Take Over the World: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''Pinky:''' Gee, Brain, what you wanna do tonight?

 

What's the goal most every villain has in mind? Why of course, it's World Domination[[Tradesnark™|®]]! [[Ambition Is Evil|Ambitious]], [[Pragmatic Villainy|more logical]] and sometimes [[Easily-Conquered World|easier]] than [[The End of the World as We Know It|destroying the world]], as [[Evil Plan]]s go. They want to be in charge of everything and everyone. This could be just to [[Pride|feed their massive egos,]] or else they've got somewhat [[Dark Messiah|twisted ideals]] that they want everyone else to adhere to. Either way, it puts them in direct conflict with the heroes, whether professional or "[[Heroic Neutral|I just want everything to go back to normal]]" types. Usually said villain [[And Your Little Dog, Too|fixates on the hero or someone/thing close to them]] as being part of their master plan. See [[Evil Plan]]. For a villain who has finally acquired [[A God Am I|godlike power]], and did not [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence]], then this is the next logical goal and use for said power. If it involves destroying the world to rule it, it's because [[Utopia Justifies the Means]]. Or [[Despotism Justifies the Means|they are just dicks]].

 

For more information, check out the [[Evil Overlord List]], a detailed guide on what should an evil overlord do and not do. Typically, this is accomplished with [[Stock Evil Overlord Tactics]]. Although sometimes the plans of villains with this motivation go rather in the [[Step Three: Profit]] direction. For several country-specific [[Sub-Trope|SubTropes]], see [[America Takes Over the World]], [[Japan Takes Over the World]], and [[China Takes Over the World]]. See [[Take Over the City]] for a more modest version.

 

* The ''Mazinger trilogy'':

** ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': According his Backstory revealed in one of the manga versions, Dr. Hell was abused and belittled by everyone when he was a child until his mind snapped and he decided he wanted to make all pay: he would purge the world off idiots and force everybody to bow down to him. During the rise of Hitler, he realized if he took over the world he COULD do just that. Over ten years after the World War II he finally found the means [[Lost Technology|as he researched several ancient ruins]].

* This is the goal of all of the evil organizations in [[Hajimete no Aku]]. Their methods and reasons are generally more benign than most of the other examples on this page.

* In ''[[Read or Die]]'', the British Library apparently wants to take control of the world's information networks, so they can get the world to doublethink itself into believing that they ''already'' rule the world.

* The Evil Organization Florsheim from ''[[Tentai Senshi Sunred]]'' has this as their objective B. It will follow objective A; the defeat of their mortal enemy Sunred. So far, they're stuck at objective A. [[Harmless Villain|And probably will be for some time]].

* This is the goal of Rider, aka [[Alexander the Great]], in ''[[Fate/Zero]]''. Which is to be expected, given that it was his goal in [[Real Life]]. An unusual case in that he is a hero rather than a villain.

* Poseidon in ''[[Saint Seiya]]''. Cue his [[Enemy Mine|one-time help]] against Hades, who wants to destroy the world.

 

== Comic Books ==

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

 

 

== Film ==

* Clu in ''[[Tron: Legacy]]'' wants to escape from the Grid into [[Real Life]] and bring his army with him. How he plans to take over the world with a few thousand troops and no real weapons (or, at least, something that would work in the real world) is never explained, although some fans claim he can program more troops once outside. One thing's for sure though, if Clu escapes he will stop at nothing to make our world open and available to all of them. [[Memetic Mutation|Yes!]] '''[[Memetic Mutation|TO ALL OF THEM!!!!!]]'''

* Drax's [[Evil Plan]] in ''[[Moonraker]]'' is to wipe out humanity and replace it with a "master race" under his rule.

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Petaybee|Powers That Be]]'' the [[Big Bad]] corporation, Intergal, wants to take over the planet of Petaybee because it terraformed it in the first place and has only just realized that it might be more profitable to mine it than to allow settlers to live there.

* {{spoiler|Petyr Baelish}}'s goal at this point in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' seems to be "control as much of Westeros as possible". Given that this is {{spoiler|''Littlefinger''}} we're talking about here, he may have a bigger ultimate goal, a smaller ultimate goal, or no goal at all.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* Unsurprisingly, this is Hitler's goal in ''[[Danger 5]]''. He is also depicted as being in charge of Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito - the show being a parody of pulp and exploitation fiction, he's pretty similar to the stereotypical megalomaniacal supervillain.

* Tons of Showa era ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' villains had this as this as their plan. Not so much in the Heisei era, where the villains plans are usually more complex. The only villains whose end goal plan is conquering the world is Smart Brain from ''[[Kamen Rider Faiz]]'', whose plan entails a [[Zombie Apocalypse]].

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In the Kalamar D&D setting, the holy book of the [[Lawful Evil|god of tyranny]] is a [[Author Tract|political manifesto]] that not only proclaims the deity's intention to do this, but why it's ''absolutely imperative'' that his followers make it happen, [[Knight Templar|for the greater good of all sentients]].

