Smug Snake/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Deus Ex, Walton Simons. Deus Ex Invisible War goes Up to Eleven with Luminon Saman.
  • Pokémon Black and White brought us a literal Smug Snake in Snivy, the Grass-type starter Pokémon. As if its actual name doesn't make the point clear enough, it quickly started being called "Smugleaf". And it only gets smugger throughout its entire evolution line. There's a reason its final evolution Serperior is nicknamed "Smuglord", and its actual name certainly makes the point too. Even its Pokédex entry agrees. Ken Sugimori has stated that Snivy's personality was meant to be similar to that of European (particularly French) nobility, so that's why.
    • Ghetsis, also from Black and White. He has the The Chessmaster and charismatic aspects of a Magnificent Bastard down perfectly, but isn't quite as good a Manipulative Bastard as he likes to think he is, and both his petty sadism and his massive narcissistic ego that makes him think himself perfect in every way leads to him making some really stupid oversights and self-sabotages of his own Evil Plan. It feels so refreshing when he goes from his usual arrogant douchebaggery to a massive temper tantrum when you defeat him and wreck his plans at the final stage. Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 then has him return even more prideful and even more unstable, leading to an even bigger tantrum when his plans fall apart and him pulling a Rage Quit in the most extreme way possible (as in, he goes catatonic.)
      • And yet again in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, to the point where Ghetsis has to threaten the life of a child to try and seize victory from the jaws of defeat! Sore Loser, much?
    • The Platinum version beforehand gave us Charon, who constantly boasted about his genius and acted as though he knew better than anyone else in Team Galactic even when he was Only in It For the Money, but his plans don't even really get off the ground before he goes down without a fight and gets arrested.
    • X and Y features Team Flare, an organization comprised of almost nothing but this trope. Their boss Lysandre's snobby, superior, and elitist attitude is a mask for the more psychotic individual that lies beneath, but Malva, the team's Mad Scientists, and most of the grunts and administrators play the trope straight.
    • And recently, the Sun and Moon games have Faba, the incredibly arrogant and patronizing Branch Chief of the Aether Foundation whose only concern seems to be with boosting his own career and making sure he's recognized for his greatness. He even becomes The Starscream in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, selling his company out to Team Rainbow Rocket.
  • In an actual good guy example, strange as it sounds, Advocat from Grim Grimoire could probably manage being a Magnificent Bastard if he really tried. He is, however, well aware that he has little to gain from either side winning and so spends most of the game flirting with the female students, throwing around pithy comments and generally remaining smug and condescending. Amazingly, he still manages to be the most helpful character in the game, mostly out of vague amusement at the main character's own faltering steps into Magnificent Bastardhood.
  • Zetta from Makai Kingdom is another good guy example, though far less sympathetic and Played for Laughs. Despite declaring himself the "Most Badass freaking overlord in the universe" about once a scene he spends most of the game powerless, surviving mostly on the charity of people he regularly insults. The game levels things out by making him a regularly mocked Butt Monkey.
    • And then there's King Drake III, whose smugness could probably clog up a black hole. It goes hand in hand with him being a Harmless Villain, ensuring that nobody takes him seriously. Pram ends up booting him out of his own netherworld off-screen and nobody cares.
  • Rosencrantz from Vagrant Story is a smug bastard all the way, who thinks he has the secret of Lea Monde all figured out...and then Ashley whips his ass, and hardly anyone seems to care. Rosencrantz has to yell yield, and Ashley mocks him for it. Not only that, but the game's real Magnificent Bastard gets a shot. After Rosencrantz has ambushed Sydney and Ashley, Rosencrantz demands Sydney name him his heir. Sydney calls him a "worm", and Rosencrantz chops off Sydney's arm. Sydney, bleeding Black Blood, stands up and reattaches his arm. He then demonstrates to Rosencrantz that not only is the man not immune to Sydney's magic like he thought (by making him think he was holding Sydney's severed hand), but Sydney had been manipulating him the entire time. And in the end, Sydney doesn't even kill Rosencrantz. He lets a giant six armed statue of Kali do it for him. Truly, in case you had forgotten the real Chessmaster and Large Ham in the story, Sydney does not fail to remind you that he was eating the scenery first.
  • General Sarrano from Bulletstorm is a walking bottomless pit of arrogance, foul language, callousness, and pure evil. He uses soldiers like Grey and Ishi to carry out genocide and assassinations and then pretends to be angered by the casualties left in their wake after they take down his prized warship near the beginning of the game. He also more than implies a desire to sexually violate Trishka, the daughter of a man he had assassinated by Gray and Ishi years earlier.
