Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Difference between revisions
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[[File:sympathetic-ineffectual-villain batman-carpenter 5195.jpg|link=Batman|frame|"No! [[Kryptonite Factor|Metal handcuffs - my only weakness]]!"]]
{{quote|"[[Shoulder-Sized Dragon|Spike]], I don't know what upsets me more; that you deliberately tried to set up [[The Owl-Knowing One|Owlowiscious]], or that you actually thought this pathetic attempt would work!"|'''[[Unicorn|Twilight Sparkle]]''', from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' <ref>(Though really, Spike was just ''temporarily'' a villain [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E24 Owl's Well That Ends Well|during the episode that originated the quote.)]]</ref>}}
A potential villain who is consistently a failure or never gets the respect that he thinks he deserves, and may even be angry that the heroes don't take him seriously.
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May also be a [[Determinator]] out of necessity or overlap with [[Draco in Leather Pants]]. If they get even ''more'' pathetic in regard to the hero, [[Unknown Rival]]ry looms. Just watch out, they may suddenly turn out to be [[Not So Harmless]].
[[Video Game]] versions of this trope frequently overlap with the [[Goldfish Poop Gang]] if they are just as pathetic in actual battle as they're treated by the story. They may maintain threat status if [[Conservation of Competence]] allows them to keep competent supporters.
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Mousse from ''[[Ranma ½]]'' is a loser whose plots against Ranma go only so far before backfiring spectacularly. He's usually played as an unrepentant jerk, although maybe once a season, he'd get a moment of quiet reflection for the audience to sympathize with him—right before going back to his old ways, naturally.
** Both the ineffectual and sympathetic aspects are ironic, because Mousse is the most ruthlessly homicidal of Ranma's regular rivals. Kuno simply wants to humiliate Ranma and get both Akane and "the pig-tailed girl"; his weapon is just a bokken. Ryoga initially enters the series with an apparent intent to kill, but settles down for pretty much just wanting to steal Akane away and be able to claim that he's better than Ranma after the early [[Martial Arts and Crafts|Martial Arts Figure Skating]] story. By contrast, Mousse spends most of the series willing to do just about anything to kill Ranma, routinely using bladed and impaling weapons and attacking with ambushes. He even comments once on being willing to slip poisonous mushrooms into Ranma's food.
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** However, the three all got their happy ending in ''Best Wishes''. And by "happy ending", [[Took a Level in Badass|they...]]
* Martina, the anime-exclusive [[Guest Star Party Member]] and [[Princess in Rags|fallen princess]] from the second season of the ''[[Slayers]]'' anime, who only knows how to perform minor curses and can't defend herself at all. She spends the first half of the season trying to get revenge on Lina and her friends for destroying her home, and fails every time; after that, she decides to tag along with them. She ''does'' {{spoiler|decide to help Lina out morally during the final battle}}, though.
* Dorodoran in ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash Star]]''. Unlike most ''[[Pretty Cure]]'' villains, he's trying as hard as he can from the start, and is increasingly frustrated and upset by his repeated failures. When he finally comes close to victory, it all evaporates due to
** Later, in ''[[Yes! Pretty Cure 5]]'', Bunbee almost exactly duplicated [[Beast Wars|Waspinator's]] history: while introduced as a serious threat, he quickly fell into this, which had the side effect of [[Ensemble Darkhorse|making him popular with the fans]], which saved him from being killed off at the end of the season and led to him getting a happy ending in the final episode. Fortunately for Bunbee, ''[[Yes! Pretty Cure 5]]'' has no equivalent to ''[[Beast Machines]].''
* ''[[Zeta Gundam]]'' had Jerid Mesa, who ended up becoming the [[Designated Villain|Designated Rival]] for the show's protagonist, got into a vicious cycle of each killing the other's friends and/or lovers in battle, and eventually was {{spoiler|killed when the hero threw his mobile suit into an exploding battleship}}.
* Jeremiah Gottwald from ''[[Code Geass]]'', who began the show as the military equivalent of a [[Jerk Jock]], but made the mistake of crossing [[Magnificent Bastard|Lelouch]], which left him disgraced, hated, and saddled with the ignoble nickname "Orange". His [[Ensemble Darkhorse|enormous popularity]] spared him from a planned quick death, resulting in his returning later {{spoiler|as an [[Ax Crazy]] cyborg}}. Just to crank up the sympathy another few notches, [[All There in the Manual|the side materials]] revealed that Jeremiah was a palace guard on the day Empress Marianne was killed, and based his entire career on an attempt to atone for failing not only Marianne, but her children, who disappeared in Japan, leading him to think that they were killed by the Japanese, which prompted his racism against Elevens, which resulted in Lelouch (Marianne's supposedly-dead son) publicly humiliating him. Whoops...In the second season, Jeremiah was
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' had Patrick Coulasour, an ace in 'simulated' combat, who quickly develops a one-sided rivalry with the Gundams after being publicly humiliated by them in the first episode, only to be dispatched in a similar fashion when he returns later. As with Jeremiah, fans latched onto him, giving him the nickname "Team Patrick". He eventually latches onto his commanding officer, Kati Mannequin, and goes on to be shot down another 5 or 6 times, even after switching sides.
* Excel in ''[[Excel Saga (manga)|Excel Saga]]'' at times. She really wants to help her Lord Il Palazzo's plans to take over the world, but she fails so badly at every mission given to her. Often subverted though by following a sympathetic moment with doing or saying something disturbing.
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*** And succeeding. Even after his father's identity is revealed, it makes him no less [[Badass]], managing to [[Killed Off for Real|kill someone who wouldn't be coming back]] in a series known for [[Death Is Cheap|at least half a dozen ways of reviving the dead.]]
* Emperor Pilaf and his assistants from ''[[Dragon Ball]]''.
** Only once does Pilaf (almost) get what he wants...he
* Japoli, Katejin, and Enge, the [[Punch Clock Villain]]s of ''[[Overman King Gainer]]'' who are completely incompetent in their jobs, and are only a threat if they have Overman. They are the main source of comic relief with the Siberian Railroad.
* Feliciano/Italy in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'', an odd example of an ineffectual sympathetic villain title character semi-protagonist. He really only gets the title of villain because the manga is set predominantly in the WWII era. [[You Fail History Forever|If further explanation of that is needed...]]
* Lilynette, Stark's [[Token
** And then
**
** Ukitake even lectures the girl on how her determination is admirable, but she simply lacks the ability to 'fight' him properly (i.e take the sword back). She fires a [[Ki Attack|cero]], he deflects it with his [[Nonchalant Dodge|hand]]. No wonder she was pissed off.
* ''[[One Piece]]'' has had some of the best villains in anime during its long run, but for every great villain like Sir Crocodile and Donquixote Doflamingo, there are sure to be a few lame fools:
** Hannyabal Initially presented as [[The Starscream]], but eventually shows that [[The Determinator|he has it where it counts]] when the going gets tough.
** The [[Laughably Evil]] [[Gonk]], Foxy the Silver Fox, particularly in the anime where he gets more screen time. He's relatively [[Weak but Skilled]] and has only built up such a large crew because he won them in games stacked in his favor, but they seem to genuinely enjoy serving under him because of the fun carnival atmosphere of the Davy Back Fights.
** Another [[Laughably Evil]] villain was Wapol, the [[Big Bad]] (the term should be applied loosely) from the Drum Island Arc. While this guy had a cool Devil Fruit power with the potential to make him a threat, he was ''never'' even a small threat to the heroes, he was just... ''there'', and the arc would have gone smoother had he ''not'' been there. His one redeeming trait is that he is ''very'' funny, and became a rather complex and interesting recurring character after [[Redemption Promotion| he ''quit'' being a villain and went into toymaking.]]
** Hody Jones, the [[Big Bad]] (again, the term should be used loosely) from the Fishman Island saga. He looked kinda threatening, being a huge, bulky shark-man, but that was it, he was [[Curb Stomp]]ed twice, the first time by Zoro (in an ''underwater fight'' no less, where a fish-man should have clear advantage over pretty much anyone), the second time by Luffy. The only thing truly interesting about him was his motivation (blatant racism against humans) but any chance for a plot with serious social commentary was ruined because it degenerated quickly into blind hatred. Worst thing is, even if his scheme had succeeded, he and his crew would have been done in by the steroidal drugs they were using, making his victory pitifully short. In the end, he was little more than an Arlong wanna-be.
** The Fake Straw Hats from the Return to Sabaody Arc. This small group of pirates led by a guy named "Three-Tongued" Demaro Black (the only member deemed dangerous enough to have a bounty) had an idea that seemed good on paper, they’d pretend to be the Straw Hat crew, hoping that group’s reputation would help them recruit a decent crew.<ref>There are indeed stories about [[Real Life]] novice pirates taking the names of well-known ones in order to gain notoriety, as before the invention of photography, few could tell two groups of pirates apart.</ref> On one hand, this worked at first, and they managed to recruit several hundred competent pirates, including the Caribou Pirates. But they ran into trouble very quickly for several reasons. One, they didn’t look like the Straw Hats at all. To put it this way, [https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Demaro_Black this is Black] and [https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Monkey_D._Luffy this is Luffy]; the other fakes were no better. Possibly justified, as they barely knew what the real Straw Hats looked like, failing to recognize members of the real crew at least twice; they even made fools of themselves trying to intimidate the real Nami and Usopp by claiming to be the Straw Hats. Worse, they advertised by placing fliers in public places, making them targets of several dangerous enemies of the Straw Hats, including the hulking Marine enforcer Sentamaru, a group of Pacifistas, several rank and file Marines and bounty hunters, and for that matter, the Caribou Pirates, once they figured out it had been a ruse. Most ironically, the two impersonating Robin and Chopper helped the real ones a great deal; after the fake ones were caught by a group of Marines, the real ones were able to throw off pursuit for a while. Not to mention, they weren’t very good fighters either. While there was ''one'' "hero confronts his imposter" moment in the story, it was lackluster, with Luffy belting Black and his gang into unconsciousness a single Haki, never realizing they were anything more than common muggers.
** Uh, Spandam. Seriously, while this guy isn't the only reason the viewers will start to wonder if C9 is worthy of their reputation (and what exactly the Marines' guidelines are for recruits), he ''is'' a big reason. He's clumsy (a [[Running Gag]] involved him spilling coffee on himself during moments of excitement), [[Dirty Coward| cowardly]], short tempered, and all too often, just plain dumb. Overlapping with [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]] he could be blamed ultimately for deaths of countless Marines; his cruel abuse of Robin during the Water 7 Saga (breaking a promise to the Straw Hats in the process) made her so enraged that he was the first victim of her dreaded "Clutch" attack (where she uses her Devil Fruit powers to cause her arms to sprout on the victim's body and break his spine.) Ironically, he survived, but [[It Gets Easier|this first time made it far more easier for Robin]] afterwards, and since then, whole armies have perished from her Clutch.
** Blueno is another of those reasons. To his credit, he's not stupid, nor is he a bad fighter, but he has an odd eccentricity (for lack of a better term) which prevents him from believing anything that he cannot confirm with his own senses, never trusting ''any'' sort of third-party information. Thus, during the Enies Lobby Arc, he had been duly warned of Luffy's skills and the gumption the Straw Hat Captain had in intending to declare war on the World Government itself, and nonetheless confronted Luffy alone. Luffy at that point had mastered his Gear Third technique, but barely needed it, as he mopped the floor with Blueno using "only" Gear Two.
** Charlotte Daifuku, one of Big Mom’s sons and a high-ranking (for some odd reason) officer in her army, and thus an antagonist during the Whole Cake Island Arc. A man who values physical strength among all else, he has an uncontrollable temper, a trait that made his attack on the Thousand Sunny almost laughable. In his attempt to bring Carrot down after she assumed her [[One-Winged Angel| Sunlong form]], he used his Devil Fruit power to create a giant, sword-wielding genie - who, in its efforts to hit Carrot with its weapon, inadvertently sunk about half of Daifuku’s fleet, never hitting Carrot even once.
** Cidre and his guild from the [[Filler Arc|Cidre Guild Arc]]. If not for the fact that they enslaved a group of workers at a beverage factory and treated them like garbage, these idiots would be laughable. [[Badass Normal|No Devil Fruit or Haki powers]], Cidre stupidly believed he had an edge against Luffy and Boa with his carbonated weaponry (high pressure water guns that use soda as ammunition) . While large amounts of water are indeed effective against Devil Fruit users, such reliance on [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|massive blunt force in a frontal assault]] proved ineffective against Luffy. The Straw Hat captain was far more annoyed and angered by his treatment of the enslaved laborers than actually worried, and soundly trounced him. But ''wait'', there’s more. Cidre actually intended to lead an assault on the Pirate Festival (where many past and current members of the Seven Supernovas and Seven Warlords of the Sea would be attending) where he claimed he would take down and apprehend every pirate in attendance, including his arch-enemy Douglas Bullet (one of [[The Paragon|Gol D. Roger’s]] original crew). It seems likely Buena Festa (his former business associate) only invited him to the Festival [[Unwitting Pawn|as a patsy]], hoping he’d initiate a fight; Festa himself claims [[Small Name, Big Ego|Cidre is all talk.]]
** And for that matter, Buena Festa himself, the [[Dragon-in-Chief]] of ''One Piece: Stampede'', the 14th movie. Driven by jealousy against Roger himself, he planned to end the Age of Piracy by making [[Big Bad|Douglas Bullet]] the King of the Pirates and ruling the world as the power behind the throne. A rather grandiose (if absurd) goal, seeing as [[The Empire|the World Government]] has been trying to quash the trend since Roger’s death. Festa planned to do this by turning the the Pirate Festival into a free-for-all where Bullet would be the last man standing, and shifted into [[Stupid Evil]] territory by broadcasting it to the [[Yakuza|Emperors of the Underworld]], boasting that he planed to have them executed once he assumed control - and is then humiliated when Luffy takes Bullet down. To drive the point home, Luffy’s brother Sabo shows up to give Festa [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]], telling him he’d have done much better had Luffy been his partner in such an endeavor, although he seriously doubts Luffy would have agreed to it.
