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Playing With: Take Over the World
Basic Trope: A villain seeks to rule the world.
  • Straight: Emperor Evulz seeks to rule the world with an iron fist.
  • Exaggerated: Emperor Evulz seeks to rule the universe with an iron fist.
  • Downplayed: Emperor Evulz seeks to rule the city with an iron fist.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted: Evulz is seeking an heir to his global empire and, as soon as he finds one, he will give up his throne.
  • Subverted:
    • Evulz claims he wants to rule the world but this is a lie to inspire his Mooks.
    • Evulz does want to rule the world but he's not actually doing it for villainous purposes or through villainous methods. His ultimate goal is to unite all the world's peoples into an empire of peace and prosperity.
    • He actually plans to make the Five-Man Band to train and battle against him so they could be strong enough in his true plan - he's himself too weak to defeat the true villain, which is an Eldritch Abomination Giant Space Flea from Nowhere.
  • Double Subverted:
  • Parodied:
  • Zig Zagged: Evulz lies to his Mooks about wanting to rule the world, but the lie part is they're not getting any of it; he's going to rule alone. The Hero tells him how much responsibility this would be, at which point Evulz offers to split the workload. Evulz has no idea what to do when The Hero says no.
  • Averted: Evulz has no desire to rule anything, except maybe his Mooks.
  • Enforced: "We need a motivation for this villain that's both ambitious and dangerous. Let's have him try to rule the world!"
  • Lampshaded: "I'll rule the world! Because everybody else is doing it!"
  • Invoked: "Maybe this idiot will listen to me when I am ruler of the entire world!"
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied:
    • The world already has a ruler, and he is much more powerful than Evulz.
    • Evulz deconstructs and scoffs at the prospect of taking over the world.
  • Discussed: "You know, I bet this guy wants to rule the world." "Why, because he's evil? Not all evil people want to take over the world. Some want to destroy it."
  • Conversed: "Have you ever noticed how many villains just want to rule the world?"
  • Deconstructed:
    • Ruling the world is actually quite Awesome, but Impractical when you think about it. The citizenry don't exactly take kindly to that, and killing them all just leaves an empty world to rule over. Destroying the world? Where exactly is the utility in that?
    • Once you're ruling the world, you literally have to be in charge of everyone, and that's like herding giraffes. Seven billion giraffes, as a matter of fact. You actually have to run things, and make sure it works, and dang, Dystopia Is Hard. You will end up snapping or getting crushed under the workload of trying to dictate everything.
    • Alternatively, the setting becomes a Crapsack World.
    • Alternatively, Emperor Evulz wants to take over the world because he is heavily psychologically depressed and cynical, and believes the world would be better if he were to call the shots, not realizing that what he imagines to be a perfect world is unattainable and therefor requires him to take actions that he had initially sought out to destroy.
    • Alternatively, Evulz sets out to take over the world, but is almost immediately slowed down by having to fight back all the military forces in the world. He later quits after running out of money and is swiftly arrested.
  • Reconstructed: Emperor Evulz enlists the help of his dragon when he needs a break.

Back to, you guessed it, Take Over the World.

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