Basic Trope: The villain, despite his seemingly overwhelming power, spends most of the plot doing nothing and never directly interfering with the heroes. He only gets involved when the heroes finally storm his castle looking for his head.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz is the Big Bad of the story. When he hears that Bob and his team of heroes have arisen looking for his head, he sends his Mooks, a Quirky Miniboss Squad and General Drake out in sequence to deal with the pesky heroes, but never thinks of going out and busting their heads personally despite being powerful enough to destroy them with a gesture at that point.
- Exaggerated:
- Emperor Evulz never does ''anything'', plot-related or no, except sitting on his throne. He leaves Drake to do everything, including commanding his legions of terror and his evil empire.
- Even Drake isn't that hard working, being a bit more of a desk jockey who's like a Middle-Management Mook but on a much higher level, and he delegates most of the evil plotting to Head Scientist Butcherstein. And since Butcherstein is always too busy in his lab, he delegates all of the heavy lifting to the real guy in charge of the entire operation, leading the Quirky Miniboss Squad and commanding the legions of terror personally, Clay the Left Handed Brute, The Rival to Bob.
- Downplayed: Emperor Evulz may not do much outside, but he will support his side in a pinch.
- Justified:
- Running an empire is hard work and delegation is key. Emperor Evulz's schedule is full to the brim with politics, paperwork, logistics, planning for further large-scale military actions, and all other such boring things that keep trains running on time. If he took the time to personally confront every plucky hero looking to overthrow him, he'd get so behind on his work that his empire might collapse anyway. It's a much better use of his time to raise armies, keep them functioning properly, and then use them to deal with heroes.
- Evulz has a 0% Approval Rating, and needs to remain in his safeguarded lair to minimize his chances of being assassinated.
- Evulz's power is explicitly tied to his evil lair/non-movable Artifact of Doom. He can't leave the presence of his power source, or he'll be no match for the heroes.
- Thanks to an excessively rich diet like many real life monarchs, Evulz can't get out of his throne easily due to gout.
- Evulz is planning a Xanatos Gambit that involves the heroes fighting him on his home turf, so he deliberately avoids bringing out the big guns until that point.
- Evulz cannot physically leave his throne owing to some prior disability or grave medical condition.
- Evulz is a Dimension Lord with Blue-and-Orange Morality; why bother conquering other worlds when one is more than enough, and the other worlds would be more useful unconquered?
- The heroes are on the run from Evulz; by the time Evulz hears about a sighting, they've already moved on to somewhere else. Unable to catch them personally, he saturates the land with Mooks.
- Evulz is a Sealed Evil in a Can who can't directly interfere with anything beyond maybe contacting people telepathically. His minions are trying to fix that, but they won't succeed in breaking the seal until the climax. Until then, he has to be patient and delegate.
- If Evulz dies, his army goes with him; so Evulz stays in his castle to lower the risk of dying.
- Evulz is really lazy and/or doesn't care.
- Evulz is either working in secret, or nobody knows that he exists. He wants to keep it that way.
- If Evulz took on Bob and his companions in person, there is a chance, however slight, that one of them might get in a lucky shot and kill him. Why take the risk?
- Emperor Evulz is just a Puppet King; it's his advisors who have the real power.
- Evulz is a politician, not a warrior. His weapons are pen, paper, and his oratory voice while his generals lead the armies. He's in a much stronger position working from his palace and ensuring alliances against Bob and his band of heroes.
- Evulz is old and his body is nowhere near his old Glory Days when he was The Dreaded Warlord. His physician has practically forbidden him from going out in the field in his condition.
- The Man in Front of the Man: The Emperor is just a figurehead; General Drake is the real power.
- Evulz is a more pragmatic type. Killing a group of kid heroes wouldn't be best for his reputation.
- Inverted:
- Bob and the heroes never do anything heroic, except for serving as some sort of distant moral beacon for other rebellious elements in The Empire. Evulz is forced to go look for them, putting down a bunch of unrelated rebels in the process.
- Evulz is the only one who’s doing all the work while General Drake and Evulz’s mooks do absolutely nothing at all whatsoever.
- Evulz spends his free time as Kingpin in His Gym, bettering himself for when he does confront the heroes.
- The Big Good, despite all his power, never intervenes on behalf of the heroes.
