Basic Trope: The villain's goal and reason behind their actions is unknown.
- Straight: Alice seeks to obtain the Macguffin, but no one knows why.
- Exaggerated:
- Almost nothing about Alice is known. she conceals her face behind a mask and her real name, age and goals are all a mystery.
- Generic Doomsday Villain
- Downplayed: The heroes guess that Alice wants the Macguffin to take over the world, but this is never actually confirmed.
- Justified:
- Alice doesn't want the heroes to know what her plan is, as it would make it easier for them to foil it.
- Alice doesn't even want her own underlings to know her true plans, because she knows they don't have the stomach for the endgame of it and she'd rather not be betrayed until she can handle it.
- Inverted: Visionary Villain
- Subverted: Alice tells the heroes her goals during their first battle.
- Double Subverted: Except she was just lying to throw the heroes off.
- Parodied:
- Alice constantly reminds the heroes that they don't know what her plans with the Macguffin are, even though it's an obvious Artifact of Doom that can't be disabled, sealed away, or used for anything short of genocide.
- Alice herself has no idea what is she going to do once she gets the Macguffin
- Zig Zagged: Alice states she intends to use the Macguffin to take over the world, but several actions she commits throughout the series contradict this statement.
- Averted: Alice makes her intentions known right at the start of the story.
- Enforced:
- "If we make the villain's goals unknown, it'll create more suspense."
- "We're keeping Alice's plans vague because we are still figuring out what should her plan be and how it fits in the whole plot."
- Lampshaded: The heroes remark on how they don't actually know what Alice is planning.
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited:
- Alice deliberately keeps her goals hidden to prevent the heroes from being able to thwart it.
- When Bob has to pretend to be evil for an ongoing plot, he pretends to have a mysterious, dark goal so he doesn't have to commit any actual crimes to be effective.
- Alice takes advantage of the heroes' confusion about her actual goals to enlist their help on several occasions- either directly or by Reverse Psychology.
- Defied: While Alice is trying to steal the Macguffin, the heroes break into her lair to obtain her plans.
- Discussed: "What are Alice's plans? I don't think we truly know what Alice wants the Macguffin for."
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Alice's secrecy around her motives makes her a much greater apparent threat. The heroes know what Emperor Evulz and Doctor Destructor want, and it's all fairly mundane stuff. Alice's super-secret goal could be anything up to omnicide, so they take no chances and stop her extra hard and extra fast- and several of the setting's more paranoid villains pitch in to help.
- Reconstructed: ???
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