Big Brother
Big Brother, despite having been a human in the past, has completely lost any sort of common sense. He has an alien mindset, and while he could absolutely be considered an anti-hero, he doesn’t mean any harm to humanity. He is closer to one of the seven evils of humanity, a Beast who can only produce evil because of their love for humanity. Because the only purpose left to Big Brother is to watch and rule humankind, he developed a love that he didn’t originally possess.
He transformed his function to rule and watch his country into love. While he enslaved humanity and destroyed what made them really special, the ability to think, he sees it as a success. For Big Brother, a good country is a place where people are safe from themselves. Watcher considers the ability to think to be a curse, because it’s the thing that creates war between humans and hurts them. That’s why he stripped humanity of their individuality, to have a unified world where nothing could ever harm them.
As an almighty “god”, nobody ever dared to rebel, on the contrary while he destroyed any resemblance of liberty he still protected them and made sure they would prosper. So it was okay they thought, humanity abandoned their free will because they couldn’t do anything against Big Brother who knew and could do everything.
Eventually, his world died. He couldn’t rule his world anymore. He had failed. But he then realized his function wasn’t to govern the world. No, what he was meant to do was to make sure “Big Brother” dominated the world. Because Big Brother is an idea before being someone. Therefore, he became a Watcher class servant to become the guide who will bring to this world salvation. He will create: Big Brother.
“Well, well… I hope your path will lead you to total victory! Whatever the kind of leader you will become, as long as you rule, your Big Brother will be happy!”
Gaius Julius Caesar
A cunning man. An ambitious person that excels in trickery. His gaze is perceptive and it hides a dangerousness and bottomlessness that one cannot neglect. Endowed with a large ambition and frightening intelligence, Caesar is a master of speech and ingenuity. A genius of incitement.
This is why he was summoned, he’s the one whose function is to teach the Master how to communicate in the most efficient way by using, for example, rhetoric. Caesar knows how to satisfy the people, and he will pass on all his knowledge on to his disciple.
Caesar is a man of many talents. He could, after all, also take on the role of Napoleon or Bismarck if necessary. Aside from these talents, he’s actually quite a sympathetic man, perhaps the friendliest of the Four Shadows. He loves women, Rome and the world in general. He doesn't express a lot of regrets and is a fundamentally optimistic person, therefore he can serve as good moral support. However, faced with Napoleon's dazzling charisma, he prefers not to take on this job and leave it to the great French Emperor.
“My boy, the leader's path is a long and treacherous process. This is why you need to be able to be supported by your people. Nobody cares about the other politicians. The most important is the majority, that is to say the people!”
Ivan the Terrible
Ivan is a terrifying man, an authentic tyrant who inspired fear throughout the country but also the very first Tsar of Russia. If he's summoned, it is to show how to be feared and respected. He’s absolutely ruthless, encouraging the most horrific behavior "for the sake of the people".
However, his view of "the sake of the people" is unusual, after all he’s the kind of person who went to slaughter random villagers just to demonstrate his absolute power. For him, it’s crucial to show that the leader is absolute, and that no laws can do anything to him.
For him a competent leader is a God. He's above the laws and does not hesitate to judge his people as he wants. Absolute power and absolute terror. This is arguably the worst of the Four Shadows summoned, while these tips are helpful, it is essential that the other three shadows qualify his statements.
“Ultimately the most important thing is to be strong. You have to obtain the strength to be able to crush any enemy in your path. Remember that little one, you must have no pity, delight yourself in the misfortune of your people as much as in their happiness!”
“Limit those in power to what is strictly necessary, the more people there are who help you maintain your country, the more possible enemies there are.”
“And the strength that Ivan talks about is above all political, build your strength by manipulating others. Don't act without thinking, either.”
“Ahem! I’m the one talking here! Keep your dumb tips for yourself!”
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon is a man who has a disproportionate dream, that of always being victorious. He’s vicious, manipulative, ruthless and inflexible, all in the name of his dream. During his lifetime he wanted to see what would be a world where a man never loses, but eventually, he failed...
But this is not the end of his dream, he has been given the chance to educate a young man and maybe make him the eternal victor he dreamt of being. He was summoned in part for his military genius, although Caesar is also remarkably good at it. But above all for his charisma, Napoleon is not just an idiot, he perfectly knew how to conceive for himself the image of a legendary character, almost mythical, despite his modernity. He's the modern conqueror of the impossible, his sole presence is sufficient to give hope to an entire army. The result of an incredible acting, mass propaganda, manipulation but also his own personal way of thinking things in a disproportionate way.
He’s there to teach the Master to have disproportionate dreams, never to lose hope and consistently show his best day to his fellow citizens.
“Ahem, I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I don’t see why we would need you. After all, I'm a way greater military genius! I would have sufficed on my own.”
“Nonsense, I am victory! Wherever I go, triumph awaits me! This is my true nature, a dazzling star that inspires my people to die in the name of victory!”
“Heh, says the one who created a whole cult of personality around him. Well, I guess it was that effective because he acted like that. After all, being a leader is also being an actor.”
Otto von Bismarck
Her friends and enemies have called her "demonic." Bismarck is a woman who used her cunning, her flair for the dramatic, and her manipulative skills to advance her country's interests.
Bismarck's personality cannot really be categorized. On one hand, she was a country girl, and after her countless attempts to resign from the Chancellery, she dreamed of returning home to her farm… Like a sort of Prussian Cincinnatus. In reality, few things gave her as much pleasure as dogs and country life...
Except intellectually dominating her rivals.
This is the kind of person Bismarck is, a frightening political strategist who is always one step ahead of her rivals. She’s a bit like a child in a way, she might be a genius but her core objective is just to be better than others. If she was summoned, it would be for her political genius which enabled her to unify Germany.
“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”