  • Dahlia Hawthorne from the third Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney game counts. Sure, she's beautifully scheming and leaves a trail of bodies in her wake, but none of her Evil Plans actually succeed. Dahlia's equally evil mother, Morgan Fey has the same problem
    • Dahlia's status as this was likely intentional, given that Mia and Phoenix actually get rid of her by pointing out what a failure she is. Ironically, she actually did more harm than some of villains who are closer to qualifying as Magnificent Bastards, like Matt Engarde. It could be argued that this is Truth in Television. The chances of being caught for a crime exponentially increase every time a murder or similar crime is committed. Expert criminals will want to avoid this by minimising the targets, causing less harm. An example follows: Manfred von Karma used someone to kill a person just to wreak revenge on Miles Edgeworth. On the other side of the scale, Joe Darke had no real criminal plans whatsoever and became a mass murderer.
    • Even moreso is Luke Atmey, who acts condescending to Phoenix for the entire chapter until he's caught.
    • Also, Redd White from the first game and Richard Wellington from the second.
    • Miles Edgeworth himself was one of these for a good portion of the first game. He does get much, much better though.
    • Ambassador Alba acts like a condescending asshole every minute after The Reveal, flaunting his Diplomatic Impunity in Edgeworth's face until it's revoked. And he still acts like a smug asshat, stubbornly repeating that none of your evidence proves he committed the crime.
  • Erol is the Draco Malfoy of the the Jak and Daxter series - he's a smug, arrogant Jerkass who is in Jak's face nonstop from the moment his character is introduced. He gets even worse after his "death" and resurrection as a cyborg in the third game.
  • Stratos from Sacrifice is close, so close to being a true Magnificent Bastard, summoning a plane-eating demon and using him to sow discord between the gods of the realm, unraveling their ancient ties and compounding their mutual distrust by worming himself into their graces and playing them up against each other before switching sides and stabbing them in the back (and being voiced by Tim Curry also helps, if only for the VA cred). Unfortunately, unless the player allies with him in the end (by which point you should know he's playing you as well), his lack of control over said plane-eating demon comes back to bite him in the ass. His appearance of an inflatable balloon with a smiley face on it and his rather overt aspirations of monotheism also deduct somewhat.
    • Stratos will be offed by Marduk if you side with Persephone, James or Charnel. If you side with Pyro... you barge in to his realm and pop 'is head off.
  • Kevin from Xenosaga not only supplies (and initiates in others) epic quantities of angst, he does this while taking his shirt off a lot and speaking in a measured, patronising tone that assumes everyone but him is very, very stupid. As a result, the moment when weedy Unlucky Childhood Friend Allen finally stands up to him is definitely a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Shuji Ikutsuki from Persona 3 manages to pull off a months-long Evil Plan that sets in motion The End of the World as We Know It, and does it all behind a façade of dorky jokes and friendly smiles. After The Reveal, though, it turns out he's just a Nietzsche Wannabe whose Motive Rant is delivered with all the enthusiasm and energy of a news reader. He also botches the ensuing You Have Outlived Your Usefulness by making the classic mistake of underestimating The Power of Friendship (and the dog). If he had crucified the dog as well, it would have pushed the scene into Narm territory.
  • Tohru Adachi, the true killer of Persona 4 is every bit the Smug Snake Ikutsuki was. While his inital scheme, which involved manipulating Namatame into committing the rest of the killings and leading the heroes into a wild-goose chase against him was quite clever, he quickly devolves into the personality of a Smug Snake when the heroes discover his plan and give chase after him, whereby his true personality as a mocking, arrogant Nietzsche Wannabe is finally revealed. Also, in further true Smug Snake fashion, it turns out that he himself is being manipulated by higher powers beyond his control, who are in turn being controlled by an even greater power. In other words, the puppet of another puppet. Furthermore, also spoiled his seemingly clever scheme not once, but twice throughout the game. The first one is easy enough to miss. When Naoto is reading off the list of victims found in Namatame's truck, he simply states "Whoa. That solves everything." Without even possibly even knowing what Naoto is talking about. The second time is much more obvious. When he cries out "Namatame was the one who put them all in!" He supplies all the evidence the heroes need to prove he is the killer.
  • Zexion from Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. He is very overconfident in his strategic and manipulative abilities, but none of his schemes work out like he wanted them to. Appropriately enough, he winds up being (indirectly) done in by the game's real Magnificent Bastard, Axel.
