Plot Irrelevant Villain: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Here we have Joe. Joe frequently appears throughout the narrative to do what he can to make Frank's life miserable.
The problem? Joe isn't actually essential to the narrative and isn't particularly interesting, either. Where a serious villain would [[Kick the Dog]] to inspire an emotional reaction, this guy barely manages to [[Poke the Poodle]]. He'll dash onscreen every so often, twirl his moustache in a [[Jerkass]] manner, and then leave with little fanfare.
In other words, Joe is a villain who doesn't do anything. He has been shoehorned into the narrative for little reason beside the conventional wisdom that all narratives need a clear bad guy. For this reason, he's an especially common addition to adaptations intended to reach a [[Viewers are Morons|wider audience]] than in his original form.
While the easiest way to sum up this trope is "useless character",
This trope can possibly go in line with [[Designated Villain]]. If he's there to provide someone to boo because the main
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* From ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', Gary Oak in the first season. He's a [[Jerkass]]
** [[Terrible Trio|Team Rocket]] also fall into this sometimes
* In the first season of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'', there was Devack, one of the Dark Signers; while most members of this group had extensive backgrounds, motivations, and some sort of connection to the heroes, Devack had none whatsoever in all three areas. He was a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] who seemed to despise the Signers for no known reason. (The ''Yu-Gi-Oh! 10th Anniversary Animation Book'' explains that Devack was originally intended to be from [[Religion of Evil| a demon worshipping cult]] and was [[Human Sacrifice| sacrificed to the Earthbound Gods]], but then reborn as a Dark Signer.)
* ''[[One Piece]]'' had Wapol, the closest thing to a [[Big Bad]] in 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. Ironically, he became a rather complex and interesting character after he quit being a villain and went into toymaking.
* In ''[[Wizard's Soul - Koi no Seisen]]'', the [[Alpha Bitch]] and her two lackies try to sabatoge Monika's chance at victory in the TCG tournament by doing things like file Monika's card sleeves so it looks like Monika's a cheater.
* ''[[Sword Art Online]]'' has an odd in-universe example: the [[Big Bad]] and [[Final Boss]] of the [[Fictional Video Game]] was originally a demon (for lack of a better term) called An Incarnation of the Radius, which was to be fought at the summit of the giant tower of Aincrad - the tower's full name is "Aincrad, an Incarnating Radius", making this Boss a personification of the tower itself. However, when Kayaba Akihiko (the [[Big Bad]] of the original series and the game's in-universe designer) turned SAO into a [[Deadly Game]], he replaced the Final Boss with an avatar of himself as the Final Boss. ([[Word of God]] states that Kayaba believed he had made the monster too strong and that no players would ''ever'' defeat it; while he had no concern for their lives, his ultimate goal required someone to eventually defeat the final boss.
** The villain in the full-length movie ''Sword Art Online The Movie -Ordinal Scale-'' discovers this unused Boss through data mining, figured it was a shame to waste it, and [[Tropes Are Not Bad|used it as a weapon against the heroes]], resulting in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xp8F4V39k4 an epic battle] where ''every'' survivor from the original series squared off against the boss-who-never-was.
== [[Film]] ==
* In the movie ''[[Fired Up]]'', the [[The Cheerleader|stereotypical evil cheerleader captain]] of the [[Opposing Sports Team]] is introduced as a big villain... and does nothing in her five minutes total screen time other than badmouth the good team a couple of times, and have sex with the female lead's [[Jerkass]] boyfriend.
* The rival climatologist team in ''[[Twister]]''
* The film ''Recipe for a Perfect Christmas'' had an office rival for the heroine who did not directly harm the heroine at all but still gets a verbal slapdown for offering her own ideas to the boss while the heroine has been suspended from her job.
* Although he's a very memorable character, pretty much the entire plot of ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'' happens without Oogie Boogie, and the [[Final Battle]] happens after the climax as a way of tying off loose ends rather than causing any resolution or character development.
