Obstructive Bureaucrat: Difference between revisions

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This guy is the ultimate pencil pusher from a government agency, and he creates the red tape that normal citizens hate. He's an unlikeable [[Punch Clock Villain]] with a bad temper and a sizable streak of callousness. Works for any and all bureaucracies, including [[Department of Child Disservices]], [[Morally-Bankrupt Banker|banks]] and possibly even your own [[Celestial Bureaucracy|afterlife]].

{{examples}}

==Examples of the humorous version==

=== Comic Books ===

* The bureaucrat from the Disney comic [http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=D+95200 "Cosmic Confrontation"] originally sneaked up aboard Gyro's rocket to check how many laws it violated, but when the rocket came face-to-face with a squad of giant alien constructor workers out to destroy Earth to make room for a space highway, he proceeds to use his bureaucracy to drive them away and save Earth.

* In ''[[Judge Dredd]]'', Mega-City One has the Bureau of Creative Bureaucracy. It's motto is "Saving the city's money by making life difficult for you!"... which is surprisingly honest for a bureaucracy.

 

* The "Mystery of Magic" in ''[[My Immortal]]''. They were most likely ''supposed'' to be serious, [[Narm|but]] [[So Bad It's Good|given]] [[Rouge Angles of Satin|how]] [[Funny Moments (Sugar Wiki)|it's]] [[Mind Screw|written]]...

 

=== Film ===

* The [[Tim Burton]] film ''[[Beetlejuice]]'', which explored the question: [[Celestial Bureaucracy|What if the afterlife were a bureaucracy]]?

{{quote|"This thing reads like stereo instructions!"}}

** In a deleted scene, as Gozer the Gozerian was wreaking havoc, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man was smashing up the city and the End Of The World was quite seriously nigh, Peck's response was to grab a fleeing police officer and order him to go up to arrest the Ghostbusters for "going too far". Said officer's response, not unreasonably, was "''You'' go and arrest them!"

** Atherton played the part to such perfection that he had a serious problem with being typecast for a while afterward; not that no one thought he could play anything other than an Obstructive Bureaucrat, but that ''no one liked him, period.'' He does, fittingly, reprise the role in ''Ghostbusters: The Videogame,'' which suggests that {{spoiler|Peck is actually a subversion, a Gozer cultist who knows full-well how absurd his behavior is, and is doing it intentionally to stop the Ghostbusters from opposing Gozer. Though by the end, this is revealed to be a [[Red Herring]], as he's just an [[Unwitting Pawn]].}}

* Secretary of Defense Albert Nimziki in ''[[Independence Day]]''. He knowingly concealed the fact that the aliens had visited Earth before, even after they became hostile and any information would have been immensely helpful. He only admits it after the first failed attack and David's father draws attention to the supposed "myth" of the Roswell crash. He wants to continue nuking the aliens even after the first attempt proves that their shields can resist the bombs. Then he has the call to insist that David's plan, which he had demonstrated could actually work, is a bad idea and tries to talk the president out of it. At this point, the president gets tired of his crap and fires him.

* Gilbert Huph, Insuricare Middle Manager from ''[[The Incredibles]]''. His job is explicitly to see that '''Every. Single. Claim.''', no matter how valid or dire that is made against Insuricare is denied. He sees his clients as his stockholders, openly chafes at laws that protect policyholders, and mocks a man Bob sees getting mugged and beaten. He's such a loathsome character that it's a minor [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when Bob hurls him through several walls.

* The Vogons from ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' are a [[Planet of Hats]] of Obstructive Bureaucrats. The Guide describes them by saying "A Vogon would not lift a finger to save his own grandmother from the Ravenous Bug-blatter Beast of Traal without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, lost, found, queried, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighter."

** [[The Movie]] plays it up when the ''[[Cool Ship|Heart of Gold]]'' makes a [[Hyperspeed Escape]] from the Vogon armada. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz turns to a subordinate and asks if the criminals they're pursuing filled out the proper paperwork to do this. The subordinate is shocked to find out that they did not. Later on, Arthur, Ford, and Zaphod fill out a release form for Trillian, who is about to be executed, only to be told that, since Zaphod is the President of the Galaxy, he has to submit a Presidential Release Form. Jeltz, who is all too eager to execute Trillian is instantly pacified when he receives the release form and orders her freed.

