What does evil do when it wins?

[rob_simple]

Why do people assume 'evil' considers itself 'evil'? When 'evil' wins, it has achieved it's goal. Mission accomplished. It does what everyone else does when they win. They celebrate, they take stock of their lives and then they stake out the course to the next horizon.

And here's the thing: They're the heroes as far as they're concerned. Or if they're realistic, they don't believe in heroes but in necessity and that doing what's right means doing what's necessary.

Agreed, this is my feeling on the topic too, which, incidentally, is why I often find myself relating more to the antagonist in films and books because their motivations actually have a basis rather than the good guy's 'I will risk my life to stop an ambiguous evil that apparently only I am capable of defeating despite it having no direct benefit or link to me.'

 

[Soviet Steve]

Well cartoonishly pure evil characters like in LOTR have no depth to them beyond being cunts so I wouldn't expect them to know. They don't really exist as individual characters, just as some force of nature that the good guys have to overcome. In essence I guess you can't deduce their motives because of terrible writing.

LOTR: TERRIBLE WRITING

You heard it here first.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Actually that would be an awesome premise for a fantasy book or game: The bad guy has won, all civilisation has been overrun and destroyed, and then the evil minions turned on each other until they were all killed. You play one of the first of a new race of people stepping out into this destroyed, deserted fantasy world. Trying to survive until the plants and wildlife replenish themselves and exploring the desolation of the old world to try and discover what happened. It could even end with the birth of a new evil, that would probably eventually destroy your new world.

Or practically every post-apocalyptic work of fiction ever.

Yeah, I suppose it does borrow overused tropes from every fantasy cliche in the book, but fantasy has degenerated so far into Tolkien-with-the-names-switched-around that all I'd need to do is not make Elves, Dwarves, and Men the main characters and the staggering innovation would make people wet themselves. Also hats, give everyone hats, or make hats the main characters. Hold on a second, I've got to phone Hollywood!

 

[RvLeshrac]

Well cartoonishly pure evil characters like in LOTR have no depth to them beyond being cunts so I wouldn't expect them to know. They don't really exist as individual characters, just as some force of nature that the good guys have to overcome. In essence I guess you can't deduce their motives because of terrible writing.

LOTR: TERRIBLE WRITING

You heard it here first.

Way to not read any of the books.

 

[RvLeshrac]

I'm talking about the type of evil like in Lord of the Rings. The good side tend to fight against the oppression of the evil who want to do nothing but kill and start an "age of darkness", but what I've always questioned is what goes on in somewhere like middle-earth when there's nothing left but Lord Sauron and a bunch of orcs? Can they even still be evil and cause darkness when there are only evil creatures left, or do they keep a few hobbits around just so they can be evil to them?

This is one of my major annoyances when it comes to a lot of fantasy, the "dark side" always want nothing but destruction with no real goal after that, whereas the good side always have a bit more depth to their aims other than "win and conquer".

Sauron's goal was to wage war against the Maiar and Valar, and invade Valinor where he would meet the same fate as Melkor - cast into the void, with his forces scattered. The various players of the Third Age weren't fighting for 'good,' or 'evil,' they were fighting for the control of Middle-Earth. There was nothing ahead of Sauron except a quest for more power.

Saruman would have been destroyed regardless of other events, either by Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, or Sauron.

It should also be noted that Gandalf and the other Istari would have certainly been the equals of Sauron without the One Ring. Since Gandalf bore one of the Elven rings, Middle-Earth was in no real danger of falling to Sauron.

I wasn't exactly asking about the Lord of the Rings plot in specific. It was more what would Sauron do when he had all the power he could acquire? What does one do when they have conquered everything?

It would just be a few orcs and Sauron hanging about and the orcs would be "LOL, remember that one time you lost your ring, good times"

You have to be specific, because there are many different styles of 'Evil.'

Some evil wants to destroy existence.
Some evil wants to remake existence.
Some evil wants to rule over everything.
Some evil wants to rule over a small corner of the globe.

 

[BaronUberstein]

That's why you need to be evil due to the means to your end.

For example, if I was to become a supervillian, I'd find a way to build a series of nuclear-rockets (Look up Project Orion). By series, I mean maybe...1000 of them. From what I understand, that means I could carry 800,000 tons to Mars.

Collect up the brightest scientists and use a combination of drugs and indoctrination to bring them to my side (If I can somehow get them to have Stockholm syndrome that could work out well). Then, once I have all the materials and manpower I need to make a mars colony work in one shot, I take off and leave a massive amount of fallout behind. Fuck over the Earth and head off to start a new beginning with the best of the best in one go. Insert evil laugh here.

If you think about it, it's the best way to win a nuclear cold war. The enemy can't retaliate because you've already nuked your own country and on your way to another planet.

 

[Setrus]

I saw in Megamind that the villain gets bored, accidently makes a bigger villain and then has to fight this new villain and become the anti-hero.

