was centered around}}).

 

* Fire-Human, from the ''[[Water Human]]'' series, exemplifies this trope big time. He spends the entire series sitting on his throne and playing [[Nintendo DS]] games. When [[The Hero]] is captured and delivered to his fortress, he just sends the captors away because he's too busy playing, and never realizes whom they brought.

* After [[The Nostalgia Critic]] succeeds in taking over Molassia in ''[[Kickassia]]'', he spends all of his time watching ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]'' instead of actually running the country {{spoiler|though not before wiring up the entire place to explode in case of "nasty-wasties"}}.

* In the ''[[Metamor Keep]]'' storyverse, Nasoj is quite content to just bide his time instead of making another attempt to destroy the keep and conquer the midlands. However, zig-zagged in that there is one arc dedicated to him assaulting the keep.

 

* Fire Lord Ozai in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' filled out this trope to a tee for two and a half seasons. "You must defeat the Fire Lord before he takes over the world" was the mantra. In the last season he makes up for it, however.

** In fact, [[Word of God]] even comments that he was designed this way from the start, saying the first villain they designed for the show was Ozai and that they imagined him "leading from the comfort of his own throne" up until the end.

* Van Kleiss of ''[[Generator Rex]]'', though with [[Justified Trope|good reason:]] his powers only work if he is in contact with his native soil of Abysus. Most of his plans involve him trying to avert this somehow, with varying degrees of success. As long as his powers are active (or he has some plan in the background that will ''get'' his powers active), he's perfectly willing to leave home to fight the good guys directly.

** And now that Van Kleiss {{spoiler|has a new powerset that doesn't tie him to Abysuss}}, he's become quite the [[Mobile Menace]], helped out by the fact that one of his minions has [[Teleporters and Transporters|impressive teleportation powers]].

** Justified in that Selatica's plans require Dethklok to be alive. The real reason he's leading the tribunal is to ''prevent them'' from carrying out their mission.

* The [[God Save Us From the Queen|Queen of the Crowns]] in ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]'' rarely leaves her well-appointed palaces, instead making use of [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|Slaverlords]], paid mercenaries, and [[Mooks]] to do much of the heavy lifting. Justified by the fact that she ''does'' have an Empire to run and that her palaces have the necessary equipment to mash her enemies down for [[Life Energy]]. Why waste time going to them when you can trick your enemies into coming to you?

* [[Darkseid]] in the DCAU is a bit more active than his comics counterpart, but he's still pretty passive for an evil alien tyrant. The final episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' has Darkseid coming back from the dead and so angry that he's decided being passive is for wimps. He immediately decides to invade Earth, and when an aide reminds him that New Genesis will retaliate, Darkseid tells him that's where he's going next after he's done turning Earth into rubble.

* Zordrak of ''[[The Dreamstone]]'' is a gargantuan [[Eldritch Abomination]] who could probably trample the Land Of Dreams under his foot, let alone with any of his dark spells (such as the power to place his spirit into another being). For some reason however his duties rarely exceed sitting on his throne and chewing out his [[Harmless Villain|far less fearsome mooks]], the Urpneys, who he instead charges with the duty of stealing the title [[MacGuffin]] the large majority of the time.

 

* Emperor Tiberius of Rome. He began his career as a boring, responsible, relatively enlightened guy, exactly as Augustus had planned when he named him his heir. After time passed, though, Tiberius got steadily more and more evil. One could, in fact, declare him to be the [[Real Life]] Orcus, as he was the emperor on the throne during the crucifixion of Christ. In the last decades of his life, Tiberius withdrew to his personal pleasure palace on the island of Capri, where he engaged in all sorts of vile and depraved sadistic sex practices, including rape. Tiberius was such an evil genius that he even made historians ignore him for centuries by declaring [[Emperor Caligula|Caligula]] his heir, who would do similarly evil things just in the public eye. In retrospect, Tiberius did his evil for decades, while Caligula only had a few years, making Tiberius heads and tails beyond his grandnephew in sheer soul-wrenching evil.

** Pretty much Tiberius' ''only'' major act in his later period was ''finally'' figuring out that [[Evil Chancellor|Sejanus]] was undermining him by killing all the Emperor's relatives, erecting statues of himself in the Forum, and carrying on an affair with Tiberius' niece (the sister of the future Emperor Claudius). Even so, it wasn't until Sejanus was bordering on flat-out declaring himself Emperor that Tiberius finally was forced into action, by sending a letter to the Senate. Since Sejanus controlled the messenger system, Tiberius had him informed that the letter to the Senate would ask them to make Sejanus his official Imperial heir. Sejanus naturally let the letter through, and the letter was read. It ordered Sejanus' immediate execution for treason and the execution of all of his family and supporters. [[Magnificent Bastard|Tiberius accomplished this bloodbath and preserved his dynasty without leaving his rape palace on Capri for a second]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]