** And even worse, he unleashes Dolores Umbridge on Hogwarts, a ''[[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]'' who all Potter fans (rightfully) love to hate.

* ''[[Discworld]]''

*** So well that at the end of the book he {{spoiler|joins the Watch}}. Pessimal is also an interesting case, as it's clear from the beginning that he's not being an Obstructive Bureaucrat out of peevishness or a sense of power, he just simply and sincerely believes in efficiency.

** Thief of Time and Hogfather both feature a group of entities known as "The Auditors." The Auditors are in charge of ensuring that rocks fall in accordance with the laws of gravity, and that light does not travel any faster than it is supposed to. They love neat, predictable objects. They despise sentient life because it is inherently unpredictable and disorderly. Thus, Thief and Hogfather both focus on plots by the Auditors to destroy humanity to keep the paperwork neat.

* In Larry Niven's ''[[Inferno]]'', the protagonist, Carpenter, finds himself in (a very Dante-like) Hell and in need to some togas to escape. Finally getting to the administrative center of Hell, he puts in a requisition for the garments and is handed a two foot tall stack of forms to complete and a single pencil. When he points out that a single pencil will never last to complete all the forms, he is told to improvise and his attention is directed to another guy nearby who is working on his own stack of forms. His pencil has been worn down to a nub and he is using a ripped out fingernail and his own blood to complete the forms.

* In his youth, the only expression of strength and personal vengeance the mouse-like narrator of Dostoevsky's ''Notes from Underground'' could hope for was by playing this trope.

* ''[[Catch-22]]'' has a number of obstructive bureaucrats. Ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen is a notable one—he's just a mail clerk, but has become one of the most powerful men in the military because he can simply throw away any orders he doesn't like.

** There's also a deadlier version in the air units commander. Although never made clear why he seems to have a personal grudge against all his men and refuses to allow any pilots, or bomber crew, to return home. He specifically mentions that the U.S. Army Air Corps requires a pilot to be given some time off after 25 missions but uses an oddly worded rule, which is meant to be used in extreme circumstances, to extend the limit to first 50, 60 then 100 missions. For those unaware, a bomber crew member was likely to get injured or killed within 30 missions. He was essentially trying to kill everyone who joined his command.

* In Norman Juster's ''[[The Phantom Tollbooth]]'', the Senses Taker insists that Milo, Tock, and the Humbug fill out stacks of forms. {{spoiler|Then he takes their senses, trapping them in illusions. Alas for him, [[It Was a Gift|the gift of laughter Milo received]] means he can not take their senses of humor, and they can escape.}}

* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|The Warrior's Apprentice]]'' the Barrayaran embassy on Beta Colony maintains a bureaucratic black hole into which Betans who have grievances against Barrayaran citizens will be "swallowed up in an endless möbius loop of files, forms, and reports, kept especially for such occasions by the extremely competent staff. The forms included some particularly creative ones that had to be round-tripped on the six-week journey back to Barrayar itself, and were guaranteed to be sent back several times for minor errors in execution. ... 'It works great with Betans -- they're perfectly happy, because all the time they think they're doing something to you.'"

* Parodied in one of the ''M.Y.T.H. Inc'' novels. The perspective characters are trying to sabotage an army. They end up in charge of a supply depot, which they hope to use for this purpose by deliberately screwing up 10% of all supply requests. They are thwarted by Obstructive Bureaucrats in an unusual way: First, they categorically refuse to use the horrifically convoluted official record-keeping procedures, inventing their own, just because they don't want to deal with the paperwork, making the processing once requisitions get to them much faster. Second, because of the long delays caused by the bureaucrats in getting the requisitions to the supply depots, the 'accidental' mistakes often improved things (Like sending summer-weight uniforms to a unit that requested winter-weight uniforms and vice versa, not realizing that the units in question had since been redeployed to areas with warmer or colder climates). As a result, their sabotage made their depot the most efficient facility in the army.

* In [[Derek Robinson]]'s novels of the British military air forces in both world wars, the military bureaucracy gets a well-deserved [[Take That]]!

* In [[The Pale King]], The Author's Foreword includes a lengthy description of all the legal issues that went along with the creation of the book. Pretty much everything involving David Foster Wallace's entry into the IRS, with the sole exception of Leonard Stecyk.