    • The same game contains perhaps an even bigger Smug Snake in Vexen, who constantly talks to everyone in a very patronizing manner and flaunts how much more intelligent than anyone else he believes himself to be, thinking his experiments and Xanatos Gambits will progress the way he planned them too despite all evidence to the contrary, and having an elitist attitude based on what number a member of the Organization is even though that ultimately has no bearing on their power and status. It's all too easy for Marluxia to play him just by provoking his ego and desire to prove himself a success to their Superior. When things start to not go his way and he gets fed up with Sora, he goes into a Villainous Breakdown and then when he finds himself faced with the prospect of getting killed, becomes a pleading, whimpering Dirty Coward. And yet again, it's Axel who ends up doing him in.
  • Most villains from the Atelier Iris series, the biggest example being Mull. His Expy, Crowley, was thankfully a lot closer to being a Magnificent Bastard, but still didn't quite make it.
  • Most of the non- and post-Dracula villains in the Castlevania series, such as Graham Jones in Aria and the cult leaders in Dawn, come off as Smug Snakes vainly attempting to fill the Count's shoes o' evilness. Also, Walter in Lament Of Innocence, primarily because his motivation for doing evil was being a bored, unkillable vampire asshat. Can't get much more smug than that. They all have a distinct tendency to get effortlessly manipulated by Dracula and pro-Dracula minions such as Death. Mostly-averted by tragic-backstory-vamp Brauner, and Isaac, who's far too...entertaining (read: flamboyantly gay and bat-shit-insane) to qualify.
    • Dmitrii Blinov from Dawn of Sorrow at least makes an effort, pulling of a combination of I Surrender, Suckers and My Death Is Just the Beginning, before coming back to life and successfully copying Soma's Power of Dominance in a surprisingly successful gambit. He was more of a "Magnificent Bastard in the making", right up until he ended up dying again.
    • From Order of Ecclesia comes another partial-aversion: Barlowe does a fine job of hiding his true allegiance to the Dark Lord, effortlessly manipulating Shanoa into obtaining Dominus so that, by using it, she can resurrect Dracula. And, when he reveals his True Colors, he isn't that smug about it, just real effin' crazy. He ends up resurrecting Dracula anyway even after being defeated.
  • Nicholai from Shadow Hearts: Covenant tries so hard to be a Magnificent Bastard. He's charismatic, scheming and utterly selfish, and loves to taunt you from just outside your reach. He sets up deals with every evil faction in the game so that whoever remains standing at the end, he should achieve his goals. He even contracts the power of a god! Unfortunately for him, he doesn't quite count on Yuri kicking the crap out of everyone, his sudden romantic infatuation with Karin makes him look dorky, his plan to release the Malice of Apoina Tower comes off as petty revenge, and he ends up getting completely outmanoeuvred by someone even more scheming. And the completely undignified way in which he finally bites the dirt.
  • Shinji Matou from Fate/stay night. In all three routes ("Fate", "Heaven's Feel", and "Unlimited Blade Works") he's shown as an overconfident idiot who tries to win through manipulating more powerful characters such as his servant Rider, Gilgamesh and Sakura and it always turns out badly (and sometimes bloodily) for him.
    • In reality, he's being manipulated, by his grandfather Zouken. This is most obvious in Heaven's Feel (where his actions form most of the impetus for Sakura's gradual Sanity Slippage, culminating in his eventual death and her Freak-Out), but is also true in the other two routes.
    • Gilgamesh is this as well. Oh, sure, with his enormous strength and power he could easily have become a much more successful villain, but he's just so damn egotistical that it winds up costing him dearly in each route he appears in, particularly in the UBW route, where he foolishly underestimates the power of Shirou in the end.
  • Anyone with the "Naive Puppet Master" trait in Crusader Kings.
  • Seth in Command & Conquer, in contrast to Kane, his Magnificent Bastard of a boss.
    • Another would be Anatoly Cherdenko in Red Alert 3, the Soviet Premier. Unsurprising as he's played by Tim Curry.
      • GDI Director Redmond Boyle in Tiberium Wars eventually falls into this trope and he is played by Billy Dee Williams who pulls it off magnificently.
  • Zant, the Usurper Twilight King, in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess.
    • Any Zelda villain that gets Hijacked by Ganon tends to end up a Smug Snake.
    • Vaati in The Legend of Zelda the Minish Cap comes off as a Smug Snake as well, with his digitialized "Mmmhm mhm" laughter, it doesn't help when one realized He used to be an itty bitty Minish, taking away a good chunk of his 'evil aura' - Minish Vaati is just too cute!