* ''[[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.

{{quote|So, Wilson, how in the frack did you know the fileset was secret plans for world domination?

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

 

* 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.

{{quote|'''Gary:'''"I keep imagining myself in charge of a large empire."}}

* [[Big Bad|Bruno]] from ''[[Solatorobo]]'' plans on reawakening and controlling an evil power to take over the world.

 

* ''[[Bob and George]]'' [[Deconstructed Trope]] the trope in a short-lived sub-comic ''Raw Lemons and Baked Pizza''. After having it up to here with Dr. Wily, Mega Man finally spells out just what taking over the world will require. Namely, having to sort out the already noticeable mess of differences between various nations, having to deal with the various uprisings, learning ever language known to man just to communicate with them, getting people to accept his rule in the first place and the insane amounts of stress that would be implied. It ends on a nice humorous note as Dr. Wily, having clearly gone too insane to recover, laments that he already had a custom gold world-domination crown made.

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': Happens a number of times. Bun-Bun and K'Z'K have both tried to take over the main Sluggy universe (Bun-Bun actually succeeded, for all of ten minutes). The Dimension of Pain demons apparently took over their home dimension in order to make it "of Pain," and tried to do the same thing to the Dimension of Lame. This is also the long term goal of the Hereti Corporation and the K'Z'K cults that have sprung up following the Demon's death.

* ''[[Friendly Hostility]]'': Collin, is a megalomaniac who has dreams of becoming a dictator to politically unstable third world countries. Several arcs have sprung from this desire.

* ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'' used the subversion - in a plotline where it appeared that Herdthinners CEO R.L. had been eaten by bears, his even more ruthless wife, Angelique, took over the company and slowly replaced the normal employees with ones that suffered from domestication. Since domestication causes absolute loyalty, she planned on creating an army of them to eventually Take Over The World. After her husband returned alive and well, he reminded her of the headaches of trying to run the whole world and they agreed to just make gobs of money instead. But the last strip in the storyline did show her encouraging her children to play Risk and learn from it.

* ''[[Dr. Nonami]]'': Mechano's goal is world conquest. So far it's not going very well.

* ''Xykon'' of ''[[The Order of the Stick]]''.

** Also, the main character was going to take over the world [[Utopia Justifies the Means|for its own good.]] Because only magical girls could be trusted to be totally pure dictators, right?

* Raichan in ''[[Vinigortonio]]'' needs to destroy one of the main character's building in order to conquer the world. Or at least so he says. {{spoiler|It turns out he needs to destroy it to get to the only known source of [[Unobtainium Raichanium]].}}

 

{{quote|'''Dr. Horrible:''' (re: Johnny Snow, his self-proclaimed "nemesis") "Look, I'm just trying to change the world, ''okay''? I don't have time for a ''grudge match'' with every ''poser'' in a parka!"

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

* The basic goal of the ''[[New Villain Order]]''

* 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.

{{quote|203. "To conquer the earth with [[Everything's Better with Monkeys|an army of flying monkeys]]" is a bad long term goal to give the re-enlistment NCO.}}

 

* ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'': Skeletor was always trying to take over Greyskull, and with that, the universe.

* ''[[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.]]

* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' [[Big Bad]] Vlad only hinted that he had potential desires for the world as his current evil plans focused more on personal vendettas, but then Season Three came where it's revealed he wants it. Only one has ever succeeded in dominating the planet: [[Ax Crazy|Dark Danny]] in an [[Bad Future|alternate future]], though arguably that can be a case of [[The End of the World as We Know It|destroying the planet]]. Pariah Dark gets special mention as well, since he took over the Ghost Zone (and Amity Park) before he was turned into [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] again.

* ''[[Invader Zim]]'': This is Zim's goal right from the start, along with [[Destroy All Humans!|destroying all humans.]]

** The primary villain of the series, Megabyte, tries repeatedly to take over Mainframe, but never succeeds (though he does come close.)

** [[The Bad Guy Wins|Actually Megabyte does succeed.]] It's just that by the time he does take over the city is in ruins and [[Victory Is Boring|there is nothing left]] [[Pyrrhic Victory|for him to rule.]]

* Dolf in ''[[Alfred J Kwak]]''. Because of an innate fear of [[Pride|being perceived as weak by others]], when he's still a child Dolf decides that one day he will simply rule over everyone and everything. Moreover, when he stages his coup he outright declares that he simply wants power for its own sake. A dream he has in the final episode reveals that despite many years having passed he still harbours this desire.

 

* If you count humanity as one deeply fractionated empire then we've already achieved this. [[Galactic Conqueror|But as we all know, one world is not enough.]]

* The person in real life who set the record for most land conquered was Temujin, better known by his title Genghis Khan (even more, if you also count the conquests of his sons). He even invoked this goal when choosing that title, which roughly means "Oceanic ruler".

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Goals and Objectives Index]]

[[Category:Make My Index Live]]