History Main / MookDepletion

Can be avoided if villain has a MookMaker, unless it is destroyed by the heroes. See also CriticalStaffingShortage for organizations that were originally bigger.

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* SevenSamurai is Mook Depletion for the entirety of Acts III-V. The eponymous samurai learn approximately 40 bandits will attack the town they are defending come harvest time. They spend time TrainingThePeacefulVillagers, staging raids on sleeping bandits, creating fortifications and traps, picking off the problematic bandits with muskets (the bandits have muskets, making them very dangerous to the samurai), and so on in order to deplete the bandits. Kambei, the oldest and wisest of the samurai, even says "We must reduce them," in the English subtitles.

** Towards the end of the main quest, the game forces you to fend off waves and waves of Hyperion loaders while Claptrap tries to open a gate (key word being tries). Eventually, the AI guarding the gate is forced to announce that its reinforcements have been depleted, at which point Claptrap finally opens the door. PlayedWith in that more Hyperion loaders show up as you, Brick and Mordecai get closer to the Vault; so in this case mooks ''were'' available but Hyperion deemed further defence of the gate to be a waste of resources.

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* In ''Film/TheTenCommandments'' Rameses sends his entire army after Moses and the departing Israelites only to be told that they were all killed when the Red Sea parted, and then un-parted. The final shot of him is on his throne, silently contemplating how he can rule his country with no army to back him up.

It can also result from a case of ScrewThisImOutOfHere which steams from the {{Mook}}s having enough of the BadBoss routine or because they're not getting enough pay, if they're getting any at all. Alternatively, the BigBad may simply be cut off from reinforcements and lack the means to get them to help.

This trope also applies when a villain is too stupid to not leave behind a platoon of guards when he sends his men into battle, thus [[StormingTheCastle leaving his base vulnerable to direct attacks]].

This trope also applies when a villain is too stupid to not leave behind a platoon of guards when he sends his men into battle, thus leaving his base vulnerable to direct attacks.

* In ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'' Kary killed all of her minions, basically because she got bored, and the last one of them (apparently her accountant) [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/10/07/episode-467-so-many-minions/ explained]] how she had no minions left. Before she killed him and decided to fight the "Light Warriors" herself.

** The ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' duology starts with Supreme Commander Gilad Pellaeon (Thrawn's former flag captain and second-in-command) deciding to sue for peace with the New Republic after a test of a new weapon system for fighting while [[StealthInSpace cloaked]] fails miserably. He comments that this point the Empire is down to one shipyard that can't even keep up with the demand for fighters, never mind capital ships, and they're having to buy the former from outside contractors.

* ''Recap/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'':

Can be avoided if villain has a MookMaker, unless it is destroyed by the heroes. See also CriticalStaffShortage for organizations that were originally bigger.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/SheepInTheBigCity'', [[GeneralFailure General Specific]] kept dropping his men through {{Trap Door}}s. Eventually, when he and Private Public were chasing the titular character in a helicopter, they lost control of it because the General had dropped the pilot through the trapdoor.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/SheepInTheBigCity'', [[GeneralFailure General Specific]] kept dropping his men through {{Trap Door}}s. Eventually, when he and his right hand man were chasing the titular character in a helicopter, they lost control of it because the General had dropped the pilot through the trapdoor.

Can be avoided if villain has a MookMaker, unless it is destroyed by the heroes.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/SheepInTheBigCity'', [[GenralFailure General Specific]] kept dropping his men through {{Trap Door}}s. Eventually, when he and his right hand man were chasing the titular character in a helicopter, they lost control of it because the General had dropped the pilot through the trapdoor.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/SheepInTheBigCity'', General Specific kept dropping his men through {{Trap Door}}s. Eventually, when he and his right hand man were chasing the titular character in a helicopter, they lost control of it because the General had dropped the pilot through the trapdoor.

* In ''Film/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieAcrossTheSecondDimension'', Doof-2 sent his army of MechaMooks into Dimension-1 to conquer its tri-state area. Unfortunately, instead of making more, he sent the ones that were enforcing his ''own'' tri-state area, enabling [[LaResistance the resistance]] to make their move.

* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbAcrossTheSecondDimension'', Doof-2 sent his army of MechaMooks into Dimension-1 to conquer its tri-state area. Unfortunately, instead of making more, he sent the ones that were enforcing his ''own'' tri-state area, enabling [[LaResistance the resistance]] to make their move.

* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovie:AcrossTheSecondDimension'', Doof-2 sent his army of MechaMooks into Dimension-1 to conquer its tri-state area. Unfortunately, instead of making more, he sent the ones that were enforcing his ''own'' tri-state area, enabling [[LaResistance the resistance]] to make their move.

* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovie/AcrossTheSecondDimension'', Doof-2 sent his army of MechaMooks into Dimension-1 to conquer its tri-state area. Unfortunately, instead of making more, he sent the ones that were enforcing his ''own'' tri-state area, enabling [[LaResistance the resistance]] to make their move.

* In ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbTheMovieAcrossTheSecondDimension'', Doof-2 sent his army of MechaMooks into Dimension-1 to conquer its tri-state area. Unfortunately, instead of making more, he sent the ones that were enforcing his ''own'' tri-state area, enabling [[LaResistance the resistance]] to make their move.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the FiveEpisodePilot of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'' by Krang to Shredder when the Turtles incapacitate Bebop and Rocksteady, his strongest henchmen, as a reason to install [[MakeMyMonsterGrow the molecular amplification chip]] into his body.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/SheepInTheBigCity'', the General kept dropping his men through {{Trap Door}}s. Eventually, when he and his right hand man were chasing the titular character in a helicopter, they lost control of it because the General had dropped the pilot through the trapdoor.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', Megatron's usual attitude is WeHaveReserves with most of his Decepticon soldiers, and occasionally even his lieutenants. True to this trope, he even ends up killing plenty of them himself in mad attempts to finish off the Autobots. He is forced to rethink this attitude after [[spoiler:a mutated C.Y.L.A.S. inadvertently starts a small-scale zombie infection, which kills off a number of troops and subsequently forces Soundwave to banish the Insecticons after they are brainwashed by Airachnid, depriving them of their EliteMooks]]. When the Autobots finally make it to the Nemesis in the penultimate episode, Megatron concedes that they probably don't have enough troops to win.

* This happens in ''Videogame/DeadSpace 3''. By the third act Isaac has killed so many Unitologist cultists (with lots of deliciously ironic help from series staple baddies the Necromorphs) that when cult leader Jacob Danik wants to throw more of them at Isaac to slow his pursuit, he's audibly desperate after being informed that he's almost run out. There's enough of them left to cause Isaac and Carver trouble in the following DLC (and judging by the number of severed limbs found, that must have been several dozen at least).