** The horrendously complex and ultimately bungled {{spoiler|wrongful death lawsuit after Chris Fogle's father dies.}}

* In Nickelodeon's TV show ''[[The Adventures of Pete and Pete]]'', the younger Pete befriends Clothing Inspector #27, who proceeds to make the entire neighborhood rule mongers equal to himself. {{spoiler|Finally defeated when Pete challenges him to an eating contest of barbeque chicken. Inspector 27 finishes every bit of meat on his chicken without getting a bit of sauce on his hands or clothes. Only to be reminded by Dad "You're supposed to get dirty eating chicken." Causing Clothing Inspector 27 to realize the error of his ways, and not be such a perfectionist.}}

* Dean and Sam from ''[[Supernatural]]'' meet quite a few of these in their [[Monster of the Week]] scenarios, but are very, very good at getting round them. Mostly because they have a seemingly limitless supply of fake identification.

** As a matter of fact, pretty much the entire British civil service is portrayed as such in those series.

*** On the other hand, you do see their perspective on things—though the writer clearly disagrees, the Civil Service seems to genuinely believe that it knows what's best for the country, and Humphrey himself is hardly a one-dimensional character. He actually gets a fair number of sympathetic moments in. In the end, you see that they're still Obstructive Bureaucrats, but also see that there's a kind of twisted method to their obstructiveness. And the (very) few times when the goals of the politicians matched theirs, their efficiency is deadly.

** Source materials encourage this, even suggesting a GM may send forms ''other'' than what players requested and then execute them for treason if they fail to fill them out correctly or protest that they got the wrong ones.

*** Another favorite: the equipment they need is available at their clearance level for once, but ''the requisition form for said equipment'' isn't. Or, for experimental equipment, the instructions aren't.

* There are two uses for the Bureaucracy skill and its related Charms in ''[[Exalted]]''. One is to evade these characters. The other is to become one. With the Charms, you can ''magically aid'' your obstructions to be nearly insurmountable.

* The Vilani Imperium in ''[[Traveller]]'' is a [[Vestigial Empire]] composed of these. They were completely incapable of running the war against the Terrans because of this. Interestingly, they were deliberately designed this way to ensure that the Imperium ran on autopilot and had as little disorder as possible. As there hadn't been a real enemy for thousands of years, it made sense in its day.

* ''[[Dominion]]''. In this early-Renaissance-themed deck-building card game, the Bureaucrat is an Attack card that forces everyone else to move some useless-in-game cards (which are sort of like deeds to lands) to the top of their decks. These cards therefore take up space in one's hand for two turns in a row, and the Bureaucrat player gets a shiny coin for his trouble.

* In ''[[The Spoils]]'' CCG, a number of cards from the Banker trade are bureaucrats created from the reanimated corpses of those who died in debt. They must pay back their debts to their lenders (a process one card implies takes roughly 500 years), and are mostly used a pencil-pushers to deal with the poor and undesirables the bank has no interest in lending money to, drowning them under mountains of paperwork. Mechanically, their function is to tie up the opponent's resources (for example, depleting their Character cards to no effect). One card's flavor text sums up the experience rather aptly: "Could I please speak to a ''living'' person?"

 

** Shepard can threaten to get Illium's own obstructive bureaucracy involved in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' when trying to convince a Synthetic Insights representative to buy a contract for an [[Insistent Terminology|"indentured servant"]]. The representative is ''extremely'' quick to take up the contract because they ''don't'' want the bureaucracy to get involved.

** Councilor [[No Mere Windmill|"We have dismissed that claim"]] Sparatus.

 

* Protocol Officer Quine of ''[[Starslip]]'' is a humorous examination of the default characterization of these characters: when he's introduced, he sounds like a typical regulations lawyer who is [[Red Shirt|unceremoniously killed in his first away mission]]. Then we are introduced to his personal resurrection machine (that creates a clone of him and transfers his consciousness to it whenever he dies) and he gradually starts morphing into a [[Butt Monkey]] who is just trying to do his job surrounded by people who openly insult him for no reason other than the fact that he's the only guy willing to apply regulations on what is ostensibly a ''military vessel'' and often getting killed in the process. The pinnacle of this was a recent storyline where he used his machine to "single handedly" (in other words, going through ''a lot'' of dead clones) to take back the ''Paradigm'' from hijackers and saving the lives of the rest of the crew...only for Vanderbeam to berate him for taking too long and giving all the credit to his dead clones. [[The Woobie|Poor guy.]]

