http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList

The infamous lists of "Things I'll do if I ever become an Evil Overlord".

Read them, and you'll be Genre Savvy, able to avoid dooms of many villains. Fail to read them, and your Genre Blindness will condemn you to pick up any Villain Ball you see, perhaps even demoting you to the rank of Harmless Villain, and failure will be your only option.

The original Evil Overlord List was compiled in 1990 by several members of the FidoNet Science Fiction and Fandom email echo. The FidoNet list originated with a 1988 Saturday Night Live skit featuring Bond Villains touting a book "What Not To Do When You Capture James Bond". The FidoNet list arose out of discussions regarding what sort of advice might be in that book, and was compiled and published by Jack Butler.

Advertisement:

The original version of the list can be found here while the list Peter Anspach later compiled can be found here .

The version reproduced for TV Tropes is the more well-known list that sprang out of discussions on the Star Trek mailing list around 1994, discussing common cliches that appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It started with 25 items and growing into eventually 100 items with several appendices grouped into "Cellblock A" and "Cellblock B". It is no longer updated, though it can still be found at this site .

Both Peter Anspach and Jack Butler acknowledge the existence of each other's lists, that both lists originated independently of each other, and state that their two lists have been so cross-pollinated over the years as to become effectively identical. Since the version below and the appendices are reproduced directly from Anspach's site, the copyright notice has been maintained out of courtesy.

Advertisement:

See also Evil Overlord List Cellblock A and Evil Overlord List Cellblock B. If you wish to add points of your own, see the TV Tropes Additional Evil Overlord Vows. See also Evil Plan and Stock Evil Overlord Tactics for more general information.

If you don't want, or are unable, to be an Evil Overlord, look up The Universal Genre Savvy Guide.

Advertisement:

Go to Evil Overlord List Cellblock A or Evil Overlord List Cellblock B for more.

© This Evil Overlord List is Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached.