Basic Trope: A character is far more competent than their low ranking would give one cause to believe.
- Straight: Alice, a lowly grunt in the Troper Army, is one of their best fighters.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice, who might as well be an actual janitor (if not just some random civvie that the Troper Army just let into) because of her ludicrously low rank, routinely spars with deities and wins.
- Alice uses her low-ranked position to secretly run the organization she works for.
- Alice is God, and she still devotes her life to making sure everything is spotless.
- Downplayed:
- Alice's position is important and high-ranking, but not one that fully encapsulates her abilities. She could aim higher.
- Alice is unusually skilled for her position, but not blatantly so.
- Alice is very skilled but has several big liabilities which makes her lowly position sensible.
- Justified:
- Alice really doesn't want the higher-ups to catch wind of her ultimate plan, so she's happy where she is.
- Alice's skills depend on being in a position where nobody would really notice her, and who pays attention to the janitor?
- Alice is Brilliant, but Lazy, and the last thing she wants is the extra responsibility that would come with a promotion.
- If Alice got promoted, she would no longer be able to hang out with her True Companions and/or Love Interest.
- Alice works most efficiently at a lowly position; a promotion would do more harm than good.
- Due to the setting, Alice's gender, social, political, or racial background close the doors for her, regardless of her skills.
- While Alice gained a lot of skills at her previous job, she's still learning this company's culture, which is easier and less riskier to do at the lower echelons.
- Alice gained her skills through Wikistanian education, which isn't recognized in Tropeland.
- Inverted:
- General Failure: Alice is way high up on the chain, but barely competent.
- Pointy-Haired Boss and Kicked Upstairs are variants of this inversion. For some strange reason we will never understand, Alice is Too Dumb to Live and yet is somehow the boss.
- Alice is great at everything except with anything actually relevant to the story.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking
- Subverted:
- Alice gets a long-overdue promotion...
- Alternately, it initially seems like Alice is some kind of under-promoted superhero, but she didn't actually do what we thought she did, and there's nothing really special about her.
- It turns out that Alice is actually the leader of whatever organization she's in. She just likes to disguise herself as a janitor for whatever reason.
- Bob assumes Alice's title of "Secretary" means she's low ranked, and the power she wields makes her one of these. It's actually a case of Just the First Citizen.
- Double Subverted:
- ...but even with the promotion, she's way overqualified.
- Alternatively, Alice didn't directly do what we thought she did, but did the job of a commanding officer in organizing those who did, displaying an uncanny talent that's going to waste.
- ...but it turns out that she really is just a janitor, she just likes to pretend she's in charge to make herself feel better.
- Parodied:
- Alice is capable of resolving all the in-story conflicts in less than 30 minutes if she ever felt like it; however, she's so happy in her job as an errant musician that she couldn't care less about the world's problems.
- Alice's power decreases the higher up she gets promoted.
- Alice is a Jerkass and/or Deadpan Snarker who would rather stand around and clean the floor while pointing and laughing at the heroes busting their asses trying to save the world than actually helping them.
- Alice is literally a janitor... who has no problem wiping the floor with the Big Bad.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice is a very competent specialist that just opted to be a janitor because she doesn't like responsibilities. But occasionally she shows her assets, only to be rejected because of her low status. And she still saves the day behind everyone's backs, using the limited resources of a janitor.
- Alice has exceptional leadership and tactical abilities that she occasionally uses in the field. She routinely displays abilities suited to high-ranking commanding officers when allowed, but can't be promoted further, as she's not trained as an officer. While offered many incentives to be promoted, she prefers not to undergo the additional training, as she wishes to continue to be in the field. Higher-ranked officers routinely make bets on whether the new incentives and arguments will get her to change her mind, and often allow her 'suggestions' to become their orders.
- Alice is extremely skilled and highly qualified for a leadership position, but she's only employed as a janitor at a big powerful business. THEN she reveals that she's actually the mastermind of the whole operation, and only acts as a janitor to maintain confidentiality. BUT in the end, we find out that not only is she NOT the mastermind of the operation, but it also turns out she isn't even a janitor.