** He ultimately turns out to be a good guy when he is confronted with just how corrupt the government really is. Even then, he is slightly conflicted about breaking laws. Then {{spoiler|his wife}} points out that the government's leadership is betraying the founding principles of the government, so Quine's "insubordination" is actually nothing of the sort.

* ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]:'' on [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Butane]], the planet of [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragons,]] Legate [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Zippobic]] seems to be this, although he views himself as a [[Beleaguered Bureaucrat]].

* [[Daisy Owl]] [http://daisyowl.com/comic/2009-07-20 And she's pleasant, and agrees that the fees are unreasonable, to add insult to injury.]

 

=== Western Animation ===

** Also, the bureaucrat obstructing the Gaang at the ferry is not doing it just for the sake of obstructiveness, but because he is under orders to prevent war refugees from entering the Ba Sing Se region (pretty much the last region safe from the war, which is precisely why refugees are stampeding towards it) ''en masse'' due to the fact that it is already approaching the limit of how much excess population it can support.

* [[Ben 10: Alien Force|Alien X]] obstructs ''itself.'' The most powerful being in the universe, capable of [[Reality Warper|altering reality]]... and its two halves are still in a meeting deciding whether or not they should save the dinosaurs.

** The Pixies live for this trope. They're so into bureaucracy that [[Hoist by His Own Petard|it's often their downfall]].

* Disney's ''[[Recess]]'' has Menlo, who's en route to becoming one of these guys and has already, through unfailing adherence to the rules, attained a highly trusted position within the school. He's usually the one who plays this role toward the other kids, e.g., administering the quiz on lice. The gang in general reacts quite negatively toward his legalism, although in one episode they are shocked to discover that {{spoiler|Menlo and T.J. used to be inseparable best friends, but grew apart, some time before the gang got started - and both still have fond feelings for each other, despite the rivalry. It gives a bit of humanity to the kid.}}

** In the same novel, the Ghosts were barred from using their flamers by the planetary government. This was partly because most of the city was built out of wood, but mostly because the use of flamers was reserved for their own elite forces.

** It's ''The Guns of Tanith'' that takes this [[Up to Eleven]] as the book opens to a pair of Ghost sergeants trying to requisition the proper ammo, since the lagsun packs they were issued were the wrong size, but the munitorum adept's only response is "Size 5 is the standard pattern". The exchange ends with one of the Ghosts threatening to kill the adept if he says "standard pattern" one more time.

* ''The Small Back Room'' the novel (later film) by Nigel Balchin details the internal struggles of a team of [[World War II]] scientists/public servants who are the embodiment of this trope. The team spends its time working on an anti-tank weapon that is theoretically efficient but has little practical field value. The protagonist is a decent yet weak man who fails to take the tough steps needed to improve matters, while his [[Manipulative Bastard]] friend delights in deposing those whom he's deemed incompetent, but ends up putting an even more incompetent man in charge of the team.

* Vice-Chancellor Nesselrode is portrayed as this in [[The Death of the Vazir Mukhtar]]; he seems more funny at first, but his decisions, based on the high political considerations of avoiding all and any possible turbulence, could easily be fatal for some of his subordinates ( {{spoiler|and end up being fatal for the Russian mission in Persia}}).

* Cornelius Fudge of ''[[Harry Potter]]'' proves to be this. He primarily acts as headpiece for the Ministry with recommendations from Malfoy and other respected individuals deciding his actions rather than his own opinions. However, unlike his Undersecretary who is decidedly evil, Fudge simply wants to stay in control, and he seems to know that any disturbance in the peace would see him quickly ousted. As such, he refused to review the case of Sirius Black or accept Voldemort's return in order to maintain the status quo.

* As with in the humorous section, the New Testament of the Bible frequently painted the Pharisees as antagonists in this vein. It seems that one of Jesus's main purposes in coming back, aside from His sacrifice, was to clarify some very literal and twisted interpretations of Old Testament commandments. The Pharisees tried several times to catch Him in a logical contradiction using Hebraic code.

