Basic Trope: Someone is asked what they will do after The Plan succeeds… and has no idea.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz brags about his master plan to consume all the knowledge in the universe. When Hiro asks what he’ll do after he gets it, Evulz is dumbfounded.
- Exaggerated:
- The question is enough to drive Evulz insane.
- Every villain in the series has this problem.
- Downplayed:
- Evulz asks himself this, but it only takes him a second to figure it out.
- Evulz downplays his doubts, simply saying “I’ll worry about that when I have won.”
- Justified:
- Evulz is The Ditz, and honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
- Evulz didn’t think he’d make it this far.
- Inverted: Evulz is a Visionary Villain and defined by his endgoal.
- Subverted: “‘What then?’ Whatever the hell I want!”
- Double Subverted:
- It eventually becomes apparent that Evulz doesn’t actually know what he wants, and he’s driven to despair because of it.
- Not only is Evulz a Visionary Villain who can answer this trope, but he points out that Hiro can't: the latter doesn't know what he would do if he defeated Evulz, or how to deal with whatever outside forces caused Evulz to enact his plan in the first place.
- Parodied: .
- Evulz doesn't realizes he’s even supposed to have a goal.
- Or he responds that he's going to order a pizza.
- Zig Zagged: Evulz doesn't know what he wants with all the knowledge in the universe, but he figures that the conquest is an end in of itself, and he’s happy with that much.
- Averted: The question is never asked. Either that, or Evulz gives a clear answer to that question.
- Enforced: The writer couldn’t figure out how Evulz would actually benefit from winning, and decided to make it into a plot point.
- Lampshaded: “If you don’t know what you’re going to do with the collective knowledge of the universe, why even bother?! Your entire plan is pointless!”
- Invoked: Hiro deliberately asks this question. if Evulz doesn’t know what to do after he wins, he can then use this to convince him to change sides. If he does actually know what to do afterward, Hiro can learn of his end goal.
- Exploited:
- Evulz sees the question coming and decides to pause his quest or retreat to be sure of himself.
- Evulz takes the opportunity to further his goal; after all, consuming all knowledge would mean he would get the answer to the question.
- Hiro deliberately asked the question to buy him time so his friends can come over and save him, knowing full well Evulz won't know how to respond.
- Defied:
- “It is but the first step in my amazing master plan, and you’ve already heard too much!”
- "I'm going to change the world, Hiro. I wish you could be there to see it, I really do. The dawning of the Age of Cyborgs. Just picture it, Hiro. No human being will ever lose a piece of themselves that can't be replaced, good as new. Better than new. Flesh and machinery lovingly woven together into better, stronger, bolder people, first for the wounded, then for all mankind, evolving in ways you and I can scarcely imagine. A better world, Hiro. Tell me that's not worth it."
- Evulz purposefully doesn't plan that far ahead, because it just makes it that much harder to adjust to the factors that change in the interim.
- Discussed: “Don't bother asking him Hiro, if you ask a supervillain what he’s going to do after he wins, you’ll rarely get a straight answer.”
- Conversed: "He may be a Saturday Morning villain, but they could at least give him a fun reason for wanting to steal all the world's postage stamps."
- Deconstructed:
- Evulz sees his ends as a means and nothing more before turning it around at Hiro.
- Evulz points out that the question is meaningless since it would lead to an endless cycle of questions and not doing anything.
- Evulz is so stumped at the question that he examines all of his actions and begins to wonder if what everything he went through was worth it.
- Reconstructed:
- Evulz ends up hitting a brick wall and circumstances force him to ask himself the question.
- Evulz is asked the question in different ways and approaches, catching him off-guard and ends snowballing to question his goal.
- Evulz is driven into a rage at having wasted his life, and lashes out at the closet target-Hiro. After his tantrum, he redoubles his efforts despite having forgotten his aim, and Hiro muses that it was foolish to appeal to logic with an id-powered murderer like Evulz.
- Played For Laughs: Evulz comically hits a mental wall and is too stunned to speak before giving a list of lame excuses or leading to awkward silence, likely to be lampshaded by someone.
- Played For Drama: Evulz is traumatized as everything he has worked for and sacrificed seemingly becomes all for naught and is forced to question everything, leading to a potential mental breakdown and demanding to know answers. Hiro finds himself feeling sorry for Evulz.
- Implied: Hiro delivers a Breaking Speech to Evulz offscreen that results in Evulz giving up his plan. Afterwards, Hiro comments, "Wow, that guy had no idea what he actually wanted to do!"
What are you going to do after you go back to And Then What?
