How to be a Perverse Persecutor

Segment 28

U N – A L I T Y

You may be an intergalactic warlord stocked with a hand-held nuclear device and laser eyes, but if you think you can just step over a waist-high picket fence, you’ve got another thing coming, mister.

--Cracked.com, ‘Video Game and Media Gimmicks That Need to Die’

Cursed, wretched reality. There are always acceptable flaws in it when you are trying to take over the world. Sadly, most times it benefits the Heroes. However, with this guide, you will be able to turn the tables, and use the writers’ lack of logic against them.

Un-juries – Starting with the most obvious, one might assume that after you saw off the Heroes’ leg they will limp, crawl, or bleed out. However, rarely does the Hero ever suffer from being near death, especially in video games. Sadly, this will not work for you, and you will be feeling every bump and bruise down that hill. How can you use this against you? Accuse the Hero of being a witch and demand the villagers burn them.

Un-thority – A basic law of… well… everything. Rank equals power. A private will be weaker than a sergeant who is weaker than a colonel who is weaker than a general, who can kick everyone’s butts. Despite the absolutely disgusting lack of logic that power is determined by rank, you can easily use this to your advantage. In “reality” generals and kings stay in back. In the world you’re trying to conquer, the general and king fights in front, easily defeating everything besides the enemy general, which will be concluded in a climactic duel in which none of the soldiers dare interfere.

Un-bladder – This doesn’t need much of an explanation, and even occasionally applies to hunger or thirst too. It can be manipulated through the simple fact that the Hero (and everyone else in the world?) is a camel on crystal meth or a diabetic with narcolepsy.

Convenient Placement – That broken down bridge is perfect to jump over. That chain link fence is easily driven through. A disturbing and somewhat creepy overabundance of ramps perfect for jumps with motorcycles. Expect the Hero to always manage to escape just before the bridge raises itself completely and all pursuing goonies drown. Compare with below.

Un-ventient Placement -- Imagine if, every time you went to school, you had to negotiate a complicated laser grid just to get in the building. Every time you needed to open a door, you needed to go on a long trek to find a key, which disappeared into thin air as soon as you used it. If you needed a stapler, you'd have to push giant granite blocks around a room. Every room is a puzzle, every hallway a maze, and the slightest mistake invites death. And that's without having to fight every living thing that crosses your path. And it will be a different set of challenges during your next school day. In short, everything is explicitly and obviously designed to make life as difficult for you as possible. Not to mention, probably in violation of every building code in existence. Good news is that this, like the above, only applies to Heroes. You never have to navigate the mazes! HAH!

Un-damage – Quite infuriating how the Hero’s laser eye beams only damage you and your fortress, never causing any noticeable collateral damage. Everything you know about reality will most likely bend around certain individuals depending which “team” they’re on. Think “friendly fireproof.”

Un-supply – Need some food for your army? Money? Clothing? Water? Ammunition? Explosives? Letters? Boots? Various luxury goods? Resting time? Yes, sadly, a dictator usually will. However, the Hero’s rebel army will never run out of supplies, will never become low on morale, and will have an infinite supply… everything… back at base camp. And when you take over their camp, what do you scavenge? Nothing.

Un-gravity -- What do floating platforms do? They float. In the air. Unattached to anything. Inexplicably. Usually motionless, sometimes moving in a circular or back-and-forth pattern. Their sole purpose of existence is to allow the Hero, but never your goons, to jump onto them to get to where you are going. Quite similar to jumping over lava onto safe rocks (you would be boiled alive) or a Hero jumping across crocodiles to get over the flaming quicksand pits of doom.

Un-street – Every city under your control will have a drunken city planner incapable of the most basic street designs. You can expect that it is physically impossible to cross from west to east by foot, even if you walk around every obstacle in your way. There’s no doors, no gates, no tunnels whatsoever beyond what is necessary for the Hero to defeat you. You could wander for hours just barely able to see what is over the buildings ahead of you, but never getting closer.

Un-security – Sadly, the only security camera supplier that sells in bulk for any dictator happens to sell the worst imaginable kinds. As a result, the allegedly hi-tech cameras that can identify an intruder the moment he steps into their field of view can be shot, smashed, hacked or otherwise monkeyed with without any alarm being raised. Even if they're unbreakable, the spy can still stand directly underneath them without being seen, because they only have a very limited line of vision and - unlike the security cameras in, say, a shopping mall - are not covered to disguise exactly where the camera is looking. The Hero’s temporary camp, however, will have a high-tech grid of thermal sensing probes buried in the foliage, despite the basic principles of capitalism being that the good products go to the good buyers.

Un-named – When the Hero is walking around and someone says their name, it’s a safe bet they will be important and should be marked for assassination. On a similar topic, when the Hero is gossiping at the local tavern, there are two potential causes and effects of their conversations. First: everyone will tell the Hero to go and do one thing, and they will immediately go and do it. Second: everyone will tell the Hero not to go and do one thing, and they will immediately go and do it, gaining much fame and wealth in the process.

Un-politics – Any advisor to you or any other ruler will have been scheming after you’re thrown for years. Thanks to the miraculous timing of Heroes, they will arrive in your inner sanctum just in time for the coup. In fact, this lack of logic in politics is a great way to get a throne of your own without having to conquer the world. Another reason to be wary of (evil) advisors to you is that they might be bad, or even worse, and they’re really the final villain who only reveals themselves after the Heroes kill you. Or if good advisor works for a good king, they usually are actually uncorrupt but will still use the Hero as a scapegoat for everything in the kingdom and throw them in prison anyway.

Un-guarded – A basic rule of everything that you must NOT abide by. There is an incredible number of guards, enough to cover every entrance three times over in your city. However, though every elevator, dock, old rickety bridge, and random stretches of road deep in the forest are guarded, the things that actually need to be (ie. Prison sewers) are never guarded.

Un-time – There are always going to be flaws in time when the Hero runs out of it. That’s why you should keep a back up detonator in case your electronic time bomb is incapable of counting down from five to zero without taking half an hour. On a different note, as the Hero approaches their final confrontation with you, events will become increasingly awkward for them, contrived and disconnected from one another. Almost as if some Cosmic Author was running up against a deadline and had to slap together the ending at the last minute…

Un-water – Heroes have a nasty habit of always falling on the soft water, while any good swimmer can tell you that a belly flop from just a few feet can hurt. After a moment or two of dramatic submergence, your henchmen will give up pursuit as the Hero surfaces behind their backs, nothing but a bit wet (and not always that, especially if it’s a self respecting heroine) after a fifty story fall off a bridge. Just as when one falls through a glass skylight at high speeds, the water does not want to move, and will be about as cushy as a brick wall. Thankfully, this also applies to you yourself. Just be sure to have a bribed child behind the seemingly victorious heroes to say “Nobody could have survived that. Nobody.”

Endless Book – These are not found on most public shelves lest the untrained handler cause the collapse of everything that is possible to imagine. However, oddly enough, the Hero still manages to not only discover, open, and read the book, but understand it without going insane from the sheer potential of infinite knowledge. And that begs the question; why would a supreme, omniscient author not use the knowledge for person gain? Why would they just write it down in (often) plain, modern English?