    • The Big Bad of The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, Lord Ghirahim, acts really smug around Link, thinking that a human like him can't stand up to a demon. After Link beats him twice, he stops acting like this and does not hold back in their third and final fight.
    • Despite being surprisingly more competent than most Zelda villains, Yuga from A Link Between Worlds is still one of these. He's incredibly vain, full of himself, and will not stop talking down to Link. And of course, he tends to lose his cool easily when beaten by Link.
  • Dr. Wallace Breen of Half-Life 2 fame. Acting as the puppet governor for the Combine, Breen keeps spouting out propaganda about the good intentions of "our benefactors" throughout the game (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) as well as making disparaging remarks on how Dr. Freeman "has created nothing". He is not even above threatening the transhuman Combine soldiers with "permanent off-world assignment" as a punishment for failure or, for that matter, the entire human race with extinction if they do not comply. He also seemingly betrays his own Mole within La Résistance, Dr. Mossman, refusing to make a bargain for Dr. Vance's life. Breen keeps gloating about how Freeman will be "destroyed in every way possible and even some ways that are essentially impossible" even when he is about to escape through the Combine portal. He is apparently killed as Freeman damages the dark fusion reactor, causing the portal to collapse.
    • Alternate Character Interpretation suggests he genuinely believes that sucking up to the Combine is the only thing that will stop them from wiping out mankind. The resistance believes Gordon is the only thing that will stop them.
  • Grand Maestro Mohs from Tales of the Abyss is a high-level member of the Corrupt Church with designs to plunge the world into all-out way "for its own good". He's also a Villain with Good Publicity (even amongst some of your party members), and legally untouchable because he never touches anything directly. He is as such free to spend most of the game's story smugly plotting on the sidelines and looking down at both ally and enemy without suffering any personal backlash, even after performing the game's arguably biggest Kick the Dog moment by killing Ion. He's finally killed after devolving into an Ax Crazy One-Winged Angel.
  • Previously, there's also Saleh from Tales of Rebirth. To sum it up, this guy is presented as a Badass member of the Kingdom's Elites, but all he does is approach the heroes, taunt them, and do nothing. Later on, after being lectured by Tytree, he comes in denial that there is no way that the human heart can defeat him. So what does he do? Taunt the team even more rather than kicking their ass. Add to the fact that he's all doing it For the Evulz, he's as smug as you can get.
  • Duminuss, as depicted in the Super Robot Wars: Original Generation series, has had a number of grand schemes blow up in her face due to not thinking them all the way through.
  • Gary Smith from Bully is the Failed Magnificent Bastard + Villain Sue type of Smug Snake. For his Smug Snakery to work, it requires 1) that everyone in the game take everything that comes out of his mouth at face value, 2) putting aside the fact that he has a reputation as a sociopath and common sense says ignore him, 3) that protagonist Jimmy spends most of the game insisting that going after Gary "has to wait" rather than going after him. And then, most importantly, 4) whenever Gary makes an appearance, all protagonistic figures must lose all ability to take action, period, and devolve into a stuttering stammering mess until Gary is done talking and has left the area.
  • Sakaki from the .hack//G.U. trilogy is a classic Smug Snake who has moments of true Magnificent Bastard-hood (notably his complete and total manipulation of Atoli), but he has more arrogance than skill, failing to comprehend how dangerous it is to use AIDA, and managed to get the entire population of an MMORPG out for his blood after he somehow managed to convince CC Corp to give him Administration rights, and decided to host a Player Killer Tournament to trap Haseo.
  • Sengoku from Yakuza 2 is an epic Smug Snake, from his gold suit and retro sunglasses all the way to his Camp personality and permanent toothy smile. Spending his time blackmailing your contacts and minor allies into turning on you, he proves so irritating that he eventually ends up being taken out by his own Dragon and thrown off a building. You can't help but thank him for the service...
  • While he pulls off Gambit Roulettes with the best of them, Gongora from Lost Odyssey is a straight up jerk lacking anything approaching style. It doesn't help that most of the people he manipulates are amnesiacs, inbred royals and money grubbing alcoholic skirt-chasers. When he actually has to manipulate someone with a brain, he tends to use cruder methods. It also doesn't help that he, you know, radiates evil, his attempts against the amnesiacs amounts to "I'm not the bad guy, you are, he kicks dogs for fun, and he indulges in maniacal laughter before checking to see if his plan actually worked...while his Too Dumb to Live allies watch, which triggers their danger senses.