*** Bullet qualifies too, it seems, as he stupidly thought he could stand up to ''dozens'' of the most renowned pirates in the world (including all the Straw Hats, many of the former and current Warlords, several "Worst Generation" Supernovas, many high-ranking Marines - including Smoker and Garp - and many previous [[Arc Villain]]s) by himself, after he lost an arm, no less. Granted, the only person who had ever bested him before was Roger himself, but quite a few of the pirates in the army he was up against could also make that claim, and he seems to have forgotten his arrogance is what led him and Roger to part ways and cause him to end up incarcerated at Impel Down. Long story short, it didn't end well for Bullet.
** Gecko Moria, the captain of the Thriller Bark pirates and [[Arc Villain]] of the arc of the same name. Now, some characters in ''One Piece'' start out with seeming utterly ridiculous, but then after a few episodes, you see them in action and they become truly awesome; Gecko was not this, he started out seeming utterly ridiculous (an [[Ambiguously Human]] vampire-like creature whose crew had sort of a cheesy Comedy-Horror theme) and ''remained'' utterly ridiculous. One of the Seven Warlords, owner of the largest ship in the world with a bounty of 320 million berries, he once slaughtered [[The Dreaded|Kaido]]’s entire crew (badly wounding Kaido himself) and had a potent Devil Fruit power that let him steal and control shadows, granting him remarkable powers of [[Necromancy]] - but unfortunately, it seemed the success had gone to his head, making him overconfident, sluggish, and lazy. Most of his appearances in the arc has him [[Orcus on His Throne|doing nothing but sitting on his fat behind]] sending out his undead minions and three lieutenants ([[Evil Genius| Hogback]], [[Straight Man| Absalom]], and [[Dark Action Girl| Perona]], all of whom were more competent with better developed character than their boss) do all the work. To his credit, when he finally ''does'' decide to get his ass off his throne and fight the heroes, it’s a pretty epic [[Final Boss]] scene, but it only leads to his very epic defeat that wrecks what’s left of his reputation, causing the World Government to revoke his Warlord status [[You Have Failed Me...|and decide to eliminate him]]. He manages to escape, so he ''might'' eventually become a legitimate threat, but until then, he remains this Trope.
** Bellamy from the Dressrosa Arc, an arrogant overconfident [[Miles Glorios]]. When he and Luffy first met, the Straw Hat captain didn't even ''want'' to fight him, seeing no real point in replying to his juvenile insults, but after Bellamy's crew assaulted the Saruyama Alliance and stole their things, Luffy decided to humor him. After Bellamy demonstrated his powers by bouncing around Mock Town like a super-speed slinky, Luffy... knocked him out with a single punch. Not with his Devil Fruit powers or Haki, one normal punch, and he didn't even call the attack like he always does. Then the second time they met, Bellamy challenged him again and... the same thing happened. Fortunately, he learned his lesson after that.
* Buaku from ''[[Dominion Tank Police]]'' and his sidekicks, the Puma sisters. They've always been wannabe [[Magnificent Bastard]]s, but they were slightly more competent in the manga. Granted, their failures are rarely their own fault, discounting their lack of foresight.
* ''[[Heavy Metal L-Gaim]]'s'' Gavlet Gabre is a particularly jarring example. He's introduced as the primary rival, but never once defeats the protagonist, Daba Myroad. {{spoiler|During the final battle at Sveto, he fails to defeat the unimportant and generic villain Rockley Ron, which makes the later the sole villain who makes it out of the show without being captured or killed.}}
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* Kurumi, Kurumi, ''[[Kimi ni Todoke|Kurumi]]''. As of the end of the anime's first season, she still hasn't caught a break despite {{spoiler|confessing to Kazehaya and tearing down what was left of her fake persona}}—or if she has, [[Out of Focus|it was offscreen]].
* Keroro from ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'' probably counts. His schemes to conquer Earth always seem to end in disasters of some kind, when he's not being sidetracked saving the world from ''other'' alien invaders or something.
*
* King Dedede in ''[[Kirby: Right Back at Ya!]]'' is the kind of guy who wants respect from the Cappies, and just wants to beat up Kirby for the sake of it, which is why he buys Demon Beasts/monsters online from Holy Nightmare/Nightmare Enterprises. Of course, [[The Good Guys Always Win|Kirby always wins the day]], so Dedede never gets the respect he wants. To be fair, Dedede isn't really all that bad, he's just mean, misunderstood, and a completely incompetent half-wit.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh]]''; Gee, where to start...
** In the original Manga, Mokuba (who was far nastier than the one American fans know) tried to get even with Yugi with a rigged Capsule Monster game. (The rules Mokuba set down were that they would take turns using a vending machine before they started to get game pieces so neither would have an advantage; Mokuba had the machine fixed, so that he got powerful pieces and Yugi only got [[Com Mons]].) Unfortunately for Mokuba, he was a [[Bad Liar]] ''and'' a bad ''bluffer'', and Yugi easily saw through this charade and defeated him with what he had. To make this worse, Mokuba forced him into another Capsule Monsters game during the Death-T arc with much bigger stakes, using the ''exact same trick''. A combination of overconfidence and foolish pride led to him playing sloppy - as opposed to Yugi, who had to do so carefully - and Yugi prevailed again. When all was said and done, Mokuba's [[Slasher Smile]] was far more intimidating that anything he actually did.
** Insector Haga and "Dinosaur" Ryuzaki were probably the most well known examples. You kind of felt sorry for them after awhile. Their worst humiliation came during the KC Grand Prix when they dueled Zigfried two against one, and he beat them both... On his first turn. (Granted, Zigfried is a guy who gave even Kaiba one of the most epic duels of his career, but still...)
** Not that there weren't others. There was Jean-Claude Magnum (a [[Hopeless Suitor]] to Mai, and a [[Miles Gloriosus]]) the unnamed Rare Hunter called "Seeker" by fans (half of Yugi's dialogue during the duel consisted of a [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]) and Gurimo from the [[Filler Arc| DOMA arc]]. (To those who have only seen the dub, that would be the first duelist seen using the Seal of Orichalcos; the dub didn't think he was worth a dub name.) Seriously, Gurimo not only used one [[Artifact of Doom]] (The Seal of Orichalcos, naturally) he [[Too Dumb to Live| was dumb enough]] to combine it with a second one (Obelisk the Tormentor). The only thing that was truly surprising about his loss to Yugi is why all the other characters found it so surprising!
* Then came ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' with more lame villains:
** In the first season, almost every Obelisk student shown as an antagonist except for Manjyome, Asuka, Fubuki, and Kaiser qualifies. (Clearly, most of the students there did not get to the best dorm based on merit.) Others villains like this included Seven Stars member Abidos III {{spoiler|who was a participant of the original Shadow Duels of Egypt and undefeated - but only because his servants ''let'' him win}} and the Duel Spirit Don Zaloog (not a bad duelist, really, but not a good villain, he and his gang tried to steal the Shadow Gate Keys, which was pointless, because they wouldn't function unless you won them from the owners).
** There was also Manjyome's two brothers. One was [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]], the other a [[Corrupt Politician]], and both suffered from a [[Small Name, Big Ego]].
** The second season had its share; the Alien of Light whom Judai met in Neo Space had one of the worst deck strategies ever, focusing on a monster whose Attack Score was equal to 1,000 times the cards in the user's hand. That would seem fine if not for the fact that he needed to discard two cards to summon it... And it couldn't attack the turn he did... And he couldn't draw any more cards after doing so. Even then, Judai defeated a duelist using a 3,000 ATK monster in the pilot episode, so this was nothing he couldn't handle. Maybe justified in that he was supposed to be a [[Warmup Boss]] for Judai after gaining the powers of Neo Space, but it was still pathetic. You ''know'' you're a lame duelist when an [[Idiot Hero]] like Judai points out your card's flaws.
** Starting Season 3, the show took a [[Darker and Edgier]] theme and this sort of villain was rare, but there were still a couple. In Season 4, there was Sorano, another Obelisk snob who saw Judai and didn't see past the red blazer. (Some people just don't learn.) Not only that, his Horus deck seemed like it was copied from a magazine, aside from one part of the strategy that needed an anime-only card. He only became a true threat after he was possessed by Trueman.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's|Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds]]'': continued the trend, but not as much. As early as the second episode there was Uryu, a hoodlum who was sent to Satellite for causing trouble, who lost a duel to Yusei because he ''didn't know how his own card worked''. Aki had two opponents that qualified in the Fortune Cup alone, Jill deLauncebeaux, and Kodo Kinomiya (the second one a guy who bordered on [[Stupid Evil]], seeing as he knew he was dueling a powerful [[Reality Warper]] and spent the whole duel flinging insults at her.) In the second season there was the D-Wheel thief Cid (who rigged his [[Death Trap]] so that he wouldn't fall victim to it, only to almost be done in because he rigged it ''badly'') and the [[Loan Shark]] Garome. (Jack Atlas is a guy who grew up on Satellite and would later face the nightmarish metal stress of facing the Earthbound Gods, survived it all with a grin. It's not like common crooks like them are going to intimidate or panic him.)
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: SEVENS]]'', it’s much easier to list the members of the [[Mega Corp| Goha Corp]] who ''do not'' deserve this designation than the ones who do, literally: {{spoiler| [[Big Bad Wannabe| Yugo]]}}, [[The Man Behind The Man| Otes]], [[Evil Genius| Nail]], and [[Dark Action Girl| Mimi]] are the only competent members, the rest are, at most, [[Laughably Evil]]. This is especially true during the Team Battle Royale arc where they are unable to discover Otes' identity or location despite him being an employee and the fact that they own the online server than controls the Solid Vision system. (To put this in perspective, in the original anime, KaibaCorp owned the server and Kaiba or one of his employees could locate a duelist within a minute.) Their goal is to abolish the Rush Duel system, which [[Playful Hacker]] protagonist Yuga Ohdo programmed into their computer system, and despite ''dozens'' of engineers and programmers working around the clock, they cannot even find the implanted rootkit, much less deactivate it. Yuga didn’t even create the backdoor system that accepted his program, and their plans to steal the information or trick Yuga out of the codes fail in the most absurd ways. (One seriously has to wonder why a more malevolent hacker has yet to rob them blind with such bad security.) Even worse, most members that try have to use the Rush Duel system themselves, [[I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham| and many start to seriously have a lot of fun doing so.]]
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[Batman]] has a rogue's gallery with some of the best villains in comic history. Sadly, he also has some of the lamest:
** The Riddler is often treated as slightly less of a threat than most of Batman's gallery because his particular lunacy isn't inherently violent, and he has a compulsion to ''tell'' Batman and the police what his plans are (he's ''tried'' not to, but he just can't). It's tough to write a Riddler plot that can believably challenge Batman...so many writers don't, essentially writing him as a joke. The difficulty of writing good Riddler stories may also be a factor in the character's recent [[Heel Face Turn]], wherein he decided to use his genius for puzzles to ''solve'' crimes as a (well paid) private detective...[[Status Quo Is God|at least for
*** One issue of ''Batman Adventures'' takes this and runs with it for all it's worth. The Riddler decides to try one last time to beat Batman, vowing that if Batman solves the riddle and defeats him, he'll give up crime forever. The riddle he comes up with really ''is'' good, but Batman's busy with multiple other villains and essentially decides to not spend time on the Riddler, and catch him after the fact if necessary. He catches him anyway, completely by chance, and admits as much to the Riddler when asked how he solved the puzzle. Satisfied that he outwitted Batman, even though he got caught, Riddler sings all the way back to Arkham.
** Similarly, the fact that the Penguin is perfectly sane may have contributed to his mutation into a gray market white-collar criminal who Batman is grudgingly willing to tolerate as a source of information on the criminal underworld.
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** Humpty-Dumpty, who is so [[Anti-Villain|delightfully inoffensive that even calling him a villain is a big stretch]]. Even when one learns that there's a good reason that he's in Arkham, one kinda feels sorry for him; he has an obsession with fixing things by taking them apart and putting them back together again, because his ''whole life'' has been [[Deus Angst Machina|a string of disasters]], one after another. Unfortunately, his attempts to fix things only make them run ''worse''. His attempts to fix stuff like a subway train, an elevator, and a clock tower have lead to people getting hurt or even ''killed''. And, of course, he murdered his abusive grandmother when he tried to take ''her'' apart and put her together again.
** Condiment King, an absurd parody of gimmick villains, is this trope [[Lampshade Hanging|with a lampshade]]. Originally introduced as an original character for ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' where he wasn't a villain, but a brainwashed pawn of the Joker, he eventually emigrated to mainstream comics as a real one. Just dangerous enough to be worthy of Batman and Robin's attention, he has at least the ''potential'' to be a real threat (think "mustard gas", for just one example). However, in practice, he repeatedly gets defeated in a single page. Because he's an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, he keeps getting parole.
*** Condiment King is even considered lame in ''[[DC Super Hero Girls]]'', where ''everyone'' is a silly parody of their mainstream equivalents. Rather fitting that his VA is comedian [[Bobcat Goldthwait]].
** Jenna Duffy, aka The Carpenter (see trope image), was a member of Tweedledee and Tweedledum's "Wonderland Gang", [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|but had the sense to get out of supervillainy and to work exclusively as...an actual carpenter.]] Her specialty (who do you think ''builds'' all those [[Death Trap|deathtraps]] in Gotham?) can still get her into trouble, however.
*** Amazingly enough, however, Jenna manages to become a [[Not So Harmless Villain]] ''and'' a three-dimensional character in ''[[Batman: Streets of Gotham]]''. When she is double crossed by her employer (a crime boss called the Director) and realizes he never intended to pay her and that his scheme to kill Batman requires ''her'' death as well, she turns against him and his gang, taking them all down in what could best be described as an R-rated version of ''[[Home Alone]]''. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|(And yes, she kills one thug ''with a nail gun''.)]] Batman later advises her to leave Gotham, and she does - for a while.