- Averted: Alice is routinely promoted at regular intervals.
- Enforced: "Hey, those losers in the audience need a character that's better than their job to sympathize with!"
- Lampshaded: "Why hasn't Alice been promoted yet? She killed Emperor Evulz and she is still a fry cook!? It doesn't make sense!"
- Invoked:
- Alice is an extreme case of Brilliant, but Lazy, and a promotion to a higher rank would imply a lot more work and responsibilities for her, so she downplays her skills to fool her superiors and stay on a lower profile, but a more relaxed job.
- Alice is kept in a seemingly low position so that the organization's enemies don't notice her. After all, who sends assassins after the janitor?
- Exploited: Alice is The Mole, and while being competent is beneficial in her work, she keeps a low rank to avoid unwanted attention to her actual work.
- Defied:
- Alice actively tries to get promoted.
- Alice doesn't want to be promoted, but her boss, seeing her potential, tells her she has to either accept a promotion or be dismissed from her janitorial position.
- All janitors hired by General Evulz are lobotomized and brainwashed to only know two things: their specific janitorial skill set, and a feeling of Happiness in Slavery. Thus, all janitors at Evil, Inc. can only be janitors (and any who make it through the procedure with anything of their personality intact, it has things to worry about beyond the corporate ladder).
- All janitors hired at Meaner & Meaner Brothers Bank are given an extremely extensive, thorough and attuned test that detects anybody who would try to be this trope. Those the test detects are then given the opportunity to apply to be employees at Corporate or be denied entry. Janitors who are hired are also given five-decade probation and subjected to extreme surveillance on the off chance they were so good they fooled the test (including bonuses if they have options that advance the bank, to see if any of them bite).
- All janitors hired at Meaner & Meaner Brothers Bank have a particularly iron-clad clause in their absurdly extensive contract that explicitly says "if you are a janitor, you will stay a janitor, no matter how good your ideas or attempts at manipulation. If you want to be a CEO, request to be hired on the damned 'get to CEO' track". The clause is there to smoke out the ones who obfuscate. The clause also has a sub-clause for bonuses if the ideas actually benefit the bank, for the "broken clocks" to get something out of it
- Discussed: "We can't pick Alice for our team to go fight Emperor Evulz! She's just the janitor." "But the low-ranking ones are always the strongest! She's our secret weapon!" "Come on, the only creatures she fights are dust bunnies. This isn't a movie.".
- Conversed: "This isn't fair! Alice was the one that saved everyone's arse back there, and instead of being her the one receiving the new rank, the superiors promote that vain and conceited fool Trevor?! What the hell!?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice's superiors are perfectly aware of her great talents, and that's precisely the reason they actively keep her in a low position: If they gave her the opportunity to grow, she would eventually turn into a menace to their power and ambition. And to make sure that she doesn't abandon the organization to look for a better position, they use nasty extortion tactics to keep her bound. This lack of recognition and constant pressure eventually turns her into a mentally unstable individual.
- The constant mistreatment and refusal to acknowledge Alice as anything but a Red Shirt results in them completely being blindsided by a threat more immense than even they anticipated, and completely of their own making once she's fed up with being treated like an ordinary Mook despite her many, many achievements.
- Alternatively, Alice's knowledge that she far outstrips her peers gives her a massive superiority complex. However, this heavy pride is the one thing that keeps her stuck in her low position. The superiors cannot trust someone that's not a team player with a greater rank.
- It may not be on paper, but everybody knows Alice is Too Qualified to Apply and are thus resentful of the utter unfairness of entering any kind of competition against her, be it because Alice will win or because she is an absurdly huge obstacle even when she is holding back.
- Reconstructed: Alice is her organization's trump card, their most powerful agent meant to be fully revealed only when the battle reaches a critical point. Meanwhile, she's assigned to a low key-position to keep an eye on the main group of heroes, providing them with advice and helping them sporadically until her day comes.
- Played For Drama: Alice's repeatedly abuses the de-facto authority she has, despite her lack of de-jure authority.
Back to Almighty Janitor. And why the hell is this lowly troper capable of permabanning people off the site!? What are they, a mod in disguise!?
