Basic Trope: Female Mooks are more likely to betray the Big Bad.
- Straight: Alice, the female mook of Emperor Evulz, betrays him for Charlie, The Hero.
- Exaggerated:
- Every female mook betrays Evulz for Charlie.
- Alice has Chronic Backstabbing Disorder; she's known for betraying multiple Big Bads in her career.
- Alice, The Dragon of Emperor Evulz, betrays him for Charlie, The Hero.
- Downplayed:
- Alice remains loyal to Evulz and helps to capture Charlie — but she pleads with Evulz to spare Charlie's life, because "We can't kill him, we still need him!"
- Alice falls for Charlie, and does a Heel–Face Turn. However, Alice convinces her former villainous comrade, Bob, to do a Heel–Face Turn as well.
- Justified:
- The villains are very misogynistic, and the female mooks want to be on a side where they're treated better.
- Alice is an Affably Evil Noble Demon Anti-Villain and/or Minion with an F in Evil who after talking with Charlie realizes she's a good person who has some issues and petty grievances she needs to work out.
- Inverted:
- Alice, The Smurfette Principle, betrays Charlie, The Hero, for Big Bad Emperor Evulz.
- Alice is the only one who remains on Evulz' side toward the end.
- Gender Inverted:
- Bob, the male mook of the Big Bad, Queen Alice, betrays her for The Hero Charlotte.
- Bob, The One Guy of Big Bad Queen Alice's Amazon Brigade, betrays her for The Hero Charlie.
- All the male mooks turn against Evulz, with only Alice remaining loyal.
- Subverted:
- Alice, The Vamp, pretends to betray Evulz, so she can seduce The Hero, Charlie.
- Alice, a Dragon Ascendant, takes up the Big Bad mantle after betraying Evulz.
- Alice was puppeteering Evulz all along.
- Alice is the only one of Evulz's minions to undergo a Heel–Face Turn. In the original work, that is. Bob reforms in the sequel.
- Double Subverted
- But she winds up falling for him for real, and when it comes time to betray Charlie, she can't.
- But she turns out to be a villain in name only, who reforms the empire into a republic because she genuinely wants to save Charlie and set things right.
- But she manipulated him so she could set up his defeat and the fall of his empire.
- Parodied:
- Alice is extremely shallow and falls for Charlie for superficial reasons, having only been with Evulz until someone more badass and better "equipped" came along.
- Alice is in Evulz’s service because she wants to meet a heroic man.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice, the female mook of Evulz, is a Heel–Face Revolving Door.
- Averted: All evil characters stay evil, and all good characters stay good, or male and female characters turn evil and good at equal rates.
- Enforced:
- "We planned for the villains to die, but we don't want The Hero Charlie to have to kill a woman."
- "It's a Harem Genre and we want to expand Charlie's group of suitors, how about adding the villainess to the team?"
- "We want some Belligerent Sexual Tension side plot, let's make the villainess becomes Charlie's girlfriend!"
- Lampshaded: "Figures Alice is helping us. Women Are Wiser, after all."
- Invoked: Charlie seduces the female mook Alice to get her to betray Evulz.
- Exploited:
- When looking for a mook to subvert to his side, Charlie immediately homes in on Alice.
- General Drake is planning to betray Evulz, but he's a Dirty Coward, so he blames Alice for the betrayal.
- Alice defects to Charlie’s side to use him to overthrow Evulz so she can take the throne.
- Alice only pretends to defect to Charlie’s side.
- Defied:
- Alice decides she isn't into goodie-two-shoes types.
- Evulz decides "If I'm to be an evil overlord, my mooks will be all-male."
- Evulz decides "If I'm to have female mooks, in order to make them generic, my mooks will be all-female."
- Evulz decided not to hire mooks and went One-Man Army.
- Evulz shot Alice from behind to prevent her from turning her blade on him.
- Discussed: "You know, if this were fiction, Alice would be helping us now."
- Conversed: Why do the women on these shows always seem to turn good?
- Deconstructed:
- Alice secretly betrays Evulz by rescuing Charlie from death, but she makes to clear that she's
True Neutral and if she ever sees Charlie, she'll kill him. Then she leaves and is never seen again. - The second Arc comes, showing that she used Charlie to kill Evulz, so she gains his fallen empire, becoming the new Big Bad.
- Evulz denies all women applying for his organization because of this trope, so he ends up with the reputation of a sexist, while his mooks make jokes thinking he's a homosexual and complain about the lack of women around. Evulz himself dies as a virgin.
- Alice secretly betrays Evulz by rescuing Charlie from death, but she makes to clear that she's
- Reconstructed:
- The new Arc comes along, General Drake has Charlie right where he wants him, but Alice makes a Big Damn Heroes moment, claiming that she'll hang around him for a while for entertainment. She becomes the one to kill off Drake.
- Alice is the bad guy in name only, as she proceeds to use Evulz’s old resources to do good deeds.
- Evulz is alright with being thought of as a misogynist, is actually gay (so those minions laughing at him merely puzzle him) and allows minions to freely interact with civilian women (or, alternatively, only recruits male minions that are similarly aware of this trope).
- Played For Laughs: All the male mooks hate their job, but none want to change sides because they think they'll look feminine.
Back to High-Heel–Face Turn.
