
The Overlord is the overarching antagonist of Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu.
He is an obscure, primordial spirit who is the core source of darkness and embodiment of evil in Ninjago. He was willing to destroy the balance between light and darkness so he can bring Ninjago "peace" under the darkness. He is also the corruptor of the Great Devourer, making himself responsible for Garmadon and Harumi's descents into villainy, and the archenemy of the First Spinjitzu Master and Lloyd Garmadon, as well as one of the Ninja's most dangerous enemies.
Goals[]
- Shift the balance of Light to Dark. (partially succeeded, abandoned)
- Escape from his imprisonment.
- Achieve a physical form and new powers.
- Escape from the Digiverse to Ninjago.
- Become the Golden Master. (all succeeded)
- Corrupt and transform Ninjago into a realm of darkness to take and rule over.
- Destroy the Ninja and the balance between Light and Dark.
- Corrupt the powers of creation to bring darkness to Ninjago and all the other realms. (all failed)
Roles[]
The Overlord serves as one of the two unseen overarching antagonists of the Pilot Episodes (alongside the Great Devourer) and Season 13: Master of the Mountain (alongside Harumi), a mentioned antagonist in Season 1: Rise of the Snakes, Day of the Departed and Season 9: Hunted, one of the two main antagonists (alongside Garmadon) of Season 2: Legacy of the Green Ninja (specifically as the unseen overarching antagonist of the first half and the main antagonist of the second half), the main antagonist of Season 3: Rebooted and Season 15: Crystalized, a flashback antagonist in Season 4: The Tournament of Elements, an unseen antagonist for the rest of the series and the sole antagonist of the Decoded miniseries.
History[]
When the First Spinjitzu Master created Ninjago, the Overlord was brought to life and battled the First Spinjitzu Master for Ninjago. But before the Overlord could claim Ninjago, the First Spinjitzu Master split Ninjago in half, with the Overlord banished on the dark half.
Personality[]
As the epitome of evil and Darkness in the realm of Ninjago, the Overlord is shown to be a very cruel, domineering, and manipulative entity, although is often reliant on metaphysical concepts (the Final Battle, the prophecy of the Golden Master and the final prophecy of Quanish the Elder). Not surprising from the embodiment of evil, the Overlord disregards all things heroic and instead devours on anger, hatred, and conflict. When those qualities build up over time, the balance is shifted in his favor and he is able to reenter the world by gaining a new physical form.
While usually nasty and aggressively commanding to his armies, the Overlord has shown a sense of respect to two individuals: Pythor and Harumi. However, said respect was never genuine as the Dark Lord had no qualms with leaving the former to his shrunken fate, and was fully ready to execute the latter for her betrayal against him.
The Overlord does not take failure lightly, as shown with him berating the Nindroid Army for failing to capture his nemesis, Lloyd Garmadon, so the Dark Lord could take Lloyd's Golden Power for himself, and was also going to kill his Council had Harumi and Mister F not intervened with information about the ninja's whereabouts.
Adding to his manipulative nature, the Overlord coerced Harumi into serving him so he could bring "peace under the darkness", but this later proved to be a lie when he unintentionally showed his true colors when he spitefully revealed to Lloyd and Garmadon that he was the one who corrupted the Great Devourer and sent her against the latter to make sure that he had a worthy vessel for his return one day, and that he was actively creating and instigating all of Ninjago's conflicts in the first place so he can reduce not only Ninjago, but all of the realms of Creation, to lifeless oblivions which he can rule supreme for eternity.
Trivia[]
- In the Doctor Aaron's Adventures Series, the Overlord becomes the leader of the Dark Dragon Empire after Malefor's defeat.
- The Overlord will be an enemy of Tino Tonitini, Ash Ketchum, Bloom and their friends in the second half of the second season of Tino Tonitini Goes to Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu.
- He is the arch-nemesis of the First Spinjitzu Master, as well as his dark counterpart.
- In the Ninjago series, he is voiced by Scott McNeil. In LEGO Dimensions, he is voiced by Troy Baker.