  • Both Waylon and Admiral Greyfield in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Waylon fights on Greyfield's side against your army just because he feels like it, and Greyfield's fully convinced that anyone who doesn't conform to his worldview doesn't deserve to live anyway.
    • Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising has the appropriately-named Adder, who fights dirtily, has utter contempt for most of his enemies (and tries to persuade the one he does respect to join Black Hole) and revels in the crushing of civilians. Every defeat you inflict upon him is wonderfully cathartic. Contrast with his superior, Worthy Opponent Hawke, who tempers his villainy with competence and a healthy respect for his opponents.
    • Advance Wars: Dual Strike has Rich Bitch Kindle.
      • The Mayor from Days of Ruin is a walking, talking embodiment of this trope, and it's clearly intentional.
  • Alfonso from Skies of Arcadia. Even Galcian, a pretty Evil Overlord in his own right, holds Alfonso in contempt after he callously kills off and scapegoats his own vice-captain when his airship is taken over by Dyne's band at the beginning of the game -- although mostly this is just because Alfonso is so utterly useless.
  • Megumi Kitaniji from The World Ends With You. He doesn't just bend and push the guidelines set by the Composer, his counterattack mass imprints everyone in the RG and UG to do his bidding via the Red Skull Pins. Even his Noise form is a snake.
    • Konishi has a fair number of Kick the Dog moments, especially with regards to Rhyme, but she never succeeds in her machinations.
  • In the World of Warcraft expansion 'Wrath of the Lich King', Arthas at several points in the storyline is exactly this. He has a constant, constant habit of walking two feet in front of you, taunting you about how incredibly awesome he is, how trivial you and your efforts to oppose him are, how you're better off serving him in undeath, and then he simply walks away when he could have easily annihilated you with a single stroke and been done with it. This is yet another symptom of his chronic Villain Decay (and there are several).
    • This gets turned on it's head when, at about 10% HP he uses "Wrath of Frostmourne" and procedes to blow your raid apart, going into a monologue about how his entire plan from the start was taunting you into chasing him and crafting you into an ultimate general for his undead army. Were it not for Tirion Fordring busting out of his ice prison, he would have succeeded.
  • Baldur's Gate
    • He gets little development or even screen time, but Angelo probably qualifies based on the one scene. He's Sarevok's lackey who takes over the local law-enforcing mercenary company when Sarevok's plans to get its real leaders out of the way go into motion. When you are arrested for murders you were either framed for or goaded into actually committing by Sarevok, he's more than happy to glibly pronounce you the death sentence for a list of imaginary charges besides murder, clearly enjoying the abusing of power. He even gets a potential Kick the Dog moment in that if you mouth off to him in a way that manages to actually annoy him, he'll have a random party member killed on the spot. He's even annoying in the final battle, as he charges you and starts somehow exploding in fireballs repeatedly.
    • Even more so, Isaea Roenall in the next game. He oozes it. "Don't take it so hard, I'm just... better than you. Oh, and feel free to lodge a complaint with the proper authority. That would be... me." He too abuses his military position to get away with anything, including kidnapping one of your party members when she doesn't want to go trough with their arranged marriage. Luckily, the ensuing quest lets you bring him down in flames. This is very satisfying.
    • Edwin, a party member. His dialogue clearly indicates that he thinks he's a Magnificent Bastard and he almost never shuts up about his masculinity and being a Red Wizard. Problem is, he doesn't realize that he's one of the designated comic relief characters...
    • "Baron" Ployer, an ex-slaver that was exposed and humiliated by Jahiera and is now plotting a harebrained revenge scheme; Galvarey, a corrupt Harper that seeks to use the PC's status as a Bhaalspawn as a bargaining chip to increase his status; and Dermin, Jahiera's former mentor who was in on Galveray's schemes and is just as bad as he was.
  • Ramon Salazar from Resident Evil 4 fits this trope to a T. He's a smug elfish character, who constantly condescends Leon Kennedy by calling him by his last name and ensuring that the next trap will surely kill him. The further Leon gets into the castle, Salazar starts to lose his smug sarcasm, and yells "JUST DIE, YOU WORM!". The last battle with him is so annoying and deliberate, several players simply use the one-hit kill rocket launcher to be rid of his irritating ass.
    • Ricardo Irving from Resident Evil 5 is the spiritual successor to Salazar, except taller and with an even more irratating boss battle. An arms dealer with zero scruples or loyalty, he happily seeks to profit by selling biological weapons to the highest bidder, even when that highest bidder intends to kill off nearly all life in the world.
