Villain's Purpose

[RafeIxeian]

Too often the villain's purpose is the destruction or control of the world or some part of it. The motivation for this may change, but the general purpose is fairly constant. So I'm starting list of alternate goals here, while trying to maintain the "global consequence" feel to them. Feel free to add to them.

-> According to the villain, the world has reached a stable state in terms of technology. Advances in magic and technology have been nearly at a standstill for some time. He wishes to change this, and bring about more advancement. He notices that large-scale wars have a tendency to lead to development. So he tries to engineer a large war between existing factions/countries. If he is a mage he may somehow manufacture a new faction/race to act as the enemy (or simply a ridiculously large growth in the monster population. Or he may decide there doesn't need to be an actual war, just an artificial war (a la 1984). (Started one of these a while back, but didn't get very far before needing to pull away.)

[RafeIxeian]

-> Here's a fun one: someone bad has finally started to regret it all. Rather than just turn a new leaf, he wants to undo the damage. How? Time travel, to change history and the things he's done. Or to kill himself before he does them. Nice paradox there, which could have all sorts of weird consequences, so the protagonists aren't going to let it happen. Maybe they're some sort of time police, maybe they're just worried it'll be worse, maybe something else..... And all the time they spend trying to stop him, they'll have to wonder if it's actually the right way to go.