Dominator: A Sociopath’s Guide to Destruction

orrtala:

The villain. The bad guy (or bad girl). The destroyer of planets.
A self-taught genius who built her suit, her ship, and her bot army
all by herself. A… lonely, sad, pathetic person?

We got to know Dominator very gradually. At first it was some evil
dude in an armor, observing Wander, Sylvia, and Hater in a stinger of
S1 finale, “The Ryder”. Who is that guy? New villain? Oh
boy, oh boy, S2 is going to be awesome!

Then “The Greater Hater” happened. Our heroes and
villains were busy goofing around on a little, uninhabited planet
when a giant ship appeared. And BANG a giant drill comes down between
them, destroying and stealing the planet from Hater at one time. Then
main four decide to get on board enormous, scary lava ship – Wander
and Sylvia meet up with bots and learn these guys are not as easily
stopped as watchdogs. Peepers and Hater discover massive armory – ♫
This Guy’s the Real Deal ♫
alright. Then everyone are chased by bots while Dominator…
simply watches everything from the control room via countless
cameras. Ok, so the guy is a control freak. Why does he keep our guys
alive, though? For entertainment? Is he having fun with them? Hard to
tell; he’s covered by his armor that is… very Hater-like, huh.
Hence the episode’s title – Dominator is just better Hater than
Hater. While clearly being a show-off. Doesn’t pay attention to
Wander until he starts singing and even then he gets rid of him
without problem. Sylvia wants to punch him? Please, she’s already
doomed by the lava cuffs. Fighting Hater? What an amateur. …Guess
he should have paid more attention to the nervous little eyeball man
though; if not for that these dorks wouldn’t get away but whatever.
That was AMAZING after all, what fun that was…
…to…
her?…
Dominator is a lady, everybody. She’s full of energy,
she’s having fun, she’s very, very clearly Wander’s foil. That also
wears sneakers.

Dom doesn’t show up again until “The Battle Royale”.
She’s just constantly mentioned, hovering on the villain leaderboard,
taking up the first place. And that’s all she does – she’s a threat
and nobody dares to face her, leaving other villains to fight with
each other. Oh, and no one knows she’s actually female. To be fair
it’s not her fault everyone just assumed things, right?

But the time comes for Wander’s ingenious
plan and Dominator is having FUN once again. First we get to see her
having a dorky dance thanks to her leaderboard placement, then she
can show-off to other villains what a powerhouse she is. The big
fight ensues between her and Hater and it’s a joy to watch. Not only
she manages to destroy the whole skullship by herself and send Hater
flying down deep into the ground, but also shows awarness of her
surroundings, using Wander’s shenanigans to beat her opponent. She’s
also not above using her feminine looks to get what she wants, as
everyone learns after Hater develops crush on her.

At this point
she’s powerful, she’s at top, and the only person who had any powers
to actualy stop her… Well, he’s not very keen on fighting her
anymore. Things are looking grim for everyone, while she keeps having
fun destroying everything on her path.

For the most part of the second
arc she’s just mentioned or shows up only for few moments. For Hater
to be a goof again and fail at impressing her. To show the
destruction she leaves behind. Or to send Sylvia home for a little
bit.

In “The New Toy” she
fights watchdogs troops without a problem, then uses Hater’s crush to
deal the final blow. Also shows that she did pay attention to him despite busy fighting everyone else.

“The Bot” shows what
happens when you disappoint Dom. She just destroys you, no questions
asked. And it really strikes the chord with audience. Sure we knew
she’s bad. Sure we knew she destroyed every planet on her path. But
then the writers decided to introduce Beep Boop to us and then it got
personal. And she just shrugs it off.
Wwe all cried buckets and buckets of tears. Thanks, for
that, Dominator.

Then there’s “The Rival”.
Okay, Awesome’s an idiot but we can all agree he didn’t deserve
developing PTSD thanks to her. In fact all the villains that were
locked at her ship were so afraid of her they didn’t show up at the
end to fight her. What did she do to them exactly.
Oh, and she
also destroyed Jerry. I think.

