Fantasy Hitler Copycats

Yorth

Swordman
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
244
Points
133
As I was thinking about the lore of my story and fleshing it out in my mind, I quickly fell down the rabbit hole of recreating nazi Germany with different names. This got me thinking about how popular the trope actually was in fantasy and sci-fi. A frustrated man with racial pride rallies over people with the same sentiment and creates an axis of evil. From Darth Vader of Star Wars to Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter, this villain trope has been a staple of the genre.
So I kept thinking. I didn't want my story to just have as its villain a pale copy of Hitler as that would be very unimaginative, but the more I kept thinking the more I understood that the problem is much deeper than I first thought.
When you want a big baddy in your story, you usually don't just want a plain villain that has no motivation and just want to watch the world burn. You want to play on the reader's emotions. Make them question what is right and what is wrong and show the greyness of your world. So you give your big baddy a noble cause, one that would rally people around him, and then you corrupt that cause. There you go, you created Hitler, in some sense of the word. Now your big baddy could take actions that would have consequences at different scales. He could be a local tyrant or turn into a World dictator. But in essence, it's the same character archetype.
This whole thing made me understand that it's not that authors are just blatantly copying Nazi Germany and changing names, but that it's a problem with the big baddy archetype itself. Unless your story is black and white, your big baddy's motivation will, in a sense, be similar to that of Hitler and his rise to power will be too.

Frankly, I am still thinking about how to make my big baddy more fleshed out, original, and more memorable, and will continue thinking about it for a while to come. In the meantime, I just wanted to share this thought of mine with you guys.
 

CupcakeNinja

Pervert Supreme
Joined
Jan 1, 2019
Messages
3,066
Points
183
As I was thinking about the lore of my story and fleshing it out in my mind, I quickly fell down the rabbit hole of recreating nazi Germany with different names. This got me thinking about how popular the trope actually was in fantasy and sci-fi. A frustrated man with racial pride rallies over people with the same sentiment and creates an axis of evil. From Darth Vader of Star Wars to Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter, this villain trope has been a staple of the genre.
So I kept thinking. I didn't want my story to just have as its villain a pale copy of Hitler as that would be very unimaginative, but the more I kept thinking the more I understood that the problem is much deeper than I first thought.
When you want a big baddy in your story, you usually don't just want a plain villain that has no motivation and just want to watch the world burn. You want to play on the reader's emotions. Make them question what is right and what is wrong and show the greyness of your world. So you give your big baddy a noble cause, one that would rally people around him, and then you corrupt that cause. There you go, you created Hitler, in some sense of the word. Now your big baddy could take actions that would have consequences at different scales. He could be a local tyrant or turn into a World dictator. But in essence, it's the same character archetype.
This whole thing made me understand that it's not that authors are just blatantly copying Nazi Germany and changing names, but that it's a problem with the big baddy archetype itself. Unless your story is black and white, your big baddy's motivation will, in a sense, be similar to that of Hitler and his rise to power will be too.

Frankly, I am still thinking about how to make my big baddy more fleshed out, original, and more memorable, and will continue thinking about it for a while to come. In the meantime, I just wanted to share this thought of mine with you guys.
Go read Injustice Volume 1-3 and learn the right and proper way to turn a good guy into a good villain. Trust me fam.
 

HURGMCGURG

That Guy
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
364
Points
133
As I was thinking about the lore of my story and fleshing it out in my mind, I quickly fell down the rabbit hole of recreating nazi Germany with different names. This got me thinking about how popular the trope actually was in fantasy and sci-fi. A frustrated man with racial pride rallies over people with the same sentiment and creates an axis of evil. From Darth Vader of Star Wars to Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter, this villain trope has been a staple of the genre.
So I kept thinking. I didn't want my story to just have as its villain a pale copy of Hitler as that would be very unimaginative, but the more I kept thinking the more I understood that the problem is much deeper than I first thought.
When you want a big baddy in your story, you usually don't just want a plain villain that has no motivation and just want to watch the world burn. You want to play on the reader's emotions. Make them question what is right and what is wrong and show the greyness of your world. So you give your big baddy a noble cause, one that would rally people around him, and then you corrupt that cause. There you go, you created Hitler, in some sense of the word. Now your big baddy could take actions that would have consequences at different scales. He could be a local tyrant or turn into a World dictator. But in essence, it's the same character archetype.
This whole thing made me understand that it's not that authors are just blatantly copying Nazi Germany and changing names, but that it's a problem with the big baddy archetype itself. Unless your story is black and white, your big baddy's motivation will, in a sense, be similar to that of Hitler and his rise to power will be too.

Frankly, I am still thinking about how to make my big baddy more fleshed out, original, and more memorable, and will continue thinking about it for a while to come. In the meantime, I just wanted to share this thought of mine with you guys.
You could make a Mussolini copycat. He was more popular in Italy than Hitler was in Germany.

Edit: He wasn't filled with racial pride, but nationalistic pride. He was also really about the people being stronger together, but was not a fan of communism.
 
Last edited:

Yorth

Swordman
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
244
Points
133
Most fascist dictators are just this template. Mussolini, as HURGMCGURG stated, Stalin, Mao, etc. I feel like Hitler is just the example people know the most about because it's the war Americans won't shut up about them winning. Until Trump, I'd have said there is no fascist dictator that doesn't drink his own Kool Aid.

As a personal thing, I'm actually really fucking tired of the whole "whoooo is the reeeaaaaaal bad guuuyyyyy maybe the villaaaiiiin was actually a Nice Guy!" thing in modern storytelling. That's how we ended up with that dreadful Maleficent movie. Anyway, all my favourite villains are just unapologetically evil, even actively revelling in it.

