Basic Trope: A character is reassigned to a meaningless job but ends up saving the day.
- Straight: Captain Bob is Reassigned to Antarctica, which was a politically motivated assignment by his hostile superiors, and was a dead-end assignment. However, the Evulz Gang head out there and he catches them, making him a hero, setting his career back on track, and embarrassing his superiors.
- Exaggerated: Captain Bob is demoted to meaningless janitorial duty at the worst post in the world — which Emperor Evulz happens to be using as a base for his world destruction plans. Bob becomes the savior of the universe overnight.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is given a quiet assignment at home for the month. It was a relieving change from his previous grueling mission and still involved important tasks, but it was also somewhat boring, especially on the latter half of the assigned monthly period. Nevertheless Bob ends up busting a big-time crook who happened to be in the neighborhood.
- Bob's boss Charlie didn't expect Bob having to do much of note during the "home office" month, but Charlie did hear a few rumors about the big-time crook back home, and brought Bob in just in case. Charlie still didn't expect the crook to be causing much trouble (or even be within the neighborhood all that often), until Bob proved Charlie wrong.
- Justified:
- The Evulz Gang deliberately followed their old nemesis, Bob, looking to destroy him now that he's far from home and far from help. He still turns the tables on them, because he's just that badass.
- The Evulz Gang has targeted Antarctica because it's a dumping ground for incompetent idiots and other officers the The Powers That Be just want to get rid of without a fuss. Too bad for The Evulz Gang that Bob was one of those unwanted officers...
- Inverted: Bob is promoted and it backfires spectacularly.
- Subverted:
- Bob is Reassigned to Antarctica, the Evulz Gang go down there... and someone else follows them and catches them.
- The Evulz Gang go down there... and we are next shown the scene where the higher-ups discussed where else the gang members are over a table with a city map, with pen marks indicating that they knew the main gang were going to be there.
- Double Subverted:
- ...because Bob's helping, every step of the way, from behind the scenes.
- ...but the higher-ups were still fuming, as Bob performed better than expected, he's treated as a hero, and he's about to promoted, all when the higher-ups wanted to politically get rid of Bob from HQ.
- Parodied: Once Bob gets reassigned to the middle of nowhere and saves the day, every police officer clamors to get that post.
- Zig Zagged: Bob gets sent to stations all over the world, some dull and some full of action. Sometimes the ones "full of action" are on a severe lull and he ends up doing nothing worthwhile on them, and sometimes the dull ones are very worthless... and sometimes the ones which are "dull" are ground zero for major events and sometimes the ones "full of action" are exactly as advertised.
- Averted:
- Bob is Reassigned to Antarctica, where nothing of note happens for the rest of his career.
- Bob is reassigned to a seemingly backwater place, but explicitly because he and his superiors found out that the "backwater town" was actually where one of Evulz Gang hideouts was. They were simply laying low.
- Enforced: Bob was Reassigned to Antarctica at the end of the movie. But the studio's announced a sequel...
- Lampshaded: "Bob is a Walking Disaster Area incarnate. There's no post anywhere on this world that doesn't ends up under siege the moment he arrives—not even Antarctica! There's nothing worth risking people's lives on Antarctica, and Bob arrives, 24 hours later—BOOM!"
- Invoked:
- Bob knows that the Evulz Gang is hiding out in the middle of nowhere, so he intentionally screws up to get assigned there.
- The Evulz Gang decides that Bob's heroism makes him a Worthy Opponent and they swear to hunt him down to the ends of the Earth... which makes the brass send him to apparently dead-end locations to reduce the collateral damage of their battles as much as possible.
- Exploited: Bob is a glory hog of the highest caliber, and rather than admit he knows where the bad guys are, he gets reassigned and "pretends" to find them so he can get the spotlight.
- Defied: Captain Bob's boss chooses not to reassign him anywhere, just deny him a raise and put derogatory comments in his yearly review, so as not to give him the chance to luck into a good case.
- Discussed:
- "Bob got reassigned? Shouldn't be too long before he gets a ticker-tape parade then."
- "The brass sent Bob to Antarctica? Guess the brass expects somethin'." "What do you mean with that?" "Bob's luck is so bad he's like a dowsing rod: you put him in the middle of Antarctica during the worst part of winter, and he's still pretty big on chances of ending up on the opening battle of World War Three."
- Conversed: "Isn't it weird that the Evulz Gang somehow managed to find Bob in Antarctica? How would they even know that he's been reassigned there?"
- Deconstructed: Bob's heroism turns the meaningless post into the hot new destination. This means all the best officers then fight tooth and nail to get that spot, and Trope City is left without a cohesive police force... which the Evulz Gang uses to take over the city.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob's heroism makes all the cops fight with each other, which causes the suits upstairs to realize that they have a serious infighting problem with their force, and they address it as needed.
- The Evulz Gang still tests their luck by trying to do a job in Bob's district. This is the end of them.
- Played For Laughs: Bob saves the day entirely by accident then acts at his parade like he knew what he was doing all along.
- Played For Drama: Bob's actions that got him sent to Antarctica were an example of a Springtime for Hitler ruse going right. He wanted some place where he could be alone. The events of the story end up showing he's a major badass no matter the circumstances, but leave him with severe PTSD and a feeling he's a Doom Magnet.
- Played For Horror: Bob's reassignment is either the direct cause of a colossal massacre and/or apocalyptic event (because he wasn't there to stop it) or Bob gets the kind of first-row seats nobody ever wants (because it happens in the place he was reassigned at).
- Plotted A Good Waste: Bob The Lancer is established as a serious badass and a Doom Magnet on the first act of the film, a man that will find a war to fight anywhere he goes no matter how unlikely, and has come to enjoy it. Surprisingly Realistic Outcome when he insults a superior officer and he's sent to Antarctica and everything hints that he will somehow appear on the third act, either fighting in Antarctica, pulling a Big Damn Heroes moment and saying that he was fighting in Antarctica before arriving, or being part of the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue showing him doing something important in Antarctica. Instead, he never appears again and Bill The Hero instead learns a valuable lesson about making sure his company doesn't acts so blatantly disgraceful, even as he's kicking the ass of every terrorist on the planet.
- Implied: The Establishing Series Moment is Bob arriving to Base Mc-Butthole-Of-The-World (located in Thurston, Antarctica)... and every person that meets him takes a look at his file, reacts to something written on it, and becomes part of a Mass "Oh, Crap!" Overly Long Gag and making excuses to leave the base ASAP. We eventually discover that Bob is the Evulz Gang's most brutal enemy and the Gang has sworn to hunt him down to the ends of the Earth... which means that everybody who ran away from the base forty minutes prior was smart on doing so, because the Gang finally appears and the war is on.
Well, I didn't expect you to do anything much when you were Reassigned to Antarctica, but I guess you proved me wrong. Good work, troper, and feel free to head back to Reassignment Backfire when you get a chance.