- While Garmadon is the main antagonist of the Ninjago series, the Overlord is the overarching antagonist due to a number of reasons:
- The Overlord is responsible for corrupting the Great Devourer and sending her to bite Garmadon as a child, which triggered his path to evil and his banishment to the Underworld, where he would rule over the Skulkin and use them in his mission to retrieve the Golden Weapons, leading to his brother Wu assembling the original four ninja, allowing them to obtain the weapons before Garmadon could.
- Garmadon's fall into the Underworld would leave an empty gap in Lloyd's childhood, driving him to release Pythor and the Serpentine, who in turn release the Great Devourer to attack Ninjago City before her death at Garmadon's hands.
- The death of the Great Devourer is what led her venom to seep through the Stone Army's tomb, reviving them and trapping the Serpentine which led to the Overlord's first attack on the ninja.
- The Overlord's second attack on the ninja is what forced Zane to sacrifice himself to destroy the Overlord's Golden Master form before rebooting himself and getting himself kidnapped by Ronin and sold to Master Chen.
- Zane's survival is what leads to the ninja participating in the Tournament of Elements in order to save their revived friend, but they couldn't stop Chen and his Anacondrai worshippers from transforming into fake Anacondrai, which forced Garmadon to sacrifice himself in order to defeat Chen.
- Garmadon's banishment to the Cursed Realm inadvertently releases Morro, allowing him to release his master the Preeminent, who is also the living embodiment of the Cursed Realm, which is also the dark entity's inner belly. Cole would become a ghost during a quest to find the Scroll of Airjitzu at the Temple of Haunted Hill. When the ninja defeated Morro and the Preeminent, the latter's destruction resulted in the deaths of all imprisoned in the Cursed Realm, including Garmadon and Chen.
- The Preeminent's destruction is what drove Clouse to escape as a ghost and inadvertently release Nadakhan, who battles against the Ninja as his realm was destroyed by the Preeminent's destruction. However, the ninja undid all of Nadakhan's actions, resulting in him being trapped again.
- However, the ninja's reversing the events involving Nadakhan didn't stop Clouse from freeing the Sky Pirates from the realms they were separately marooned in and using them in an attempt to plunge Ninjago into darkness. The ninja were able to stop the Sky Pirates while Clouse would be banished into the Underworld.
- Sensei Yang would attempt to become human once more whilst also obtaining immortality during the Day of the Departed. Cole becomes human again after defeating and reforming Yang.
- The Overlord's corruption of the Great Devourer is what led to the creation of the Vermillion (the Great Devourer's offspring), who in turn allied with Krux and Acronix in their plot to control all of time.
- The Great Devourer's attack on Ninjago City is also the true cause of the deaths of Harumi's biological parents, which drove Harumi to form the Sons of Garmadon and revive Garmadon as a supposedly malevolent being.
- Harumi's actions resulted in the four original ninja and Wu being banished to the Realm of Oni and Dragons (ruled by Iron Baron) and for Lloyd to form a resistance group against Garmadon and the Sons of Garmadon. This event also led to the defeats of Garmadon and Iron Baron while Harumi dies in a crumbling building.
- Garmadon's fall from power would result in the invasion of the Oni (led by the Omega) across the realms, though the ninja, with Garmadon's assistance, managed to defeat them using the Tornado of Creation.
- Upon reviving Harumi, the Overlord sent her on a mission to collect Vengestone for an army of crystal warriors, which motivated her to form a deal with Vangelis, thus instigating his plot to mine for Vengestone by enslaving the Munce and Geckles in the Shintaro mines. The Overlord also tasked Harumi with employing many of the ninja's surviving enemies (Pythor, Vangelis, Aspheera and the Mechanic) in his endgame to petrify all life in Ninjago, forcing the ninja to bring in their friends, allies and former enemies (including Garmadon, Ronin, Ultra Violet, Killow, Unagami and the Serpentine) to fight back against the Overlord's armies.
- He is the only villain to be the main antagonist of three seasons.
- The Overlord is the main antagonist of the Ninjago Ninjas Adventures Series and the overarching antagonist of the Sunny's Adventures Series.
- He will face Ryan, Meg and friends in Ryan Freestar Goes to Ninjago.