I have a villain like that. Though he is the exception. It's just that all of the characters in my story are complex and if I just laze out on the villains and make them all psychopaths, it's gonna feel weird. Though having one psychopath that goes world-endlingly batshit crazy is fun.
 

AliceShiki

Magical Girl of Love and Justice
Joined
Dec 23, 2018
Messages
3,530
Points
183
Well, I think it's a bit too much of a stretch to compare most gray villains with Hitler... Like... If you were to compare it to Voldemort, then sure, but Voldemort is a dumb racist idiot without any remotely interesting motivation to do his evilness... Honestly, if we were to make a direct comparison, Hitler is a lot more of a "good guy" than Voldemort was, and we're talking about Hitler here... You know, guy that created genocides and stuff.

But I don't think it makes much sense to compare other gray villains with the guy that uses racism as a stepping stone to grow his country and stuff. I mean, a core part of Hitler's caracterization is the racism, so you take that out and you already make a very different character.

Rather than using a noble cause corrupted when making a villain though, I just think you need to make your readers able to relate to the villain to some extent. Like Flucket's example above on the Goa'uld thingies... They're clearly evil and you can totally understand the good guys going after them... But you can also understand where the Goa'uld come from, they need hosts to live, so it makes sense they enslave other races and stuff.

I think that's the mindset you need to go with villains. They don't need to have a noble cause, they just need to have a cause that makes sense, even if that cause is something as simple as doing what is necessary to keep themselves alive.

What makes a bad villain IMO, is when there is nothing relatable in their cause and they're just evil because they're evil... Like Voldemort, the racist idiot that is racist because he is racist. That is one garbage-tier villain. Give their cause at least something the reader can identify with and you're good to go~
 

Yorth

Swordman
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
244
Points
133
@flucket well, that was pretty f*cking grimdark. But, I totally get what you mean. Just an FYI, when I said a noble cause I didn't mean one that was morally just, just one that had the support of the population. The villain in question has many reasons to start a war. From years and years of humiliation and frustration to personal trauma. But throughout the story, the reader will hardly get a glimpse at the truth. Only legends and exaggerations that have an ounce of it in them.

Villains are all over my story, all of them with their own motivations and such. True pure evil doesn't exist in my universe outside of one particular character. It's just that the tone of my story doesn't support such oppressive villains so I'll have to disappoint you in that.
 

Suryae

Dismembered
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
106
Points
83
There's no such thing as good guy and bad guy in real life, just matter of perspective and moral values.

Some might think that killing and raping 3 million Armenian and some Greek Christians for losing the war are justified and morally correct, while some might think that giving charitable aid such as food, clothing, and medicine for free are deplorable and an indinsidious act that stifles the local economic growth and further plunge the country into poverty.

Just consistently give him a bad light toward the protagonist and you got your villain.
 

Daitengu

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 11, 2019
Messages
636
Points
133
Well, other than Hitler, there's WW2 Japan, and modern CCP China.

In WW2 Japan's case, they were hyper nationalistic, and believed others to be beneath them.


While the CCP is afraid of loosing control of the nation, so they are making moves that put them on the level of Hitler. Like picking up anyone in the nation that is known to have a religion that is banned(any with a deity is) and throwing them in 're-education' centers(concentration camps). If someone needs an organ and pay enough, or is part of the CCP, they just take them from the prisoners, generally killing them in the process. (This has been reported to the UN). In Muslim women case, they take the men, and put the women with native CCP supporting men, regardless of their will.

The CCP, in their paranoia, create villains for their citizens, while giving kickbacks to wealthy supporters, and 'cleaning' history of mistakes. They are also actively conquering lands to keep their economy from collapsing. Tibet was the first, Hong Kong and Taiwan is next. I'm just surprised they haven't went hot yet with the two islands.

I think Both the CCP and WW2 Japan can easily be worked with to make a more original knock off Hitler.
 

Polpota

New member
Joined
Jan 11, 2020
Messages
18
Points
3
I think the problem is that Hitler is sort of still who we think of when we think of a bad guy, and since we’re constantly being told how people in power are becoming nazis or Hitler it’s hard to not get sucked into thinking a fictional villain is similar.

I’ve never sat there and thought about it mainly because my villains are either people doing their job and inadvertently sets the protagonist off or they’re just really focused on very minor things that the story takes as important. I’m pretty sure if I took even those and scrutinized them close enough I could make comparisons.

I wish more people were interested in Kefka instead of Hitler. I hope for a world where someone on the news says “that politician is just one poisoned water supply away from being Kefka.”
 

Kldran

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 6, 2019
Messages
183
Points
83
While the webcomic is far too long to recommend it as research material, one of the villains in Sluggy Freelance had an interesting motive: Paranoia. He was a mad genius who made amazing technologies, and used his genius to destroy or takeover anything that looked like a potential threat to him. This led to him taking over an evil organization (because they would've tried to kidnap him for his tech had he not struck first), and sending assassins after the main characters (because one of them was someone he considered the most dangerous person in the world).

I'd note though: He was pretty obviously suffering from paranoia, because he'd assume danger in situations where none existed, and his efforts to protect himself just made those perceived dangers into reality (as he became a threat to others). If not for his paranoia, he'd actually have been a decent guy. He just couldn't stop assuming the worst, and was prepared to go very far for the sake of eliminating everything he thought was a threat.
 
Top