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store, make it with Squarespace. During the ancient times, there were many
villains forged with the pen. A mighty dragon for fairy tails. For science fiction there were evil aliens. Crime dramas had serial killers. With each of the villains was the power to
provide a worthy antagonist for our main characters to overcome. Yet all of them were deceived. For another kind of villain was forged. Deep in the author’s creative bankruptcy
a new villain was slapped together. Darkness spread over the land, but a last
alliance of fans and writers created the Evil Overlord List to stop lazy authors once and
for all. Victory was near. Destroy it, JP! It’s an overused archetype! No. One villain to rule them all. Or at least one villain that requires no thought! Dark Lords are perfect because their evil
is so great that it fills the void where a writer’s creativity should have gone! If you can’t pull off substance then at
least pull off style and Dark Lords are all about style. So let our Dark Lord’s reign of terror begin. Unlike a lot of villains, our Dark Lord needs
a backstory. The audience should preferably be bludgeoned
with this backstory in the prologue or at least in a massive info-dump a few chapters
in. His rise to power should be near instantaneous. Unlike a lot evil regimes in the real world,
the Dark Lord doesn't have to rely on things like political maneuvering, wealth, or infrastructure
to build up his power base. Nope. All of those things are just handed to him. 1000 years of slumber? The Dark Lord should just wake up and need
no refresher on the world’s political landscape or need to know who his greatest rivals or
allies could be. Diplomacy? Ha. Dark Lords don’t need that. Having our dark lord take a dynamic approach
in his grab for power might require actual effort on the writer’s part and that will
just get in the way of what’s really important for the story and that’s designing the Dark
Lord’s wardrobe! Our Dark Lord should always wear heavy armor
for maximum intimidation. When in doubt, dress in black. Add some red in there for a splash of color
or maybe some glowing orange for a fire and brimstone theme. Don’t forget the shoulder spikes that somehow
never get caught on anything. Our Dark Lord needs either a face concealing
helmet that permanently casts his visage in shadow or a deformed ugly face purchased directly
from the uncanny valley. The Dark Lord’s exposed skin should be pale
white like the color of a corpse. Death and darkness motifs are a must. Don’t forget to introduce his character
by having him either kill one of his own loyal minions or have him commit a terrible atrocity. We want to make sure the audience knows he’s
a bad guy just in case his outfit and deathly complexion are too subtle a clue. Once we’ve dressed up the Dark Lord and
established that he’s evil, we are basically done. Good job, writer. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done. So long as he is sufficiently menacing and
has a bunch of magic powers and minions to do his bidding, a writer has all of the resources
needed to challenge the heroes indefinitely. Evil, menace, and minions, that’s what makes
a good villain right? It can’t be characterization. Our Dark Lord may have escaped his 1000 year
prison into an unfamiliar world so his first goal should be to conquer, enslave, and/or
destroy it. It’s not like he’s had a 1000 years to
be introspective and ask himself why exactly does he want to take over the world? I mean ruling the world is a big pain because
you have to deal with everyone’s problems. Also destroying the world presents its own
problems. But who cares? The only character trait he needs is that
he loves power because he... loves power. Oh and he’s also evil. Did I establish that earlier? Better have the Dark Lord throw a couple more
kittens into his morning omelette. Wait. What even is evil? Oh no. We can’t go there. Philosophy is the mortal enemy of shallow
power fantasy and wish fulfillment. If we start exploring the very concept of
evil, we might accidentally make the audience think and then they’ll start having actual
expectations for our story. No. Our Dark Lord is evil because he is pure evil
and probably made of evil, because evil is a substance now apparently. No other attempts should be made to characterize
the Dark Lord. The last thing we want is to use the Dark
Lord as a foil for the hero, using their differences to highlight character traits. Nor would you want to use their similarities
to cast the hero into self doubt. Even worse, use their similarities to make
the Dark Lord doubt himself by having him see the hero as someone he might have become
if only he made a few different choices. That small difference in choices could nag
at him, driving him to envy, jealousy, and ultimately regret that he found himself on
such a dark path. These conflicting emotions could lead to his
hyper focus on the hero to the point where he misses something essential that causes
his ultimate downfall. Nope. That would never work. Our Dark Lord can’t be killed by weapons,
magic, starvation, disease, or any other conventional method. Only our heroes can defeat the Dark Lord with…
um… Whoops! We accidentally made our dark lord invincible. Oh crap! Better make up some macguffins for the heroes
to find. The forces of good may have had a 1000 years
to prepare for the Dark Lord’s return so they will naturally make it as difficult as
possible for the good guys to collect the magical artifacts needed to stop the Dark
Lord once and for all. In fact, why didn’t they just use those
artifacts to permanently stop the Dark Lord the first time? Eh, who cares. If all else fails, just have the Dark Lord’s
only weakness be a special magic sword that only the chosen one can wield. Keeping our Dark Lord’s weakness as vague
as his personality is a must! It’s not like a well written villain is
all that important or that a hero is only as good as the villain they overcome. Villains that truly challenge the heroes and
cast their very ideals into doubt, forcing both internal and external conflict, are not
nearly as interesting as bad guys who just hang out in their fortress for 10 books occasionally
sending out progressively stronger minions to power level the heroes. Even Dark Lords presented more like forces
of nature can never be used as a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, casting the heroes
past the point of despair before they overcome their doubts and fight on against hopeless
odds. Having a nuanced, powerful, competent, and
charismatic Dark Lord who can only be defeated through a combination of cunning and heroic
determination will never be as awesome as a Dark Lord the chosen one vaporizes in one
blast from his super sword of evil smiting. Well after destroying the macguffin that was
keeping the Dark Lord Immortal, of course. Many methods have been used over the centuries
to combat evil; prayer, altruism, charity, piety. As it turns out, defeating the ultimate evil
only requires breaking the right kind of jewelry. Just as Dark Lords need a fortress, writers
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To be fair, I think an antagonist made out of pure, elemental evil, like a physical material that represents evil, would be interesting enough. Then we could explore how absolutely nobody would join his forces because his pure evil intentions make no sense and won't help even the most evil of normal people.
You can’t trick me, that’s terrible writing advice...
And while the video creator preened smugly, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings continued to move uncounted billions of dollars.
Obviously, there are probably a hundred failure DARK LORDZ in forgotten fantasy works for each example of media the trope works in, but I feel like the video would have been better served in that case by simply saying 'don't suck at writing,' and perhaps 'do you really need to write something if you have absolutely nothing original to say?' Although even the latter is questionable -- there's plenty of market space for derivative work in fantasy, even today, decades into our cynical 'gritty fantasy' 'growing up' revolution.
I understand low effort dark lords are annoying, but literally everything in a low effort book is annoying if you have any standards. Acting like the trope is lame and lulzy, and emptily mocking it, when it dominates a majority of the West's fantasy cultural touchstones honestly just grinds my gears.
If you like this video, you might like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTRCMBAugII
How often does Terrible Writing Advice get on this subreddit? I am not complaining, just curios.
Hm... It seems, that outside of aesthetics, I managed to avoid most mistakes with my dark lord.