Is it possible for an evil tyrant to rule over a society that is still pleasant to live in?

No

Try asking /pol/

he delegates that too. Top advisors investigate lowers and those even lowers and so on.
But if you're found corrupt, you're thrown in the agony dimension.
If you have a corrupt subbordinate and don't report him and he gets found out by someone else, you get the agony dimension too, with him.

>evil overlords thread
>dead
come on. Let's discuss decent legislations for evil monarchs who want to party while the kingdom runs itself.

Robert Baratheon in the sense that he spent all his time whoring and drinking and just let his small council do everything, but at least the commoners seemed to prosper under his reign.

>but at least the commoners seemed to prosper under his reign.
They tend to do that when lords don't drag them into stupid wars.

Yes see Palpatine

Only the outer rim and select few areas were beyond the comfy reach of imperial law and order

I for one, love our new overlord...
The trains are running on time, crime is almost non-existent. The peasants are allowed in the military, it's not just for nobles now..

Vlad the Impaler? I mean the real guy, not the vampire. Don't know about pleasant, but having a blood drinking holy berserker as a prince seems worth it when the Ottomans are at the gate trying to burn down your way of life.

As governance increases in complexity, the more likely an autocrat is to incompetent in some matter of government functioning. That in turn requires competent and specialized underlings, which are a potential threat to the autocrat.

The problem with that is since punishment is equal people would be more inclined to investigate their underlings than do their job. Plus, where is the limit? Are you responsible for your direct underlings or everyone below you in the chain? What about people who don't directly report to you but work with you?

The Empire was a corrupt, bloated, cronyistic, bureaucratically inefficient mess that functioned under a practically feudalistic system of local governors in competition with local military command that lacked a standardized legal system or legal and civil rights for its subjects and civil servants/military.

Direct underlings only, so you have manageable sizes and people don't get lost in investigations, thus ignoring their job.

Don't shit where you sleep

ASOIAF is a neat illustration of the way this plays out in the real world all the time. No matter how noble the Stark POV characters are, they can't micromanage all their underlings reliably.

Likewise in the IRL setting (regardless of your political opinions) atrocities are committed regularly by soldiers in warzones. Sometimes that's sanctioned by their leaders, sometimes it's directly against the will of the leaders, but it still happens.

A setting with an 'evil overlord' and his 'legions of doom' that rule a country that's actually rather pleasant is about as realistic as it comes. Even rolling all the way back to ancient Rome, all the modern improvements and infrastructure they brought was little comfort to the locals they killed.

You're gonna have to define your terms here. An autocrat that's pretty hands-off and mostly focuses on enforcing basic law and order but otherwise leaving people to their own devices would be fine, an autocrat trying to create a utopia IS going to be an authoritarian nightmare.

The robber baron is invariably preferable to the utopian.

>Is it possible for him to be an evil tyrant without negatively impacting the lives of most of his subjects?
Possible? In absolute theory, sure. Suppose his son is an awesome guy and handles everything for him. Conditions met. Technically. Really what you have is a really benevolent ruler with one particular vice, though.

Otherwise, the problem is that he has a lot of incentive to ruin his subjects' lives and very little to avoid doing so. The short answer to your question is "Why would he?"

>he delegates that too
Work is work, user, you can't just recursively shovel it onto other people and expect it to function the way you decree. For instance, who investigates these chains of corruption? Who determines what qualifies as corruption? Who determines what qualifies as incompetence? Who determines the best man for the job who's also willing to take the job knowing he'll be executed if anything at all goes wrong, probably without trial and possibly via his rivals plotting against him?

If the head honcho doesn't care enough to be really dedicated to keeping something a certain way- and not just dedicated as in waving at the executioner a lot, but in actually putting in the work- it's going to tend towards its natural equilibrium point. For brutal autocracies, this is usually hilarious levels of corruption and cronyism, because nobody gives enough of a shit to stop it who's also been allowed any power.

>Vlad the Impaler?
It's worth noting that most of his non-combat good points come from some asshole sucking his dick 70 years later. Insofar as he kept other assholes at bay, maybe, but I don't recall things going that badly when he was finally killed.

Isn't mannfred sort of like that

Food for thought:
An elected leader or appointed bureaucrat has at least some incentive to use his limited term of office to loot the nation and take advantage of his position.

An absolute ruler from native stock is more likely to at least try to be a good steward--because it's his family legacy.

>The fish rots from it's head.
Thats retarded, the fish rots from its bowels.

Such heresy describing your God-Emperor of mankind in this light. You are also transparent in your attempt to veil this aberration of thought. You need to purge yourself

Throw "immortal" into the mix for the second scenario, as powerful evil overlords in fantasy settings invariably have some form of immortality (Lich, agelessness, robot body, whatever). If you're going to be running this country until the end of time, it's in your own best interest to set it up properly to avoid unnecessary work down the line. Unlike mortal rulers who need to plant trees only their children will pick fruit from, the immortal overlord will still be around to reap the good works he sows.

An elected leader or appointed bureaucrat has less incentive to use his limited term of office to loot the nation and take advantage of his position, as there is always the risk of having to answer to someone. An absolute ruler has a huge incentive, as he'd want to secure assets in case of being deposed or live a lavish lifestyle while in power as the only thing that comes after is death. Just take a look at the various African dictators.

>Suppose his son is an awesome guy and handles everything for him
You could make a religion out of that

Sure. He could just be incredibly intolerant of anything that doesn't conform to his idealized image of how his people and country are supposed to be while being genuinely protective of things that do conform to it and at the same time a competent ruler. So foreigners, reformers, revolutionaries, and free-thinkers would be thrown in jail, get "visits" from the secret police in the middle of the night, be forced to pay extra taxes, and, eventually, executed. Sure, sometimes an innocent person happens to get caught up in this as well, but overall, life is pleasent as long as you live the way the overlord wants you to live.

I don't know about the "still pleasant to live in" part but people legitimately did shed tears when Stalin died despite all he has done.

Considering that they likely thought they would be shot dead if they didn't...

That's western propaganda actually.
Same shit in N.Korea, people who actually fled the country are STILL defending the state of their country and their leader for a long time.
Then they either "adapt" to their new life or kill themselves.

Hi Kim!

As others have said, it's entirely possible, but not probable. If you're asking how to run this sort of thing, then it's mostly a matter of 'don't shit the bed.' If you keep your peasants complacent, they're far less likely to rise against you, and you can still enjoy your opulent lifestyle.

>finds a few good leaders

How can he have any concept of what makes a good leader?

Evil tyrant governments doesn't actually make life shitty for everyone living in a country. We had several bloody and corrupt dictatorships here in South America, but there's still people who lived in those times who wants dictatorships to come back.
In my country, the only people who actually suffered in our old shitty dictatorship were people who actively rebelled against it or was associated with rebels. For the people who didn't, life was actually pretty good.

I think the same thing would be true for fantasy evil tyrant empires.
I can't imagine a government that absolutely everyone dislikes, working at all.

Have to disagree with you about the Rome thing. Specifically because of the lack of communication regarding atrocities abroad. Knowing that your soldiers are a legion of doom will turn your populace against you.

> For the people who didn't

Depends on what you define as "did" or "didn't"

Also "associated with rebels" is a really vague description and I hope you can see the problems with such a thing.

Yes it's possible and even probable.

Just follow the laws, pay your taxes and don't bother Kyros

>hum?

Turning kebab into kebabs is always worthwhile.