*** Of course, the Director fits this Trope too and Duffy knows it from the start. The reason he hires her to begin with is to build a [[Death Trap]] complex with the intent to use it on Batman and ''film'' it, intending to market the footage as a [[Snuff Film]]. And he doesn't plan to stop there either, having "scripted" similar films with Superman and Wonder Woman as victims. He even advertises these movies -- one movie poster shows Diana's dead body hanging from a gallows. Duffy's own opinion of this is, [[Captain Obvious|Batman is going to curb-stomp him]], and she hopes to be paid and be miles away before that happens. Of course, as previously mentioned, Batman does not curb stop him, ''she'' does.
** Signalman got his start as a crook who figured he needed some gimmick to be successful, so taking inspiration from the Bat-Signal, he embarked on crimes where, like the Riddler, he left clues for the hero. But signals just don't grab a fan's attention as much as riddles do, and his costume looked like some kid scribbled all over it.
** Calendar Man started out as a lame villain. Julian Gregory Day (his name is ''three puns in one'') committed crimes on holidays with an appropriate theme. (For instance, dressing as Uncle Sam on Independence Day and robbing historic museums.) And he made really bad puns doing it. In recent years, however, he's [[Took a Level in Badass|become more serious]] and is seen in darker stories, becoming a ''little'' better and less of a joke.
** Charlie Brown, [[Sarcasm Mode|the notorious]] Kite Man. ([["Not Making This Up" Disclaimer|Not making this up]], he was a lame [[Shout Out]] to ''[[Peanuts]]'' who even crashed into a tree in one story and yelled "Rats!") Obsessed with kites, he committed crimes with a rocket-powered hang glider, until he was killed off and [[Old Shame|never mentioned in that continuity again.]] Still, the ''[[Harley Quinn (TV series)|Harley Quinn]]'' cartoon has made him, while lame, [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap| a good deal more entertaining.]]
** Most characters designed by comic legends Bob Kane and Bill Finger would be A-list, but the Penny Plunderer was anything but. Joe Coyne [[Punny Name|(another pun there)]] was a newspaper seller who was fired for stealing pennies, and turned to crime over an obsession for them. But it gets worse. He was the ''original owner of the giant penny''
** Poka-Dot Man, a guy in a bodysuit covered with multicolored poka-dots. Truthfully, this guy had a lot of pretty cool gadgets, but his ridiculous costume and name made it very hard for ''anyone'' to take him seriously.
* ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' had a few, most from [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]]:
** The Blue Snowman. This was a scientist who invented a suit of [[Powered Armor]] that made her (yes, ''her'') look like a snowman, and it had a freeze ray that produced ''blue snow''. A new version of the character in the more modern era tried to be [[Darker and Edgier]], but only looked ''sillier'', adding a corncob pipe.
** The Duke of Deception and the Earl of Greed were two of Ares' flunkies whose job was to keep the Earth in a perpetual state of war. Since this was during World War II, it's not clear why Ares even needed these buffoons, who always messed up. DC may have been going for the [[Halfhearted Henchman]] angle here, but these guys were bigger failures than [[Hercules (1997 film)|Pain and Panic.]] DC seems to have given up on the Earl, but the Duke managed to eventually [[Took a Level in Badass|Take a Level in Badass]], pulling a successful coup on Ares
** Angelo Bend, aka Angle Man, a villain with a... geometry theme. Obsessed with committing crimes with "unbeatable angles" this guy had a silly-looking costume covered with mathematics symbols and a sillier-looking weapon that looked like a Penrose triangle ("the Angler", he called it) but always got his ass handed to him by the heroine. Eventually he modified the weapon so it could warp time and space in a variety of ways, ditched his silly costume (for a getup that made him look like a middle-aged accountant) and was killed in the Crisis.
** Egg Fu may have been in a class of himself among Diana's enemies:
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*** DC would come up with another version post-Crisis, one that gave him a robotic body and a scheme that involved summoning the [[Four Horsemen]] using technology. Sadly, it was still hard to [[Nightmare Retardant|take a giant, living egg seriously.]], and he was still a blatant Chinese stereotype, so he didn't last, until...
*** Finally, the most recent version was named Edgar Fullerton Yeung [[Don't Explain The Joke|(get it?)]] who became a regular in [[Harley Quinn]]'s own title. The [[Denser and Wackier|nature of the title]] made him more acceptable when the Chinese background was removed, but he was still a truly incompetent villain who was much happier when Harley hired him as a handyman.
* Most bad guys on this list are lame because they have lame powers. However, that was not the case with the Composite Superman. Originally an out-of-work stuntman named Joseph Meach, he tried to get back into the spotlight by setting up a tank of water on a street in Metropolis, then diving into it from the roof of a building; unfortunately, the defective tank was leaking, and he’d have been killed had Superman not shown up and saved him. Superman also got him an honest job as a janitor at the Superman Museum, but being around superhero memorabilia just made him bitter and resentful. Until, that is, one stormy night where he was sweeping the room displaying wax statues of the [[Legion of Super-Heroes]]. Lightning crashed through the window and struck the display, and somehow, [[Lightning Can Do Anything| Meach gained the powers of every member of the Legion]] (that’s right, ''all 22 of them''; keep in mind, this includes Superboy, Supergirl, and two heroes just as strong as they are, Mon-El and Ultra-Boy); it also caused him to snap and become obsessed with defeating Superman and Batman. Now, with powers like this, Meach could have become one of the most dangerous villains in existence, but sadly, he couldn’t use them very well. Being something of an [[Attention Whore]] , his first scheme involved creating a series of disasters for Superman and Batman to attend to, but he deliberately sabotaged them in order to humiliate the heroes, and then [[Engineered Heroics| fixing them himself.]] He wasted so much time doing so, he didn't realize that his powers were temporary, and eventually wore off. Indeed, the only good thing the Composite Superman did was in his second appearance, where a [[Heel Realization]] led to him defending his two foes from another villain called Xan, [[Heroic Sacrifice| dying in the attempt]]. Ironically, this last act granted led to Meach being honored with his own statue in the Museum, the inscription stating he [[Redemption Equals Death| "lived a villain, but died a hero."]]
* The [[Marvel Universe]]'s Toad is a classic example of this. He has [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|second-rate powers]], a stupid nickname, and an even stupider real name (Mortimer Toynbee). Understandably, he hated himself. However, the first ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]]'' live action film, with the character played by Ray Park, changed him into a wry villain with more self-respect and redefined powers that are actually scary in their deadliness—managing to become his ''own'' [[Canon Immigrant]] (in particular, his [[Ultimate Marvel]] incarnation is much more badass than his first one).
* The Shocker from ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'':
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** Another time he teamed up with fellow loser the Trapster (see below), had Spidey at their mercy and only didn't kill him due to suddenly getting a call from their boss informing them that their pay would be doubled if Spidey lived. Ever the pragmatist, Shocker accepted though he remarked that if he killed him, he would "save a fortune on therapy bills".
** While the "regular" Shocker has his moments of competence and [[Not So Harmless]], his [[Ultimate Marvel]] counterpart consistently fits this trope.
* ''[[Daredevil]]'s'' big problem is that he has a few good villains (like Bullseye, the Kingpin, the Owl, and Elektra) but most of the others are lame:
** Case in point, Stilt-Man. A man whose suit of Powered Armor offers some minimal amount of protection while making him very tall. One of the more baffling villains of his era, writers gave up on revamping him into a serious threat a long time ago. Since then, whenever you needed a really pathetic villain to beat up, Stilt-Man was your guy. Eventually, [[The Punisher]] killed him. For all that, his wife, Princess Python, was pretty hot, so perhaps Stilt-Man was effective in other areas.
** While Stilt-Man may be dead, his legacy lives on in...''Lady Stilt-Man!'' Her first appearance consisted of being mocked by Spider-Man (who thanked her for improving the miserable day he was having), and being defeated by stepping into an open manhole. Even Spider-Man felt sorry for her when she started crying. This changed in her next appearance in "Villains for Hire", where she upgraded her armor and [[Took a Level in Badass]].
** The Matador was a former bullfighter who was kicked out of the sport for cruelty to animals. [[Everyone Has Standards|Just think about that for a minute.]] Now you know how a regular matador uses his cloak to goad the bull into charging? This lame villain tried to use that technique on armored cars, so he could rob them. He tried to use it on Daredevil too, who is blind in case you forgot.
** The LeapFrog. Vincent Patilio was a burglar and small-time inventor who made a frog suit with spring boots. The costume wasn't even very intimidating, and he got his clock cleaned by Daredevil. Still, one might say he had more smarts than most villains on this page, because once he did time, he decided to quit being a villain. Unfortunately his teenage son Eugene decided to use the suit and try to be a hero [[Failure Hero|(though not a very good one)]], renaming himself the Fabulous Frog-Man. While his career as a hero has lasted longer than his dad's stint as a crook, and he occasionally manages to save the day, it's [[Achievements in Ignorance|usually completely by accident.]]
* Rhino sometimes gets this treatment. Recently, he underwent a [[Heel Face Turn]], but [[Failure Is the Only Option|this is doomed to fail]]
** There was a two issue story about him in a Spider-Man spinoff focusing on the various other characters in Spidey's life, with his idiocy being what makes him so pathetic. However, he ends up becoming super-intelligent via super science and ends up getting the girl and becoming the strongest crime boss in New York, along with figuring out Spider-Man's true identity. He goes back to being dumb, however, when he ends up being miserable by not being able to connect with people anymore.
* Slyde. A villain who claims that his parents were gunned down by the [[Incredible Hulk]] and [[Captain America (comics)|Captain America]], and whose primary mode of attack is the "Slyde Punch", which is just a jab to the ribs. He gets taken down and hauled off to jail with incredible speed. As it happens, he's just a guy going through a midlife crisis who decided to go toe-to-toe with Spider-Man instead of just [[Midlife Crisis Car|buying a Corvette]] or something.
* Though the rat creatures in the comic ''[[Bone]]'' are quite fearsome in force, the nameless two most commonly seen around the valley where the protagonists live are pretty pathetic on their own. They want to eat the story's protagonist, but they do themselves more harm than anyone else with their bumbling. Their constant bickering over whether to bake the Bones into a quiche is also quite endearing.
** A trilogy of junior novel sequels even have them as two of the chosen ''heroes''. Well, more like [[Token Evil Teammate]]s, really.
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* [[The DCU]] villain Dr. Light started out as a formidable foe capable of taking on the Justice League single-handed, but was a victim of severe [[Villain Decay]] in the [[The Bronze Age of Comic Books|Bronze Age]] and [[Post-Crisis]] eras, mostly notable for being repeatedly defeated by kids. And while defeat at the hands of the [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]] isn't all that shameful, he was ''also'' humiliated by Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, a team of non-powered pre-teens! That all changed with his [[Rape as Drama|rape-the-wife]] moment in ''[[Identity Crisis]]''.
* The entire [[Legion of Doom|Injustice League]], which consisted of Major Disaster, Cluemaster, Clock King, Big Sir, Multi-Man, and Mighty Bruce. Individually, they were talented in some area, if lacking in others. As a group...they're still a bunch of losers. Here's how bad their luck is—while staying in Europe, they happened to attend the same French as a Second Language class as the Justice League. And this was following a bank robbery that was thwarted by the fact that none of them could effectively communicate the idea of "This is a stickup" in French.
** The Clock King deserves special mention, as he overlaps this Trope with [[Tragic Monster]] (and no, this is not the villain in ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'', he has [[In Name Only| nothing to do with this one]]). At first William Tockman seems utterly ridiculous, an armed robber and burglar with no super-powers at all, just a silly costume covered with clocks who steals expensive clocks. But then you hear his history. Tockman spent years caring for his invalid sister, and when a doctor tells him that he is also terminally ill with six months to live, he is terrified of what might become of his sister when he dies. He commits crimes hoping the profit will pay for her treatment once he is gone, the clock motif used to remind him his time is limited. Unfortunately, he botches a robbery, and is caught by [[Green Arrow]]. While in jail, his poor sister dies alone, and in ''horrible'' irony, [[All for Nothing|his own diagnosis had been wrong]], the incompetent doctor having switched his papers with that of another patient. He busts out of jail seeking revenge on Green Arrow and the doctor, later joining the Injustice League and then conscripted into the [[Suicide Squad]], failing in their first mission and not seen since.
* Bolphunga the Unrelenting, from ''[[Green Lantern]]''. A [[Large Ham]] villain, notable for using an axe against power-ring wielding space cops, and for attempting to take on [[Genius Loci|Mogo]].
* Turk, the pettiest of the petty hoods in Harlem, in the ''[[Daredevil]]'' comics.
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** Not quite, Captain Carnage was Rorshach'd down an elevator shaft. Which could happen to anyone really.
* The All-New Orb from ''[[Ghost Rider]]'' is a man with a giant eyeball for a head and a repulsor ray gun. Captain America describes the problem as "nobody takes him seriously enough to put him in an actual cell." He's not quite [[Not So Harmless]] since he's yet to prove a proper threat to any superhero thus far, but he's more dangerous than he looks.
* [[Marvel Comics]]' [[Fail O'Suckyname|Paste-Pot Pete had one of the more unfortunate villainous monikers in supervillainy
** Oddly, in one recent story (''[[The Unbelievable Gwenpool]] #21'') He tried using his original alias and costume again, hoping the underestimation of his reputation could be used to his advantage. (After all, he did indeed once defeat [[Spider-Man]] himself because the hero was laughing at him too much.) Possibly an admirable move, the story showing how [[An Aesop|one can succeed via self-acceptance and using your own flaws to your advantage.]]
* ''[[Astro City]]'' has Glue-Gun, an obvious [[Expy]] of Paste-Pot Pete. His only major appearance to date showed him invading a superheroes' dinner club, only to be taken out by the ''busboy'' he was holding hostage.
* The pirates and Romans in the ''[[Asterix]]'' books.
* ''[[Iznogoud]] the Infamous'', the ever-scheming but hapless Grand Vizier to the Caliph, who merely wants "to become Caliph instead of the Caliph."
