The Usurper

Alternate Titles: Tyrant, Evil Uncle, Steward, Emperor

He lives underground, in the bowels of the mountain, guarding a horde of stolen gold. Occasionally, he emerges into the light to murder the rightful King and seize his throne, or to take the Princess captive and carry her down into his underworld lair. His ambitions are without limit, but his acquisitions are his prison. Within the private fortress of his stolen realm, he is king, but to go out of it is to court his death, for he is owned by all of the things that he possesses and literally cannot exist without them.
Avarice and power-lust are usually the ruling passions of this type, though they are not immune to the ordinary sins of the flesh. Ordinary women are counted amongst the trophies that they gather in their lair, but there is often one particular woman -- usually someone else's woman -- who they have an overwhelming and disordered desire to possess.

For some reason, Usurpers appear with unusual regularity as perspective villains. Whether it is the robber baron, the gangster boss, the regicide, or the wife-stealer, this man of great passions and ruthless ambitions seems to have a certain sympathetic appeal. In analyzing works, it's important to look out for this: even when Heathcliff hangs a pet dog and leaves it on Catherine's lawn, for some reason it's easy to miss the fact that he is evil. Part of this is caused, no doubt, by the fact that the virtuous Prince from the perspective of the Usurper, generally looks like a limpid, snot-nosed ponce who is too weak to deserve his throne or his bride. When this is written or portrayed convincingly, it is difficult to recognize that the rightful heir or husband actually has a legitimate claim.

Archetypal Events: Count Gold, Behead, Hallucinate, Boss, Orgy, Auto-Apocalypse (Self-Conflagration)

Common Usurper Plots:

Kidnap the Princess: The Usurper seizes the Princess, often while she is innocently at play, and locks her away. Often he intends to secure his claim to the throne by forcing her into marriage with him, but in some cases he is merely desirous of a Queen to share his underworld realm.

Murder the King: The Usurper plots the murder of the King in order to secure the throne. Very often the King is his brother, which places him next in line, though some particularly ambitious Usurpers are willing to run down a list of seven or eight heirs apparent in order to secure their claims. Usually there is a young Prince, not yet of age, waiting in the wings to destroy the Usurper and restore the rightful line.

Grand Heist: The Usurper is of a gangster/robber baron type, grown discontent with small plots and trifling sums. He settles on a plot to rob the royal treasury (or the biggest bank in the city, or Fort Knox, etc.)

Orgy of Blood: The Usurper and his army oust the King, put all of the royal family to the sword, and begin a reign of terror. Blood pours through the streets of the city, the heads of those who fail to abase themselves before his feet grace the parapets of the castle, and the Usurper sits with his hands drenched in blood, counting his stolen wealth. Terrors begin to asail him, his paranoia increases, and he is haunted by the ghosts of those he has slain. If he is not eventually driven from the throne by a Prince or Princess who secretly survived the slaughter, he eventually goes utterly insane and takes the entire Kingdom down with him in a violent self-holocaust.
 

The Bowels of the Mountain: The Usurper lives in an underworld, very often in the heart of a mountain. This can be transformed into a tower from which he surveys his domain, but he if so he is often to be found lurking in the dungeons beneath the man-made mountain -- and he almost invariably keeps his treasure underground. Darkness, barrenness and isolation are all typical features of the Usurper's domain.
A Shortage of Unconquered Lands: The Usurper is driven by ambition; it is his reason for being, but his aquisitions do not bring him happiness. When he has finished Usurping everything that he desires, he turns inward and starts to self-digest. His ambition vanishes, life becomes "a walking shadow," and he enters into a period of quazi-mystical nihilistic ecstasy before embarking upon his final destruction.
The Ring: Upon the Usurper's finger is a signet ring, symbolizing the authority that he weilds in a movement of his hand. This power is not placed atop his head -- he is not under it -- it serves him. The circle becomes a closed loop, and it is often forged from some darker metal than gold, or else is set with a sinister blood-red stone. A Ring of a snake eating its own tail is particularly appropriate. (The Rings in Niebelung and Lord of the Rings are complicated -- they do symbolize power and usurpation, but since these are multi-square stories, the Rings don't necessarily imply that the wearer, or forger, is a Usurper in all cases.)
The Horde: The Usurper is not content with individual treasures and must always have obscene quantities of whatever he craves. He does not do anything with it, but buries it in the ground and broods over it like a vulture over an ill-begotten egg.
Minor Symbols: Dragon, Iron, Mastiff

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