Dark Lord Fitness
I dreamed I was watching a Dark Lord–you know, the big bad villain, the leader of all the spooks and goblins and things that go bump in the dark, bent on conquering all of Fantasyland and putting it under his iron heel. It was apparently–you know how you just know things in dreams–one of those Fantasylands where a new Dark Lord arises every few hundred years once the old one has become only a hazy memory.
He was talking to someone. Maybe a subordinate, or maybe he was monologuing to the plucky farm boy hero.
Being the Dark Lord is harder then you think. You have to make the nicest of judgments all the time or you fail. If you draw off too many forces to deal with the plucky hero and his ragtag band then your main assaults against the kingdoms of men will fall. But if you do not draw off enough forces just when you’ve crushed the last Kingdom of men and are planning on ruling unchecked and supreme, the plucky hero shows up in your throne room to kill you.
If you give your subordinates too little independence and power then the plucky hero is able to run rings around them. But if you give them too much, they turn on each other and even on you.
I remember thinking this made sense and even thought to myself that the dark lord had to be pretty terrifying to cow his enemies and keep his own hordes in check, but also could not be too evil or he would fritter away resources in just doing nasty stuff and would actually inspire more opposition that way.
The next part of the dream was an infodump.
I was given to understand that the dark Lords monologue was correct. In fact a dark lord had to basically do everything right or else the plucky hero and his ragtag band would figure out a way to defeat him.
That was because the purpose of Fantasyland was not generating heroes. The purpose of Fantasyland was to create the perfect dark lord. The plucky farm boy heroes and swords of prophecy and the alliances of light and all of that were just for testing the dark lords and terminating failed dark lord trials. They were a mechanism for creating the perfect dark lord.
When I woke up I thought that such a dark lord might turn out to be not so dark after all.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | Tags: dreams and visions
E.C.
December 9, 2021
There’s actually a Japanese (Korean?) novel that uses this idea as its central conceit. I don’t remember the name, but basically the Dark Lord is an administrator par excellence, who kills the plucky farm boy heroes early on in ‘accidents’ and keeps his minions well-paid and makes sure his lands don’t go to wrack and ruin . . . and he basically becomes the darker version of a really good king.
Evenstar
December 9, 2021
Dark Lord of Derkholm and Tough Guide to Fantasyland both by Dianna Wynne Jones have a interesting take on dark lords. I enjoyed both of them.
E.C.
December 10, 2021
@ Evenstar,
Ah, yes. Jones’s take on the subject is both delightfully comprehensive and a little bit curmudgeonly. And then, of course, there’s her views on horses, socks, and stew in Fantasyland. 🙂
G.
December 10, 2021
Does she really call it Fantasyland?
Evenstar
December 10, 2021
In Tough Guide to Fantasyland, yes. Not in Dark Lord of Derkholm.
E.C.
December 10, 2021
@ G,
Her conceit is that it’s a tourist’s guide, not to Tolkien’s Elfland (a perilous but beautiful place), but instead to the more generic, theme park-like Fantasyland, filled with the cliches and tropes of the worst of the genre. She has entries on everything from Stew to Horses to the Eternal Quest (see: Quest, Eternal).
The Dark Lord of Derkholm is the Guide in story form – except that the Dark Lord is actually an unhappy farmer named Derk, picked randomly to be the Dark Lord for the year’s tours of Fantasyland by the soulless CEO of a tour company from Earth.
IAW
December 11, 2021
Just keep in mind – every time Doctor Doom took over the world, he actually made it a better place and created a near-utopia.
And each time, he find out that ruling is boring and he prefers the challenge of trying to take over the world to actually ruling it.
Although, lately, he’s just decided to focus on how much he hates Reed Richards, so he’s changed his focus.
IAW
December 11, 2021
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland came from when DWJ was helping edit the Encyclopedia of Fantasy, and someone had submitted an entry on “Nunneries/Convents” and before she even read the submission, had the a thought along the lines of “Burned down. There is one survivor.”
It’s quite funny in talking about how the ecology of generic “Fantasyland” makes no sense, how STDs don’t seem to exist, pregnancy is nearly impossible to achieve (so no worries about leaving a trail of bastards across the land as you make your way to the final battle), why tavern brawls are a requirement, where did all the insects go?, etc.