Basic Trope: Once the villain is defeated, their friend or relative shows up to continue fighting the hero.
- Straight: The villain dies, and his little brother shows up shortly afterward, hating the hero for killing his sibling and out for revenge.
- Exaggerated:
- The villain dies, relative takes his place. And then the relative dies, but he has a friend who takes over for him, and then in his death we get his daughter who comes in... On and on.
- Alternatively, the entire villain's family fights the hero after the villain dies.
- Downplayed:
- The hero didn't kill the villain, he just injured him. Nevertheless, the villain's relative is still pissed off about the hero hurting him.
- The villain's relative wants to give the hero a stern talking-to.
- Justified:
- The villain is Affably Evil, so it's only natural that he'd have some kind of family who sympathized with him and was angered by his "murder" at the hands of the hero.
- The villain was framed and the "heroes" were actually Unwitting Pawns of a villainous 3rd party. Their new antagonist doesn't realise this and simply assumes that they're the Man Behind the Man's minions.
- The villain tried surrendering peacefully and was willing to accept imprisonment after he was defeated, but instead the "hero" murders him in cold blood.
- The villain was a Token Good Teammate.
- The villain was a Villain with Good Publicity while the heroes had a Zero-Approval Gambit, so the villain's brother thinks he's avenging a hero
- Inverted:
- You Killed My Father
- The hero is murdered. Their friend takes revenge on their murderer.
- Subverted:
- The villain dies, and his younger brother shows up, thirsty for the hero's blood. The hero starts with the usual speech that "revenge won't bring your brother back", but the brother laughs it off and says he never loved his brother. Turns out the younger brother is not trying to avenge the villain, he just wants to take his elder brother's macguffin so he can use it to Take Over the World himself. This type of subversion is the most common, likely because it removes any sympathy the audience can have for both the deceased villain and their relative.
- The Villain's brother turns out to not be trying to avenge his brother, rather he's just pissed that the hero was the one who killed the villain and not ''him'
- The villain dies, his brother shows up, walks up to the hero... and thanks him for killing the villain, who he thought was a terrible person.
- The villain dies, and his brother shows up and immediately attacks the hero, but he gets defeated at ease. It turns out his act is an elaborate form of Suicide by Cop, having lost his willingness to live.
- It's an inversion of Not Me This Time: It turns out an unrelated person killed the villain, and his brother is barking up the wrong tree.
- Double Subverted:
- After the villain's death, a brother of his shows up but appears to show no desire for revenge. Then another relative appears, and he's not of the same opinion there.
- Alternatively the relative/friend/loved one of the villain seems to be OK with this but it is then revealed that it was all an act and was plotting revenge but was only being nice about it at first just to try to get the heroes into a false sense of security.
- This was just a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, and now everyone saw the Hero gun down a grief-stricken unarmed person. The villain's avenging brother heals after a few years of physical rehabilitation while the hero is sentenced to death and executed for attempted murder.
- The brother and the hero get into an Enemy Mine situation with the unrelated person above, who has a grievance against both the hero and the brother for their misdeeds.
- Parodied: The villain's son shows up, thirsty for revenge... and six years old. He attempts to fight the heroes, who fail to take him seriously, much to their regret.
- Zig Zagged: The villain is dead, and his brother shows up, but he wants to join the heroes. Great! Except it was an act to get closer to the heroes and then them. After a fight, the heroes show him evidence that the villain was pure evil, and he seems to back down... but it was just to get the heroes' guards down. After a while, he realizes that revenge won't bring his father back, and decides to do something constructive with his life. And then the ghost of the villain possesses him and tries to kill the heroes.
- Averted: The villain is dead. Nobody comes in to avenge him.
- Enforced: "We can't just end the series now — we could still milk more money out of this! Let's have someone who knew the villain come in to take his place."
- Lampshaded: "He had friends? Uh-oh, now they're mad at us."
- Invoked:
- The villain knows he'll probably be defeated soon, and sets out to make himself some friends to take over his fighting the hero if the situation comes.
- In order to make an excuse to get rid of the villain's relative, the hero mocks the deceased villain and stomps the corpse, goading the relative into attacking the hero so the latter can claim that he's only killing the villain's relative in self defense.
- Exploited:
- The villain's brother waits for the villain to be killed so that he can finish off the heroes and pass it off as this trope. Thus eliminating both obstacles to his Evil Plan to Take Over the World.
- A third party deliberately kills the villain and frames up the hero so the said villain's brother would go after the hero.
- The heroes decide that having the villain's friend avenging the villains would be profitable, since it gives the heroes a legitimate reason to kill them off and rob their belongings after they died. They make sure that they would always leave at least one survivor because profit only comes if someone decides to avenge the villains.
- Defied:
- The villain dies, so the heroes make sure to kill any of his friends and family, to make sure they won't take over his position any time soon.
- Alternatively, the heroes make sure to take the villain alive so that his friend and family won't see them as murderers.
- After they kill the villain, the Heroes spread news of his wrongdoings far and wide so that all may know that he deserved to die.
- Discussed: "It's like some kind of book — kill one, another one pops up to take his place, repeat."
- Conversed: "Oh, come on! Just end the series — it won't be the same with the villain's mother as Big Bad — talk about milking the cash cow."
- Deconstructed:
- The dead villain's friend shows up and reveals that the villain was truthfully not as bad as he looked- instead of the monster the heroes thought they were killing, he was more of a Well-Intentioned Extremist, with friends and family.
- The dead villain's friend shows up and reveals that he used to be among the heros, and the villain's death is the driving force of his Face–Heel Turn because no matter how bad he was, the said villain was his Only Friend, his death means that no one would treat him with kindness, hence his determination to bury the one who killed him.
- The villains brother comes to avenge the villains death, not knowing that he was actually evil. When he finds out, he's horrified to discover what kind of person he actually was.
- Reconstructed:
- The villain may not have been so bad, or was at least truly loved by his avenger, but vengeance eventually corrupts the new antagonist.
- The new "villain" is fully aware of what kind of person they're avenging, but is bound by honour to avenge them anyway. They eventually end their conflict with the heroes by simply having them repay the debt through service to the villain's kingdom (which is pretty nice with the new guy in charge).
- Played For Laughs:
- The villain was the head of a large, branching family, and he left a will stating that "My fortune will go to the relative that avenges me." This entire branching family starts to gang up on the heroes, before The Smart Guy points out that there can be only one successor, and an Enemy Civil War breaks out. The last remaining member is too wounded to do anything, and simply limps away.
- The villain was a lazy office worker, and his only act of villainy was snoring at his desk. The hero, who happens to be his co-worker, calls him out in front of the crowd, leading to his demotion. An hour later, the said villain's friend sabotages the hero's works by... drawing incredibly beautiful sketches all over his desk and documents.
- Played For Drama:
- The avenger succeeds in his goal.
- Or worse, the avenger decides to take Revenge by Proxy, and succeeds.
- Or even worse, the villain in question starts out as a genuine Anti-Villain whose villainy is only being an enemy of the heroes, however, after the death of his friend, he gradually shatters into a sad and vengeful person who puts his vendetta above everything else, including attacking the hero's defenseless friend, all of which leads to a full blown Cycle of Revenge between the heroes and villain until there's no survivor in the both sides.
It can't be! Emperor Evulz is dead! Never fear, I will avenge you, Evulz!
