Dark Lord

The Dark Lord is a special title of a ruler that leads the forces of chaos and darkness in their realm. They are also the opposing force of their respective creator.

Overview
The Dark Lord is meant to be an evil counterbalance to "good", without which, there could be no good. They may also be a master of a demon castle, although the ruler of a demon castle is not necessarily a Dark Lord. If a Dark Lord is ever defeated permanently, a new Dark Lord must arise in order to maintain balance in their world.

Description
Dark lords are characterized by aspirations to power and identification with a devil or antichrist. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy notes that common themes of dark lords include being "already defeated but not destroyed eons before" and engaging in "wounding of the land" or other rituals of desecration.

The writer Philip Pullman noted that the dark lord reflects the belief "that evil in the real world is usually embodied in a single person and requires a high position to be effective" and that this contrasts with the philosopher Hannah Arendt's notion of the banality of evil.

Dark Lords in LOTR
The first Dark Lord was the rebel Vala first known as Melkor and then as Morgoth Bauglir. The second Dark Lord was the Maia, and former lieutenant of Morgoth known as Sauron. Both Dark Lords were very influential in the history of Middle-earth, waging numerous wars against the Valar, the Elves, and a few select groups of Men.

Their actions, especially those of Morgoth, had a permanent negative impact on the world, as the Dark Lords both destroyed many beautiful things and places, and caused untold anguish and grief. Eventually both Dark Lords were overthrown and defeated; Melkor was cast into the Void at the end of the First Age by his brethren, and Sauron was permanently weakened at the end of the Third Age by Frodo Baggins with the aid of Samwise Gamgee and Gollum, when they cast the One Ring into Mount Doom and robbed Sauron of most of his power.

Myths and Legends
The word "Maō" literally means "Demon King" or "Adversary" and has its roots on Japanese Buddhism. It was originally used to refer to "Mara", a demonic ruler sitting atop the Sixth Realm of Desire in Buddhist cosmology, and personification of the forces that keep one from attaining enlightenment. As the myth goes, Mara attempted to prevent Siddhartha Gautama from attaining enlightment by confronting him with a myriad of visions in hopes of throwing off Gautama's deep concentration, including the summoning of an army of demons and using his daughters (themselves personifications of unwholesome thoughts) to seduce him. After consistently defeating Mara's cunning, Gautama attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, becoming a Buddha.

The term went on to become ingrained on Japanese culture, and can be used to refer to a religion's greatest personification of evil or greatest obstacle to be surpassed. On the context of Christianity, for instance, Satan (as "The Adversary") is the entity referred to as "Maō". Historically, Oda Nobunaga has been noted by his friend and Jesuit priest, Luís Fróis, as sarcastically signing a letter as "第六天魔王" ("Demon King of the Sixth Heaven") in reference to the aforementioned Mara, as an attempt to mock the Buddhist sects opposing his expansion.

The Western translation for the term, "Dark Lord", refers primarily to a specific archetype of villain in fantasy literature that sought to rule and/or destroy the entire world, and who are considered so heinous and infamous that even speaking their name is thought to bring a bad omen, and having access to henchmen with a hierarchal structure, and can also be used in religious texts such as Christianity to mean Satan. Similarly, their mere presence had a noticeable negative effect on the worlds they inhabited. Examples of Dark Lords in fiction include Sauron and Morgoth from The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien, which originated the term, as well as Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter franchise and Ganondorffrom The Legend of Zelda franchise.

Notable Dark Lords

 * Lucifer - The Supreme Emperor of Demons that also reigns as the Dark Lord of Hell
 * Mara - The Dark Lord of the Desire Realm and the personification of the forces that keep one from attaining enlightenment.
 * Dracula Vlad Tepes/Soma Cruz - The current Dark Lord of Earth who became such by gaining possession of a fully powered Crimson Stone.
 * Morgoth - The creation of Eru Ilúvatar who became a Dark Lord to oppose him.
 * Sauron - The Dark Lord of Arda and the most trusted lieutenant of Morgoth.
 * Ganondorf - The Dark Lord of Hyrule and the incarnation of Demise's hatred.

False Dark Lords

 * Beelzebub - While not a dark lord himself, the Lord of the Flies had called himself it when he had to rule in Lucifer's place for a while.
 * Oda Nobunaga - A human warlord known as the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven who was called a dark lord by his enemies.
 * Lord Voldemort - A British wizard who calls him a dark lord to bring fear to his enemies.

Dark Lord Candidates

 * Galamoth - A powerful demon that rules over time and space who seeks to become the Dark Lord of Earth and so is enemy of Dracula.

Quotes
"That which they could not control, they sought to destroy."

- A description of Dark Lords.

Trivia

 * Many have collected several lists of resolutions for a competent dark lord to avoid the well-known, cliché blunders committed by supervillains and overlords in popular fictional works.

Image Sources

 * (Jonas-lopez-moreno-jonaslopezmoreno-saitan-web.jpg) DARK LORD by Jonás López Moreno
 * (Melkor and Sauron.jpg) Morgoth and Sauron by Eric Faure-Brac