Clock King: Difference between revisions
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[[File:ClockKing.jpg|link=Batman: The Animated Series|frame|"It will take you precisely three minutes and seventeen seconds to read through this article; [[Ludicrous Precision|2.63 seconds longer]] than it will take for me to rob you blind."]]
The '''Clock King''' is the consummate planner. He doesn't just know when the guard change happens, but what routes they take, how long they spend in the lavatory, how long the cops will take to respond to a burglary alarm ''with'' 5:12 PM traffic on a rainy day, ''and'' that the 5:20 train will take two minutes and fifteen seconds longer than normal to leave the station, allowing them enough time to get on at 5:22:10.
He has such millimetric precision and obsessive attention to detail that he will frequently [[Smug Snake|boast]] of being "23 seconds ahead of schedule", or berate lackeys with "You're 17 seconds late". Expect the clock king to always carry a pocketwatch and chain, or a very expensive looking wristwatch with more hands than Shiva. For some reason, they dislike digital clocks. Maybe they feel they lack [[Evil Is Cool|villainous]] [[Evil Is Stylish|personality?]] Also, it's worth noting most Clock Kings and Queens are [[Villain
He's almost the mirror of [[The Chessmaster]]. He ''can't'' [[Manipulative Bastard|manipulate people]], but he ''can'' rely on their strict adherence to patterns and schedules. [[Spanner in the Works|When they don't]], he [[Villainous Breakdown|goes off the rails]] (of course, a ''real'' planner will know the exact probabilities of each failure, and [[Xanatos Gambit|plan accordingly to win either case]]). These guys aren't that hot at [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]. He is, however, [[Awesomeness By Analysis|Awesome By Analysis]]. He's an example of what happens when a [[Schedule Fanatic]] starts to learn other people's schedules as well as his own. Common accessories and plots include the [[Magic Countdown]] and [[Time Bomb]]. Fond of [[Ludicrous Precision]], sometimes to the extent that he suffers from [[Super OCD]].
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* There was a short-short story revolving around a publishing company secretary with this kind of mind. She murders her boss merely by paying attention to his unconsciously inflexible schedule, and delaying him from leaving the office for a specific amount of time, less than a minute. He is run down by a bus. [[Fridge Logic]] comes into play here when you realise that just because the boss has an inflexible schedule, it doesn't mean the bus service does.
* In a Norwegian short story, the victim was so obsessed with punctuality and performing every mundane task at the precise same second each day, that his killer was able to kill him by slowing his clock down by 30 seconds, thereby making him miss his bus, throwing him into a completely fuddled state and inducing a fatal heart attack.
* The Master Timekeeper (called the Ticktockman, but not to his face) in [[Harlan Ellison]]'s short story "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" not only is a
* Malvolio Bent of the'' [[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Making Money|Making Money]]'', who resets the bank's clock every day when it falls two seconds behind. The earlier novel ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'' features Jeremy Clockson, a clockmaker who produces the world's most accurate timepieces and is implied to have assaulted or possibly even killed another member of the guild for deliberately setting his clock fast. {{spoiler|The latter turns out to be Time itself.}}
* The Daemon, of Danial Suarez's eponymous novel, is this. All the way. To the power of n.
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* [[Mack Bolan]] is always this way with the initial hit that starts off a 'Bolan Blitz', whether it's ambushing a Mafia convoy or sniping a group at incredible distances. As things get unpredictable beyond that point due to how his enemy reacts (and the inevitable unexpected arrival of the [[Girl of the Week]]) Bolan tends to improvise from then on.
* Jillie Djinn in ''[[Septimus Heap]]''. She's always punctual to the ''seconds'', and expects everyone else to be.
* Bone, [[The Mad Hatter]] [[Expy]] in Patrick Senecal's ''Aliss,'' believes himself to be involved in some kind of [[Berserk Button|furious war]] against time, so much so that at one point he demands a new watch with extra hours. He has an [[Complete Monster|unpleasant habit]] of leaving broken pocket watches in the corpses of his [[Body Horror|mutilated victims]]
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* [[SPOCK]], as part of his [[Ludicrous Precision]].
** [[Lampshade
{{quote|'''Sisko''': You mean you don't know it to the minute?
