Take Over the World: Difference between revisions

[[File:riskalmostwin.jpg|link=Risk|thumb|350px|Red player illustrates.]]

 

'''The Brain:''' [[Once an Episode|The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world!]]|''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''}}

 

** He pulls it off in Doom 2099 (or the United States, anyway, which is not actually the entire world). The twist? He's actually a pretty good leader.

* From ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|AVENGERS]]'' #290, in one of his few impressive moments Dr. Druid points out to the Super-Adaptoid the importance of thinking things through:

'''Super-Adaptoid:''' I... I had not yet considered that. }}

* "Rule the world" is the key phrase that Piffany taught Yeagar to differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys in ''[[Nodwick]]''.

== Film ==

* Audrey II In ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]''.

'''Audrey II:''' And i wanna thank YOU!. }}

* General Zod in ''[[Superman II]]'' did take over Earth after defeating the pesky son of Jor-El. It just didn't last because of Superman.

* ''[[Harry Potter]]'': Lord Voldemort has this goal, now that he's {{spoiler|functionally immortal}}.

* [[Deconstructed]] in ''[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]''. As he works on his latest [[Evil Plan]] (and afterwards) Doctor Impossible wonders what "taking over the world" even means, having tried everything from [[Time Travel]] to [[Noodle Incident|an army of fish]]:

* ''[[Ender's Game]]'': Peter Wiggin, the brother of Ender begins putting his [[Take Over the World]] plan in motion at the age of, like, fourteen? {{spoiler|He succeeds several books later. And in an interesting turn, is a very effective and respected leader.}}

* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|A Fighting Man of Mars]]'', this is the jeddak of Jalar's intention -- though being a [[Dirty Coward]], he insists on marvelous [[Mad Scientist]] inventions in sufficient quantities first. Also Phor Tak, who had made him those inventions and been exiled by him; desire for [[Revenge]] drives him insane.

* ''[[Cartoon Action Hour]]'': All three sample series' [[Big Bad]] (Nekkrottus, General Archnid, and Maxilliam Mercy) have this trope at their goal--but this is justifed as it's a 1980s [[Shout-Out]] to goals of most 1980s cartoon villains.

* The ''[[Net Runner]]'' card "[http://www.netrunneronline.com/cards/world-domination/ World Domination]". If the corp manages to score the card, it wins the game.

'Cause it was labeled 'Secret Plans for World Domination.' }}

 

== Videogames ==

* Gary from ''[[Bully (video game)|Bully]]''. His goal is ostensibly to "take over the school", but nobody seems to have figured out what that actually means, least of all Gary.

* At the end of the first half of ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', {{spoiler|Kefka conquers the world. The goal of the second half is to dethrone him, preferably ''before'' he gets bored of nuking the survivors with the [[Light Is Not Good|Light Of Judgment]] and really gets cracking on the stated goal of [[Omnicidal Maniac|"building a monument to nonexistence."]]}}.

* This is the raison d'etre for the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'', [[The Emperor]]. ''Why'' he wants to rule everything is never gone into in the game itself.

== Web Originals ==

* ''[[Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog]]'': Precisely what the titular [[Mad Scientist]] protagonist tries to accomplish: take over the world, [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|change the Status Quo]], put power into different hands.... and impress the girl from the laundromat that [[Shrinking Violet|he has a crush on]].

"The world is a ''mess'', and I just need to rule it!" }}

* ''[[Doctor Steel]]'': Dr. Steel for World Emperor!. Toward a Utopian Playland!

* ''[[That Guy With The Glasses]]'':

** This Trope is a running joke for the Nostalgia Critic in his reviews. When the antagonist of any film is revealed to have this goal in mind the review will be interrupted by M. Bison as he was played by Raul Julia in [[Street Fighter (film)|the movie adaptation of]] ''[[Street Fighter]]''. The joke goes like this:

The line is completely out of context (it was actually in response to Sagat saying "Guile? Alive?"), but deliberately so as part of the Critic's motif of using clips and bytes in response to himself. }}

** Other members of the team such as Paw Dugan and Linkara have adopted this gag for their own videos as well, effectively making it a [[Running Gag]] for the entire website.

