Basic Trope: The villain that The Hero fought and defeated isn't the final villain.
- Straight: Bob defeats Emperor Evulz, but it turns out that Lord Blackheart is the real main villain.
- Exaggerated:
- Evulz turns out to be just a Mook Lieutenant in Blackheart's army.
- The story goes through The Big Bad Shuffle; Evulz is only the first of many Disc-One Final Bosses.
- Emperor Evulz is the Disc-One Final Boss every single time he shows up, becoming more of a recurring rival than a genuine threat.
- Emperor Evulz functioned as the primary Big Bad of the story, with an excruciatingly hard boss battle fit for a Final Boss... only for The Reveal that 'Emperor' is a title in a Fantastic Rank System that actually means 'Commander', as in 'Imperator', and that Evulz was just a minor officer of a platoon of the Empire's weakest soldiers, and answered to Major Murder, who in tug answers to Captain Cancer, and then to General Grim, and then to Lord Blackheart.... and so on until Archduke Annihilation.
- Downplayed:
- Blackheart seems to be a Non-Action Big Bad, but after Evulz is beaten Blackheart turns out to be a formidable fighter.
- The audience knows that Blackheart is the true mastermind form the beginning, but the heroes don’t find out until after beating Evulz.
- Justified: Emperor Evulz is a figurehead Puppet King of Lord Blackheart.
- Inverted:
- Bob defeats Emperor Evulz, then spends the rest of the story hunting General Drake.
- Bob defeats a random mook, who turns out to have been Emperor Evulz in disguise. The story ends.
- Emperor Evulz defeats Bob, but Charlie spends the rest of the story hunting Evulz.
- Subverted:
- Later, Emperor Evulz turns out to be The Man in Front of the Man to Lord Blackheart, and survived his supposed defeat by Bob.
- Evulz starts off as someone looking to be the Big Bad, but other forces show up to prove that he's out of their league, forcing an Enemy Mine.
- Double Subverted:
- However, he was only doing this on the orders of King Evilington, who Bob goes after when he defeats Evulz for good.
- Blackheart defeats Evulz and takes control for real.
- Parodied:
- Emperor Evulz is battled right after you start the game.
- When Evulz is down to his last hit point, you enter a Coup de Grâce Cutscene. When Bob pulls the trigger on Evulz, everything grinds to a halt, bringing you to a black screen that says "Please insert disc 2."
- Zig Zagged: The story features The Big Bad Shuffle, so it's impossible to know whether Evulz is the Big Bad or not.
- Averted: Bob defeats Emperor Evulz and the story ends there. The other discs in the box are the game's nonlinear sequels.
- Enforced: The Glorious Adventures of Bob is unexpectedly given a full season, so the writer writes in another villain behind Emperor Evulz.
- Lampshaded: "Emperor Evulz couldn't have been behind this himself. There's got to be someone pulling his strings."
- Invoked: Blackheart appoints Evulz as a figurehead leader to take the fall for him.
- Exploited: Bob guesses that Emperor Evulz isn't the one in charge, so deliberately captures him alive for questioning in the hope he'll give up Lord Blackheart's location.
- Defied: Bob guesses that Evulz isn't the one in charge, so decides to go after Blackheart instead of concentrating on defeating a decoy.
- Discussed: Bob and his allies discuss whether Evulz was actually working for anyone else after his defeat.
- Conversed: Anna and Colin are watching The Glorious Adventures of Bob, and know that Emperor Evulz isn't the Big Bad because he’s just been defeated even though there's still a few more episodes to go.
- Deconstructed:
- Evulz gets defeated, but his impact on the plot remains, to the point where whatever Evulz caused in the past is the reason why Dark Brain, the Big Bad of the second season, rises to power.
- Alternatively, Evulz is defeated, but the heroes are too weakened to handle Blackheart, leading to a massive Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Reconstructed:
- This was part of Blackheart’s plan.
- Evulz is defeated, but the heroes are too weakened to handle Blackheart, who curb stomps them; however, a timely rescue by some former opponents who turn out to have been La Résistance all along allows the heroes to escape and regroup so they can take on the real boss.
Disc-One Final Boss was only the beginning!