* Not all of ''[[Captain America (comics)|Captain America's]]'' foes had the notoriety of [[The Red Skull]]:
** Batroc the Leaper is one of the most skilled fighters in the Marvel Universe, yet he almost always loses and never gets any respect. Thankfully, the good captain [[Friendly Enemy|actually seems to like him]].
*** Taken to another level in an issue of Marvel Adventures Avengers, in which Captain America's old enemy tries to reform and ends up inadvertently roping the Avengers into a somewhat amoral scheme to promote an internet dating business.
*** Batroc is an interesting case, as he's only 'ineffective' when he's fighting Steve one-on-one. When working for someone like Zemo, or fighting other heroes, he can be scarily effective. See his effortless beat down of the super-strong mercenary Paladin and his clashes with Bucky Barnes.
*** It was also noted in a comic about one of Marvel's superprisons that since Batroc's abilities all come from a lifetime of training, people like him are the most dangerous in supervillain prisons, as most of the villains either have their powers sealed or their tech taken away. Another name dropped in that vein is the Kangaroo, of all people.
*** Even ''[[Batman]]'' himself commends Batroc on his speed and skills after defeating him (off-panel) in Volume 4 of ''[[JLA-Avengers]]''.
** He's bigger than the Kingpin! He's the crime lord of Miami! He's '''the Slug'''! So says the cover blurb for ''Web of Spider-Man Annual'', but unfortunately for Ulysses X Lugman (who in fact first appeared in the ''[[Nomad]]'' limited series where Cap was a guest star), that's it. He's a 1,200 pound [[The Cartel|drug Lord]] with all the fighting skills of a bean bag chair. He [[Evil Cripple| can't even move on his own]] without a giant mechanical wheelchair. Maybe this could be seen as an analogy for America fighting obesity, but most of the time he's just a big joke.
* [http://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/8/81/Carface.JPG Carface], who [[Huntress]] [http://media.photobucket.com/image/birds%20of%20prey,%20carface/airhikec001/blog/comics/pages/BoP119_c-carface.jpg made quick work of.]
* Rainbow Raider in ''[[The Flash]]'' became this, once going so far as to attend a villainy motivational seminar in a futile effort to stop losing all the time. Neron once sent him an invitation to his [[Not So Harmless|upgrades-for-souls meeting]] just so the Trickster could steal it from him.
* Asbestos Lady is a villain who fits this Trope in hindsight. This gal was a thief who thought it was a good idea to fight the Human Torch (not Johnny Storm, the original one) with an asbestos costume. This made perfect sense back in [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]] before anyone knew that asbestos was a dangerous carcinogen. Later in the modern era, it was confirmed she had died of cancer, done in by her own costume, and that she had been secretly funded by the U.S. government to combat the perceived threat superhumans posed, sort of a precursor to the Superhuman Registration Act during the ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]''. In effect, poor Asbestos Lady had become [[Aesop Collateral Damage]] in a [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|precautionary tale]] of how a corrupt government could ruin the lives of its own employees for selfish personal agendas.
** There was also Asbestos Man, another foe of the Torch. When he appeared a second time - quite a bit later, in ''[[The Fantastic Four|The Fantastic Four Vol. 5 #1]]'' - he also suffers from cancer and has to carry an oxygen tank around with him even as he commits crimes. This ironically makes him more successful, as everyone he tries to rob is terrified at the thought of getting the disease. Despite this, he is miserable, as he now has no purpose (he came out of retirement seeking revenge on the Torch, only to find out he was dead) and thinking that if anyone remembers him at all, it will be as a lame fool who was defeated by his own poor judgment. Fortunately, the Great Lakes Avengers (the heroes who oppose him in this story) are no strangers to being regarded as lame, and promise they will remember him and spread the word about how notorious a villain he is, if he simply turns himself in. He agrees, and passes away soon after.
* Codpiece, from ''[[Doom Patrol]]''. This crook started his criminal career when he was rejected by a girl in high school who said he wasn’t “big enough”. She meant height but he thought she meant [[Teeny Weenie|something else]], and it inspired him to build… [https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Codpiece_(New_Earth) eh, this]. Even worse was the way he was defeated - rookie heroine Coagula was trying to make a name for herself after the Justice League rejected her application, and figured fighting this villain would help, but because she didn’t have a costume yet, she bought a cheap frog mask from a convenience store and took him down in a… [[Groin Attack|rather humiliating manner]]. It did indeed gain Coagula a spot on the Doom Patrol, but Codpiece wasn’t so lucky. He hasn’t been seen since.
* Foes of [[The Fantastic Four]] include such iconic villains as [[Doctor Doom]] and [[Galactus]], but even they have some of these:
** The Hate Monger. With his pointed Hood that made him look like a klansman, this villain could cause a [[Hate Plague]] in his victims. Unfortunately, this villain’s gimmick was the secret identity behind his mask, kind of like a darker version of a crook from [[Scooby-Doo]]. When the heroic foursome took him down and removed his mask (revealing him to be a clone of [[Adolf Hitler]] himself) he lost that edge and there was nothing left. Even the [[Red Skull]] (an actual Nazi) called him lame.
** [[Stan Lee]] once claimed in an interview that the one character he may have regretted creating was Diablo. Yep, this was a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] who was purposely designed as a Card-Carrying Villain, hence his name. He was pretty much Marvel's poster boy for the [[Alchemy Is Magic]] trope, but never really accomplished much. In fact, initially it seemed he was [[Only In It For The Money]], selling his alchemical concoctions to make profit, but failed at that because most of his potions wore off in a few weeks at most.
* As far as [[The Punisher]] is concerned, being regarded as a respectable and competent villain is achieved by surviving more than one story arc. However, one bad guy who stood out for his incompetence was Medallion, from the "Taxi Wars" arc in his ''[[Marvel Knights]]'' title. A crime boss more or less, he was morbidly obese, egotistical, neurotic, and possibly a sufferer of ADD. He gained wealth and influence through a scheme that involved leasing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion taxi medallions], and then murdering the lease holders so he could reclaim the medallions and gain far more profit. However, he was also involved in a lot of other odd schemes that never got off the ground. According to one of his henchmen he once looked into creating genetically enhanced giant cockroaches, which he quickly abandoned. His current scheme involved building taxi cabs with the durability and offensive power of tanks, intent on starting a war in New York against… [[Step Three: Profit| someone else.]] By the end of the arc, he was set to abandon that idea to, and focus on applying the same idea to ambulances, hoping to start a city-wide plague. Employing a gang of oddball criminals with names like Mr Badwrench and Dr Morphine, all of them thought he was an inept lunatic, only following his delusions because he paid well. As stated, seeing as he was not regarded as competent, neither he nor his gang survived their run-in with the Punisher, who managed to commandeer the prototype taxi tank vehicle, using it to storm Medallion’s headquarters and drive it over them, literally.
== [[Eastern
* The [[Those Two Bad Guys|South Korean mice]] in the propaganda-tastic North Korean series ''A Squirrel and a Hedgehog.'' The pair, consisting of domineering [[Jerkass]] [[Four Eyes, Zero Soul|Mulmangcho]] and his meeker, one-eared companion Yelipalip, migrate from faction to faction amongst the villains, and are consistently mistreated and abused. All of their efforts to prove their worth, do something evil, and make it higher up in the ranks of whichever group they're currently attached to inevitably fail, miserably and pitifully, usually thanks to the heroes. More than once, the two are actually arrested and imprisoned by their own bosses and almost executed because they got the blame for what the [[Dressing as the Enemy|undercover good guys]], Geumsagi and Juldarami, did. So far, they have always managed to somehow get out of such situations alive. Although they ''clearly'' want to be evil and respected (Mulmangcho more so than Yelipalip), they fail so often and so pitifully it's difficult not to feel bad for them.
** It should also be noted that this was originally an evil ''trio'' of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains, but the third guy, Mulsajo, whose distinguishing characteristic was that he wore a pink shirt, was even more ineffectual than his comrades and was blown up with a grenade midway through one of the earlier story arcs, leaving just his two buddies to carry the mantle of constantly failing.
== [[Film]] ==
* Disney examples:
** Kaa, from Disney's ''[[The Jungle Book (Disney film)|The Jungle Book]]''. [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|His interest in Mowgli]] occasionally bordered on the paedophilic, though. Unlike in [[The Jungle Book (novel)|the book]], where he's a benevolent [[Badass]] [[Old Master]].
** [[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Captain Hook]]. After a while, you just start to hate Peter for being so darn mean to the Captain.
** Edgar, from ''[[The Aristocrats]]''. Given his age, clumsiness, bad driving, and no real skills other than that of any other butler, his "scheme" is almost laughable. Granted, he managed to get rid of the Dutchess and her kittens (for a short while at least), but lets be honest, it doesn't exactly take a genius to fool three cats, and ultimately, he is beaten up and humiliated by a bunch of alley cats in a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] - how pathetic can you get? One has to question just ''why'' he was so dead set on getting rid of them - not like they'd have been able to do much to stop him from spending most of the money on himself by doing the bare minumum of what had been required of taking care of them.
* Peter Lorre in ''[[M]]''. And again in ''[[Casablanca]]''. And in ''[[The Maltese Falcon]]''. And ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]''. In fact, [[Peter Lorre]] in general.
** Peter Lorre in ''[[
** Exception: he was pretty unsympathetic and effective in ''[[Casino Royale 1954]]''. And as Mister Moto, he's a two-fisted detective hero.
** Further exception: he's [[Playing Against Type|the hero]] in the film of ''The Mask of Dimitrios'' (aka ''[[A Coffin for Dimitrios]]''), and Sydney Greenstreet, who was usually the more competent villain to Lorre's ISV, is the ISV of this film.
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* Inspector Clouseau, originally intended as an incompetent version of [[Inspector Javert]] in the original ''[[The Pink Panther]]'', managed to be so much more sympathetic than protagonist Charles "The Phantom" Lytton that he was retooled into the hero of the film's sequels.
** In the following film, ''A Shot in the Dark'', Clouseau transmitted this ISV condition to his boss, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (soon to become the ''former'' Chief Inspector Dreyfus). Dreyfus is actually a good detective who, it's implied, would never have gone [[Ax Crazy]] [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|if it hadn't been for Clouseau.]] After his [[Face Heel Turn]], poor Dreyfus has to look on helplessly as Clouseau survives all of Dreyfus' numerous murder attempts solely due to [[The Fool|the dumbest of dumb luck.]]
*** And
* [[Vincent Price]] as Shelby Carpenter in ''Laura.'' This is how his ''own girlfriend'' sums him up:
{{quote|"He's no good, but he's what I want. I'm not a nice person, Laura, and neither is he. He knows I know he's just what he is. He also knows that I don't care. We belong together because we're both weak and can't seem to help it. That's why I know he's capable of murder.<ref>Keep in mind that she says he's ''capable'' of murder. {{spoiler|He doesn't actually do it.}}</ref> He's like me."}}
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* Muerte ("name for death!") in ''[[Undercover Blues]]''. Muerte's reputation on the streets is hinted at as being formidable, but his utterly humiliating defeat at the hands of Jeff Blue quickly turned him into one of these. Every lost tooth just makes him that much more lovable.
* Sol and Vince, the loser duo of pawnshop crooks who try their hand at the big(ger) leagues, in ''[[Snatch]]''. [[The Chew Toy|It does not go well for them]].
* Prince Charming (or more appropriately, the franchise's resident [[Prince Charmless]]) from the second and third ''[[Shrek]]'' movies. Initially [[The Dragon]] to his mother in the second film, he's a spoiled rotten, vain egotist with all the trappings of a deceitful usurper and tyrant, but the problem is, he's not very good at it. Not intimidating in the least, his grandiose threats make him sound more foolish than threatening, and he's only truly a problem with his mother's support, something he doesn't have in the third movie where he makes an honest attempt to be the [[Big Bad]], only for his revenge plan and attempted coup to fall on top of him, literally.
* Gargamel, mostly, comes off as this in ''[[The Smurfs (film)|The Smurfs]]''. Until he gets his hands on Smurf Essence, that is.
* Prince Edward in ''[[Braveheart]]''. He tries so hard to meet his father Longshanks' expectations, but he never does.
* Pretty much the whole plot of ''[[Spaced Invaders]]''. The aliens want to conquer Earth, but aren't all-too good at it.
* The ED-209 from ''[[Robocop]]'' can't be held accountable for its incompetence because it was a mindless machine, but it was clearly a poorly designed one. Its logic circuits could not process information as quickly as a human brain (making it dumber than even a PC bought from a Radio Shack in the 80s) and could not even maneuver itself down a flight of stairs, which is exactly how the protagonist defeated it.
* RoboGadget, the evil android imposter of the protagonist of ''[[Inspector Gadget (film)|Inspector Gadget]]''. When inevitably confronted by the real Gadget, he actually makes the iconic [[Idiot Hero]] seem competent in comparison.
* The eponymous monsters in ''[[Attack of the Killer Donuts]]''. They manage to kill a few humans (mostly folks that had it coming, and one of the heroes who makes a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to stop them) but most of the intended victims are able to swat them aside with relative ease. In the end, living, evil donuts aren't very dangerous.
* The Purgers in ''[[The Purge (film)|The Purge]]''. While [[This Troper]] is no expert on the subject, one would assume that gangs intending to invade a home and murder the occupants on the day of the year it is most likely to happen would expect some level of resistance. Nobody wants to be dragged out of bed and murdered in the middle of the night by people wearing horrendous-looking masks, right? Yet, the Purgers in this movie aren’t exactly up for the task. Despite this movie occurring in America, [[Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight|they carry surprisingly little in the way of firearms]]. Plus two of them they literally act like children (sociopathic murderous children, that is) [[Evil Laugh|giggling wickedly]] and giving each other piggyback rides, actions that [[Obviously Evil|make them seem like evil lunatics]], right up to the part where the much savvier homeowner James blows their brains out with a shotgun. The rest fare little better, easily ambushed and killed by the Sanders’ neighbors, seemingly forgetting that when you go out on Purge Night, [[The Hunter Becomes the Hunted|you are not the only ones purging.]]