Musical time! Even Dominator
isn’t immune to its powers and sings her own number. “I’m the
Bad Guy” is about, well, Dom being a bad guy. She’s evil and
she’s having fun. No, Hater, she doesn’t want to date you, she has
other plans. Like destroying the whole galaxy. …Clearly not seeing
the problem with it despite the fact she already did destroy at least
one galaxy before.
Aaaaaand she gets ice powers. Because Peepers
made a mistake, not because she prevented the frostonium catastrophe.
…Yes, I’m still kind of salty about that.

AND NO, HER SONG IS NOT SEXIST.

And then “The Night Out”
happens.
“The Night Out” is the Dominator episode
everyone has been waiting for. Finally, our evil dudette will…

…be busy moping in her ship in
her bathrobe and slippers? Okay?

She tries to talk and joke with
her bots but to no avail; but she finds a solution! She’ll just go
down to the nearest planet and have fun by causing mayhem. By chance
she runs into Sylvia and things take unexpected for her turn: she’s
having genuine fun with the zbornak. Who’s willing to call her a
friend! Wow! Yay! It means Sylvia will now have to listen to her and
obey every command! That’s what friends do, right?
And this is
where the penny drops for the viewers. Dominator’s lonely. But, in
strange turn of events it’s not loneliness that caused her to be evil
– it’s her being evil that caused loneliness. And the lack of
information about basic interaction between people. She just can’t
wrap her head around the concept of friendship and it’s so… sad.
So, so utterly sad.

Dominator is a weeaboo, pass it
on.

“The Flower”
demonstrates how much she enjoys personally causing pain to others,
crushing their souls, making them lose all hope. Again, she likes
spending time with others, she just doesn’t know how and others’ pain
makes her really happy for some reason. Maybe because it’s a reaction
she knows very well how to receive? I guess it could be one of the
reasons.

And the finale. “The End of
the Galaxy”.
Dominator realizes there’s nosthing left and
feels empty. Guess it was her favorite galaxy after all, huh. But no
worries, Wander’s here! After tormenting poor Spoon and chasing him
round the ship she discovers the exsistence of a Secret Planet, where
the final battle takes place.
Dominator underestimated everybody.
She underestimated Wander and his kindness and his good soul. She
underestimated Hater and his abilites. She underestimated people left
in the galaxy, they were more than wlling to fight back one last
time, if only to spare others of the same fate. She underestimated a
freaking flower that left seeds in its last moments and left the mark
on the destroyed galaxy.

And then “I don’t need
anybody” breakdown comes, Wander more or less understand what’s
the problem here, and Dominator loses everything she worked so hard
on: her ship, her army, her postion, her dignity. Stomping away like
a moody teenager she swears to get her revenge. But she does open her eyes. A little. Just for a short while. But it’s there.

She’s so set in her ways she
won’t even stop to consider what she’s missing. She wants people to
laugh at her jokes but won’t make a real steps to reach that goal.
She’d rather destroy the galaxy for funsies and, well, because she
can, than form a honest relationship with someone. And Wander
Over Yonder, as a whole, is all
about realtionships. Wander and Sylvia’s friendship is a heart of the
show, Wander reaches to Hater constantly in hopes to redeem him,
Peepers and Sylvia formed a bond, Peepers and Hater are in a weird
villain friendship of sorts. Dom? Dom is alone because that’s what
she chose despite hating loneliness.

The future? She’ll try to get her
revenge. Maybe we’ll learn more about her backstory? Though I doubt
there would be anything that would truly qualify as ‘I became evil
because something bad happened to me’. Some interactions with Wander,
Syl and Hater, probably. Perhaps something about her being on the
road to redemption of sorts.
What I would like to see? Please,
please, some Peepers interactions. They’re two most evil people on
the show, come on!

On a closing note? What a great theme.

TL;DR: Dom is a great character and a villain who I’d like to
see more on S3. She knows how to use others’ weaknesses but also
easily underestimates people. Despite having fun by causing pain in
others she’s also utterly sad person who needs to start understand
others more if there’s any redemption of any kind to be had.