Basic Trope: A villainous character loses an (often legitimate) lead in a contest thanks to cheating.
- Straight: Eddie "The Emperor" Evulz is ahead by a country mile in the Zany Races, but he stops to sabotage the other racers, costing him the lead.
- Exaggerated:
- Evulz cheats as often as he can during the races, meaning he loses the lead multiple times.
- Evulz is by far the best competitor of the race and in a fair race no other runner would have the slightest chance against him, he decides to cheat anyway and comes last because of that.
- Evulz is literally one inch away from crossing the finish line first, with his contenders trailing at least one mile behind, and yet he slams on the brakes and decides to place a trap. The chaos that follows subjects him to a Humiliation Conga in which the fact he lost the race is the least awful part.
- The other racers were so demoralized about Evulz's capabilities that they were about to call it quits and hand Evulz the win by default, but Evulz's cheating (involving such things as threatening the racers' families and breaking their dogs' legs) makes them so sore angry that they decide to break him in half and win the race.
- Downplayed: Evulz' car has built-in cheating devices, but has to slow down to deploy them. The traps wind up delaying him more than they delay the good guys, who overtake Evulz even though he was legitimately in the lead for a bit.
- Justified:
- Evulz is a notorious carrier of the Villain Ball, and feels like he can't win legitimately.
- Evulz doesn't care about winning the race; he just wants to humiliate Alice and it's more important to him that she won't finish.
- Evulz is Stupid Evil, his malevolent actions deliberately cause his own downfall.
- Evulz would win too easily if he played fair, and he’s more interested in the challenge than the victory. If anything, Evulz thinks that Victory Is Boring if he had won the Zany Races multiple times before.
- Cheating and losing are Evulz' kayfabe on the improv comedy that is the way out Zany Races. note
- Evulz is a Combat Pragmatist who is so habituated to cheating that he still does it even when he doesn't have to.
- Inverted: Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help
- Subverted: It looks like Evulz is going to cheat, but then he decides against it and wins the race legitimately.
- Double Subverted: Then it's revealed he cheated after the fact, so he ends up losing his win.
- Parodied:
- Even the good guys scream at Evulz to just win the race.
- Evulz's car is capable of breaking the sound barrier, and all his competitors are riding bicycles. He still gets out of his car to try to shove sticks in their bike wheels, and in the process, he gets disqualified.
- Evulz has already won, but he realizes that he forgot to cheat. He Time Travels back to ensure that he cheats, losing him the race.
- Evulz wins the race by racing fair and square (-ish). He gets a nervous breakdown as the race officials congratulate him because he did not cheat.
- Evulz wins the race because his rival, the Amazing Speed, had an accident. Evulz then accuses Speed of cheating because the only accidents Evulz is going to accept happening on the race track are the ones he caused, dammit!
- Zig Zagged:
- Evulz has numerous cheating devices built into his car, but frequently has second thoughts about cheating and hesitates to deploy them, until he eventually does, but later comes to regret them, leading to him forfeiting the race out of guilt (or at least slowing his car for a few moments to compensate).
- Evulz deploys cheating devices throughout the race, but occasionally gives his opponents an advantage to challenge himself.
- Averted:
- He just races to win, no cheating needed.
- Evulz does cheat, but he succeeds in delaying his opponents more than it delays him.
- Enforced: "The bad guy can't win! He has to lose in the most contrived way possible!"
- "This show focuses only on races. How do we show that the bad guy is, indeed, the bad guy?"
- Lampshaded: "You'd think I'd learn from this, but no."
- Invoked: Evulz is a professional villain, ergo, in order to participate in a race he is contractually required to cheat at least once.
- Exploited:
- The good guys can take it easy for most of the race, because they know Evulz is going to screw himself over by trying to cheat.
- "Oh, we predicted Emperor Evulz would cheat during the race. That's why we installed a few cheating devices of our own to counter his."
- "Oh, we predicted Emperor Evulz would cheat during the race. That's why we snuck into his garage the night before and cut all the wires under the hood."
- Defied:
- "Well, I could stop and cheat, or... instead, I could just win. I'm just gonna do that."
- "Rule #1: No cheating." (Dramatic Gun Cock and gun pointed at Evulz' face follows) "I can assume I'm not being cute when I say that we collect some pretty hefty penalties if that one's broken...?"
- Discussed:
- The good guys are having engine trouble and suspect Evulz of foul play, but ultimately realize he's playing fair and something else is the source of their problems.
- The good guys wonder if Evulz is cheating during the race, but they win anyway and cast the thought aside.
- Conversed: "This would probably be the part of the race when Emperor Evulz deploys his cheating devices and wins. Good thing he's not even competing."
- Deconstructed:
- Because deep down inside Evulz doesn't want to win, because he knows he doesn't deserve it, but because of his pride or hatred he doesn't want to forfeit to the hero, so he comes up with ridiculously complex plans that he knows are doomed to fail.
- He just doesn't want to win, he wants to break the hero's spirit. The hero has embarrassed him so many times now he just wants to make him suffer.
- Reconstructed: Evulz doesn't want to win because he already outmatches the other racers so much, that he plans to help them improve until they can finally put up a challenge.
- Played for Laughs:
- Evulz's compulsion to use traps and cheats is a literal compulsion. He even yells at one point "if I don't cheat in the next minute, I'm going to lose my mind!" and starts to fidget like a strung-out addict.
- There is a very ironic juxtaposition between Evulz being incredibly good at the games he plays but a very incompetent cheater, and his opponents being the sorriest bunch of losers who have ever tried to play (no, not even in a "Ragtag Bunch of Misfits" way, they just plain suck) but Evulz’s cheats keep handing them victory on a silver platter, and only a few of them because Evulz disqualifies himself.
- Played for Drama: Evulz completely ruins his life by being disqualified and sanctioned when he's caught cheating or losing repeatedly because he wastes time cheating (even if he's not caught), but he is just not able to stop himself and maybe even thinks that if he cheats just right and often enough, it will all be worth it.
- Played for Horror: Evulz is not just an incompetent cheater, he's Lethally Stupid at it. Couple that with a compulsion to cheat that leads to Sanity Slippage if he cannot fulfill it, and one way or another someone is going to get killed.
- Implied: Evulz privately says he's willing to cheat, but he ends up losing a close race. It's not confirmed, but it seems like his cheating might have made him lose.
Back to Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat.
