Villains of the Lawful Evil alignment, also known as the "Dominator" alignment, utilize law and order to oppress or manipulate others. Most Lawful Evil characters have a set of standards such as honor for themselves and their minions, while the ones that do not are often so oppressive to others that their own personal principles are irrelevant.

Lawful Evil can be divided roughly into distinct types of characters, though some characters may overlap these categories:

1. The Tyrant: characters who hate freedom and seek to utterly enslave everything around them, to them, law and order are simply tools by which to enforce evil and will often try to make sure everyone knows it. Dark Overlords and Dystopian Rulers tend to be of this variety.
2. The Honorable: characters who, while still seeking to further their own schemes, will abide by certain rules and honor, such as keeping their word or not harming women/children, etc.
3. The Totalitarians/Imperialists: characters or groups who favor and share beliefs of a system in which the state has unlimited power over every aspect of public and private life and often envisioned as evil empires, new world orders, supreme dictators or dictator-wannabes.
4. The Enforcer: characters who are a variety of henchmen designed to enforce their leaders, big bads, bigger bads, more sinister villains or even higher villains. They often tend to be minions or right-hands to those above them. Regardless, they are always loyal towards them.
5. The Blackmailer: characters who partake in the criminal act of blackmail, demanding money (or any other valuables for that matter) from someone in exchange for not revealing information about the victim. Though these villains would often go in this alignment, it is not always necessary for them to do so.

IMPORTANT: Lawful Evil does NOT mean "legal", these characters will break the legal law (if they are laws) to enforce it but follow their own code; thus a Lawful Evil character is often a criminal by society's norm but they differ from Neutral Evil in the fact that while still against the "legal" laws, they uphold a standard of their own. However, that said standard does not always mean honor. Some can even twist their standard to give themselves excuses to commit evil acts, becoming thus purely evil (e.g. Judge Claude Frollo, Sauron, Lord Cutler Beckett, Mola Ram, Admiral Greyfield, Captain Vidal and Emperor Mateus).

It should be noted that a villain in position of power does NOT automatically equate to said villain being Lawful Evil. Some of these villains can be Neutral Evil where they work within the law to accomplish their goals but discard it entirely once they have accomplished said goals (i.e. Emperor Palpatine, All For One, Shinnok, Frank Tenpenny and Ares), while some can be Chaotic Evil where they simply crave power and use it to spread violence, chaos and destruction for their own amusement (i.e. Violator, Deep Sea King and Thanos)