Seemed perfectly logical to me.

That movie was freaking brilliant. :-D

And yeah, once you're king of the world, what do you do, start putting the orcs through pit-fights just to avoid boredom? Invade another world? I think the problem with those kind of villains is that they're so one-dimensional, they're very clear that they want to conquer the world, but never WHY they want it...

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Terrorise everyone, eat cookies and make killing cats an offense punishable by death.

I so haven't thought about this before...

 

[Saladfork]

This is one of the reasons I think that 'evil' is just a writer cop-out to avoid having to make a real character.

In most cases, I would assume that an antagonist with conquest in mind would genuinely believe that he'd be a better ruler than the current ones, and after winning, he'd see if he was right. Perhaps at that point his arrogance wouldnt let him acknowledge the weaknesses of his policies, and he would stubbornly carry on with them to the detriment of the people he'd conquered, but that would hardly be 'evil'.

 

[TWRule]

They build modern society where everyone has to toil all day at purposeless jobs until they die, just as purposelessly.

Oh wait...

 

[Unsilenced]

It goes to write the history books to say that good won.


I just assume that the massive, infant-stomping orc army guys just have a really good PR team stashed away somewhere.

 

[Flizzick]

You want to know what evil does when it wins?

Watch what happens when Republicans take office.

 

[MatsVS]

Actually that would be an awesome premise for a fantasy book or game: The bad guy has won, all civilisation has been overrun and destroyed, and then the evil minions turned on each other until they were all killed. You play one of the first of a new race of people stepping out into this destroyed, deserted fantasy world. Trying to survive until the plants and wildlife replenish themselves and exploring the desolation of the old world to try and discover what happened. It could even end with the birth of a new evil, that would probably eventually destroy your new world.

That book was called The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson, and it was terrible.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

I would think the various races and cultures of Sauron's will would rebuild Middle-Earth how they see fit, and begin their own civilizations that would eventually lead to war and rebellion once again. It would be the exact same shit repeated, just with different leaders.

 

[chimeracreator]

Assuming it is a well written villain rather than just a simple cliche their objective tends to be stated pretty directly, and even with cliches it's normally obvious:


Emperor from Star Wars: Continue to rule the galaxy.

Magneto from X-Men: End the mutant on human war by getting rid of the humans.

Templars from Assassins Creed: Create a utopia by destroying free thought and thus ending conflict.

X-COM UFO Defense: Exploit Earth's resources


From Terry Pratchet's Guards Guards:

One day it's the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it's everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one's been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It's part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don't seem to have the knack.

 

[Meight08]

Torture rape and pilage their way through the land.
Duh.

 

[II2]

This is one of the reasons I've always been fond of Aeon Flux, the cartoon series (not the movie adaptation) and the character of Trevor Goodchild.

Since the episodes have complete disregard for continuity, save thematically, the main characters often die or everything goes completely, irreparably, wrong...

With that creative license, Trevor Goodchild plays the duel mad-scientist / dictator perfectly, always coming up with some new 'vision' to improve the nature of man, or just sometimes just indulge his own hedonistic perversions. Aeon Flux (the character) runs constant interference to his plans, as an independant anarchic agent fighting for... whatever she fancies at the moment... but, more broadly, independent thought and liberty to Trevor's schematic control.

At any rate, it's a consistently interesting look at an oscillating spectrum of grey as two antiheroes locked in both lethal competition and romance fight for dominance in a surrealist future world. Absolutely wonderful show with a LOT of different answers to the question posed by the OP.

 

[Zaik]

"Evil" becomes the good guys as far as anyone unrelated knows after it wins, I'd imagine.

Unless you are talking about batman villain syndrome where the "bad guys" do nonsensical violent stuff with no real motivation at all beyond being crazy.

 

[DudeD1020]

Well, when the aberrations win everything is aces. The Mindflayers set the world so that life continues until the end of time, and create a society where everyone is equal. The Aboleths force the destruction of the current universe and any future universes that don't fit with their memories. If we assume non-monstrous races are "evil" Then they enslave, and conquer all of the lands. In the event of an undead victory all life is dead. If the Unborn-God wins everything ends and only one God remains. "evil" beasts and Beholders have no end-game.
Braking away from D&D, it's stated that if SCP-682 got its wish all terrestrial life would be over, because it's not from here. Even out "god" said it's not one of his. If we use Mass Effect the Reapers continue their cycle.

 

[Kroxile]

Well... they would create a Fascist nation (or world) in which everyone believes they are in the right and are incredibly patriotic to the point of blind stupidity and everyone else outside of their nation is somehow against them and the way others run their nations is somehow in some way detrimental to the way their fascist nation.

"News" propaganda everywhere and yadda yadda yadda...

TL;DR - I'm referring to real life here.. srs bzns.