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Clock King: Difference between revisions
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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]]). This guy isn'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]].
Oh, and you had better ''pray'' he doesn't get his hands on [[Time Travel]] technology.
See also [[Creature of Habit]], who also likes punctuality, although rarely for nefarious plans.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* Hakuba Saguru, a guest star in ''[[Detective Conan]]'' and a main character in the spinoff anime ''[[Magic Kaito]]'', a detective in pursuit of the elusive [[Phantom Thief]] Kaitou Kid. Hakuba carries around a gold pocket watch with which he notes the precise times of crimes down to a hundredth of a second. And apparently KID picked this up to a certain extent while fighting Conan.
* There's a rare hero example of this trope in ''[[Death Note]]'', with L being able to calculate Kira's thought process almost down to the second.
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== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* [[
** [[Lampshade]]d by Captains Sisko and Solok in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', after Solok times their previous meeting down to the exact day:
{{quote|'''Sisko''': You mean you don't know it to the minute?
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* ''[[Fringe]]'' had one in "The Plateau". Though strictly speaking, he only saw all the possible outcomes and predicted which one was most likely, but he still had to know when and how long it would take someone to get hit by a bus.
* Inverted with [[The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin|Reggie Perrin]], who was consistently "11 minutes late/17 minutes late/22 minutes late" to work.
* Superhoodie on ''[[Misfits]]'' knows the time of all the events where he needs to intervene, and has digital clocks in his apartment/lair counting down to the exact second for each instance. He knows this information because {{spoiler|he's from the future}}, but it's still insanely precise.
* The villain in the first episode of ''[[Alphas]]''.
* ''[[Tales of the Gold Monkey]]''. In "God Save the Queen" the time-obsessed villain plants a [[Time Bomb]] on board the Queen Victoria. Our hero causes him to have a [[Villainous Breakdown]] by resetting his watch.
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== Theatre ==
* Mr. Hines from ''[[The Pajama Game]]'' is a comical version. He even gets a song about his obsession, titled "Think of the Time I Save."
== Video Games ==
* Manfred von Karma in ''[[Ace Attorney]]''—he throws a fit when a trial takes more than exactly three minutes, and the protagonist is clued to use [[Xanatos Speed Chess]] to beat him.
* 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.
** Furthermore, this is also true of multi-player RTS games, where build order and timing are often considered to be of extreme importance, but instead of a timer, you are trying to remain competitive with your opponent's collective abilities to shave moments off the time it takes them to accomplish their objectives.
** Ever try playing ''[[Pokémon]]'' competitively? Did you know that by being a Clock King you can force your mons to have perfect stats ''and'' shiny status with the right calculations? Of course, this takes some ''serious'' dedication.
** Anyone who managed to get 100% completion on ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask]]''. You have to time things pretty much perfectly if you want to get everything, and you have only three days to complete every single task. It is entirely possible, if with enough skill at both this trope and the game itself, to beat all four temple bosses, save the Ranch Girls, reunite Anju and Kafei, save Lulu's eggs, rescue the family in Ikana and stop the moon all in the final cycle of three days. Incredibly, hair-pullingly, blood-boilingly difficult? Sure, but still entirely possible.
* Chronotron is an online game in which you must synchronize your actions with those of your past selves in order to solve puzzles.
* This is also true for players of most racing games, [[Speed Run]] players, or any kind of time trial [[Video Game]]. Everything that a player can think of to shave fractions of a second off their run will be attempted again and again until the player can do it perfectly in a satisfactory time.
* In many MMORPGs really dedicated players using damage-dealing characters will perfect their skill rotations to a second and can thus gain damage increases of 30-50% over less focused players. On fights requiring lots of mobility and non-standard attacks, many of these players can't handle the disruption to their rotations and their performance drops sharply. The top players can adjust the timing of their rotations on the fly and avoid this.
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{{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 ''[[
* ''[[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.)
* [[Voltron Force]]: Sky Marshal Wade does everything by the clock. Including using the bathroom. Lance uses this to the Voltron Force advantage.
== 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
* 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.
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[[Category:Gambit Index]]
[[Category:Villains]]
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