To inflict terror safely is to instill fear not by strongness, but by strangeness.

When you make people fear you by showing power or asserting dominance, they’ll resent you afterward because you make them feel less powerful than you. This will make them want to see you fall. And when they get the upper hand, they’ll take revenge on you.

When you jar them by being slightly off, they’ll just feel you’re strange, unknown, and therefore dangerous. They won’t resent you because you didn’t hurt their egos. They’ll be on guard because you throw them off balance. They’ll focus not on how to take you down, but on how to keep some distance from you. Because let’s face it, the strongest human can be killed by anyone crazy enough to put a bullet in his head.

Of course, if you have both power and madness, it’ll be even more effective. It’s hard to find things scarier than an unpredictable entity who is strong enough to overpower you, don’t care enough to hurt your ego, but will kill you when required (which can appear to be random if you don’t understand the logic of madness).