Some thoughts on supervillains

Let’s say Blofeld, specifically the Blofeld from You Only Live Twice.

Blofeld needs money.  He’s going to build a rocket with a warhead on it and hold the world hostage.

That’s his plan.

How do you carry out this plan?  Well a warhead is an expensive item.  Even if you steal one it’s going to run you a pretty penny. 

Then there’s the rocket.  Even if you’re a genius and you know how to build a rocket yourself there’s still the staff you’ll need for labor.  Rockets can’t just be slapped together, they have to work.  Rockets are expensive now, they were even more expensive back then.  And the labor has to be skilled labor.  The parts all have to be made to precise specifications.  It’s complicated.  And all these people, your rocket designers and technicians and so forth all have to be paid.  Why do they have to be paid?  Because they’re not idiots or drug addicts, they’re skilled professionals who would otherwise be in demand elsewhere in the world.  You have to pay them what they’re worth.  They won’t build a rocket for you at gunpoint.

Once you’ve got your rocket, where do you launch it?  It has to be a secret location.  It has to be a secret location because what you’re doing is highly illegal.  Where can you hide it?  Blofeld came to the decision: A Dormant Volcano.  He hollowed out a volcano (I’d like to have seen the bill for that engineering project) and installed his Rocket Launching stuff inside, then built a fake roof on top of his Rocket Launch Pad, making it look like the Dormant Volcano has a lake in the middle of it.

Okay.  So.  He has the expense of the designing and building the Rocket, designing and building the Warhead (or stealing it), hollowing out the Dormant Volcano, and designing and building the Launchpad inside the Dormant Volcano (which is, of course, in an extremely remote location, so you also have the expense of shuttling workers back and forth from the Dormant Volcano construction site and their homes in the towns surrounding the jungle).

Now then.  How do you keep your Secret Launchpad safe while you plan a good date to hold the world hostage?  Well, you hire a Private Army, that’s what you do.  Mercenaries, I’m guessing.

Where will they all be housed?  Now you have to build dormatories inside your Dormant Volcano.  What will they eat?  Where willthey sleep?  Where will they go to the bathroom?  What will they wear?  Who will design and create their uniforms?  Is there a cafeteria?  Is there a Blofeld Company Store?  (I know, there was a Simpsons episode that asked a lot of these same questions.)  How do you keep your workers and mercenaries entertained during the long months of construction and preparation?  Do you hire local talent for entertainment?  Rent movies?  Now you have to build an auditorium to entertain them in.

That all sounds like a lot, but Blofeld isn’t actually done yet.  No, his Dormant Volcano is so large, he has to build a MONORAIL inside it.  Because God Forbid he would have to step out of his office and make the trek from there to the launchpad on foot.  No, he needs a Monorail.  Could have just as easily laid some blacktop and bought an electric golf cart, but no, he needs a Monorail.  Okay, so now you’ve got to design and build a Monorail inside your Dormant Volcano with the fake lake roof and the Launch Pad inside with the Rocket and the Warhead inside, and a Private Army to watch it all so that some English guy in a tuxedo doesn’t show up and ruin everything.

My question is: wouldn’t Blofeld have been better off if he had just hung onto his money and invested it wisely?  It seems to me that once you make a decision to hire a Private Army, you end up having to take the world hostage not from a power-mad vision, but from necessity.  Because a Private Army is too fucking expensive.  All the expenses add up, and before you know it, you have to take the world hostage, just to meet your payroll.

I think if Blofeld were half as brilliant as his publicity claims, he would never had hired a Private Army to begin with and thus would never have to be in the position of needing to hold the world hostage.

This is one of the things I like about The Monarch and the other villains of The Venture Bros.  They have no particular interest in World Conquest, they just want to harass scientists.  I love the way they discuss it as a love affair or even a job, “Yeah, I’m arching Dr. Venture these days, but I’m looking for something else.”  This is the world they live in, they don’t have the vision (or fiscal irresponsibility) to want to take over the world.