* ''[[No One Lives]]'' combines this with [[Eviler Than Thou]]. The film’s [[Villain Protagonist]]s are a gang of hardened, violent killers who make the mistake of going up against a monstrous [[Serial Killer]] who is far better at killing than they are. Contrary to the film's name, a couple of characters ''do'' survive, but it isn't them.
* ''[[You’re Next]]''. The masked intruders are sadistic, brutal killers, hired to murder a family as part of an inheritance scam orchestrated by two of them, Felix and Zee. Obviously, however, these two didn’t know enough about ''their own siblings'' to know that one of them, [[Final Girl| Erin]], is an [[Action Girl]] survivalist trained in a mercenary compound to kill without fear or pity, and her evil brothers and their hired killers are completely unprepared to deal with what is essentially a [[Distaff Counterpart]] to [[Rambo]] out to exact bloody retribution on them.
* When it comes to [[Hunting the Most Dangerous Game]], few excel at it better than the [[Predator]] - it is [[Planet of Hats| their “hat” as a species]]. But the Predator in the aptly named movie ''[[Prey]]'' seems to have no plan on what to do should the prey try to beat it at its own game. Sure, it slaughters the French voyageurs who are after Naru and Naru's unfortunate brother, but it seems this is because they make the mistake everyone else does when up against a Predator, trying to fight it directly. As a skilled hunter herself, Naru quickly learns that the only way to survive against a monster like this is to use its own strategy against it, and despite the Predator possessing superior technology (the movie takes place in 1719) and hunting skills common of its people, Naru proves the better hunter, outwitting and outsmarting it until she leads it into her own deadly trap.
* Biff Tannen in ''[[Back to the Future]]''; for all his his sadism and macho posturing, Biff was nothing but a wimp with a glass jaw, his rotten temper often causing him to make mistakes he could have avoided - a lot of fans pointed out that he was ''lucky'' George humiliated him, he might have been doing hard time in prison for rape otherwise. And ''that'' is just the ''first'' movie, in the ''second'', his older self's attempt to change the timeline gets himself [[Ret-Gone]], while the ''third'' shows that his great-grandfather was just as dumb, making his incompetence hereditary.
* Jerry, the [[Villain Protagonist]] of ''[[Fargo]]''. The main humor of this [[Black Comedy]] movie is how his ludicrous plot to become rich - kidnapping his own wife and making a ransom demand to her rich father - backfires due to his own ineptitude. The thugs he hires to do the job are violent sociopaths who ''seriously'' botch the plan by murdering a state trooper and two witnesses, starting a series of [[Disaster Dominoes]] that results in his wife and her father murdered, and Jerry left with nothing and in prison, the true victim being his ten-year-old son who has lost both his parents as a result. While Jerry does come off as borderline sympathetic, one must remember he caused this tragedy via his own stupidity and has nobody to blame for it all but himself.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Prince (later King) Korin, [[The Dragon]] {{spoiler|(although the [[Big Bad]] dies first)}} of [[Nightrunner|Lynn Flewelling's]] ''Tamír Trilogy''...although, especially towards the end, he ends up less sympathetic than merely pitiful. In real-world history, kings like him tended to end up with the sobriquet of "The Unready".
* While Sloan in the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' has certainly done some terrible things—killing a man, selling out his village to man-eating [[mook]]s, and bullying the protagonist in his younger years—it's revealed that he did everything out of love for his daughter, and so lies on a fuzzy line between this trope and [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]].
* Antorell the wizard in [[Patricia C. Wrede]]'s ''[[Enchanted Forest Chronicles]]''. His father, Zemenar, is the series' closest thing to a [[Big Bad]] (in the first three books, anyway), and Antorell [["Well Done, Son" Guy|wants to be favored by him]], but he—and pretty much everyone else—sees him as largely inept, to the point that the heroes will often [[Ignored Enemy|talk about him as if he wasn't in the room]]. He's never really presented as a sympathetic character, and he spends much of his time trying to kill the series' main female protagonist (or maybe not...it's sometimes hard to tell if he hates her, likes her, or both), but he's so bad about it that he's hardly ever presented as a threat, he [[Butt Monkey|never catches a break]], and is all in all just so pathetic that it's hard not to feel a little bad for the guy.
* Toward the end of the sixth ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' novel and through all of the seventh, Draco Malfoy has this role. He's pretty much forced into more overtly villainous acts (apart from being a male [[Alpha Bitch]] and jerk) by the threat of Voldemort killing him and his parents. Also noticeable is that while in the past, Harry and friends hated Draco, they instead see him as pathetic, and keep [[Save the Villain|saving him]] even as he keeps trying to do successful evil against them.
* Some of the more incompetent [[Mooks]] in the ''[[Redwall]]'' series fall into this category.
* 'Evil Harry Dread' from ''[[
** Not so ineffectual, actually. Even with horrible help (which he intentionally looks for, too), he still manages to be a somewhat legitimate threat...Or he would, except the [[Villain Ball|Code]] keeps him from being more then a [[Card-Carrying Villain]]. Remember though, like the Barbarian heroes he travels with for much of the story, he's lived to be very, very old in a profession that regularly has him facing some of the most dangerous individuals in the world (
* [[Butt Monkey|Vaurien Scapegrace]] from ''[[Skulduggery Pleasant]]''. His major goal in life is to be "Killer Supreme". Not only does he ''not'' manage to kill ''any''one until two whole books '''after''' his initial appearance, but he ends up being killed himself and turned into a zombie before even that.
* Chichikov in ''[[Dead Souls]]'' becomes this effectively.
*
* Jabba the Hutt may have been a dreaded and feared gangster in ''[[Star Wars]]'' continuity, but his father Zorba, who appeared in a few [[Expanded Universe]] stories, was a big joke. Several years after his son's death, he sought revenge against Leia and Han, but he never even got to Han; his attempts on Leia's life were all [[Epic Fail]]s. He came closest the first time, attempting to deal her a [[Karmic Death]] by throwing her to the sarlacc, but that only ended with him humiliated; not only was ''he'' fed to the beast, but it got sick as a result and vomited him out. After barely avoiding starving to death in the Tatooine desert before someone found him, he made other attempts against Leia but they were even worse. He eventually became a recluse, and [[Dying Alone|it's believed he eventually died in isolation.]]
* ''[[Goosebumps]]''.
** Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy. Certainly, one of the most iconic and entertaining villains in the series and ''very'' evil, but while he has the desire, he lacks the ability, never able to actually succeed in his evil schemes. Maybe if he spent less time telling jokes he'd do better, but then, he'd be much less iconic and entertianing if he didn't.
** The Mud Monster from "You Can't Scare Me!" The title kind of gives it away, not only is he not scary, he's too slow to catch anything capable of moving faster than a brisk walk. It says a lot for a monster's reputation when a child is capable of [[Talking the Monster to Death]] and getting him to back off.
==
* The Stillman Sisters from an episode of ''[[Charmed]]'', entitled "The Power of Three Blondes". They are trying to steal the Halliwell sisters' powers and prove that they're more than just dumb blondes, and they come oh-so-close to succeeding at both.
* Dr. Clayton Forrester of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' springs to mind. As his character brief in the show's official Episode Guide puts it, "His passion for depravity far exceeds his aptitude."
* Harmony from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', after she
** That said, the fact that she murders people to drink their blood (she is a vampire, after all) makes her somewhat less sympathetic.
** This finally starts working for her in ''[[Angel]]'', where she ends up being promoted out of the typing pool to Angel's secretary because she's a friendly face, admittedly one last seen trying to feed them to a group of vampires. Even when she betrays them again, Angel doesn't hold it against her, and actually prepared a reference for her so she can get a new job.
** The Trio also start out this way. They quickly become less sympathetic—though not less ineffectual, however, as even
*** Oh, no - Jonathan remains sympathetic, and actually becomes less evil as the other two [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|get worse]] - he even
** Spike is a mixture of this and [[Draco in Leather Pants]]. It's why he had a sizable fan following even when he was pathetic and laughably useless.
* Halfway through his [[Villain Decay]] and before his (grudging) [[Heel Face Turn]], Crais of ''[[Farscape]]'' became this, having always been a [[Large Ham|little ridiculous]] and also [[Freudian Excuse|rather sad]]. He remains an egomaniac throughout, though.
* Peter Campbell of ''[[Mad Men]]''. Sure, he's an obsequious little jerk who is looking for any opportunity to take advantage of any tiny opening. He's a total jerk to
** That was Season 1. Then [[Character Development]] kicks in. I'm not going to spoil the details, but by Season 4, he's possibly the single most sympathetic (in the sense that "you actually like him because he's a good guy") character on the show.
** Peter becomes sympathetic when one realizes that he is trapped in the system just as much as the other main characters. His delusions are crushed at the end of season 1 and he realizes that being a jerk will not get him anywhere in the firm. He is much more humble after this and stops being a villain.
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* Governor Croque in ''[[Jack of All Trades (TV series)|Jack of All Trades]]'' has a role similar to Klink's in ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]''. He's not all that bad a guy, but more to the point, any likely replacement would either be more intelligent (and thus more likely to figure out what Jack and Emilia are up to), more tyrannical (and thus more likely to inflict suffering on the innocent people of Pulau Pulau), or both.
* Crowley in ''[[Supernatural]]'' doesn't ''always '' fit this trope, but he's had his moments. He seems to flip-flop between wanting to be a badass demon overlord and sincerely trying to be a lesser evil, and his success either way is somewhat mixed.
** After his first (unsuccessful) effort at
** After he succeeded in becoming
** And of course in Season 7 he winds up
* Much like the Ferengi, the Centauri of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' in general (and Londo in particular) seem at first to be too backstabby to be much of a threat. Of course, then, Londo gets in bed with Morden, and the Centauri start the Second Shadow War; but then, when Londo goes back to Centauri Prime, it proves that the Centauri have been sad little pawns the whole time.
* The ''[[Power Rangers]]'' franchise pretty much perfected the [[Monster of the Week]] formula, with ''hordes'' of [[Evil Is Cool| entertaining examples.]] But it also had quite a few lame ones:
** ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'':
*** See Monster from "Changing of the Zords", the third season. With eyes all over his body, with [[Eye Beam]]s that had explosive impact or could cause migraines in his foes, and a knack for puns (all using the word “eye”) he seemed like… A lame knock off of the much more iconic Eye-Guy from season one. But he was lame for another reason - he wore an overcoat over all his eyes and opened it to use them offensively, which made it look like he was doing [[Memetic Molester|something ''really'' offensive]]. Fortunately, when he returned briefly as part of Professor Longnose’s army, he decided to switch to an old-fashioned sword.
*** Pursehead, from "Two for One". What was Lord Zedd thinking here? Okay, he was thinking to [[Divide and Conquer]] the heroes with two monsters, one made from Kimberly’s purse and another with a lipstick taken ''from'' the purse, but he really could have gone better. Pursehead could take items from the purse that was his head (like a compact mirror and dental floss) and turn them into weapons, but Tommy [[Glass Cannon| flattened him with one kick]] once he got close enough. His partner Lipsyncher was only slightly better, using a proper weapon (a sword) and a sonic attack, but the Rangers didn’t even need the entire Megazord for this one, taking her down with only the Red Dragon Zord.
** ''[[Power Rangers Zeo]]''
*** Leaky Faucet. Originally one of several monsters created from movie costumes in “Invasion of the Ranger Snatchers”, he became an [[Ascended Extra]] as the main antagonist of “Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise” The [[Fail O'Suckyname]] aside, this guy did have potential as a WMD, able to turn water into toxic Cog oil, and he had some powerful water-based attacks. Unfortunately, it was [[Nightmare Retardant| very hard to be scared]] of a robot donkey dressed in a hardhat and plumber’s outfit who talked like some country bumpkin and had an annoying laugh. He didn’t last long.
*** Googleheimer the Toy Robot, from "Bulk Fiction". Designed as a plaything for Prince Sprocket, this guy was surprisingly durable. Unfortunately he lacked much in the way of offensive power, seeing as his most powerful weapon was, uhm… silly string.
*** Somnibot from de "Rock-A-Bye Power Rangers" (who by the way, was voiced by Barbera Goodson, who [[Hey, It's That Voice!|also did Rita Repulsa’s voice]]) was a robot who could put people to sleep by singing a lullaby. A pretty decent power, but would help if she wasn’t half-asleep herself and went into battle wearing ''a nightcap''. Kind of hard to be afraid of that. Plus she was a Glass Cannon who was floored by ONE blast from the Gold Ranger’s staff.
** ''[[Power Rangers Turbo]]'' had a lot of lame monsters, but some were lame among the lame:
*** From "Weight and See", Numbor was his name, recalculating weights and measures was his game! If you think ''that'' sounded silly, you should have heard ''him'' say it. A combination of a [[Villainous Harlequin]] and [[Mad Mathematician]], he wore a mortarboard, had a calculator for a torso, and could make things heavier or lighter. He also used bombs shaped like numerals. And goaded the heroes using ''really'' bad puns. Oh, and Divatox told him to attack Katherine after another student called her fat. Obviously, this was his only appearance.
*** Mr. Goorific from "Cassie's Best Friend". This guy had a decent weapon, an oversized toothpaste tube that could [[Baleful Polymorph]] a target; actually hitting the target, however, was a different story, he had ''terrible'' aim. He was actually brought down by Cassie’s dog. Seriously. Even [https://powerrangers.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Goorific?so=search his entry on RangerWiki] calls him "one of the weakest monsters in the franchise".
*** [[Evil Chef| Mad Mike the Pizza Chef]] from "Trouble By the Slice". Okay, most fans are under a non-verbal agreement ''never'' to speak of this one again, but a brief exception must be made here. [[Mook Maker| Porto]] was “inspired” to create this monster from the mascot of a pizza parlor, but even in a show known for being campy and cheesy, someone who [[Edible Ammunition| used thrown pizzas as weapons]] who tried to bake the heroes into a pizza went a little overboard. Plus his costume was [[Unfortunate Implications| a dumb recreation of the flag of Italy and he spoke with a horrid parody of an Italian accent]]; thankfully he was never seen again.
