Lean and Mean



"''"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."''"

- Caesar, Julius Caesar

Black robes not fitting properly? Just try being a little more evil! Kicking puppies is good exercise after all! And don't worry about those meals you skip while you're scheming to take over the kingdom. Yes, the combination of your new villainous lifestyle and the laws of narrative causality will make those annoying extra pounds vanish before you can say "Are they even feeding Yzma?"

Sometimes used for a Freud Was Right explanation, where the villain is nasty and vicious because she's so hungry. Very common among fashion-oriented shows to explain why the size 0 model is so cranky.

The reverse Villainous Glutton / Fat Bastard style is also relatively frequent (cf. Ursula, the Blob), but nowhere as lampshaded as the Lean and Mean look. Also contrast Large and In Charge. Particularly skinny or gangly-proportioned villains may qualify as Noodle People.

When the hero is stronger and/or dumber, this often leads to Brains Evil Brawn Good.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

 * One Piece: The three Admirals are all tall and thin.
 * Wapol is normally a Fat Bastard, but his Extreme Omnivore powers allow him to swallow his excess bulk and become sinisterly slender. He actually describes this form as "lean and mean" in both the 4kids and FUNimation dubs.
 * Hellsing's Rip Van Winkle is extremely tall and thin. For that matter, Alucard also counts.
 * Nnoitra Gilga from Bleach.
 * Eyeshield 21: Purposely invoked with Hiruma, whose supposed to resemble a devil. He's mean, but he's more an anti-hero than a villain.
 * Yoshiyuki Tomino liked his women with a bit of meat on their bones, which was why the villainous Kycilia Zabi of Mobile Suit Gundam was noticeably skinnier than the rest of the female cast.
 * Viper Snakely from Kimba the White Lion.
 * Orochimaru from Naruto is a fairly tall, lean man. Lean like a snake is more like it.

Comic Books

 * Most incarnations of Ragdoll in The DCU, but in The Batman it was taken to serious extremes; the Ragdoll is a tall, rail-thin thief and contortionist who is literally capable of fitting inside a top hat. Also, as he is often depicted as frail, one of The Joker's many nicknames is "The Thin White Duke of Death."
 * The Batman villain Scarecrow is so thin that he was bullied as a child for his resemblance to Ichabod Crane.
 * Many skinny aliens in Sillage turn out to be villains. Most notable of them is consul Atsukau, a corrupt politician and collector of lovers from different species, obsessed with the protagonist.
 * In Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, it's mentioned several times how skinny Johnny is.
 * Mesmo Delivery: Sangrecco, a people smuggler/hitman/demon? In his spare time he's an Elvis Impersonator presumably of the king's earlier period.
 * Loki is probably the skinniest male in Asgard. He is also one of Thor's meanest villains. Mind you, it only holds when compared to Asgradians. When compared to most normal humans, he seems pretty toned.

Films -- Animated

 * Ratatouille: Straw Critic Anton Ego is thin for someone who eats for a living. As he explains, "If I don't love it, I don't swallow."
 * Franklin Bean in Fantastic Mr. Fox is noted for being skinny because he subsists only on cider.
 * Many, many Disney Animated Canon villains: Cruella de Vil, Jafar, Madame Medusa, Frollo, Prince John, Maleficent, Scar...
 * Yzma of The Emperors New Groove takes this to a new extreme, although it's not unreasonable to assume she may have been most attractive a century or two ago.
 * Yzma was shown to be quite attractive as a teenager in the episode "Cool Summer" of the show.
 * And then there's Dr. Facilier from the new The Princess and the Frog. He's thin to the point of stylized in an otherwise rounded, naturalistic-proportioned world. He also shows off his belly-button with a midriff-bearing shirt.
 * Honorable mention must be given to Mulan's Obstructive Bureaucrat Chi-Fu.
 * in Coraline.
 * Tzekel-Kan, the evil High Priest in The Road to El Dorado, highlighting his asceticism and religious devotion beside the comfortably worldy (and obese) Chief Tannabok.
 * From Kung Fu Panda 2, we have Lord Shen, an albino peacock who is the movie's Big Bad.