 

=== Video Games ===

* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'', one particularly vicious and procedure-oriented Imperial captain hears one of her subordinates protesting that one of the traitorous rebels being sent to the block for execution is not on the list of Stormcloak rebels sentenced to death. She promptly shouts him down, since the prisoner is in that cart, so that prisoner is going to the block, and nothing is stopping this execution {{spoiler|save for the dragon-god showing up a few minutes later}}. Said prisoner is ''you'', the player-character. It is entirely possible after you escape [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|to join up with the Stormcloaks and proceed to utterly destroy the entire Imperial presence in Skyrim out of raw fury at your near-experience with a Viking crewcut]]....[[Disproportionate Retribution|because one jerk didn't double-check the list]].

 

=== [[Real Life]] ===

* [[Pink Elephants]] being no where near as charming in [[Real Life]] as in fiction, Theodore Dalrymple tried to wrestle with them because of it:

{{quote|''Indeed, I have known such patients dive through windows of the upper stories of my hospital in order, as they supposed, to escape the monsters, or enemies, who pursued or were attacking them. (Interestingly, it has proved difficult to persuade the hospital administration that such patients should be nursed on the ground floor as a precautionary measure, suggesting a subliminal death wish, though not on the part of the patients.)''}}

 

== Examples of the dark version ==

* Captain William Sutherland, a member of the Earth Forces' General Staff in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED]]''. During his initial appearances he interrogates the crew of the ''Archangel'' about the alleged improprieties in voyage, transfers the crewmembers he views as politically reliable to other assignments, than puts in motion a plan that will get not only the remaining ''Archangel'' crew, but also most of the Earth Forces' Eurasian allies killed off. He's later revealed to be [[The Dragon]] to [[Fantastic Racism|Blue Cosmos]] leader [[Complete Monster|Muruta Azrael]], and in his own banal, pencil-pushing way, a major mover and shaker behind the plan to [[Final Solution|exterminate]] all of the [[Gattaca Babies|Coordinators]]. A truly reprehensible, if dull personality.

 

=== Comic Books ===

** Unfortunately they gave him a parachute first.

*** An often overlooked small detail: American soldiers just dumped the ''President's National Security Advisor'' in the middle of the desert. Yes, I'm sure the fact that the guy was a douche perfectly justifies leaving him in a position to be easily captured by god knows who and thus endanger the entire country. They couldn't just bind and gag him, if they ''had'' to do something that insubordinate?

***** So basically yes, they were [[Moral Event Horizon|completely justified]] and the twit was lucky they didn't [[Just Shoot Him]].

* [[Akira Kurosawa]]'s film ''[[Ikiru]]'' is all about this trope. In it, a man who has been a city bureaucrat of the mindless drone variety discovers that he is dying of stomach cancer. Confronted with this, and the realization that his son is only concerned about his inheritance, he first tries hedonism to get some meaning out of life. When that fails, he decides to take up the concern of a group of locals- cleaning a polluted pond and creating a park, a process that had been stalled into oblivion by the city bureaucracy giving citizens the workaround. Through ''[[The Determinator|sheer determination]]'' and blatant disregard for the traditional means of operation of the Japanese bureaucracy, he gets the park built before he dies. At his funeral, his fellow Obstructive Bureaucrats get drunk and promise to take up his example and no longer ignore the cause of their citizens...and the final scene is of everyone doing just that. Well, almost everyone...

*** Death has been shown as being the only remaining thing at the end of the universe, and then waiting for another one to inevitably form. His job is safe.

**** By the end of Reaper Man, he makes it clear that he cares, first by asking the Ultimate Death, "What can the harvest hope for if not the care of the Reaper Man?", and, later, having installed fields of corn in his deathly estate, proceeds to carefully notice that they are ''not'' all alike, but are individuals each worth caring for. Of course, his waiting for a new universe occurs in an earlier book (he started out as an [[Omnicidal Maniac]]) and this was his [[Character Development]] book.

* [[Harry Potter/Characters|Dolores Umbridge]] in ''[[Harry Potter|Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix]]'' is a [[Smug Snake]] who, initially appointed as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, gradually works her way to a [[Tyrant Takes the Helm|position of supreme power]] at Hogwarts ... and eventually, assumes a great deal of control over the wizard government. Percy Weasley also became one of these, though he managed to [[Heel Face Turn|redeem himself]] at the end.

