Leadership in Books and Movies (evil Version)

[Vanessa28]

Okay so we have the great leaders in movies and books like presidents, generals etc etc. And they almost/always succeed in leading their men/troops to victory. They keep their heads cool and they know how to create succesful strategies during battle. But now I want to talk about the opponents. Let me give an example; in Lord of the Rings - The return of the King we see Gothmog as the righthand of the Witch-King on the Pelennor Fields Battle. Gothmog is pure evil but you have to give the guy credit for being a very good leader. He made sure his men didn't run away when the Rohirrim arrived. He stayed calm and knew the answer to problems rising up. In general I would say he -for an evil creature- was a good leader. Now I wanna ask you if you know about evil characters in movie and/or books who were good or great leaders to their troops. And explain why

 

[The Marshal]

Usually those leaders are so great because they command their troops by using fear. Gothmog's orcs did not have a lot of choices to begin with. They will either fight, or die by their overlords.

That's a tactic used numerous times in history too. Roman generals executed some of their troops while the army is low on morale to frighten them to keep marching. Some less chivalric lords decorated their castle/town walls with the heads of some of their own troops to fool enemies that those are heads of the last besiegers. This scared both their own troops, their people and could lower the morale of an enemy army. A frightened army does not fight as well as an eager one.

This was even used in more modern times. During World War 2 the soviet soldiers would either fight or die by the so called "Red Commissars" They stood behind the advancing force and shot anyone that dared not advance or was trying to retreat. Not only that, but the fammilies of those who tried to flee were imprisoned.

Although with too much fear on soldiers or citizens, the risk of rebellion rises.

On topic, I can't remmember a lot of leaders from books or movies but they would most likely be using one of the following:
-Fear
-Promises of wealth/power
-Manipulation
Or a combination of some of them.