'''Solok''': Of course I do. But humans are often irked by such precision. }}
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== Video Games ==
* Manfred von Karma in ''[[Ace Attorney]]''
* Lampshaded by the nefarious Skate Club leader in ''Tony Hawk's American Wasteland''; The second thing you have to do to join the Skate Club is "trick on all these objects before my stopwatch runs out." This is probably the only time the time limits you're given for missions are justified.
* Let's be honest: You. Anyone who's played enough games without an adaptive AI has had [[That One Boss]] (or [[That One Level|level]] or entire game) where the only way to win was to memorize the pattern of all the moving objects on screen until you could play it without even looking at the screen. For example, the final boss of the NES port of ''Trojan''; most of the boxers in ''[[Punch-Out!!]]'' but especially King Hippo; any ''[[Dragon's Lair]]'' style game that always played its segments in the same order.
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* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' has Mechanicles. To get into further detail, this mad scientist/master planner once began an episode overlooking an invasion of Agrabah with an army of giant mechanical scorpions, listing off items off his schedule. When Aladdin and friends showed up, he nonchalantly crossed an item off his schedule, noting "Heroes' interference, 2:14. Yep, right on schedule!"
* There's Professor Paradox from ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force|Ben 10 Alien Force]]'', though somewhat averted/subverted in that he's a good guy (or at least, not a bad guy) and has the entire Time Space Continuum mapped out in his head, allowing him to [[Time Travel]] just as easily as one would walk down the sidewalk.
* Temple Fugate, the ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' version of the Clock King pictured above, was quite an example. This is the guy who stoically stepped off a bridge because [[Train Escape|he knew the train was always a little early]]. In fact, his extraordinary timing abilities coupled with his analysis of hours of recorded footage of [[Batman]] in combat allows him to dodge his every move, making him one of the few people Batman has never defeated in hand to hand combat. His name even sounds like the Latin phrase "tempus fugit"
** He later reappeared as one of the [[Boxed Crook
** His meticulous timing and scheduling is explained in his back story; he owned a business efficiency company that was being sued, and the day of the hearing, the future mayor Hamilton Hill suggested he break schedule and take his coffee break later, so as to look more relaxed and presentable to the court. [[Murphy's Law]] kicked in, his appeal was thrown out, ruining him, and the end result can be summed up thusly:
{{quote|'''Batman''': Give it up, Fugate. Hill committed no crime against you.
'''Fugate''': He did worse! He made me ''late''! }}
** In an example of the stunt casting the DCAU was famous for, Fugate was played by Alan Rachins, then best known for playing the punctilious managing partner Douglas Brachman on ''[[LA Law]]''
* ''[[The Batman]]'' had a variation on this with Francis Grey, a pudgy guy who can rewind time to fix his mistakes, allowing him to effortlessly dodge Batman's punches, high speed traffic, and undo his embarrassing attempts at banter. Unlike most examples of this trope, he doesn't really plan ahead of time, but he knows what's going to happen because he's been there before.
* In ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]],'' Jackson Weele used precision timing both to conduct highly efficient robbery to the actual Clock King's level of precision, as well as making his devices work, especially the Big Wheel tank, which also required precise timing (presumably, because its weapons are in proper firing position for a fraction of a second at a time, but frequently enough that with proper timing you can use them.) The Big Wheel also exists in the comics, as [[C-List Fodder]], but the timing obsession is unique to the series (as is his being an actually dangerous opponent.)
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== Real Life ==
* Immanuel Kant was famous for being one, especially in his later years. According to a famous anecdote, the inhabitants of Koenigsberg set their clocks on his daily walks, and the one day he wasn't on time, it was because he had just heard about the French Revolution breaking out. Or reading ''Emile'' by Rousseau.
* Any decent military commander in [[World War One]] was required to be something of a
* London bobbies in the early days had to walk a precise beat at a strictly regimented pace (including length of stride). This was because there were no telephones and few police stations in those days, so any citizen who'd witnessed a crime-in-progress would have to know where to go at a particular time of day to be certain of finding a policeman.
* Railroads in the UK and US forced standardization of times and time zones to allow uniform train schedules, needed to prevent catastrophic collisions.
* UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is reportedly like this. According to one source, he plans his daily routine in ''five-minute blocks''.
* If you're in a class where every student doesn't take the exact same courses a
{{reflist}}
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