    • Ozwell E. Spencer, Big Bad and The Man Behind the Man to the whole series is one of these as well. He wanted to be a god, but had no idea how to go about doing it, so he hired the various Evil Geniuses who make up the antagonistic characters, and let them research at will, hoping one of them would create a way for him to achieve his godhood. In a series full of brilliant or horrifying bad guys with One-Winged Angel forms that are the stuff of nightmares, Spencer stands out as an Evil Cripple and The Man Behind the Curtain, who waits far too long to put his plan into action, and eventually sees it hijacked by his former protege, Albert Wesker. Smug, condescending, and not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, the old man is one of these to the end.
  • Duke Snakeheart from Final Fantasy Tactics A2. As if his name didn't give it away, he's a smug bastard who thinks he has it all planned and tries to do things his way, in spite of the other Duelhorn members objecting his actions. In the end, he admits to being the one that leaked Duelhorn's battle strategy and poisoned the girl Maquis saved for no apparent reason. In fact, during the fight, he says that he trusts no one but himself. He only questions the error of his ways once you defeat him.
  • "Queen" Valentina from Super Mario RPG shows many traits of your classical Smug Snake, including an over-inflated ego as well as a penchant for treating her underlings (specially her fat, feathered punching bag of a dragon Dodo) and everyone she encounters with as little respect as possible.
  • Everybody not on the Tokugawa side in Samurai Warriors sees Ieyasu as a Smug Snake.
  • Every significant villain in Baten Kaitos Origins, but Baelheit himself has a tendency to trip over this trope at one point or another, mainly because of their tendency to rely on advanced weapons/magic as a crutch to take out people far stronger than them, then act completely flabbergasted when it finally doesn't work. All arma-users also seem motivated exclusively by arrogance, until their various heel face turns, and Wiseman seems convinced that his magic is the most powerful force in the universe until the very end of the game.
  • Prince Lacroix from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines. Arrogant, smug and power-hungry; Lacroix condescends to you and sends you on suicide missions at every opportunity. He wants you dead for political convenience, so every mission is a Xanatos Gambit - Further his aims or be out of his way. He plots and schemes, playing key characters against each other to get what he wants. Whenever things don't go his way, he'll throw a childish temper tantrum.
    • Alternately, he spams Dominate.
    • And in the end, his schemes don't matter. Because the Ankharan Sarcophagus he spends the whole game trying to get not only never had an Antidevelluvian he could commit diablerie on, but the mummy has long since been switched out for a bomb set to blow on whoever opens it.
  • King Shagall from Fire Emblem: Geneaology of the Holy War is so this trope it isn't even funny, throwing an innocent man in the dungeon and then later having him killed simply for trying to suggest that, uh, maybe starting a war might be a BAD thing?
    • Also Sonia from Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, who believes herself to be the most powerful mage and heartlessly manipulates her husband, the guy's family and her adoptive daughter Nino to please Lord Nergal. While she is a powerful Dark Action Girl, her arrogance is such that her daughter's partner Jaffar would rather have a Heel Face Turn than obey her orders, and in the end either Limstella simply leaves her to die in disgust, or Nergal finishes her off.
    • Pablo, Riev and specially Valter from The Sacred Stones. The first one only thinks "Money, Dear Boy" and tries to bribe everyone in his way; the second is a Sinister Minister worshipping a Dark God without reason at all, and the third is a monstrous Blood Knight who wants either to bloodily kill Ephraim or keep Eirika as his Sex Slave.
    • Narshen from Sword of Seals fits this trope almost perfectly.
    • Lekain from Radiant Dawn is almost capable enough to be mistake for a Magnificent Bastard. A high-ranking member of Begnion's Senate, Lekain arranged the Serenes Massacre and assassinated the previous Apostle, placing Sanaki, whom he thought he could easily manipulate, on the throne in her place (while making sure Sanaki's half-sister/the real heir did a dissapearing act). He's also The Man Behind the Man to Izuka and Naesala, and it gets to the point where if something bad happened to a character it was probably Lekain's fault. However, at the end of the day, he's a Big Bad Wannabe and an Unwitting Pawn of Sephiran the game's real Big Bad. The business with Sanaki really backfired on him.
  • Strider: Matic, especially in the manga for his kick the sheep affair
  • In The Trapped Trilogy series of Adventure Games, Dan McNeely is memetically known as one due to the incredibly smug sneer he's voiced with. While the creator probably meant for him to be a Magnificent Bastard, the rather plot holed writing diminishes whatever guile or cunning he can demonstrate, leaving only the smugness apparent.
  • Maghda from Diablo 3.