- Subverted:
- After his initial Mooks fail, Evulz decides that these heroes should be dealt with personally.
- The figure on the throne is only a figment. The real Emperor Evulz is out fulfilling his evil plan.
- Evulz initially never leaves his throne... but with hover technology, he brings the throne to his enemies. It has plenty of built-in weapons to get the job done efficiently.
- Double Subverted:
- Evulz then gets his ass kicked because he's out of practice. He returns to sitting on his throne while he recovers.
- ...Only to stop half-way through, go back home and send Drake out instead.
- Parodied:
- The reason Evulz never bothered to do anything evil personally is because his throne is so incredibly comfy. When Bob and his companions finally storm his throne room, they must contend with a villain who never bothers to leave his throne, even through the boss fight.
- Emperor Evulz is just outright lazy. He wouldn't even be an actual threat if it weren't for Drake making sure his boss doesn't sleep in!
- Evulz is a typical couch potato who spends his time watching TV and drinking beer while on his throne.
- A comical series of delegations; Evulz delegates controlling the court to Dark Mistress Lady Rubliss, Rubliss delegates controlling the empire and managing it to General Drake, Drake delegates the plotting and finances to Head Scientist Butcherstein, and Butcherstein delegates most of the heavy work to Terrorknight Claidheamh and the rest of the mooks.
- Zig Zagged: Evulz takes to the front lines at random intervals to keep his enemies off balance.
- Averted:
- Evulz arranges for a Final Boss Preview with the heroes.
- Evulz is constantly active over the course of the story.
- Enforced: "We can't have the bad guy out doing things. He's far too powerful, and if he actually did anything to the heroes before they were ready, they'd never be able to beat him."
- Lampshaded:
- "He never seems to do anything himself, does he?"
- "Friggin' lazy-ass bad guy..."
- Invoked: Evulz acts this way to make people underestimate his personal power. Meanwhile, he sends out his less competent minions to make the heroes think he obeys the trope, only to laugh in their faces and obliterate them when they burst, underleveled and unprepared, into his evil lair where he keeps all his competent troops.
- Exploited: Seeing that Evulz doesn't do anything to thwart their rebellion, heroes take their time to prepare themselves and then come to him, when they are sure they're ready.
- Defied: Evulz devotes his entire time to finding and rooting out anyone who might oppose him, no matter how trivial they might seem at first.
- Discussed: "Go tell Evulz to come out here and face us himself!" "Our master has better things to do than kill meddlers like you at every turn."
- Conversed: Two characters, looking at a show containing a classic Hero's Journey, note how the seemingly overpowering Big Bad never seems to get up and interfere directly at any point and always seems content with the Status Quo. Bonus points if the characters themselves are a Big Bad and The Dragon in a Villains Out Shopping moment.
- Deconstructed:
- Evulz never leaves his evil lair, yet his evil continues on, causes him to become Shrouded in Myth and an overhanging and looming threat whose sheer presence is more damaging than anything he could do directly. Everyone in the world ends up living in constant abject fear of this never-seen, mythic figure, unaware of whether or not Evulz even exists anymore or not.
- Evulz's lack of action eventually drives his empire to extinction. Everyone will say the heroes defeated Evulz, but it was actually the crippling economic issues caused by his incompetence.
- Reconstructed:
- The heroes soon convince everyone otherwise. Evulz turns out to be a real person, but generally uninterested in the world around him, thus why he's never seen.
- Evulz is basically a puppet ruler, and his dragon is the one actually running the show. This means the former's sloth has no real consequences, and he's entirely happy to let General drake do everything for him.
- Played For Laughs: Evulz is literally glued to his throne.
- Played For Drama:
- Everyone sincerely hopes he stays in his throne room because if he takes action, things are about to get seriously ugly.
- Evulz, despite his name, has standards, and killing a child like the Kid Hero Bob offends him. He is stalling because he doesn't want to hurt a child, but Bob's continuing success is giving him less and less options.
- Implied: Evulz rarely gets his own hands dirty, but the audience never finds out what he's actually up to.
You can click here to go back to Orcus on His Throne... Or you can choose not to. Frankly, this page is very nice and relaxing, and haven't you done enough troping for the day? Wouldn't you rather just sit here a few more minutes and take in the glow? Re-read a few of the examples perhaps?