** In the [[Ciaphas Cain]] novel ''The Caves of Ice'', there are ''two'' particular Obstructive Bureaucrats, the local heads of the Administratum and Adeptus Mechanicus. Their constant arguing over protocols and procedure affects not only the normal operation of the promethium-mining facility there, but also the efforts of the Valhallan 597th as it works to prepare defenses against an oncoming Ork onslaught. Fortunately, Cain is able to find some lower-level officials in both ranks who not only are on amicable working terms with one another (and the mining population), but also happen to be able to actually get things ''done'' despite their superiors' constant bickering. The "dark" element of this trope comes into play when it is learned that {{spoiler|1=the mine is built atop a Necron tomb; as later evidence proves, the site was intentionally chosen by the AdMech to give them easy access to the facility away from prying eyes should a way be found to investigate the tomb and recover its ancient technology.}}

*** Fortunately, Cain and his comrades are able to deal with the "obstructive" part of the problem by imposing martial law and threatening to shoot anyone who gets in their way.

*** The Valhallan 597th also owns some thanks to the Administratum, which still thinks they're two regiments, as such they are given twice as much supplies and recruits than most (also why the men/women ratio is always 50/50)

*** It wasn't so much [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] as it was Cain never seeing his skills as necessary before, and {{spoiler|Brasker}} never really having anything important to do before. The book is written from Cain's perspective, who would have had little interest in how competent {{spoiler|Brasker}} was at his job until the planet was being invaded and he had to ask for his help.

** There's also a subversion in the [[Gaunt's Ghosts]] novel ''Necropolis''. When the government begins bickering over whether they should call the Imperial Guard to help, the ranking Administratum official goes over their heads and contacts the Imperium anyways. He justifies this by saying that the planet is crucial for its production of military equipment, so it is therefore the Imperium's problem, not a local one.

'''Akabar''': Anauroch is a desert, not a forest.

'''Lhaeo''': Well, now it is, yes. }}

* The Senators in the ''[[Codex Alera]]'' are ''bad'' about this. They tend to focus on irrelevant personal feuds and power plays in the face of such things as an invasion of 60,000 [[Big Badass Wolf]][[Wolf Man|men]] or a [[Horde of Alien Locusts]], and one of them, Arnos, turns out to be an incompetent [[Complete Monster]] [[General Ripper]] when he's actually put in charge of something. Cheers could be heard from the readers when High Lord Placidus bodily threw Senator Valerius out of a command meeting in the last book.<ref>(He'd been ranting about how Bernard was breaking the law by building the fortifications that were the last defense of the human race, for the curious.)</ref>

* The bureaucrats of the Solarian League in the ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' books. Unfortunately, they are the ones with the real decision-making power.

* ''Sisterhood'' series by [[Fern Michaels]]: A major plotline that develops is how Martine Connor becomes the first female President of the United States, and she is trying to secure pardons to the Vigilantes. It proves to be more difficult than it appears. Here's why: ''Deadly Deals'' reveals her chief of staff, Aaron Lowry, who is [[The Napoleon]], had been obstructing the presidential pardons, supposedly because it would be political suicide for the president to even try it. She ends up firing him as well as charging him in ''Game Over'', because he turns out to be in bed with Baron Bell, a lawyer and [[Villain with Good Publicity]] who had been selling babies! ''Game Over'' also has the president obstructed by her advisors, who are more interested in their own agendas than in being loyal to her. At the urging of Henry "Hank" Jellicoe, head of Global Securities, she ends up throwing out many more people, and he supposedly pulls strings to replace them with people 100% loyal to her. She also has the pardons signed, and she paves the way to make it easy for the Vigilantes to sneak in and snatch the pardons! It's hard to be president!

 

* Agent Mahone from ''[[Prison Break]]''.

* Too many in ''[[24]]'' to list.

** Special mention goes to people in charge of homicide, all the way to the top, being more obsessed with their crime stats than with actually finding the guilty parties and jaling them, going so far as to being willing to jail someone innocent of the crime on dodgy evidence or refusing to go looking for bodies for fear it will worsen their statistics.

 

 

=== Theatre ===

* Captain Perry in ''[[Heavy Rain]]''.

 

* Jack Noir of ''[[Homestuck]]'' was originally this, stating that he'd rather gut someone than do paperwork for them that he doesn't feel like. This is dropped when he later goes on to be the [[Big Bad]] of the series.

 

* [[BOFH]] regularly meets these, so there are plans for such a case.

{{quote|[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/18/bofh_2010_episode_7/ Risk 1:] A lifetime of filling out meaningless paperwork to appease some glory-hogging control freak. Contingency Plan:}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Authority Tropes]]

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Archetypal Character]]

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]