  • The Guardian from the Ultima series, at least in Ultima 7: The Black Gate. He constantly taunts, insults and annoys the Avatar in feeble attempts to scare you off, all the while you uncover his plots, undermine the Fellowship, gather plot coupons and smash the prism generators. Even though he's fully aware of everything you do he never bother to alert the Fellowship to the fact that you are not their friend, his own Dragon Batlin keeps treating you like a clueless dupe right up until you try to interrogate him with the prism cube, and when you finally pull out your ace and foil his plan, he's downright shocked that you were able to stop him.
  • Jazz from the first two Wing Commander games. At first he just appears to be a smug asshole, but the reality is considerably worse.
  • Amon from the Lufia series. He's the Sinistral of Chaos, making him the most qualified to become a Magnificent Bastard when compared to the Sinistrals of Destruction, Death, and Terror. Unfortunately, he's also the second of four Sinistrals. This means that he doesn't show up until the heroes have become strong enough to kill the God of Destruction, and he's not high enough up the ranks to be the Big Bad or even The Dragon. He generally gets off one good plan, and then gets defeated quickly enough to get the real Big Bad more screentime.
    • Idura from Lufia II, and especially the remake Curse of the Sinistrals, manages to completely overshadow Amon in this regard. He's just as overconfident, but doesn't have the justification of being a God. Instead, he spends most of his time laughing while kidnapping babies and girlfriends. Appropriately, he develops a rivalry with the Boisterous Bruiser of the team, and most of his "brilliant traps" are overcome with brute force.
  • Merlina in Sonic and The Black Knight. Her plan to save her world? Trap Sonic and fool him.
  • Given how much backstory and justifications he's been given in the canon of Dragon Age, fans are still arguing whether this applies to Loghain, but one of his lackeys, Arl Howe is a golden example of this trope. Not only is he overconfident, arrogant and rude towards the PC, he even crosses the Moral Event Horizon twice on the very basic game that plays out to all origins and completely vaporizes it in Human Noble origins:you find out that Howe earned his title as Teyrn of Highever by slaughtering the former noble's family, despite them being his old friends. That incredibly smug smile and Tim Curry's voice only strengthen his position as one of the meanest characters (and as the most satisfying bossfight) in the whole game.
    • Arl Howe is so bad that after his death, the player can overhear a conversation regarding his funeral between two nobles, one of whom had been a friend of Howe's in their youth. The other noble asks why he isn't going to the funeral and if he'll let Howe go unmourned, to which the friend replies that the only thing worth mourning is that Howe didn't die years ago.
  • Sister Petrice of Dragon Age II, a backstabbing, conniving fanatic whose attempts to start a war with the Qunari from behind the scenes keep getting derailed by her utter contempt for her would-be accomplices and her inability to shut up about her racist beliefs at the most crucial moments.
    • However, Kirkwall does get into a war with the Qunari, exactly as Petrice wanted. But Petrice only proved to be one-third of the sparks that ignited the fire; the other two were the city petitioning the Arishok to return a couple of recent elven converts, and the Tome of Koslun being stolen once again. So this trope still applies to Sister Petrice even if Petrice ultimately succeeded: Petrice is too incompetent to start a war with the Qunari on her own; a couple of events beyond her power to influence had to occur first.
  • Hazama/Terumi from BlazBlue might as well be the poster boy for smug snakes. The man is constantly associated with snakes, almost never stops disregarding even the biggest threats around him as he is confident they can do nothing to stop him, his weapon is a chain with a snake head called Ouroboros which is a symbol traditionally represented as a snake biting its own tail, and at the end of Continuum Shift, Takamagahara actually refers to him as "The Snake". However his smugness is entirely justified in that he learned what's going to happened by using magic to retain knowledge of every single possible loop. Not even otherwise omniscient Takamagahara could do that.
  • Vincent from Silent Hill 3. He has a case of Heel Face Revolving Door around Heather and Claudia and spends his time not only allying with either of them, but also snarking them.
  • Quite a few in Mass Effect.
    • Sovereign is very competent, but isn't above Evil Gloating when he finally meets Shepard.
    • If you don't invest in Charm/Intimidate points, Saren comes off as one too (again, however, a competent one).
    • The second game has Warden Kuril, who turns out to be Too Dumb to Live when he tries to capture Shepard's crew while still letting them keep their weapons.
    • The Illusive Man jumps off the slippery slope in the third game, but being voiced by Martin Sheen helps him maintain some gravitas even as he loses his mind in the endgame. His new henchman Kai Leng, on the other hand, is possibly the biggest tool in the whole series.