** Radster from ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]''. In all fairness, this was the first Monster of the Week in Lost Galaxy, making him sort of a [[Warmup Boss]], but he was still sort of lame. He was part scorpion, part lobster, [[Elvis Impersonator| and part Elvis]] (no, [["Not Making This Up" Disclaimer| really]]) and had a bad case of [[Small Name, Big Ego]]. The only reason he gave the Rangers a hard time was because they didn’t have Zords yet, but the Red Galactabeast blew him to fragments with one blast of its fiery breath. Still, Radster may have been a failure as a warrior, but [[Laughably Evil| he sure made the fans laugh]].
** [[Power Rangers Wild Force]]:
*** Barbed Wire Org from "Darkness Awakening", again, the [[Warmup Boss]] for the Wild Force team, As his name suggested, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin| he was an org made of barbed wire]], and looked pretty dangerous. Looks were deceptive. The most hilarious part of the Megazord battle was how he ended up in a [[Punch-Punch-Punch Uh-Oh]] situation right before the Megazord decked him.
*** Wedding Dress Org from the episode “Three’s a Crowd” was a cowardly and arrogant Org who created a body out of a wedding dress. Her only goal was to disrupt weddings by kidnapping the brides and turning them into mannequins, simply because, well, because she was evil. However, against anyone who could fight back (as in, the Rangers) she was about as formidable as the dress it was made from.
**** Arguably, its ''[[Super Sentai]]'' counterpart in ''[[Gaoranger]]'' was even worse. In this version he [[She's a Man In Japan|(yes, he)]] was a fugitive the Rangers had been after for a while, and had a more feasible goal - draining female victims in order to make a crooked wedding planner named Saori Shimada eternally young. He loused that up, turning Saori into an infant. He wasn’t very intelligent either, the Goarangers luring him out [[Batman Gambit| using a faux wedding]] with Sotaro [[Disguised in Drag| posing as the bride.]]
** From ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]]'' came Donkeyvac. [[Hybrid Monster]]s are common in this franchise, but this one was created by combining the DNA of [[You Fail Biology Forever| a donkey, a pomegranate, and a vacuum cleaner]]. He did have the ability [[Rapid Aging| to steal the youth from victims]], so if he had a design that made logical sense (and didn’t shoot exploding fruit from his nose) he might have been an efficient and memorable threat, but he did not, and was not.
** Stingerella from ''[[Power Rangers Jungle Fury]]''. This scorpion-girl monster came off as terrifying at first from her appearance alone, and to her credit, she appeared in more episodes than most of the monsters listed here (three as the antagonist, plus one cameo). But then she actually launches her assault and shows herself to be a master of… [[Dance Battler|Dance Battle]]. To drive that point home, she trained a battalion of [[Mooks| Rinshi]] in the same “style”. Someone really should have told her that this is something the typical [[Recruit Teenagers with Attitude| Teenagers With Attitude]] can learn like a duck to water. Worse, during the Megazord Battle she breaks out a much more useful power - [[Bee-Bee Gun| a whole swarm of scorpions used as projectiles]], which makes you wonder why she didn’t use that in the first place.
** Nojoke from ''[[Power Rangers Mega Force]]'' ("Last Laugh") was a [[Yokai| tengu-like monster]] who had absolutely [[No Sense Of Humor]] and hated the sound of laughter, his goal being to eradicate humor entirely. While that sounds like an… odd motive, he was very much a [[Combat Pragmatist]]. His primary weapon was a Laughter Gourd, a device that could absorb anyone who laughed (a victim trapped this way would eventually be liquified and consumed later); should anyone have enough willpower to keep themselves from laughing, he could also control winds in a way to ''tickle'' potential prey, and should that fail, he had a… [[Fartillery| sound-based gaseous attack]] that could compel people to laugh. While this all seems oxymoronic, he was a pretty effective warrior, but fits this Trope due to his weakness… He was ''not immune to his own powers!'' When Robo Knight (an android who was physically unable to laugh) and Noah (who also had no sense of humor) manage to find a way to make ''him'' laugh, he is snared by his own Gourd, causing it to break and free every victim. Naturally, his final words before being slain by the Megazord are, [[Dramatic Irony| "This isn't funny!"]]
** ''[[Power Rangers Dino Charge]]'' completes the cycle with a triad of examples:
*** Smokescreen from "Sync or Swim". If you can imagine a Samurai warrior with armor that had a Kabuki design, you might be able to picture this one. What made him dangerous (the term should be used loosely) was the pipe-vent-mechanism on his back that could [[Fartillery| spew a foul-smelling vapor with a rude smell.]] To top it off, [[Small Name, Big Ego| he was very proud of his ability]] to use his Fart Fog so efficiently. Gross.
*** Loafer and Leisure from "Catching Some Rays". This was a brother-sister team [https://powerrangers.fandom.com/wiki/Loafer?so=search of really nutty looking monsters] with a summer vacation theme. Their main gimmick is, they use some sort of euphoria gas that makes victims think they’re on a permanent vacation. It truly seemed the writers were trying a little too hard to make this odd theme work.
*** Cavity from "The Tooth Hurts" was both an [[Evil Chef]] and a [[Depraved Dentist]], a pastry chef whose wares caused agonizing toothaches to whoever ate them, something he could also cause using his energy projection powers. The [[Monster of the Aesop]] plot has been used a lot in this franchise, so this might have had potential if there was an Aesop in the plot, which there wasn’t - nothing about the benefits of dental hygiene or how you should avoid too many sweets. In fact, Cavity’s powers could decay things other than teeth; it would work on objects as big as trees, making him [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character| a case of wasted potential.]]
*** Plus there was Game Face from the [[Sequel Series]], ''[[Power Rangers Dino Super Charge]]'', the episode "Freaky Frightday". Give a storyboard designer ten minutes to design a monster with the personality of a tough gym teacher and an [[I Know Madden Kombat]] theme, the result would be… Much better than this one. He looked like someone took all the equipment a high school PhysEd department was going to throw away and glued it all together in a vaguely humanoid monstrosity. He had a large set of [[Combo-Platter Powers]] set due to an arsenal of equipment, but with no synergy whatsoever, and while he did have hilarious dialogue, he was about as much of a threat as the pile of junk he resembled.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* An unintentional case was Retribution, a group who were pivotal to a storyline that may have looked good on paper. In 2020, this group of masked hooligans "invaded" WWE and wrecked everything in their path on a mission to bring the organization down. Or rather, that was the intent. Made up of NXT stars that had been given ''ridiculous'' names and silly costumes, they were far more annoying than they were evil, and were quickly condemned by both fans and critics. Reportedly, most mainstream WWE stars at the time felt sorry for them. WWE tried to salvage the storyline by "revealing" [[Mustafa Ali]] as the group's leader, but to no avail. After seven months, the group disbanded to little fanfair.
==
* Dr. Einstein of ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]''. At the very least, he's helped [[Ax Crazy|Jonathan]] escape from jail and evade the police. He probably has something to do with the latter's ability to be a contender in the play's [[Body Count Competition]] as well. However, he's clearly motivated by fear and spends a lot of time drunk. This may be the reason for
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[Xenogears]]'', Kahran Ramsus appears as a primary villain early on, and, with his prettyboy features, white hair, and usage of a sword as his weapon, seems destined to be the big bad. {{spoiler|By the end of the game, his [[Beware the Nice Ones|wallflower-like personal assistant]] has turned out to be the real [[Big Bad]], he finds out that he's a failed clone designed to mimic the powers of the main character (who he has repeatedly lost to), and is abandoned by his masters for his repeated failures.}}
* ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' had Gilgamesh, the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Large Ham|enthusiastic, melodramatic]], and ultimately [[Affably Evil]] [[The Dragon|sidekick]], who, despite being a reasonably tough boss to fight, really talked himself up to be a lot more than he was...and eventually, after deciding that he liked the heroes a lot more than his boss, he {{spoiler|[[Taking You with Me|blew himself up to take out another boss]] that was attacking them - but not without a cheesy and confusing farewell speech.}}
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* Dist from ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'' certainly comes off as one, introducing himself as 'Dist the Rose' but ending up being called 'Dist the Runny'. In every fight, he sweeps in with an over-dramatic entrance and then gets made fun of immediately, usually by Jade, before his humiliating and undignified loss.
* Pete from ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', and loads of it. Seems more like he just picked the wrong side.
** Demyx arguably fits in the same category, especially in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days|Days]]''. All he wants to do is chill with his sitar, and Saix and Xemnas make him act evilly. Averted later when he puts up [[That One Boss/Role-Playing Game/Kingdom Hearts|one hell of a fight.]]
* ''[[Steambot Chronicles]]'' has Dudley, an obnoxious, tough-talking, muscle-brained trotmobile rider who the player runs into on about 4 occasions (3 during the main story and another in an optional encounter). While not necessarily a villain per se, the oaf constantly boasts about his strength and generally acts like a prick (he picks fights with anyone he can, destroys a farm just because "flowers are stupid", and think that a massive zeppelin is hoarding treasure). In the hero ending of the game, he can even be seen during the credits making what appears to be threatening gestures towards Vanilla (who is leaving on a ship for his homeland).
* ''[[Halo]]'' has the Unggoy/Grunts, the main cannon fodder for the Covenant. Small (by Covenant standards), requiring gas masks to breathe in non-methane atmosphere, mistreated by the other races, they're slaves who come across as cowards. In large part because, fearing an uprising, the Covenant doesn't want to give them any actual combat training. Half the fandom feels sorry for them. The other half [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|loves to slaughter them]]. Averted in ''Halo3'' and ''Halo3: ODST'': there, they take [[Took a Level in Badass|so many levels in badassery]].
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' has some of the best villains in fantasy. It also has quite a few idiots:
** Arvel the Swift, the first bad guy most players come across. The quest involving him requires you to find him and get the Golden Claw he stole. When you find the infamous thief, he’s been caught by a [[Giant Spider]], and you have to rescue him. However, once you cut him down he calls you a fool and makes a run for it; unfortunately for him, he’s actually not very swift, and barring a hideous streak of bad luck, he’s easy to catch. In fact, if you DO have a hideous streak of bad luck, the guy doesn’t realize he’s about to charge into a crypt full of [[Our Zombies Are Different| hungry Draugr]], and even if he gets past them (which he won’t) he’d run into a hallway full of deadly traps and… Long story short, he’s a stupid bandit.
** Ulfr the Blind, the bandit who "watches" the entrance to White River Watch. Already, this is clearly a bunch of [[Stupid Crooks| Stupid Bandits]], putting their hideout so close to Whiterun, but they have a ‘’blind’’ man guarding the entrance. Even worse, it’s pretty easy for you to convince him you’re another bandit, unless you actually attack him, and if you DO that, he suddenly seems perfectly able to see. So either he’s not blind, and is simply lazy, or he’s the skilled at blind-fighting, but a terrible guard.
** The dumbass Bandit by the log bridge south of Hillborne's Tomb. This jerk insults and challenges everyone he comes across, including you and the Ancestor Trolls that are nearby. The bridge isn't exactly the safest place to fight on, and the only threat he poses comes if you act like a bigger jerk and follow him onto it, but otherwise, he won't last long.
** Captain Valmir, {{spoiler|an undercover Thalmor agent disguised as a Stormcloak captain or an Imperial Legion soldier (whichever side ''you'' are on) who tells you to fetch the Dragon Priest Mask from Forelhost. Why? Well, according to his orders (which he carries) he's supposed to get it, but is too lazy and/or cowardly to do it, so he dresses as a member of your faction and tells ''you'' to. If you agree (which is worth it, as the Mask is a pretty decent magic item) you have to fight a bunch of ghosts, cultists, and Rahgot himself (a far more competent villain) and take the Mask, and when you come out, Valamir, who clearly wasn't too convinced of your success, if trying to pull this con on ''another'' adventurer. Which is ''very'' bad for him, because now he's got ''two'' adventurers angry at him. He won't last long after that.}}
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]]''. the evil Yiga Clan are a group of assassins devoted to killing Link and serving Ganon. While most members are competent fighters, Master Konga - their leader - [[Anticlimax Boss| is a complete joke.]] He's an overweight and hyperactive [[Man Child]], and the Boss Battle with him is arguably even less of a threat than the rank and file Yiga clan mooks you fought to get to him. Even worse, he takes himself out using a [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]] that he cannot control.
** In [[The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom| the sequel]], {{spoiler|Kohga is still a lame villain, but [[Took a Level In Badass| a much better boss]].}}
* The Panther King from ''[[Conker's Bad Fur Day]]'' is stupid to the point of absurd, not to mention gullible. His sole motivation for opposing Conker stems from his obsession with fixing the table next to his throne and [[The Dragon|Professor von Kripplespac's]] claim that red squirrels make good table legs. Despite this suggestion making no sense whatsoever, he's willing to commit acts like kidnapping and murder to obtain a red squirrel, which Conker actually ''isn't''. {{spoiler|Little wonder that Kripplespac succeeded in [[The Starscream |his plan to assassinate him]].}}
* ''[[Resident Evil]]'' may have one of the best villains in video games with Albert Wesker, but also has one of the worst with Ramon Salazar from the fourth game. He claims to be a twenty-year-old man who has been prematurely aged by the Plagas, but acts like a whiny 8 year old. The one edge he has is [[Plot Armor]], as the storyline seems to go out of its way to make up reasons why time after time, Leon is unable shoot the little brat and end the threat once and for all.
* [[Mega Corp|Majestic]], from ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]''. What does it say in a game with a name like ''that'' when the genocidal alien looks more competent and more ethical than his human foes? Majestic is a large international organization dedicated to defeating the Furons, while secretly plotting their own goals of [[Take Over the World| world domination.]] Thing is, the Furon invasionary force consists of… [[Easy Logistics| one guy, the protagonist, Crypto]]. For all their highly-trained agents and cutting edge technology, Majestic - A [[Non-Indicative Name]] if there ever was one - can’t capture or defeat this one alien. Seriously.
