I need to talk about why the dark lord isnt a one-dimensional villain, and how Alan and his team managed to pull off a character who's deal is 'i was made for violence so I will do violence' while managing to pull it off well.
To preface this, i think it's important to note that the writing that alan does for his series isn't godly. It's not something that deserves 50 million awards. What it is though, is really solid. The story he's telling is generally quite simple, with familiar topics. But its the fact that he can tell a good story that makes this so good. The story is compelling. The characters are lovable and hateable. The visuals are wonderful. The themes are consistent. Ava/AvM can't really be seems as some revolutionary film series, (the fight scenes will go down in history as absolutely legendary though istg), but it will always have a reputation for solid and decent writing.
Dark's character is very interesting to me. From what I can see, they are definitely a complicated character with specific interests and views on morality and ideas, that go beyond their name being The Dark Lord.
I could describe dark's general character in a few words. Bloodthirsty. Cruel. Detached. Opportunistic. This combination is what makes dark such an interesting character to talk about.
They're definitely bloodthirsty. I think that much is obvious. The first thing they decide to do while out of Alan's hands is to wreak havoc on other beings. The various attacks on different websites (especially newgrounds), their nether rampage in Animation vs Minecraft 0, their murderous rampage in rocket co; you get the idea. They like commiting acts of violence. Most of this probably comes from their name being literally the dark lord. But dark definitely had the opportunity to learn other behaviors outside of violence- chosen offered to build things with them in the avm 0 episode, the entire time period where tdl and tco were laying low- tco was able to gain some degree of awareness that what they were doing with tdl was evil (but was probably too codependent to confront tdl or leave them). So I feel like that tdl is definitely making a choice to continue being as bloodthirsty as they are.
On top of that, the dark lord is incredibly cruel. You can be bloodthirsty without being cruel, but this bastard likes to make sure what theyre doing is extra violent and painful. They doesn't immediately take out the color gang when they try to fight them- they just engange in hand to hand combat, then, deciding they've had enough, slaughter the color gang. When fighting the chosen one, they are also extremely brutal about it- skewering them, stabbing them, slicing them- although tco didn't die from that, there could've been other equally as effective ways to subdue both tco and Alan without this degree of brutality (virabots). Then, after being obliterated by a child, they go onto not learn their lesson or even feel some sort of hesitancy towards violence. Instead, they jump right back to it. And the first plot we see them hatch? Leveraging victim's trauma to get victim to do the dirty work of building the revive-o-matic for them. And they were not remorseful or even neutral about emotionally manipulating victim. Victim, in that moment, probably felt like they finally succeed their only goal for past decade and was fully prepared to jump back into their idealized life. And then we just see dark chortling in the background while victim get more and more confused on why Misti is not responsive. They took enjoyment from inflicting that pain. Being a bloodthirsty harbinger of evil is one thing, but that wasn't in the job requirements.
Dark is also incredibly detached. Their reaction to defeating an anguished and livid victim, who, might I add, was trying to wreak revenge on them for the manipulation and the murder of their close one; was to offer their their hand in a 'well, back to it!' fashion. And when the enthusiasm wasn't reciprocated and victim decided to finally turn away from their blinding desire for revenge, dark basically shrugs this off and then cuts them in half. After that, they immediately recruit the revived victim as a champion of death- they just move on from 'victim goes against him' to 'they murder victim for their "betrayal"' to 'getting back on the murder train' in mere minutes. Dark isn't unaware about victims feelings- to be able to manipulate someone to that degree, one needs innate knowledge on how feelings work. They just dont care about others. This level of casual murder and manipulation comes from being so unhinged.
I think a lot of the stuff I talked about up there can properly demonstrate how tdl is opportunistic and self serving. They immediately team up with tco, knowing that the can't break free from Alan alone. They immediately weaponise their knowledge on mitsi's death to play victim like a fiddle. They see tsc's powers and their first idea is to find a way to make those powers serve them. Heck, their entire gimmick about viruses is also about that. Computer viruses work because they prey on naivety and the trust of others for their own self gain. People who use viruses maliciously are seeing opportunity for self gain by using others. The dark lord is the same.
What makes all of this even more interesting, is that they didn't kill the chosen one. Not when tco's "usefullness" to them ended, not when tco tried to stop them from taking over the outernet, not when tco became no one, and especially not when they had access to the revive-o-matic that could render them back under their control. With their current set of personality traits, why didn't they? Could it be argued that they have some sort of attachment or sentiment to tco and just likes to keep them around for their own benefit? Or is it a silent rebellion against Alan's orders? Could it be that tdl decided that keeping tco alive is more cruel than killing them? All can be possible explanations, which is why tdl is such an interesting character to think about.