  • Captain Shannon from The Orion Conspiracy turns out to be this. He had some potential for Magnificent Bastard. He murdered Danny by having a concussion charge blow up, damage Danny's spacecraft, and it falls into a black hole. Shannon had a wife, and he blames the main character Devlin for her death. Danny's death accomplished two things...1. It got to Devlin and hurt him, and 2. It made Devlin come to the space station, where Shannon would be able to deal with him on his terms. Then he hideously murdered Kaufmann to frame Devlin. He had Devlin tossed into a makeshift prison, and said that he would hand Devlin over to the authorities once they arrive. It is revealed later that Shannon planted a bomb in the shuttle that Devlin was going to be transported in, and that it would have blown up once it got two kilometres away from the station. Fortunately, Devlin escaped the prison before that happened. Then Shannon personally confronted Devlin, held him at gunpoint, and smugly (ha, ha!) confessed to the murders and the reasons for committing them. Too bad for him he did not count on Meyer (who he was on bad terms with) overhearing the confessions and jumping him.
  • Lt. Blake and his boss, Captain Perry, in Heavy Rain would have this kind of attitude around Norman Jayden. Count on the likes of Dr. Adrian Baker and Mad Jack.
  • Eva-Beatrice of Umineko no Naku Koro ni is incredibly arrogant as she treats her allies poorly whenever they fail to entertain her and acts like a total jerk any time that she feels safe, and she gets reduced to a screaming mess when things don't go the way she wants them to.
  • Fear Effect presents Madame Chen. She is a pimp who runs a brothel behind a restaurant. She is a Complete Monster and a Card-Carrying Villain. She can turn into a demon, and happily admits to being "a bitch from hell" (literally and figuratively) when Hana calls her that. She never changes her attitude, even when Hana kills her off and she ends up in hell literally and figuratively. Okay, she did give Hana a doll that allowed Hana to meet her literal inner child, but it didn't seem to redeem Madame Chen at all.
  • L.A. Noire has a lot of corrupt officials and cops of this, but Roy Earle takes the cake since he's a Karma Houdini.
  • Andre in the third Rayman game.
  • Wario and Waluigi in the Super Mario series.
  • Henry Leland from Alpha Protocol is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who spends the entire game smugly debriefing you of your misadventures. While he is also Affably Evil, it's clear the main reason for this is because he thinks he's already won and is now just taking the time to politely rub it in your face. Unless you take his offer of We Can Rule Together and decide not to screw him over in the ending, Mike outplays him quite handily.
  • Mastema from Strange Journey acts slimier and slimier the further you get in the game, blatantly playing on Zelenin's insecurities and acting like an arrogant dick to everyone else. Then in the Chaos path, he has a rather impressive Villainous Breakdown, revealing that he doesn't even have the excuse of having admirable motives. It's rather satisfying to see Louisa Ferre rip his excuses to shreds as he ingloriously dies.
  • Kuja from Final Fantasy IX is a genuine threat--but not only is he obscenely arrogant and cruel, he's ultimately unable to overcome his fear of death. Essentially, he has the mind and air of a wicked genius, but the temperament and personality of a frightened, spoiled child. This mainly shows up in the latter half of the game, and it's played Up to Eleven in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
  • Palawa Joko in the Guild Wars franchise, although a competent Evil Overlord ruling over an incredibly stable kingdom, is a narcissist who believes himself to be invincible (granted, he is a powerful Lich and no one found a way to permanently dispose of him) and greater than gods, and got his ass handed to him several times by grossly underestimating his opponents: once defeated in battle by Turai Ossa and imprisoned for centuries in a Tailor-Made Prison; then struck a deal with Balthazar believing he would get the upper hand and ended up imprisoned once again among lost souls in the Domain of the Lost, hilariously trying to boss them around; and finally killed and devoured for good by Aurene while he was too busy monologuing to the Pact Commander he had at his mercy.
  • Magnet Bomber in the Bomberman franchise has a history of gross overconfidence and bragging about made-up accomplishments, while always being the first (and generally weakest) of the Five Dastardly Bombers to be encountered and defeated in every game that features them. Super Bomberman R makes him the laughingstock of the gang, where he makes a grandiose speech praising his base's impenetrable security - only for Red Bomber to blast through a wall into his control room. Magnet gets mad at (and starts his boss battle over) being called "little" and "a kid", refuses to admit defeat afterwards, and even thinks Red Bomber is scared of him after he makes the fatal mistake of angering Aqua Bomber.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Smug_Snake/Video_Games?oldid=1854792"