Films -- Live-Action

 * Charlie's Angels: Creepy Thin Man from the movie had a Heel Face Turn which triggered Redemption Equals Death.
 *  Metropolis: Joh. Fredersen, ruler of Metropolis, has an assistant only credited as "The Thin Man". And while most of his scenes got chopped out in subsequent releases, it's indicated in the 2002 restoration that he beat the crap out of Josaphat trying to find out what Freder was up to. (This may need to be edited once the full restoration with the missing scenes comes out.)
 * Star Wars:
 * General Grievous
 * Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin. Especially interesting because, despite his amazingly Villainous Cheekbones he was Playing Against Type after a career of playing Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Van Helsing.
 * In Pan's Labyrinth, the Pale Man.
 * Home Alone: Inverted in the first two movies, where short, round Harry is clearly the more malevolent half of the Wet Bandit Gang. Tall, skinny Marv, by contrast, borders on Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain much of the time.
 * In Hellraiser, all Cenobites are rather slender, except Butterball, of course.
 * Loki in Thor.

Live-Action TV

 * The Thick of It: Malcolm Tucker keeps his weight down by running everywhere, being permanently stressed out, and living on a diet consisting mainly of coffee. Policy adviser Olly Reader likens him to "a thin white Mugabe".

Literature

 * In Harry Potter, Voldemort is often described as being tall and thin, with long, thin fingers. Snape is often described as thin, perhaps to invoke this trope, even though he is not evil per se.
 * A Series of Unfortunate Events: Villain Count Olaf is tall and thin, and said to have a hungry look in his eyes.
 * Several characters in Discworld have this aesthetic, even if they're not necessarily evil:
 * Lord Vetinari is a scheming Machiavellian dictator and is thin as a rail, voluntarily subsisting on nothing but bread and water. However, while he describes himself as evil, he is never an outright antagonist and is often on the heroes' side. Strangely, his (unnamed) appearance in the first book is as a Fat Bastard, and was generally considered to be his predecessor until Word of God confirmed they were the same character.
 * Granny Weatherwax, a manipulative Good Is Not Nice character in the same vein, is also tall, thin and wears black, though her slimness is not quite emphasised as much. It's more obvious contrasted with her fellow witch and lifelong friend, the short, plump, amicable Nanny Ogg.
 * Lacrimosa in Carpe Jugulum, who actually is evil, is the epitome of this, though, especially lampshaded in that she's mostly seen from the POV of Agnes Nitt, a large girl of roughly her own age...
 * Utilized, and oft-lampshaded, in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels, in that all skinny innkeepers that the protagonists come across in their journeys are invariably up to no good.
 * Timeline-191: Jake Featherston, the Hitler-esque Southern dictator of Harry Turtledove alternate history series, is described as whipcord-lean.
 * In Peter David's book Knight Life, Morgan le Fay has grown obese without the presence of Arthur or Merlin. But when Arthur suddenly appears in present day and decides to run for Mayor of New York, she not only becomes evil, but thin again.
 * David Eddings' Elenium has ascetic Primate Annias.
 * In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Father Hugh MacPhail's lean body and harsh exercise regimen underline his determination to destroy free will.
 * Dracula: Drac himself. For adding slimming power he could slip through the cracks of doors if necessary.
 * From Isaac Asimov's Foundation, part 2: The Mule,
 * The Phantom of the Opera: The titular character is described as being downright skeletal.
 * Ship Breaker: Most crew are pretty lean, but Richard Lopez, Archnemesis Dad and Combat Sadomasochist adds a naturally whippy build and an addict's decaying physique, for a truly ravaged appearance.
 * Professor James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes is described as being very tall and thin and like a lizard.