* The ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' series has many, often a result of the character being an [[Adaptational Weakling]]:
** First, we have the elephant in the room, the [[Big Bad]] of the first game himself, the Joker. He was actually doing okay up until the [[Final Battle]] where he {{spoiler| purposely injects himself with Titan and turns himself into a huge, hulking, super-strong, utterly-ridiculous looking buffoon. You would be hard pressed to find a review of this game (no matter how positive) to say that this is the very last thing the Clown Prince of Crime would do, that it just isn't him, and almost all of them agree that this was the one thing keeping an otherwise great Batman game from being flawless.}}
** Of course, there’s Lester Buchinsky, the Electocutioner, a would-be assassin and Large Ham who turns out to be not even as tough as any of the mooks, almost a [[Harmless Villain]] there. But then, the “fight” against him was intended to be played for laughs.
** Deathstroke was a decent villain in ''Origins'', but [[Sarcasm Mode| the idiot in his costume pretending to be him]] in ''Arkham Knights'' was an insulting joke. He is supposed to be a world-class assassin, weapons expert, and combatant that is near equal to the Dark Knight himself, but for his [[Boss Battle]], Batman fights him via [[Vehicular Combat]]. An okay idea yes, but not how the legendary Slade Wilson does things at all. Worst of all, when he does decide to fight Batman mano-a-mano, the hero floors him with one punch.
** Bane in the first game. This is not the Man Who Broke the Bat, he’s a [[Dumb Muscle]] thug. In fact, the only real difference here between him and the first Titan that Batman encounters is that Bane has a few mooks backing him up. Nothing more.
** Killer Croc was [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot| a good idea that was done wrong]]. A trek through the sewers being hunted by the remorseless killer… It’s something that has worked so many times before. But it gets boring very quickly, and Croc can never succeed in surprising the player, his attempts at ambush far too easy to predict.
** Zsasz is a villain who appears in ''every'' game in the series, and he's lame in ''all'' of them. He has no motivation whatsoever (other than kill anyone he comes across) and is almost laughably easy to defeat. If his "plan" involves hiding from Batman, there will be about a hundred ways the player can spot him, and if it involves combat, he'll be floored in one punch. Even compared to most [[Jobber]] opponents in video games, he's pathetic.
* Rick the Door Technician from ''[[Star Wars Jedi: Survivor]]''. When you enter the Imperial Base on Koboh, you will come across a figure that ''appears'' to be a boss, with a boss's health bar. But he's just a Scout Trooper with Scout Trooper attributes, and the game identifies him as "Rick the Door Technician". He'll charge madly at you and attack, but will do barely any damage. And you can drop him with a single swipe of your lightsaber. Rick has become so beloved that fans have made jokes, memes, videos and even [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fi-made-a-poster-for-the-best-boss-in-the-game-v0-dgp7mrrm9mza1.jpg%3Fs%3D8d00fd841cf08cfb835143366c5f59888a9d5e63 posters] celebrating him.
== [[Web Animation]] ==
* ''[[Burnt Face Man]]''{{"}}s entire Rogues Gallery, whose nefarious schemes include harassing him over MSN and stealing his submarine (he doesn't have one, the plot was randomized). Taps Man splashes his opponents with water. "Hot, and cold. Hot, and cold, and a combination of them, which I call 'HOLD'."
** Despite that, Taps Man {{spoiler|managed to kill Burnt Face Man's rival, Slightly Bruised Man, with a spray of scalding water, followed with tepid water with lead piping and a faulty boiler.}}
* [[Homestar Runner|Strong Bad]], most of the time. On the rare occasion the mischief he gets up to is more serious than [[Poke the Poodle|Poodle Poking]], he's likely to fail pretty miserably at it. It's just as well, though, as the local approach to law enforcement is [https://web.archive.org/web/20150316030334/http://www.homestarrunner.com/jailcartoon.html just as pathetic].
* While O'Malley from [[Red vs. Blue]] occasionally has moments of true villainy, far more often, he is completely, thoroughly, and utterly ineffectual throughout the Blood Gulch Chronicles. How much of this is him and how much is actually due to him being in the head of {{spoiler|Doc, the pacifist medic}} is up for debate, but the fact still remains that his evilness generally consists of wacky plots to destroy the universe and illegally downloading music, and his robot army fails miserably because...well, let's just say that when he requested a robot army to take over a base in a day, he didn't expect that it would literally have to take exactly 24 hours for the robots to do it!
* Verosika Mayday, Blitzo's ex-girlfriend and now rival from ''[[Helluva Boss]]''. [[Breakout Character]], maybe, but as a [[Horny Devil]], not very competent. A leader of a group of other succubi and incubi, Verisika figures a group of hormone-crazed college students on spring break are easy prey. She's right, and easily tempts them into an orgy of bestial lust, but makes the mistake of doing it ''on a public beach''. The end of the episode sees Blitzo's crew - who were very careful to leave no witnesses to ''their'' evil deeds - fleeing back to Hell while the police surround Verosika and her group, likely leaving a ''lot'' for her to explain to whatever Overlord she's working for.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* About half the [[Card-Carrying Villain|Card Carrying Villains]] in ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' fit this trope. (The rest, of course, are anywhere on the scale between [[Affably Evil]] and [[Complete Monster]].)
* Waldo and Steve in the [[Web Comic]] ''[[CRFH]]'', though they are [[Gonk|far too ugly]] both physically and socially to ever be truly sympathetic.
* Cassiel from ''[[Misfile]]'' desperately wants to be Rumisiel's nemesis and is constantly plotting his downfall. Too bad she makes the [[Pokémon (anime)|Team Rocket]] trio look competent and effective.
* Fructose Riboflavin in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' who has been [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070327.html trying and trying and failing] to take over the Nemesite Empire for [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20061223.html so danged long] that you have [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070331.html to pity him, just a little.]
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20110128104159/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=081023 Minion Master] from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.
** In an alternative universe, [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20090910 he's] [[Not So Harmless]].
* Drizz'l in ''[[8-
** Pretty much, [[Everything Trying to Kill You|everything]] in [[Crapsack World|the universe]] has [[Butt Monkey|two purposes]]: to hurt [[Heroic Sociopath|Black]] [[Complete Monster|Mage]] and humiliate Drizz'l.
* The Flaming Prince from ''[[Van Von Hunter]]''.
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** In Act 5 of ''[[Homestuck]]'', Eridan is a genocidal snob who aspires to kill off all the lower-class, land-dwelling trolls. But none of his schemes ever work, no one takes him seriously, and the [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004339 narration itself] describes him as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain:
{{quote|[Y]our penchant for mass murder notwithstanding, people tend to regard you as a BIT OF A TOOL.}}
* Dr. Kinesis in [
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', technically, {{spoiler|Magus}} was behind the {{spoiler|v-five Elliot incident}}, and tried to manipulate Ellen within some plot that sounds [[Squick|quite dubious]]. And is not very good at this. But he's in desperate straits, which isn't even his own fault (unlike Abraham's case). And he's still reluctant to kill a guy who stands in his way even when pushed hard to do it.
** [http://egscomics.com/?date=2008-04-14 He knows it, too].
** He's mostly out of his depth and as he tries to grasp any straw, "bloody list of things to atone for keeps getting bigger".
==
* Dr. Horrible of ''[[
** He even qualifies as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]; he thinks [[Utopia Justifies the Means]] and a benevolent dictatorship would do that. Kind of like [[Pinky and The Brain|the Brain]].
** Interestingly, at the very beginning, he gets a letter from a would-be superhero calling himself Johnny Snow. Horrible immediately makes it seem as if Snow is an Ineffectual Sympathetic ''Hero''. Then we read the prequel comics and see how Johnny Snow single-handedly stopped the entire Evil League of Evil while Captain Hammer was out of town. It turns out that he's also a [[Gadgeteer Genius]]. That "ice beam" which is so "Johnny Snow" that Horrible mentions in his song was actually used by Snow.
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* On a less mass-homicidal note, [[The Nostalgia Critic]]. He's pretty just a damaged little boy with a gun and temper tantrums at his disposal.
* While she worms her way out of trouble much more successfully than the Critic and could dominate the world if she got her mind fixed, [[The Nostalgia Chick]] is still just a shut-in alcoholic who'll never make anything of her life.
* Kami Steele of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' [[Spin-Off]] ''The Program'' seems to fit on and off, depending on the thread. Her first appearance had her pointing a gun [[Gangsta Style]] at a girl with the intent to kill her, but ran away over being ''yelled at'' by said girl, who had started to poke holes in her plans. She has since started a [[Not So Harmless|body count]], but still has her moments of incompetence. One could also make a case for Version 4's Jimmy Brennan, [[Not So Harmless|up until he]]
* [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1370 SCP-1370] of the ''[[SCP Foundation]]''. An [[Omnicidal Maniac]] in personality, in ''ability'' it's completely harmless.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'':
*
** Except in the episode "Secrets of My Excess", however this time, Spike is transformed into a gargantuan rampaging beast that almost completely demolishes Ponyville. ''Even then'' he may lean into this since it's all for the sake of [[Poke the Poodle|hoarding "gifts"]].
** Most of the [[Rogues Gallery]] for the show act as this or mere petty bullies. The foes used in the two part specials are the only notable exceptions, and even then their [[Smug Snake|detrmimental arrogance]] and the often humiliating manner they are taken out almost makes you pity them.
*
** Harley Quinn tended to fall into this trope, especially when she caught on as a popular character: She was often treated as genuinely misguided, so the audience sometimes forgave her for her more violent behavior depending on how softening a particular episode was.
*** In the comic-turned-episode "Mad Love", Harley [[Not-So-Harmless Villain|did manage to succeed in trapping Batman]]. Batman's only hope was to have her inform The Joker, who he knew would free Batman because ''[[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|it wasn't HIM that defeated Batman!]]'' Batman even admitted that Harley came closer to killing him than the Joker ever did. Harley also suggested [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|just shooting Batman]], instead of elaborate death traps. Ironically, at the end of the episode, {{spoiler|Harley almost succeeded in killing Bats with an elaborate death trap, while the ''Joker'', who previously slapped Harley for even suggesting such a thing, tried simply shooting him...and failed.}}
**
{{quote|''[[Lex Luthor]]'': [[Trivially Obvious|Scarecrow, you...you're made of STRAW!]]}}
* The Amoeba Boys in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''. While the Powerpuff Girls are out beating up real criminals, the poor Amoeba Boys can't get the girls' attention, despite committing [[Sarcasm Mode|heinous]] acts such as [[Poke the Poodle|littering, jaywalking, and disobeying a "Keep off the grass" sign.]]
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** [[Daffy Duck]], initially just a [[Screwy Squirrel]] or [[Anti-Hero]], eventually evolved into one for [[Bugs Bunny]] and [[Speedy Gonzales]].
** Nasty Canasta and Rocky the gangster, initially more fearsome subversions of this trope, eventually devolved into hopeless foils for Bugs as well.
** [[The Big Bad Wolf]] tends to be this in any short that parodies ''[[The Three Little Pigs]]'' or ''[[Little Red Riding Hood]]''. For that matter, this is also usually the case when he appears in [[Disney]] cartoons or [[Tex Avery]] shorts.
* [[The Simpsons (animation)|Sideshow Bob]] also frequently veers into this territory. The poor guy can't even win against a rake.
* Waspinator from ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Wars]]'' is one of these, being a [[Chew Toy]] on the side of the bad guys.
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** Killface is so sympathetic, especially when compared to [[Jerkass]] [[Designated Hero]] Xander Crews, that it's easy to forget that he brutally killed two people in the pilot and has added to his body count throughout the series. It helps that some of the other members of the cast have committed similar misdeeds and/or are [[Asshole Victim]]s.
* ''[[Invader Zim]]'' qualifies for this trope most of the time; more often than not, his schemes are thwarted by the Ditz portion of his [[Genius Ditz]] personality, rather than by his arch-nemesis or his [[Cloudcuckoolander]] robot. Of particular note is the episode where he survives a [[Training from Hell]] in order to receive some [[Humongous Mecha]]s from his leaders, only to be shot into a sun for his troubles.
* ''[[Yin Yang Yo!
* ''[[South Park
* Dr. Drakken from ''[[Kim Possible]]'' never gets the respect he thinks he should have; he always fails his capers, sometimes even without the help of Team Possible. Maybe he had the ''potential'' to be a great villain, but he never acted on it. He often gets mistaken for the more respected Dementor and, at the end of the series, he is outright told how much of a failure of a villain he has been (despite having come closer to [[Take Over the World|taking over the world]] than any of his peers, and ending up with
** Arguably, every villain in ''[[Kim Possible]]'' is like this, aside from Shego, who's the only one with any amount of competence or fighting ability.
*** Keeping Shego on
* ''[[G.I. Joe
** Of course, he was never anything but effective and unsympathetic in the comics, where, among other things, he ''killed his own son''. Oh, and he used to be a ''[[Honest John's Dealership|used car salesman]]'', [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|the]] ''[[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|fiend]]''!
*** He does get the ineffectual part still - sometimes as part of a [[Plan]], sometimes because it's an imposter performing poorly. And sometimes, Destro just plain doesn't like him, and is willing to take the loss just to make him look bad, mostly because of his 'thing' for the Baroness.
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* Grizzle of ''[[Care Bears|Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot]]''.
** Of the primary villains of the earlier series, No-Heart and his niece Shreeky don't count. No-Heart was a legitimately powerful and evil sorcerer who had a habit of blasting Beastly with lightning bolts whenever he screwed up; and while Shreeky never actually did anything evil, she was a [[Spoiled Brat]] with a voice so loud that she made ''No-Heart'' wince. Mr. Beastly, No-Heart's primary lacky, definately fits somewhere between here and [[Butt Monkey]]. In the one episode that Beastly had, with him in the spotlight, him infuriates No-Heart by breaking No-Heart's crystal amulet (which is the source of his shapechanging spells), then breaks No-Heart's throne (something he ''knows'' No-Heart will be livid about), get turned into a horrific mishmash of animals while using No-Heart's broken amulet to catch some of the Care Bears, then be blackmailed into letting the Care Bears go after they tape-record him chanting a litany of "I care" to break the broken spell and be turned back to normal, and then, when No-Heart arrives, having calmed down due to finding an even more powerful crystal, he sits on his crudely repaired throne...and it breaks to pieces. Meaning more electroshocking for Beastly.
