See Make an Example of Them when the failure is punished especially harshly "to encourage the others". Can lead to Mook Depletion if the villain overdoes this. Contrast Even Evil Has Loved Ones, I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure, and Can't Kill You, Still Need You. See also: Bad Boss, Shoot the Messenger, You Have Outlived Your Usefulness, Villainous Demotivator, and We Have Reserves. here's your phone back" and then shoots Mook 1 while he is distracted with his phone. Big Bad asks Mook 1 to pass his phone to Mook 2. Mook 1 phones Big Bad with bad news while Mook 2 stands nearby. In such cases, Klingon Promotion is often discretely encouraged (and discretely sponsored) as a way of getting rid of an underling who has failed too many times.Īnother variant on this is instead of the Big Bad doing this, a high-ranking, oftentimes very loyal, and particularly ruthless official working for the Big Bad, possibly The Dragon, does it instead - perhaps without the boss' approval. Some will subvert the practice and let the constant failure cause the person in question to fall into further public disgrace among his own men. Instead, they will arrange for a Hunting "Accident" or Assassination Attempt with Plausible Deniability. Some Big Bads have the Genre Savvy to not advertise the fact. If the villian decides to get involved in the task at hand personally, he may express his displeasure with his mook by destroying him before moving on to it. In a reconstruction, pragmatic, if ruthless, villains may avoid this trope for most cases of failure, reserving this fate explicitly for those who have shown repeated or total incompetence. Sometimes, this makes it easier for the heroes to spare Mooks when they beg for mercy if the heroes know that the minions will be killed if they try to return to the villains' service, they know they won't end up regretting letting them live, and might even do so because they believe the minions are working under duress. See the unfortunate results described in the Hitler and Stalin examples under "Real Life". Realistically, such a policy causes its practitioners to kill off many of their own skilled leaders, while leaving the survivors demoralized, afraid to take initiative, more concerned with sucking up and dodging blame than with actually doing their jobs well, and inclined to either desert, defect, or kill their boss before he kills them. Evil organizations more often than not will stick to an explicit policy of "Succeed, or die."įew stories address the question of what happens when this policy is taken to its logical conclusion. The Big Bad may eventually realize there's something special about the hero and stop summarily executing minions for their failures as they gain a healthy admiration for their skills, but don't bet on it.
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