* Every [[Big Bad]] in ''[[The Questport Chronicles]]'' has this as a motivation, although for three different reasons: [[Casting a Shadow|The Master of Darkness]] wants to [[Dark World|cover the entire world with darkness]]; the [[Eldritch Abomination|Prince of Shadows and Illusions]] just [[Omnicidal Maniac|wants to kill everyone]]. The [[No Name Given|mysterious]] [[Evil Sorcerer|mage]]'s motivations are never made clear.

* ''[[Skippy's List|Skippys List]]'' has examples:

 

 

* ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' actually opens with Aku taking over the world. The entire thrust of the series was Jack trying to go back in time to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|stop it from happening.]]

* Most of the villains (especially the recurring ones) in ''[[Kim Possible]]''. To quote Shego:

* The Brain of ''[[Animaniacs]]'' and ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''. Every episode ended this way, and every episode began with some inane plot to take over the world.

** It's refutable whether [[Anti-Hero|Brain]] is truly a villain, since he honestly believes the world would be better off with him in charge- he said as much in ''Megalomaniacs Anonymous''. Also notable is the lack of any regularly-appearing nemesis to thwart his schemes (unless you count [[Bumbling Sidekick|Pinky]]); they generally crash & burn on their own.

* In ''[[Storm Hawks]]'', to spread her empire over the whole Atmos is Master Cyclonis' number one goal (and seeing as she is the latest in a royal family, the ambition seems to run [[In the Blood]]). She's demonstrated some pretty impressive schemes to do so, but has always failed so far on behalf of [[You Meddling Kids|those meddling Storm Hawks]] and her [[Surrounded by Idiots|bumbling minions]].

* ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in the episode that introduced the villian Moliatry.

** In another episode, Honker gets controlled by an alien-hat [[Puppeteer Parasite]], who then announces his plan to take over the world via a TV broadcast. After the alien is defeated and Honker gets home, his dad, having only seen the broadcast, sympathetically says "Sorry the whole 'take over the world' thing didn't work out, Honk!"

* In ''[[Futurama]]'' it is implied that the United States has taken over the world sometime in the past and simply adopted the name "Earth". The "Earthican" Flag looks like the American flag just with the stars replaced with Earth. And when Nixon is running for president of "Earth" in the year 3000 at first they say he can't run because "no body can be president twice" implying the government of Earth is a continuation of the American government.

** As well as, arguably, all of the world's oceans.

* [[Those Wacky Nazis|The Nazis]]: Although still an ongoing debate (referred to as the "Continentalist vs Globalist" theories), since the end of [[World War II]] historical study has convincingly established that the expansionist aspects of Nazi ideology only allowed two possible outcomes: total victory or total defeat. [[Adolf Hitler]] wanted to ensure German and Aryan supremacy and realised that [[Nazi Germany]] would have to take over the world to do this. However, he also realised that this would take a ''lot'' of time (he was 50 when he started the war in 1939) and planned to take over "only" Europe in his lifetime (coming fairly close to accomplishing this), leaving the rest of the task to his successors. Historians have also argued that the military alliances with [[Imperial Japan|Japan]] and [[Fascist Italy|Italy]] were part of Hitler's short- and medium-term pragmatism, not his long-term aims, and that the Nazis would likely not have had much choice about continuing to expand due to how their economy was structured.

** Hitler specifically did not want to establish a blood dynasty, and given his personal situation it's doubtful he would have lived long enough to groom a descendant as a successor anyway. He also kept his subordinates squabbling for position within the Nazi Party as a means of holding onto power himself. Most likely if Hitler had succeeded the Greater German Reich would have [[Succession Crisis|collapsed into chaos soon after his death]]. Nazi Germany's leadership was too busy playing hacky-sack with the [[Idiot Ball]] to plan for long-term conquest as Hitler envisioned.

*** Even then, chances are they'd be [[Evil Versus Evil|fighting with]] [[Imperial Japan]] over who'd finally be the one to rule the entire world.