Bastard Understudy: Difference between revisions

** {{spoiler|And the trope itself plays out with Schneizel and Charles. Scheizel prepares to assume command of Britannia and leaves Charles on his own. However, Lelouch killing Charles forces Schneizel to go into hiding.}}

* {{spoiler|"[[Fan Nickname|Fucking]] Ribbons" Almark}} in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]''. He appears to be a harmless toady of the apparent [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Alejandro Corner}}, only to reveal himself as the key villain {{spoiler|while Celestial Being kills Corner at the end of Season 1}}.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'' [[Enigmatic Minion|Kabuto]] and [[Rival Turned Evil|Sasuke]] represent the two different types of this: the latter learns all he can from Orochimaru and then "kills" him, while the former, after witnessing Orochimaru's death, has become obsessed with carrying on and perfecting his legacy.

** To be fair to Sasuke, in this particular case he acted out of principle- he might have planned on dumping Oro from early on, but he only ''killed'' him because he saw Orochimaru as an [[Complete Monster|evil]], [[For the Evulz|sadistic]] [[The Sociopath|psychopath]] who had [[Motive Decay|abandoned whatever higher purposes he once pursued]], every bit as bad as the mass murdering brother he was training to kill. Which is exactly right, despite the irony that Sasuke himself has currently begun turning into exactly that type of person.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': The Sith embody this trope to a point where it has become one of the fundamental aspects of their order. When an apprentice has reached the end of his training, he has to kill his master. If the master dies, he was no longer able to be a Sith master. If the apprentice dies in the attempt, he was not worthy to become a master. If the apprentice doesn't try, he's unworthy of being an apprentice, and is removed to make room for a new one.

* Used in ''[[High School Musical]] 3''. [[Alpha Bitch|Sharpey]] gets an assistant who literally becomes her understudy in the play. Near the end she tries to take advantage of one of Sharpey's failed plans:

'''Tiara Gold''': That's called acting. You should try it sometime. }}

* Vaako from ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]'' fits this trope. He is the Lord Marshal's second-in-command, but thanks in part to his wife's promptings, {{spoiler|takes his opportunity to betray him in his final fight with Riddick, for the good of the Necromonger faith.}}

* Slade of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' actually ''wants'' one of these (yes, including the betrayal part, as his dialogue with Robin makes clear when he complements him on threatening him- it'd keep him sharp if nothing else). So far, however, he's had phenomenally bad luck in ''keeping'' one, and even lampshades this at one point.

** Brother Blood, who ran an entire school for apprentice supervillains, [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] his own failure with this trope, when both his newest student and his star-pupil turn out to be undercover good guys rather than neophyte Bastard Understudies:

* On ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'', every member of the Heinous family is this, being groomed to overthrow and [[Human Popsicle|freeze]] [[Self-Made Orphan|their fathers]]. In one episode, ''Beezy'' temporarly becomes this thanks to [[Screw Learning, I Have Phlebotinum]].

* In ''[[Transformers Prime]]'', the [[The Starscream|newest Starscream]] blurs the line between this and being, well, [[Trope Namer|himself]].