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* ''[[Gigantic (TV series)|Gigantic]]'' is an indie romantic comedy. Not exactly a genre needing a villain, yet for some reason it has a strange homeless man who attacks the male lead at random intervals for basically no reason whatsoever. One of the more bizarre examples, as there is not even a token attempt to shoehorn him into the plot, ''[[Mind Screw|he's just there.]]''
* The closest ''[[Madagascar]]'' has to a villain are the fossa - but they are a menace that hardly appears. The major conflict is both the protagonists being stranded in a strange place, and the sole carnivore of them [[Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere|becoming hungry]].
* "Leo" (aka "Crater Face") in ''[[Grease]]''. A pretty generic punk, there really wasn't much to distinguish this guy from the other Scorpions, or even most of the T-Birds, so it was never necessary to single him out at all.
** In ''[[Grease 2]]'' he reappears, is given a last name ("Balmudo"), and ''seems'' to be just as irrelevant to the overall plot -- until he leads his biker gang in an attack on the senior luau at the end of the movie.
* Pyramid Head in ''[[Silent Hill (film)|Silent Hill]]''. Now, in the video game ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'', he was ''very'' relevant to the plot, being the embodiment of the James' guilt over his past and desire to be punished, existing to remind him of it and preserve his humanity. However, neither James nor any similar character exists in the movie, so Pyramid Head (referred to as Red Pyramid, though it's obvious who he is) makes very little sense in this adaptation.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Draco Malfoy is this most of the time in the early ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' books. He only really starts to dovetail with the actual villains in [[
== [[Live
* The insane simulant in the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode 'Justice': Aside from providing an excuse for reaching the space station, he had no purpose other than to tack on an (admittedly funny) action sequence after the plot proper was resolved.
** The simulants are perfect for this sort of thing: Need to get the crew in a Wild West simulation? Simulant. Need a reason to get Rimmer on his own planet for 600 years? Simulant. Need a way to introduce a drugged-up twin brother of Kryten? Simulant. The only Simulant that appears that is directly related to the plot of the episode is The Inquisitor, and really, he might as well not be one, as his motivation isn't the killing of humans, but replacing them in history with those he thinks deserves life more.
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* The Jabberwock in the 1985 Irwin Allen version of ''Alice in Wonderland'' is an unnecessary addition to the 'Through the Looking Glass' portion of the film. In the original book, the Jabberwock never appeared outside the poem "Jabberwocky". Irwin Allen, however, believed the story needed an equivalent to the Boogeyman, so he made the Jabberwock appear and scare Alice when she reads the poem, and then turn up again twice later (once at the end of the Humpty Dumpty scene, the second during the climax). But really it contributes nothing to the story, aside from allowing the producers to put in a climax somewhat more comprehensable than the book's [[Gainax Ending|rather bewildering finale]].
== [[
* Initially ''[[Candy Land]]'' had no villain or even much of a plot, but an updated version added Lord Licorice, whose scheme involves turning ''all'' the candy in Candy Land into [[Stock Yuck|licorice]] - but he's a clumsy fool who is easily sidetracked. Not much more than that.
* The main antagonists, Duchess and Terrence, from ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'', were important in the pilot and pretty well ignored since. The show never really needed bad guys, and when it did, it could usually be better performed by Bloo, the resident [[Jerkass]].▼
* The [[Christmas Special]] ''Christopher the Christmas Tree'' has a scene where a fox and weasel show up for no reason other than to lend the end of the special a little suspense by planting the idea that Christopher will be chopped down for firewood, rather than picked to be a Christmas tree.▼
== [[Toys]] ==
* Transfer (and his boss, Sullivan) in ''[[Around the World with Willy Fog]]'': Transfer sets up a lot of obstacles for the heroes, yes, but in [[Around the World in Eighty Days|the original book]] those obstacles arose just fine without anybody trying to sabotage the trip.▼
* ''The Incredible Crash Dummies'' was a line of toys that really didn't need a villain because it really didn't have a plot, just a bunch of dummies in toy vehicles that were fun to crash. But in an effort to expand the line, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq7QySZm_aA they introduced Junk Man], a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] with no point whatsoever. The commercial even lampshades this, with the narrator screaming, "The Crash Dummies lives will ''never'' be the same!" ''(Car crashes.)'' "Well, ''almost'' never."