Music

 * David Bowie's late seventies persona, The Thin White Duke, although not being evil, per se was definitely a bit sharper edged than his other characters and more than a bit coke-fueled, therefore somewhat delusional. This incarnation of Bowie has been described as "an amoral zombie", "an emotionless Aryan superman", "a mad aristocrat" and by the man himself, "a nasty character indeed". As far as the lean side goes, his weight plummeted to less than ninety pounds, extremely underweight for a 5'10" frame.
 * Many punk rockers in the 1970s were regarded as this by the establishment.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40000: The Dark Eldar are half Lean and Mean, half Spikes of Villainy. It even extends to their vehicles.

Theater

 * Cassius from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Video Games

 *  Mario series: Waluigi from the games, much like how Wario is heavier than Mario in an evil sort of way, Waluigi takes Luigi's leanness and exaggerates it to properly despicable proportions.
 * Chzo Mythos: The Tall Man; more than seven feet tall, skeletal in build, but an awful lot stronger (and faster) than "he" looks...
 * Metroid: Ridley, Samus Aran's bony archnemesis.
 * Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid. Justified in that he's a psychic who floats using telekinesis rather than walking, causing his muscles to wither away to nothing.
 * Count Veger from the Jak and Daxter series is tall and skinny. And
 * Battlefield Heroes: Arguably, the Nationals. Granted, it's Not exactly clear who started the war, but looking like the Nazis probably goes a long way in deciding which side they are.
 * The Spy from Team Fortress 2 is incredibly impolite (the Spy has banged the Scout's mom and loves to boast and troll the Scout about it, which could make you feel sorry for the biggest Jerkass in the game that Scout undeniably is) and very tall and slender, which his badass-in-a-nice-suit attire makes even more noticable. Furthermore, also alongside Scout and Sniper, he's the most prone to calling the Heavy "fatty" and "morbidly obese".
 * The Administrator, when she appears in the supplemental materials, is very thin, and seems to be totally amoral and have no emotions other than anger.
 * Both Mitsuhide and Mitsunari from Sengoku Basara are Ax Crazy White Haired Pretty Boys who are also tall and almost skeletal in appearance. In Mitsunari's case it's because he's too busy angsting to eat, while Mitsuhide is probably just that evil.

Web Original

 * The Slender Man, a tall, spidery phantom who originated from the Something Awful forums. Normally showing up in photographs, but has recently showed up in video format as well.
 * Richard from the webcomic Looking for Group is this, but it's because he's dead and therefore dried out/decomposed/missing organs/literally just skin-and-bones (and some green goop).

Webcomics

 * Homestuck's Jack Noir is very lean, and very mean.
 * Daddy Long Legs has Mr. Scapegrace, who is one of the thinnest characters seen so far and the creepiest.
 * Janice Jamison, the head of Magical Research in the Souballo Empire in Our Little Adventure.

Western Animation

 * Mom in Futurama is evil and thin, but wears a selection of "fat suits" when she wants to appear the kindly matron.
 * Brother Blood in Teen Titans
 * Mandark in Dexter's Laboratory.
 * The Monarch in The Venture Bros.
 * Subverted with Dr. Orpheus, who is tall and thin (and otherwise looks like a stereotypical necromancer) but is actually one of the nicest characters.
 * Of course, Rusty is also bone thin, and is an amoral, pill popping, alcoholic, mean spirited, horrible excuse for a father and human being
 * Lean and Mean works for robots, too. Just ask Starscream of Transformers Animated.
 * And now Wasp(inator), to some degree.
 * Oil Slick is probably the best example.
 * You can also add Shockwave to the list.
 * Starscream and Soundwave of Transformers Prime also qualify.
 * The Hulk vs. Wolverine version of Deadpool, which has lead some people to call him "Skinnypool".
 * Courage the Cowardly Dog has Katz.
 * Ren and Stimpy: Ren Hoek is very thin and he has a short temper.
 * The Simpsons: Mr. Burns is an "excellent" example.
 * Bratz: Burdine and the Tweevils.
 * Lawson from Recess.
 * Ms. Bitters of Invader Zim, in keeping with her snakelike demeanor.
 * Nightmare Moon, Discord and The Flim Flam Brothers from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic all qualify.
 * So does.