Corrupt Bureaucrat: Difference between revisions

We have heard about them: Lazy, incompetent, always ''passing the buck'' and more than willing to accept a bribe to "speed things up". This character type exists somewhere in the overlap between [[Punch Clock Villain|Punch Clock Villains]]s and [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|Obstructive Bureaucrats]]s. And are only lazy and incompetent up to the point that it [[No Delays for Thethe Wicked|prevents them]] from getting any work done, however, when someone or something threatens their position or privileges, they forget everything about laziness and incompetence and become relentless in abusing their power, as they would not be above committing murder itself, of crossing the [[Moral Event Horizon]]. This can also happen if they have the object of their ambition within grasp.

{{examples|Examples:}}

* Judge Turpin from ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Filmfilm)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'' abuses his position as a powerful judge to send an innocent man to prison so that he could rape his beautiful wife, and then perform [[Wife Husbandry]] on the ''daughter''.

* [[Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina|Feltipern Trevagg]] created new tariffs to line his own pockets, including on the water -- onwater—on a kriffing desert planet. {{spoiler|The barve ends up dead with [[Incredibly Lame Pun|delicious]] irony}}.

* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm (Literature)|The January Dancer]]'', running an honest administration causes a revolt because they expect favors, too. (They do insist on your doing the job you accepted a bribe for, though.)

** Likewise in ''Up Jim River'', a man offers an official a large demonination bill -- askingbill—asking his opinion of the engraving.

* The RPG game ''[[Paranoia (Tabletop Gamegame)|Paranoia]]'' regularly features encounters with these, freely mixed with every other flavor listed above.

* Senator Wheiner of ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (Animation)|Galaxy Rangers]]'' fits this trope like a glove. Despite the fact that the Series 5 Rangers are possibly the best weapon the League has against the Crown Empire, he is constantly trying to get it shut down. He's got a massive case of [[Fantastic Racism]] against aliens, even their Andorian and Kiwi allies on top of it. But his [[Moral Event Horizon]] was crossed well before the series when he was shown to be the politician in charge of the Supertrooper Project. He wanted to bypass the safeguards that Walsh and Nagata put into a project that was highly dangerous and morally questionable at best, [[General Ripper|declaring they needed soldiers with "no mercy" to fight any alien Earth encountered]]. He tops it off by releasing [[Psycho Serum]] into the barracks, causing the Supertroopers (save Shane) to become super-powerful and riot, killing Nagata in the process. It's also established that Wheiner and Walsh keep each other in check through massive amounts of mutual blackmail...and this was a [[Animated Series]] from [[The Eighties]]!