* Parodied in the ''[[American Dad]]'' episode "Don't Look a Smith Horse in the Mouth", where Roger is riding Stan in a horse race ([[It Makes Sense in Context|Stan's mind is temporarily in a horse's body]]). Roger mentions his regret that he doesn't have a rival to race against and make it more exciting, so when Stan points out that it isn't too late, Roger ''deliberately'' picks a fight with another jockey just to create a rival.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* Zed from ''[[Wild ARMs]]'' might qualify, too.
* To an extent, ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' has Bane: he shows up once to fight Batman and gets taken down immediately, unlike the other villains who all come back at least once. His indirect role in the plot, however, is much greater: {{spoiler|Joker plans to use a deriative of the [[Psycho Serum|Venom]] formula in his blood to make rampaging monsters out of all of Gotham.}}
* ''Bowser'' becomes this in ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]''. All the scenes involving him most;y involve him moping about - and emphasizing the fact that - someone else has nabbed Peach and that someone has usurped the role of [[Big Bad]] from him. While he does have a memorable scene as the penultimate Boss (mostly to prove that, above all, he's the biggest bad guy of the franchise) in the end, his involvement accomplishes nothing whatsoever.
* [[Talking Poo|The Great Mighty Poo]] from ''[[Conker's Bad Fur Day]]''. Sure, he's the most [[Crazy Awesome]] boss in the game, but he has nothing to do with the main plot.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
▲* The main antagonists, Duchess and Terrence, from ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'', were important in the pilot and pretty well ignored since. The show never really needed bad guys, and when it did, it could usually be better performed by Bloo, the resident [[Jerkass]].
▲* The [[Christmas Special]] ''Christopher the Christmas Tree'' has a scene where a fox and weasel show up for no reason other than to lend the end of the special a little suspense by planting the idea that Christopher will be chopped down for firewood, rather than picked to be a Christmas tree.
▲* Transfer (and his boss, Sullivan) in ''[[Around the World with Willy Fog]]'': Transfer sets up a lot of obstacles for the heroes, yes, but in [[Around the World in Eighty Days|the original book]] those obstacles arose just fine without anybody trying to sabotage the trip.
▲* Parodied in the ''[[American Dad]]'' episode "Don't Look a Smith Horse in the Mouth", where Roger is riding Stan in a horse race ([[It Makes Sense in Context|Stan's mind is temporarily in a horse's body]]). Roger mentions his regret that he doesn't have a rival to race against and make it more exciting, so when Stan points out that it isn't too late, Roger ''deliberately'' picks a fight with another jockey just to create a rival.
* Peyo's original comic book version of ''[[The Smurfs]]'' story "The Astrosmurf" had [[No Antagonist]]; the cartoon adaptation, however, put Gargamel in it for some scenes, trailing the Smurfs with a crystal ball to give an added risk of Dreamy Smurf catching onto the plan; he was driven away quickly, and really wasn't necessary for the story as a whole.
* The [[Big Bad]] in ''[[The Little Mermaid (animation)| The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea]]'' is by Ursula's "crazy sister" Morgana, who wants to kidnap Ariel's daughter because... ah... well, cause she's evil. Maybe there was ''some'' suggestion it was over revenge, but to be frank, she was little more than a thinner version of Ursula. Rather than simply concoct some way for Ursula to have survived the first film, they came up with this entirely unnecessary sibling. But then, it wasn't a very good movie overall.
* Ernie the Giant Chicken on ''[[Family Guy]]''; the long, drawn-out fights between him and Peter are almost never relevant to the plot and done with [[Rule of Funny]] in mind.
{{reflist}}
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