Totalitarians are any group or individual who favor and share beliefs of a system in which the state or any other controlling institution has unlimited power over every aspect of public and private life, often run by a "supreme dictator", and often envisioned as an evil empire, new world order, or dictator-wannabe. By nature, Totalitarians are a sub-type of Oppressors in that they exercise unfair and demeaning treatment of those below them (the main difference between them being that Totalitarians favor strict authoritarian control over society). It should be noted that Totalitarian villains are not necessarily the dictator themselves nor do they always have the ambition to become such, but they still believe in an ideology or any type of political system that has a dictator and wants to abolish basic civil rights.

These are the villains most often associated with tyranny of the Lawful or Neutral Evil variety and focus on control, dominance, and fear, as well as military might and the subservience of all who are not part of a social elite. Totalitarians can also seek to bring about their aims via chaotic and/or terroristic means that destabilize the status quo of their settings, instituting their ideal forms of governance in the ashes of what came before.

Common examples of Totalitarians are Nazis and Fascists. There are also examples of "Socialism", such as those employed by the former USSR, Communist, and Stalinist regimes (who also favored complete control of all aspects of private and public life).

While a great many evil rulers are content to lord over their peers the Totalitarians differ in the fact they tirelessly seek to not only dominate the world but radically change it on every level - to this end, they are some of the most oppressive and dangerous regimes and individuals in fiction; whereas a common dictator values power and may allow some freedom to those they favor and be happy to rule over a small to mid-sized territory, a Totalitarian is rarely as merciful and are forever researching ways to ensure that they not only keep any power they obtain, but also spread power out in a never-ending expansion designed (usually) at complete global (or even inter-planetary) conquest.

Totalitarians are by definition the complete opposite of Anarchistic villains, who wants to abolish any type of rulership, as well as the heroic Freedom Fighters who fight against tyrants and evil rulership around the world, whereas Totalitarians wish to amplify rulership.

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