Basic Trope: The Big Bad is defeated, but not so fast! Here comes the real Final Battle!
- Straight: After a long quest and a brutal confrontation inside her own castle, Sofia and her True Companions have finally defeated the insane Empress Revalia and destroyed the Peridot Pendant of Painful Crackling Doom. As they're making their way outside, however, the heroes are intercepted and attacked by Dorian, Revalia's son.
- Exaggerated: Sofia has just slain the Empress's final form, shattering the Peridot Pendant with one last mighty blow! As the madwoman's corpse reverts to its true form, she and her companions take a moment to catch their breath, utterly drained after the epic fight. Suddenly, Dorian reveals himself, charging towards Sofia with blade drawn...!
- Downplayed: Dorian suddenly comes out of the woodwork to confront the heroes on their way out of the castle, but he's not a serious threat and they brush him aside without significant delay.
- Justified: Dorian knows that the heroes are weakened at the moment; now's his best chance to strike—!
- Inverted: Empress Revalia defeats the party in a Hopeless Boss Fight; however, just as things look their bleakest, the other heroes come charging in to take over the fight!
- Subverted: Although Dorian appears ready to attack immediately after his mother is slain, he takes one look at the battle-hardened heroes who have just managed to kill his mother at the height of her power and thinks twice. He drops his weapon and runs away.
- Double Subverted: Dorian feints running away to lure the heroes into a trap of his design.
- Parodied: Dorian's attack is pathetically feeble and easily dispensed with.
- Zig-Zagged: The heroes defeat Revalia, but then a hooded figure comes back a day later to attack them. They then learn that the figure is a disguised Revalia who Was Not Quite Dead. They kill her and make sure she's dead this time. Her son shows up to avenge her, but quickly realizes how Axe-Crazy his mother was and stands down.
- Averted: Empress Revalia is the Final Battle.
- Enforced:
- The writers have realized at the last minute that they've forgotten to establish what happened to Dorian, and manage to quickly write and squeeze in a quick scene featuring him at the end in order to prevent the viewers from complaining about a potential plot hole.
- The creators want to spring a twist on the audience after they think it's all over.
- Lampshaded: "Damn it, Dorian! I thought it was all over!"
- Invoked: Prior to her death, Empress Revalia instructed her son that if anybody actually succeeded in stopping her, he needed to strike immediately, while they were still weakened.
- Exploited: Revalia was hoping that, after her death, the heroes would let their guard down and her son could sweep in and avenge her.
- Defied: Having seen the heroes defeat his mother and judging that his own chances of standing against them are not likely to be much better, and are actually likely to be worse, Dorian is last seen putting as much distance between himself and the heroes as is physically possible.
- Discussed: "Keep a sharp eye out and don't let your guard down, people. Once we're done with Revelia I wouldn't put it past Dorian to try his luck with us."
- Conversed: "There's always one last villain to mop in up these stories."
- Implied: Dorian slowly but surely approaches his mother's castle following her defeat and draws his sword in preparedness to strike Sofia and her friends down for good once he actually arrives at said mother's castle.
- Deconstructed: The heroes are tired and weakened after their battle against Revalia, enabling Dorian — who is keen to avenge his mother and cement his position as the heir to her power — to take them unawares. He manages to seriously hold off or even kill Sofia and the other heroes after their moment of apparent glory.
- Reconstructed: Although Sofia and her friends are weakened and tired after their battle, after what they've managed to overcome they are nevertheless able to take down Dorian with relative ease.
- Played for Laughs: Dorian is a complete wimp; even though she's exhausted, Sofia still takes him down with a single slap... Which causes him to explode in a rain of Ludicrous Gibs!
- Played for Drama: Up to this point, Dorian has been a minor character; occassionally mentioned, but hardly warranting any attention beyond the fact that he happens to be the Empress' son. While Princess Miki brought up the point that he might prove problematic once, since he strikes Pike as "The little git that stabs yew In the Back", it was only mentioned in passing, and quickly dismissed by Pike, though he mentions in passing to "Keep our eyes and ears open, cuz' those buggers oughta' shank yew right from behind when you least expect it": without his mother's support, Dorian couldn't do much damage, right...? On top of that, his sneak attack takes out Noel, to Pike's anger, and the others don't have any chance to check on their main healer before having to fight for their lives while still weakened from their last epic showdown.
- Played for Horror: Once Dorian comes and confronts Sofia and her friends one final time within his now dead mother's castle, he throws down a series of splash potions that not only changes Dorian himself into a giant glowing green-eye-laser-shooting, skeletal, and also even green acidic-fire-breathing dragon but also spawns up several other glowing green-eye-laser-shooting, skeletal, and also even green acidic-fire-breathing dragons that are all much like his now Scaled Up self that all also soon successfully manage to finally kill off Sofia and each of her friends for good together.
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