* The Box Ghost of ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' draws the line between this and [[Harmless Villain]]. He has the potential to be a great baddie (if one episode and his
** And his love of boxes is reminiscent of [[Kids Prefer Boxes|a small child who prefers the box to the toy that came in it.]]
* ''[[Wacky Races]]''{{'}} |Dick Dastardly
** Just drive, you moron! Your car is so fast that you can build elaborate booby traps in the time it takes the other racers to catch up! [[Fridge Logic|If you'd just forget about them and keep driving, you'd win every race hands down!]]
*** It wasn't for nothing that he had a whole trope [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat|named after him]].
* Voltar and the ''[[League of Super Evil]]''. Guy is just so very motivated and happy about every plan or scheme he thinks up, no matter how trivial, that you just have to root for him. I mean, how many villains are ecstatic about throwing an 'EVIL' barbeque and not inviting their uncaring neighbors?
** One of the episodes involves a highly convoluted plot by the League...to make the pizza delivery boy late so that their food will be free!
* Snively from ''[[Sonic Sat AM]]''. He is a reedy and sneering little man who is always consumed by his Uncle Robotnik's quite massive shadow. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Also, he's a baldy.]]
** {{spoiler|Nope, he was still going to retain this role. [[Word of God|In one interview with screen-writer Ben Hurst]] regarding the third season that never arrived, it was revealed that Snively was going to take a shot at becoming the new [[Big Bad]], only to be shortly upstaged by Ixis Naugus, and would later make a [[Heel Face Turn]] and join the Freedom Fighters.}}
* Dr. Ivo Robotnik and his henchmen from ''[[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]]''. While Robotnik often tries to do something rrrroten, he ALWAYS fails horribly, and Sonic torments the doctor so sadistically, that it becomes hard to sympathize with the heroes.
** Even more so are his minions, Scratch and Grounder. While Robotnik could at least genuinely cook up a malicious plan every now and then, his duncebot's Wile E Coyote-esque traps hardly ever worked on anyone but themselves.
* Jack W. Tweeg and his sidekick L.B. from ''[[The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin]]''.
* The Zigerians from ''[[Rick and Morty]]'' are "the most ambitious, least successful con artists in the galaxy" according to Rick, and it's easy to see why. Their typical MO is to abduct a would-be victim and place him in a simulator, but said simulator is always flawed. For instance, their Earth simulation has a vendor selling a bun held by two hot dogs, a lady walking a cat on a leash, and [[Clue, Evidence, and a Smoking Gun| a walking Pop Tart with a hat living inside a toaster the size of a house and driving a car shaped like a smaller toaster]]. One way they attempt to fool Rick is with an ambulance that [[Bad Liar| they claim has the President of the United States inside.]] The entire species also has irrational ''gymnophobia'' (fear of nudity) making them easy to outwit.
* [[Phineas and Ferb|Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz]] could count as one of these. Sure, his plans are really not well thought out at all (which inexplicably cause their failure), but he had a terrible childhood, never wins any of his fights, is deprived of any chance at happiness he may receive, and, on top of all that, he can't even win a fight against a potted plant...You've got to feel sorry for the guy. Though perhaps he wouldn't be considered ineffectual, as he does serve to be a threat, if not for being thwarted at the hands of his platypus nemesis every time. Still, that episode where he is no longer considered a threat and Agent P is relocated to a different nemesis might show that he is, indeed, one of these.
** However, he did get a major [[Not So Harmless]] moment in a [[Bad Future]].
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* The Lobe, archnemesis of the titular character in ''[[Freakazoid!]]''. Despite being fiendishly brainy (quite literally - pretty much his entire head is made up of brain), he's extremely sensitive and insecure, and Freakazoid was once able to defeat him with nothing more than some harsh verbal criticism of his scheme.
* Dr. Reginald Bushroot of ''[[Darkwing Duck]]''. He mutated himself in an attempt to impress a girl. When that went [[Failure Is the Only Option|about as well as expected]], most of schemes throughout the series involved trying to grow a companion or feed his plants. He certainly seemed like a nice enough guy most of the time, only turning violent when Darkwing tried to stop his plans.
* Hack and Slash, the bumbling minions of Megabyte, in ''[[
* Skeletor in ''[[He-Man and the Masters of the Universe]]'' was so ineffective that the writers felt sorry for him. One stated in an interview that part of the reason they wrote a few [[Enemy Mine]] episodes was that it was the only way they were allowed to have Skeletor come out ahead for once.
** His 2002 incarnation, on the other hand, was every bit as powerful, terrifying, and evil as he claimed to be.
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* Tom, from [[Tom and Jerry]], was so ineffectual and sympathetic that, in many cartoons, one failed to see how Jerry was even a victim. Particularly [[Egregious]] examples, in fact, would cite that he wanted nothing more than to leave Jerry in peace, and Jerry could not stop [[Designated Hero|antagonizing him and trying to ruin his life.]] Often, the shows started with Jerry trying to steal Tom's milk, break into a safe/refrigerator/ship that Tom was guarding or just being a [[Jerkass|dick in general]]. Granted, sometimes Tom's methods can get [[Disproportionate Retribution|a bit extreme]], he's just trying to protect his property or [[Punch Clock Villain|doing his job]].
** [[Depending on the Writer|Though there were just as many examples were he was not sympathetic at all]].
* ''[[X-Men: Evolution
** Usual, given that this is the reason why they're so popular, with people playing up the ineffectual sympathetic part, and ignoring the vilain part.
* ''[[Adventure Time]]''{{'}}s [[An Ice Person|Ice King]] plays this as a [[Deconstruction]] / [[Zig-Zagging Trope]]: he wants to force a [[Everything's Better with Princesses]] into [[And Now You Must Marry Me|marrying him]], but he comes across as sincerely lonely and desperate for love. At some points, however, he'll wind up saying or doing something ''really'' messed up, [[Double Subversion|cluing the viewer in that he's really just a sociopath]].
* Zordrak's minions, the Urpneys (and sometimes even his former self) of ''[[The Dreamstone]]'', are a mix of this alongside the [[Minion with an F In Evil]] category. The fact that their overall goal usually amounted to little more than [[Poke the Poodle|giving people scary dreams]] didn't help much. Granted since Rufus and Amberley are often [[The Meddling Kids Are Useless|Ineffectual Sympathetic Heroes]] they do at least briefly get the upper hand every now and then.
* [[Big Bad|General Specific]] from ''[[Sheep in The Big City]]''. To put it bluntly, how hard could it be to catch one sheep in a city where nobody likes sheep? Well, this guy spends the whole series trying and failing to do so.
* Downplayed with Boogey from ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy]]''. He has indeed done quite a few evil things that had long-lasting repercussions for members of the cast, mostly due to his petty grudge against Grim. However, when you take his true goal - wanting to be the scariest of all monsters - into consideration, he’s a failure, because well, he’s just not scary. Grim claims butterflies are scarier than he is, Mandy claims marshmallows are scarier, and even his henchman [[The Dragon|Mr. Creeper]] isn’t afraid to tell him he can't think of a monster that is ''less'' scary than Boogey is. In fact, in the movie (where the [[MacGuffin|Horror’s Hand]] puts the cast through an [[I Know What You Fear]] scenario) it is revealed that Boogey’s greatest fear is realizing he isn’t scary.
* The Ape Man from the original ''[[Scooby-Doo (animation)|Scooby-Doo Where Are You?]]''. One of the biggest strengths of this cartoon was the creativity of the bad guys, but this was… just a gorilla. Naturally, it was in fact [[Scooby-Doo Hoax|a crook dressed like a gorilla]], but he did the dumbest thing any villain did in this show, remove his mask when he thought nobody was looking! This let Shaggy take his picture, leading to the others easily identifying him, made even easier by the fact that he was the only bald guy in the episode. Plus there was his incredibly pathetic motive, revenge against a movie director for not giving him the lead role in a movie. It was a low budget horror B-movie! How petty can you get?
* [[Prince Charmless| Prince Charming]] from ''[[Shrek the Third]]''. He was an okay - if [[Flat Character| a little flat]] - character when he was his mother’s crony in [[Shrek 2| the second movie]], but as the main antagonist in the third, he went from flat to lame. First of all, everyone in the film sees him as the butt of a bad joke - when even Pinocchio is trolling you, it kind of underscores the idea that you could ever be a threat to anyone. And he isn’t. His [[Evil Plan]] isn’t exactly well thought out - putting on a play where he heroically slays Shrek at the end, an action he assumes will forever cement him as the hero and Shrek as the villain. Sure, he gains points for creativity, but the flaw in this plan is obvious from the start - by this point in the franchise, Shrek has established himself as a beloved hero, while everyone despises Charming. More than likely, Prince Charming is a lesson for any villain’s goofy sidekick with thoughts of becoming a [[Dragon Ascendant]] - sometimes it’s better to stick to what you’re good at.
* Jacob Hopkins, the museum curator from ''[[The Owl House]]'' is this and a [[Hate Sink]]. Much like [[Big Bad| Emperor Belos]], Jacob is a bigot of the [[Fantastic Racism]] type, a [[Narcissist]], [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]], [[Attention Whore]], and unmistakable proof that [[Humans Are the Real Monsters]] in this series. Belos, however, while utterly despicable, is a captivating and interesting villain with an intriguing backstory and deep storyline. Jacob is just... an idiot, being a [[Conspiracy Theorist]] of the most absurd sort. While most villains who fit that Trope have at least some leg to stand on and often bring up some good points, Jacob seems to have based his beliefs - including the idea [[Insane Troll Logic| that demons and witches come from Mars in order to collect human teeth in order to build a time machine]] - from internet blogs with RPG content. In fact his sole motivation for wanting to dissect [[Non-Malicious Monster| poor Vee]] is because his [[YouTube]] account has been banned for being obnoxious, and he believes obtaining proof of his ideas will get it unbanned. Very [[Catharsis]] for the viewer to see [[Mama Bear| Ms. Noceda]] beat him to a pulp, jail him in his own demon-holding cage, and then learn that he was fired later.
* In ''[[Star Trek: Lower Decks]]'', the Packleds as a whole are this, being woefully stupid and [[Laughably Evil]], almost as if "incompetent villains" is [[Planet of Hats|their “hat” as a species]]. But special mention goes to Rumdar from the episode "The Spy Humongous". Sent to infiltrate the ''Cerritos'' as a [[Trojan Prisoner]], he all but confesses to Ransom his intent to steal information regarding their technology, which is already a common Packled MO. (“We're not exactly dealing with a Tal Shiar here,” says Ransom to another officer.) Eventually, Rumdar mistakes an airlock for a restroom, blows himself out of it, and has to be rescued by Ransom - Dr. T'Ana is puzzled as to how he can still be alive.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* While they are often portrayed this way in fiction, Italian Fascists were neither ineffectual nor sympathetic. Just ask any of the people who tried to oppose Mussolini and his politics before [[World War II]]. Dissidents were often beaten within an inch of their lives, force-fed castor oil, and sent into exile on deserted islands. It's just that that's kid stuff compared to the [[Those Wacky Nazis|other forces of evil]] we were fighting against — ''[[Red Scare|or alongside of]]'' — during that same war.
** They just barely managed to conquer a tribal African country that had 19th-century military technology. And that was the height of their military achievements.
*** That doesn't change the fact that they were a danger to Italian opponents of their regime. Regardless of how (un)successful they were at fighting other countries, [[Hitler Ate Sugar|being an inspiration to Hitler]] and siding with him during the second World War hardly makes Italian Fascists sympathetic (at least, up until the point at which the Allies invaded Italy, and the Italian soldiers stood at the sidelines, watching their country being torn apart by fights that they no longer participated in; but before that, they were just ineffectual, not sympathetic).
*** "''Good soldiers, bad officers''" is how Rommel described the Italians, and as for how ineffectual they were, one of his other quotes was "''The German soldier has impressed the world, however the Italian Bersagliere soldier has impressed the German soldier''".
**** Of course, seeing that an army's capacity to organize, plan, and cause its various elements to cooperate efficiently is more important than individual competance, it's still not the makings of a very good military, as Italy's entire post Roman military history shows.
* ''Any'' crooks profiled on ''[[w:America's Dumbest Criminals|America's Dumbest Criminals]]'' is sure to fit.
* The bank robber who was caught when he got ''trapped in'' the bank he was robbing... when he didn't try to pull the door open, and only pushed it. He was in there for about five minutes before the cops showed up.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20091230053507/http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/hostage-post-office-gunman-was-angry-at-government-146816.html Warren Taylor] seems to have found a way to combine this trope with [[Terrorists Without a Cause]]. He stormed into a small-town post office, placed what appeared to be a bomb on the counter, and took three people hostage. At that point, he didn't seem to know quite what to do. Over the following eight hours, he issued two demands: a pizza to share with his hostages, and a pack of cigarettes for a hostage who smoked. In the end, he made his way outside and surrendered peacefully, eventually apologizing during his arraignment for getting everybody out on Christmas.
* [[wikipedia:Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf|Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf]], better known as Baghdad Bob and Comical Ali (the latter being a reference to "Chemical Ali", the nickname of the much more effectively evil former Iraqi Defence Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid) gained fame and memetic status during the second Iraq War on account of his hilarious [[Blatant Lies]] about American forces, which were generally contradicted by things visible directly behind him.
** So notorious was he that when [https://web.archive.org/web/20120807134550/http://www.holtorf.com/ray/iraqi_information_minister.htm a comic] showed an American soldier walking into the frame behind him and making bunny ears, this troper's entire US Navy shop had to see if he'd actually been taken off the air by the same soldiers that he claimed were not in the city.
* Kim Jong Il in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdug6yHJB40 this video].
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj4GSVQBLdk This
* How about
* Or
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