Basic Trope: The "boss" the heroes fight is actually only a projection of the actual thing.
- Straight: Alice and Bob confront Charlie the God of Insufficient Light, but it's just his avatar. He can regenerate a new one very soon.
- Exaggerated: There are thousands of Charlie avatars at all times, some of them in other worlds. They all have to be killed simultaneously to even dent the full being.
- Downplayed: While it doesn't kill him, regenerating his avatar is a slow and difficult process. Destroying it might still buy time for Alice and Bob to find a more permanent solution
- Justified:
- Charlie can't be bothered to fight Alice and Bob in person, but none of his minions are strong enough.
- His far more powerful true form is incorporeal, so Charlie has to have his followers construct a physical body for him to affect the mortal world in a more direct manner. The body can only hold so much of his power while remaining stable, so he is far weaker than he usually would be. However, because only a small fraction of his strength is expended, he does not take long to recover it when his host body is destroyed and he can inhabit another one.
- Inverted: In order to use his full power, Charlie makes sure to manifest in his entirety for the battle rather then acting through shadows and avatars.
- Subverted: Alice and Bob know that Charlie is a coward and has the power to create dopplegangers, so they are expecting "Charlie" to be one, but after the fight they find out that it really is him.
- Double Subverted: Except that it isn't, its just pretending to distract them for longer as Charlie makes his escape.
- Parodied:
- Charlie and his avatars get into arguments with each other.
- Charlie treats his avatars like novelty hand-puppets and acts out comical conversations between them.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob fight Charlie, and then he vanishes in a puff of smoke. But he didn't really vanish, he just moved under cover of a smoke bomb.
- Averted: Charlie can't make dopplegangers.
- Enforced: Villain: Exit, Stage Left feels too cheesy, but the writers want the heroes to win a fight without ending the story early. The Balance Between Good and Evil also states that full blown power just isn't fair; one must use a "proxy" that mortals have a chance against.
- Lampshaded: We can see a giant Charlie in the clouds, holding the puppet strings of his shadow.
- Invoked: Seeing Alice and Bob brought a weapon that might permanently kill him, Charlie retreats and sends his avatar to deal with them
- Exploited: Alice and Bob don't hold back, because they know it isn't really Charlie
- Defied: Alice and Bob hunt down the real Charlie and attack while he is expecting them to be caught up with the doppleganger(s).
- Discussed: Charlie begins to summon his avatar to attack Alice and Bob, and a minion asks why he doesn't just go with his full power.
- Conversed: "We did it! We killed a god!" "No. That would have just been a fraction of his being. The real Charlie might not even have noticed this fight."
- Implied: Alice and Bob hunt down and very definitely kill him. He comes Back from the Dead and comments that they never actually killed him.
- Deconstructed: Being just a projection and lacking Charlie's real power, Alice and Bob take down his avatar in seconds.
- Reconstruction: However, it doesn't matter: tearing through avatars doesn't do anything to actually harm Charlie's plans. He can always just make more.
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