Evil Overlord List

Being unpublished, I’m hardly one to give advice on the subject of writing fiction. Still, why should I let that stop me?

Something we’ve probably all seen/read and groaned at is the scene where Our Hero is only able to survive and win the day because the villain does something stupid. And not just spur-of-the-moment stupid, but the sort of stupid that required considerable planning.  Or the story that is only able to proceed because someone does something monumentally dumb that gets the story rolling (such as recognizing that super-sized Velociraptors are monumentally dangerous, yet continuing to produce them and putting them in a pen that relies on external electrical power to maintain captivity).

Fortunately, for a number of years there has been a resource *vital* to anyone who wants to avoid this sort of thing, and instead write an intelligent story with intelligent characters: Peter’s Evil Overlord List. Basically, it’s a list of the most common dumb tropes that villains repeat, put in the form of a list of things any good prospective evil overlord should avoid. Whenever I have a story idea, I’ll make sure to check it against The List. It should be required reading in Hollywood, with financial penalties for writers who fail to learn.

Included in the list are gems such as:

• My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.
• My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.
• Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
• The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
• I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them.
• When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”
• I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled “Danger: Do Not Push”. The big red button marked “Do Not Push” will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.
• The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.
• I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.
• When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.
• I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion.
• I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
• If an advisor says to me “My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?”, I will reply “This.” and kill the advisor.
• If I learn the whereabouts of the one artifact which can destroy me, I will not send all my troops out to seize it. Instead I will send them out to seize something else and quietly put a Want-Ad in the local paper.
• My Legions of Terror will be trained in basic marksmanship. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice.
• Before employing any captured artifacts or machinery, I will carefully read the owner’s manual.
• If it becomes necessary to escape, I will never stop to pose dramatically and toss off a one-liner.
• If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
• I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. “Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse.” Instead it will be more along the lines of “Push the button.”
• I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
• My vats of hazardous chemicals will be covered when not in use. Also, I will not construct walkways above them.

The Evil Overlord List was a product of the 1990’s. As a result, some of the suggestions are now moot. I wonder if this might simply not make sense to any younger reader:

• Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.

Go forth to the list. Read it. Learn it. Live it.